Over the last decade, Portland-based songwriter Alela Diane has established herself as one of the most interesting and consistent songwriters in contemporary folk music, putting out sixth full-length albums since 2003 debut Forest Parade. Next month will see the release of the seventh, Who’s Keeping Time?, with Fluff & Gravy Records and Loose Music. The album sees a return to a more collaborative style, and latest single ‘Dusty Roses’ highlights the compassionate sound which results. “I wrote this song about a dear friend of mine whose path took a wrong turn a number of years ago,” Diane explains. “I think she’s still alive, but no one knows where she ended up. I believe that we all have the capacity to lose ourselves along the way. I’ve seen it happen again and again, whether through mental health struggles, drug use, addiction, trauma, depression, or grief. So many of us have seen someone we love lose the light in their eyes, and become a stranger to themselves. It feels like we’re all just teetering on the edge, and some just don’t have a sturdy enough footing to get back on track. This one is for all the lost girls.”

Watch the video Diane herself below, with direction and camera assistance by Soraya Kim (aged twelve):

Who’s Keeping Time? 22nd May via Fluff & Gravy Records and Loose Music and you can pre-order it now.

Alex Zhang Hungtai – Mother / Sidewinder

You might recognise Taiwan-born, Canada-based artist, musician and actor Alex Zhang Hungtai from a number of different things, be it acts like Dirty Beaches, Last Lizard and Love Theme, the composer behind themes for films like Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland, or as part of one-night-only-at-the-Roadhouse band Trouble in Twin Peaks. But now he is now pursuing a more improvised style of music under his own name. This June sees the release of double album Orion/Mother via American Dreams, and Hungtai has shared a single from each of the records to give an indication of the singular, visionary sound which awaits. “Both tracks share a common theme,” as he expands. “An exploration of the primordial state within the unconscious that leads to a confrontation with what is unspoken and hidden. The symbolism is neither negative nor positive, but a guide that snakes its way across the psychogeographic terrain of the mind.” An ideal entry point to a double album which layers a variety of instruments, an ensemble of collaborators and indeed an array of time periods over one another, recombining a patchwork of past and present to conjure something entirely new.

Orion/Mother will be released on the 19th June via American Dreams and you can pre-order it now.

Brittany Ann Tranbaugh – Wissahickon

We last wrote about Brittany Ann Tranbaugh back in 2023 with the release of single ‘We Could Be Comets‘, a track which saw the Philadelphia-based songwriter portray love from different angles. Embracing both the intense yearning of the early days and the slow burn yearning upon reflection, the result painted something rooted in the real world, too complicated for romantic epiphany yet no less magic for it. “In her compassionate and always controlled tone, [Tranbaugh accepts] that a happy ever after might not be possible,” we wrote, “instead parcelling the feelings into brief moments which burn bright if only for a moment.” Now Tranbaugh is back with ‘Wissahickon’, a track no less authentic in tone, though one unafraid to embrace romance unapologetically. One in which playfulness and humour do not preclude sincerity, lending the whole thing a distinctively Prine-ian vibe.

My girl’s a redneck with a PhD
She don’t condescend to me
She took a lot of hits and a lot of heat
She came out tough and she came out sweet

Now we’re waist-deep in the Wissahickon
Like her so much let her take me fishin’
Didn’t know what I’d been missin’
Sunlight making the river shine

FAITH PLATES – Fever

Born in Germany to Romanian-Hungarian immigrant parents, FAITH PLATES might have grown up in various places around the world, spending time in South Carolina, China, Germany and the UK, but her music is marked by a clear fondness for the US of the early 2000s. Take latest single ‘Fever’, a decidedly nostalgic track built from the simplicity of vocals and guitar which pines for a time and place now left behind. Or perhaps one which never quite existed, the song evoking an idealised version as remembered from afar, packed full of striking details amid an otherwise hazy warmth (“Spanish moss and / magnolias in / the summer breeze / remember me”). However, there’s also a melancholy built into such a style, the implicit knowledge of having lost the thing so dear, and worse, knowing it can never return.

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

Henry Nielsen – Beginning Of The End

Part of the current folk rock revival, North London songwriter Henry Nielsen follows in the footsteps of contemporaries like Brown Horse, taking the rustic charm of classic country tunes and adds a decidedly seventies-style polish and warmth. Ahead of debut full-length Hollyhocks next month, Nielsen has shared latest single ‘Beginning Of The End’. Described as “the story of someone who can’t meet the people in their life halfway,” the song follows a narrator towards the impending realisation of the title, its easygoing rhythm tracing an accumulation of regrets in real time. So though the sound is assured and romantic, the situation it brings to life is anything but. A snapshot from a relationship that’s ultimately doomed, the protagonist gradually opening their eyes to the consequences of actions.

Watch the video directed by Lawrence Dodgson and Will Thomson below:

Hollyhocks will be released on the 29th May. ‘Beginning of the End’ is out now.

MEGGO – Jaws of Life

We last wrote about MEGGO back in 2024 with the release of EP eavesdropper ;; death stories. “‘brooklyn, pt. 1’ has a lot more going on beneath the surface than you might glean on first listen,” we wrote of the lead single. “Each layer carries its own shade and meaning, accentuated by [Megan] Ennenberg’s warm and soulful delivery, [and] there are other dimensions to the track too. Stylistic choices which go beyond tone and structure and into its execution, as though MEGGO is inviting us not only into Brooklyn but also the song itself.” Now MEGGO is back with a new single ‘Jaws of Life’ and the result is similarly nuanced, Ennenberg using the duality of the titular equipment (where hydraulic force, almost violence, is used to rescue and comfort a victim, and ultimately return them home). “This song means a ton to me. Writing it helped me imagine my future and appreciate my past,” she explains:

There are a bunch of little secret sonic nuggets throughout the song that infuse it with good vibes, like the sound of my love coming in and out of the room while I was recording vocals, my dear big brother slaying the harmonica, and a roommates choir made up of a bunch of the friends I’ve built homes with throughout my 20s. Their voices singing together sound like a hug. So much is uncertain and spooky these days but this message feels simple and clear and unwaveringly true, a reminder of what’s good and important, that love is the strongest stuff.

Swapmeet – Sand

“Pairing jangle and fuzz with a buoyant energy, the track represents the very best of the project,” we wrote of Swapmeet‘s ‘I Know’, the Aussie four-piece’s first single having signed with Winspear. “A sound able to encompass both sardonic slacker bite and cathartic alt rock release, rising from sly, taut beginnings into something with serious size and heft.” Now Swapmeet have announced their new album Mount Zero, and new track ‘Sand’ shows off a different dimension to the band. A more reflective and earnest track which mourns that which is lost within contemporary youth, where a thousand distractions rob some of the magic away from the experience. The dual vocals only ramp up the emotional resonance of the sound, though while the style might seem more restrained than its predecessor, the conclusion still whips itself up into something of a cathartic release.

Watch the video directed by David Milan Kelly below:

Mount Zero will be released on the 17th July via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

Thin Lear – Healing Alone

We’ve featured a number of singles from Thin Lear‘s new album Many Disappeared in recent months, from the Mothman-inspired ‘Silver Bridge‘ (“the song uses the myth as a way to investigate grief and its accompanied challenges, pushing deeper than the usual cheap thrills of the story to probe at the weightiest of issues”) and personal trauma-tale of ‘Witness‘ to the supremely ambitious and evocative ‘A Cherished Man‘, which followed a trio of dysfunctional characters as they searched for human connection in a world which seemed set against it. With the record now out via First City Artists, Thin Lear has shared the closing track as a final single. A suitably haunting number which again teases a narrative to life with careful details and an enveloping mood, while Matt Longo’s vocals add a very human compassion too.

Friend, can you hear the call?
From deep in a tomb
Oh, I see ‘em now, the sad eyes
Fixed to the stone
Oh, I can see ‘em now, the sad eyes
Fixed to the stone

Many Disappeared is out now via First City Artists and you can get it from the Thin Lear Bandcamp page.

Tory Silver – Your God

“There’s a healthy dose of existential dread sure, but there’s also enough garage rock crunch for it to feel rousing too. An anthem for the masses forced to drag themselves out of bed every morning to keep on keeping on.” So we wrote of Tory Silver‘s ‘Microwave’ back in March, a single from their new album In Through the Front with Lasers forthcoming via Michi Tapes. A fitting introduction to an album which deals with, as per the artist, “chronic pain, losing a friend to a cult (at least I think?), jealousy, overthinking death and the jobs that make everything worse. The stress that compounds daily. The realization that the world doesn’t stop being painful just because you need it to.” Digging further into this headspace, Tory Silver’s latest single ‘Your God’ sets an exploration of friendship (or rather, the lack thereof) and religious bigotry to an upbeat, almost carefree sound. How you interpret this style is up to you, and both have thematic resonance: A Trojan horse where difficult subjects are broached under the guise of having fun? Or an attempt to sand some of the sharp edges from these difficult subjects so it is possible to talk about them at all?

I thought we’d always be friends
And where’s the compassion
From a God who is love
I don’t need to compare your God to mine, but mine never judged me at all

Watch the video below, edited ‪quiet sports‬:

In Through the Front with Lasers will be released on the 29th May via Michi Tapes and you can pre-order it now.

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Subsequent track ‘Witness‘ might not have concerned such a well-known urban myth, but was no less striking for it. Longo recounts watching a cat die after being struck by a vehicle, as well as the inexplicable nonchalance of a friend who saw it too. “The incident is still a touchpoint for me,” he explained. “Every time I come upon the same powerless feeling, whether it be through the loss of a loved one or the general anxiety that the veil between this world and the next is quite thin.”

With the album’s release fast approaching via First City Artists, Thin Lear has returned with brand new single ‘A Cherished Man’. Its predecessors might have held a sense of ambition in their themes and narrative, but this song pushes even further. A triptych of character studies which follows three ostensibly eccentric people through their honest attempts to connect with others from the margins of society. There’s Andy, who drinks so much each evening he draws a tourist crowd to see his public scenes of shame. Annie, whose isolated urban life is punctuated, or rather punctured, by her compulsion to poke people with pins, as though looking to prove her ability to leave any mark on the world at all. Then finally Charlie, a man who eats all manner of irregular objects, including corks, stones, birds and snakes, just to earn a drop of recognition. “I see myself in all of them,” Longo explains. “They’re looking for meaningful engagement, they’re just not sure how to broker it.”

Watch the video below by Ali Aschman:

Many Disappeared will be released on the 24th April via First City Artists and you can pre-order it now from the Thin Lear Bandcamp page.

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New Jersey punk rock outfit best dressed ghost are preparing to release their latest EP Let’s Go Home in the next few weeks, looking to build upon the raucous, mischievous beginnings set out on predecessor Dead Rock. If lead single ‘Funhouse’ is anything to go by, the new EP more than lives up to these ambitions. With equal parts brooding shadow and chaotic energy, the song carries a reckless sense of fun, something accentuated by dashes of surf and skate rock sensibilities, not to mention the anarchic vocal delivery. What emerges is something at once fun and slightly dangerous, a spark which might not last long but is determined to burn as hot and bright as possible in the meantime.

Watch the video created by nino + stef dressed ghost below:

Let’s Go Home will be released on the 12th March, so keep an eye on the best dressed ghost Bandcamp page.

Celestine Manno – If You Were Around

Connecticut-born songwriter Celestine Manno won attention back in 2023 with Once You’ve Seen It All, a distinctively sincere album which sat somewhere between indie folk and Sylvan Esso-esque pop. Now Manno has returned with brand new single ‘If You Were Around’ and the emotional resonance has only grown. A song which not only serves as a remembrance to Manno’s mother but an exploration of how loss might impact our lives moving forward. “My mom felt like California personified. Through stories and photographs, I’ve concocted my own memory of her that’s bright, witty, and effortless,” Manno explains. “Written on the 20th anniversary of her death, ‘If You Were Around’ reflects on the absence of her guidance through womanhood, and acceptance of the passage of time. Who would I have become with her influence? How differently would I have been shaped?”

‘If You Were Around’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Eric Angelo Bessel – Double Helix

“[An] enveloping slice of avant garde ambient, soaring with a weightless grace beyond the suffocating confines of our terrestrial life.” So we wrote of ‘Non-Diegetic Sound’, taken from Eric Angelo Bessel‘s Mirror at Night last year. A sound indicative of the album as a whole. “Nothing is quite what it seems within this space, true to Mirror At Night‘s promise to evade simple description,” we continued. “The futuristic vibe is balanced by the nostalgic tones of the Mellotron, and the synths blur the line between the organic and digital. A record that isn’t one thing or the other but everything all at once, offering different reflections depending on your perspective.” Now Bessel is back with a new 7″ EP Mirror At Night B-Sides to push ever further into this mysterious territory, and lead track ‘Double Helix’ lives up to expectations. Dreamlike and drifting, emerging full of ambiguous meaning as though dug from deep in the distant past or else visiting from some time or space we are yet to encounter.

Garet Camella – Gnats (feat. Mukiss)

Midwest-born, LA-based Garet Camella is preparing to release new EP Just Passing Through, a collection of songs with roots in his early twenties, now revised and recorded to revive something which might otherwise have been forgotten. First taste ‘Gnats’ is a suitably nostalgic slice of folk rock to introduce the project, rising from humble beginnings into a full band duet. Camella is joined by Caeleigh Featherstone, AKA Mukiss (who you might know as part of Saintseneca), and the chemistry between the vocals forms a major part of the track’s development. Camella’s searching, uncertain delivery in the opening minute grows in conviction as Mukiss joins and the instrumentation blooms, the song playing like connection made in real time.

Just Passing Through will be released soon.

Party of the Sun – Abandon’s Grip

We’ve followed the work of New Hampshire-based  folk trio Party of the Sun (Ethan McBrien, Rory Hurley and Garrett Cameron) across a number of years, most recently back in 2024 with the release of double single Giver // River. “Songs rich in invention and always tied to the environment,” we wrote of the project, “concerned with searching for new ways to evoke life in its complicated beauty.” Out via Trailing Twelve Records, Party of the Sun’s new release The Twin EP represents a continuation of this style, dating back as far as 2019 and “shaped,” per the label, “as a single, continuous emotional arc.” With a main body of bodhrán, slide guitar and finger-picked steel string but with a real attention to negative space too, the result is every bit as thoughtful and organic as anything the trio have released to date. Listen to single ‘Abandon’s Grip’ now:

The Twin EP is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

The Pretty Flowers – To Be So Cool

“Written within a city (and wider country) shaken by turmoil, be it the unprecedented wildfires or equally tinderbox political moment, [The Pretty Flowers] found themselves driven by the surrounding atmosphere, the anxiety and chaos of their surroundings seeping into the tracks themselves.” So we wrote of the LA indie rock outfit’s forthcoming album Never Felt Bitter back in January, single ‘Came Back Kicking’ highlighting how they turned to barrelling energy as though in defiance. Latest track ‘To Be So Cool’ is no different, a song bound by an irrepressible sense of forward motion which again carries a rebellious air. “’To Be So Cool” is one of my favorite songs on the album, and it’s a blast to play live,” Green explains. “The lyrics just seemed to kind of flow and I didn’t try and overthink writing them at the time. Some months later when I was watching the film Withnail & I for the umpteenth time, I noticed that the lyrics seemed to connect to the film, in how the “I” character sees Withnail going through life. Maybe a student in a community college English class will tease that idea out in an essay at some point.”

Watch the video directed and produced by Tambi Haron with director of Photography Nate Klein below:

Never Felt Bitter will be released on 27th March. Order it now from The Pretty Flowers Bandcamp.

Swapmeet – I Know!

South Australia four-piece Swapmeet formed in 2021, though really burst on the scene in 2024 with their debut EP, Oxalis. The release shapeshifted between each of its five songs, the quartet managing to capture the spirit of being a young person in the twenty-first century, constantly moving between love, fear, hopelessness and grief and often embracing several simultaneously. Having now signed with Winspear, Swapmeet are now back with new single ‘I Know!’ to introduce the next stage of their career. Again pairing jangle and fuzz with a buoyant energy, the track represents the very best of the project. A sound able to encompass both sardonic slacker bite and cathartic alt rock release, rising from sly, taut beginnings into something with serious size and heft.

If you wanna hurt me
If you wanna try
If I had your heart in my hand
Would you want mine

‘I Know!’ is out now via Winspear and available from Bandcamp.

Taroug – Najet

Back in January we introduced Taroug, the recording project of German–Tunisian drummer and electronic music producer Tarek Zarroug, and the new album Chott, forthcoming via Denovali Records. Single ‘1995’ highlighted how Taroug “blends digital and organic sounds to create conceptual soundscapes able to evoke the full richness of personal history,” as we put it. “blending a nostalgic, melancholic minimalism with moments of bright intensity.” With the album’s release on the horizon, latest track ‘Najet’ leads the audience further into this style. The bass-centric, layered sound is adorned with Tunisian instrumentation, melding the traditional and the contemporary and charging the record with a depth that stems in equal parts from culture, history and geology.

Thin Lear – Witness

Back in February we introduced Many Disappeared, the new album from Matt Longo’s Thin Lear with Mothman-themed single ‘Silver Bridge’. The story is just one of a whole file of supernatural stores which came to inspire [the record],” we wrote, “which uses all things weird and unexplained as a way to explore themes altogether more human and personal.” With the release on the horizon via First City Artists, Thin Lear has shared latest track ‘Witness’, a song which delves into an experience far more personal but no less confronting. “My friend and I came across a dying cat on the road,” Longo shares. “My friend was nonchalant. But I was utterly horrified. The incident is still a touchpoint for me, every time I come upon the same powerless feeling, whether it be through the loss of a loved one or the general anxiety that the veil between this world and the next is quite thin.”

Watch the video by Ali Aschman below:

Many Disappeared will be released on the 24th April via First City Artists and you can pre-order it now from the Thin Lear Bandcamp page.

villagerrr – Locket

Following on from 2024 full-length Tear Your Heart Out and subsequent deluxe edition which came out last year, Ohio-based indie project villagerrr will release their fifth album Carousel this May via Winspear. The previous record saw Mark Scott explore his close connection with hometown Chillicothe, and the new record chooses another relationship to put under the microscope. Though this time it is not related to place but the act of making art itself, namely the attempt to communicate in earnest with another person within a world which often seems designed to hinder such a thing. In the spirit of this theme, Scott dropped his guard and opened villagerrr up to outside influence more than ever before, with an enviable list of friends and collaborators joining to elevate Carousel into the project’s richest sound to date. Listen to lead single ‘Locket’ now, a suitably sincere number which risks vulnerability in order to communicate more faithfully.

Watch the video directed by Trevor Hock below:

Carousel will be released on the 29th May via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

Wolfschmidt – file

Born within the industrial wastelands of Gothenburg, which has lately become the artistic hotbed of the Swedish city, Wolfschmidt is a ‘nu-gaze’ quintet following the lineage of contemporaries like OVLOV, DIIV and Nothing. Having developed this style across a number of releases since their inception in 2021, Wolfschmidt are back with new single ‘file’ and the track suggests the band are really finding their groove. It’s an epic alt rock number which faces up to feelings of stasis with a combination of hope and fatalism, looking to break free even while the same cycles seem to repeat. But with a quiet-loud dynamic and a propulsive momentum, the result is ultimately cathartic, Wolfschmidt burning through their frustration through sheer energy.

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

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Thin Lear has now shared the lead single and opening track of Many Disappeared, and there are no prizes for guessing which tale ‘Silver Bridge’ takes as its focus. Directly concerned with the Mothman legend, the song uses the myth as a way to investigate grief and its accompanied challenges, pushing deeper than the usual cheap thrills of the story to probe at the weightiest of issues. “Told from the perspective of a man who has lost his brother, and his main lifeline to the world, the song is less about the creature and more about the value, or lack of value, of brushes with the paranormal if, in the end, we still have to reckon with loss alone,” Longo explains. “I need something supernatural to wrestle with, just to understand my own earthly troubles,” he continues. “I write to access a feeling and get past it.”

Photo by Anna Rhody

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