Now Sea Lemon is back with another new single on Luminelle Recordings. Described as “a dreamy paean to the beginnings of a relationship,” ‘Sweet Anecdote’ employs a delicate swirl of synths to recreate a dreamy, slightly surreal space in which everything is vivid and anything seems possible. But what is most impressive about the track is how it manages to maintain a sense of depth and nuance despite its more overtly positive tone, Lew treating the heady days of romance with the same level of interest as any other emotional state, hurdling a sense of saccharine sentimentality to offer something almost hypnotic.

You were the one
Knew from the start
God I was so
Sure when I saw
You in your car
Such a sweet anecdote

Watch the visualizer by Alexa Terfloth below:

‘Sweet Anecdote’ is out now via Luminelle Recordings and available from Bandcamp.

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Lead single ‘Waking Winter’ introduces the country-inflected rock through which this is delivered. A song of easygoing rhythm and dappled brightness which finds the wistfulness in dissatisfaction. “I don’t enjoy this,” as he sings in the opening line. “I should talk to someone, I should get it fixed.” Such emotions never puncture the track’s languid tone, nor is any solution offered. Instead we’re left with that sense of drift, the gap between knowing something is wrong and being able to set it right. The waking winter where no new growth is forthcoming, and all that is left to do is wait.

Cover photo by David Hoekje

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New double single, Fireplace Lounge / Karaoke Nightmare represents a continuation of Westmoreland’s empathetic style, as well as Alva’s ability to conjure narrative with sparing details. A-side ‘Fireplace Lounge’ is as warm and welcoming as anything on Latino Ballroom, its slow rhythm thick with nostalgic fondness and Alva’s vocals earnest enough to match. But there’s a playfulness beneath the surface too. That kind of crooked humour which runs below the exterior of the closest relationships. The result is both a snapshot of a single night and a wider love condensed.

‘Karaoke Nightmare’ is more of a departure from what came before. Another slow night time song, though this time the rich warmth is distorted slightly to live up to its title. The vulnerability of karaoke is evoked to great effect. The late night loneliness, the unexpected silence, the sashaying croon. The distortion grows worse as the track develops, and with it the sense of something being lost in real time. That unnerving sensation of what was once the present becoming memory. Something no longer lived but instead only thought about. A photograph thumbed until the picture begins to fade.

Fireplace Lounge / Karaoke Nightmare is out now and available from the usual places.

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Described as a “multifaceted, multigenerational recording project from Albuquerque, New Mexico,” AJ Woods counts members of a Hawk and a Hacksaw, The Sir Douglas Quintet, Neutral Milk Hotel and Heather Trost Band among its roster, and the level of experience shines through in the sound. Forthcoming via Perpetual Doom, new album Hawk Is Listenin’ uses this multitudinous style to evoke nature in all of its diversity, reminding us that not only should we be more attuned to the natural world, but moreover that it is more aware of our presence than we might think. The opener and title track sets out these ideas in characteristically inventive style, layering a dreamy folk song from all sorts of sounds and images, and punctuating the careful arrangement with bursts of evocative noise.

alx frncs – good is your friend

“An attempt to process an extremely difficult period via an intimate, gentle sound.” That’s what we wrote back in March about alx frncs‘s ‘i cant do anything right’, a song which typified the confessional yet empathetic nature of the Brighton songwriter’s work. Written in response to the loss of her childhood pet, new single ‘good is your friend’ is no different, exploring themes of grief and mourning in a kind of post-religious space. The lapsed-Catholic state of mind where dogma might no longer be the organising logic of a life, yet the imagery and rhythms remain. The atmosphere is subdued and enveloping, with a textured cinematic feel that blossoms from its modest beginning.

christ i’ve given in
give in me mortal sin
if we don’t find out
where we’ll end up now

time,
passes by

Bitter Calm – Surrender

‘Salt’, the first single from Bitter Calm‘s forthcoming album Eternity In The Lake of Fire on Earth Libraries, represented something of a change for the band. As we wrote in a preview, “the song is still concerned with the weighty themes of love and death” that marked debut Good Grief, but “the shadowy slowcore sensibilities are replaced with something altogether brighter and more melodic.” But rather than a compensatory turn to positivity, the tone is something won in the hardest of manners, brightness not as an absence of dark but rather the strange marvel at being alive to record at all. Final single ‘Surrender’ turns to alt folk sensibilities to further this style, positioning itself between acts like Songs: Ohia and Purple Mountains, the high priests of such moods.

Eternity In The Lake of Fire is out on the 6th September via Earth Libraries and available to pre-order from the Bitter Calm Bandcamp page.

Decimal Decade – Trace

Decimal Decade is a recording project led by Chicago-based songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Nico Tiparescu. Born in Venezuela to Romanian and Peruvian parents and growing up in Spain and later Chile, Tiparescu has a more diverse background than most, and the breadth of his personal experience is evident in the debut Decimal Decade EP, Soon to Evolve. It’s a synthesis of styles and interests which emerged from the dissolution of a previous band, Tiparescu seeking to rekindle his love of music after a period of disappointment. “A constant parameter that I tried to follow was that everything in the songs felt natural to me,” as he explains. “All the ideas I put in had to be completely in line with what felt honest. I was just moving towards what made me excited about the music.” Listen to single ‘Trace’ for a glimpse into the release:

Masayoshi Fujita – Our Mother’s Lights (feat. Moor Mother)

Coming next month on Erased Tapes, Masayoshi Fujita‘s new album Migratory sees the Japanese composer, vibraphonist and marimba player continue to explore the possibilities that exist in the spaces between electronic and classical music. The record’s title is apt, the release drawing upon the phenomenon of avian migration as a central image for its far-reaching sound. The album was “inspired by my experiences of living abroad and returning to my homeland,” Fujita explains, “as well as by the artists featured on this album who also somehow travelled or lived in other countries across the boundaries, and being influenced by the music of other lands but at the same time somehow led to their roots.” Artists like Mattias Hållsten and Hatis Noit feature on the album, but its is Camae Ayewa, AKA Moor Mother (Irreversible Entanglements / The Art Ensemble of Chicago), who steals the show with vocals on new single ‘Our Mother’s Light’.

Neighbours Burning Neighbours – Always Winning

Described as “an anthem for all of those who struggle with navigating the whirlwind of ADHD,” Neighbours Burning Neighbours‘ new single ‘Always Winning’ finds the Rotterdam-based outfit further their distinctive blend of post-rock and noise pop sensibilities. The song, a glimpse of their forthcoming self-titled album on Subroutine Records, follows previous track ‘Neil Young‘ in its ability to sound at once discordant and infectious, pulling the audience into its rhythm and holding them there through the ebb and flow between taut slacks and hectic rapids.

Oh, Rose – Toilet Water

Back in June we shared ‘The Call’, a single from Oh, Rose‘s new album Dorothy, coming soon via Antiquated Future. A track which “originated in an inflection point,” as we wrote, “one where Rose was made to consciously decide to continue her pursuit of her artistic energies when life seemed intent on strangling them.” Named after Olivia Rose’s grandmother, the album takes inspiration from the skill of quilting. A collection of styles and genres stitched together with patience, where many small pieces unite into something greater than the sum of their parts. “I always said this album was going to be a love album,” she says, “and this record feels emblematic of the love I shared with her.” The closing track of the album latest single ‘Toilet Water’ sees the Olympia, Washington outfit work up an affirming chorus in the face of continuing difficulty, as though wrapped in the blanket of the record, they are ready to face down whatever might come their way.

Retail Drugs – Net

The new project of Laveda‘s Jake Brooks, Retail Drugs offers the Brooklyn-based artist a vehicle to explore new sonic directions and get playful with production. His album i love you so ! is out now via Candlepin Records, a record the label say is about “a distaste for music scenes, the grief of losing a loved one, fear of age & irrelevance, & clutching on to specific moments in time even while finally understanding that moving on is a part of life.” Lead single ‘Net’ is a great intro to Brooks’s blend of saturated tape textures and DAW wizardry, a slow-burning track that sits somewhere between the dense slowcore of Duster and They Are Gutting a Body of Water with the joyful, earnest and slightly submerged delivery of early Youth Lagoon.

Surf Party, USA – Beach Ball

We’ve featured a number of tracks from Surf Party, USA in recent times, with ‘Barrel’ and ‘Umbrella’ capturing different dimensions of their new album, Surf Party, USA 2. The former offered all the fun and chaos of a good day on swell, while the latter was more reflective, as though the sun was dipping below the horizon at the end of the day. With the record now out, the Brooklyn-based outfit have released another single, ‘Beach Ball’, a song which sits at the languid end of the Surf Party spectrum. Perhaps it represents that peace when night has finally fallen and everything seems to find a kind a melancholy perspective.

teasea – Always

As well as being half of the indie-psych soul duo Ritual Talk, Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Tom Criblez also records solo under the moniker teasea. The act is a vehicle for a heavier, shoegaze-adjacent style which sits somewhere between My Bloody Valentine and Midwife. Part of a new EP, single ‘Always’ is a great place to start for the uninitiated. A densely layered track which envelops the listener from the off. But more than being a lesson in size and heft, the song is far more nuanced. Introspection manifest as sound, the track’s depth coming to mimic that of our interior lives, not to mention the murky network of relationships we maintain. But for all of its gloomy weight, there’s a certain lightness arcing through the sound too. The sense everything is reaching towards some state of enlightened truth.

‘Always’ is out now.

Wanda What – Besties

In recent weeks we’ve previewed Dyke TV, the new album from Harmony Reynolds’s Wanda What, with a number of singles which brought into relief what we’ve described as the “central tension” of the project, “one which might be crudely described as the friction between dreams and reality.” ‘Big Tree‘ offered a country-inflected croon which split the difference between playfulness and heartache, while ‘Bye Bye‘ turned to noughties buzz bands for influence for its sunny and energetic sound. With the album now out via Youth Riot Records, latest single ‘Besties’ shows yet another dimension of the project. A pop banger which doubles as an ode to those friends who always have your back. “I love to lean into a sort of goofy cheerfulness,” Reynolds describes. “Its okay to simply write a pop banger about loving your friends.”

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A decade down the line, That Do Now See is getting a new lease of life thanks to the good folks at Antiquated Future. The EP is the first in a new series of reissues with which the label seek to highlight self-released and tape-label albums from the recent past which have since gone out of print. Fred Thomas stepped in to remaster the release to ensure the songs are presented in their best light, and each of the tapes comes with a reflective essay in which Olivia Rose considers each song in turn.

Opener and single ‘Prom’ is a great place to start for anyone new to Oh, Rose. A song typical of the band’s spirit, where sincere emotion is stretched across a sound which ebbs and flows, its reflective rhythm interspersed by squally peaks and always gathering towards some crescendo. “I never went to prom,” Rose explains in an Instagram post. “Highschool was painful and more than anything I wanted to be left alone until I was finally free.” The song pulls us back into the experience with a heightened intensity, condensing years of discomfort into a cathartic momentum. As Rose continues:

In a way this song is the embodiment of that time, the excruciating feeling of being forced to attend with a storm breaking at home, the loneliness and isolation that comes with having to show up to a seemingly pointless routine. My senior year I was accepted into Chamber Choir and would sleep through class, only waking up when it was time to sing. I think this song is a little like that. My first official “prom” was in 2014, almost four years after graduating, in the basement of The Guest House in Olympia, WA where this song was recorded and then filmed. It was beautiful.

As if that wasn’t enough, Oh, Rose have also shared a brand single, ‘The Call’. With a soulful, spirited sound, the track pivots from the overtly poppy sensibilities of most recent single ‘Back 2 U’ to suggest a new direction for the next stage of the project’s life. A song which looks to both cling to what has made Oh, Rose so special over the last decade, but also broaden its horizons, if only to assert its belief in the future. As Rose puts it, ‘The Call’ is a song “For anyone who has forgotten their calling, given up on their dreams, or wanted to give up. Don’t give up.” Because ‘The Call’ originated in an inflection point, one where Rose was made to consciously decide to continue her pursuit of her artistic energies when life seemed intent on strangling them. “At the start of Covid I got stuck working at a weed grow,” as she explains:

We were considered essential workers and I ended up working there for three years. I didn’t see the rest of the band for almost a year. My days were spent covered in kief dust in a fluorescent room and finishing my degree in the evenings, so music had pretty much stopped. I think this song became my mantra to remember that it wouldn’t last forever.

Watch the video shot and edited by the band themselves with visual lyric effects by Sean Clark below:

That Do Now See is out now via Antiquated Future. ‘The Call’ is available from the Oh, Rose Bandcamp page.

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Latest single ‘Two Circles’ encapsulates the duality of such ideas. A song which allows competing and seemingly contradictory emotions to occupy the same space. “[The track] feels like it changes meaning each time I get to sing it,” Byland explains. “I see myself in this song. I see others. I see love, pain, anger, frustration, joy, shame, angst, everything and nothing.” The sound’s hushed restraint approaches this with an attentive care, giving equal weight to every shade of feeling, and ultimately emerging with a decidedly empathetic tone. “To me, this song feels like meeting another version of yourself at the bar and experiencing for yourself the curiosity and compassion that you might lend a stranger,” as co-writer Jake Byland puts it. BYLAND is not afraid to present the difficult alongside the hopeful, and thus carries the authenticity of emotions truly lived.

Photo by Rachel Bennet

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Latest single ‘Wave’ continues the brooding mood, opening in sombre gloom as Annie Schultz offers an introspective view on shame. “Here come the waves / Crashing, killing in their wake,” as she sings. “Get ready to pay / For these things you couldn’t do / Pay for the light they found in you.” Though if there’s something almost Catholic in these themes of guilt, the track’s second half blooms into the another facet of religious imagery. Because through the shadows rises something brighter, and by the closing minutes the song finds an almost triumphant tone as the rhythm picks up and violins lift it towards an elevated beauty.

Where the water’s cold
And waiting for
A burning soul
To come on in
Shed their sin
And try it again

It Bends Until It Breaks is out on the 4th August via Trailing Twelve Records.

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Petersen wrote the songs collaboratively with a stellar cast of guests from across the globe, including Kimya Dawson, Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, R.Ring and Nana Grizol‘s Theo Hilton. Working via what the press release lists as “exchanges of concepts, hooks, riffs, and emotional conversations, processed through tin-can telephones, carrier pigeons, twilight dreams, and shooting stars,” Petersen plotted out each song with its co-writer. Then, in the summer of 2022, he joined the Your Heart Breaks studio band—Eli Moore and Ashley Eriksson of LAKE and Black Belt Eagle Scout‘s Katherine Paul—in Unknown Studio in Anacortes, Washington, where producer Nicholas Wilbur helped form the album.

We featured single ‘Snow Dusted Ponies’ last month, and now Your Heart Breaks have released another single, ‘Queer Fire’. Co-written by Seattle’s Vincent Sagisi, who also appears on bass and vocals, it displays a different side to the project, all slinky sensuality and shadowy negative space. Inspired by both the journals of trans-masculine activist and pioneer Lou Sullivan and the personal ads in Petersen’s collection of vintage gay magazines, it’s what Petersen describes as a song “about the power and strength inherent in desire and the ways that desire can push us to question and break normative boundaries.”

The Wrack Line will be released via Kill Rock Stars on 7th July. Pre-order it now from the Your Heart Breaks Bandcamp page.

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This month sees Rudick return with ‘This One’s About You’, his debut single under the name goodgrief ahead of an EP to be released via Houston label Rue Defense later this year. And, on first listen, the track indicates something of a change of direction. For though it still possesses palpable weight, some of the density of previous releases has been lifted, the track shaking itself free from melancholic haze with an almost poppy rhythm.

However, the leaden skies of the Pacific Northwest still loom above this newfound motion, and upon closer inspection the lyrics see this grey wall close further and further in. A tale of a person coming to terms with past actions as illness descends upon an ex, and finding themselves exploring the meaning and implication of post-break-up anger. Shaded by sadness, regret and a certain cruelty too, the sound’s momentum takes on a new flavour. A sense of volatility which might snuff out or explode in your hands.

The song then becomes a balance. A matter of perspective hinging on the headspace with which you approach it. A strangely triumphant refusal to be pulled down by life’s turmoil, or else a fatalistic rush to the bottom. “I was in sad bands,” and Rudick puts it, “now I’m trying to make happy-sounding sad music.” It’s up to you to decide which of those feelings wins out in the end.

‘This One’s About You’ is out now via Rue Defense.

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The opener sets the tone for Unravel, an album populated by what Antiquated Future call “songs about wanting to give up (but then deciding not to give up).” Striving forward not out of some misplaced romanticism but the mundane and often painful process of simply continuing on. This might register as a downbeat mood, with songs like ‘Attic Realm’ creeping with the slow discomfort of everyday life, Water’s lyrics playing like some dispatch from the edge of things, a view of the world offered from an odd angle. But other songs, such as striking single ‘Neowise’, glow with glimmering brightness, tapping into the ancient and the sublime as a mode through which human connection might be found. It tells the story of a rare celestial event, of coming together as a group to turn off the bright light and noise of the day-to-day in order to experience something bigger, something almost magical.

there’s a comet coming to us
every 6,800 years
in Belarus now, in Algeria, in Mexico
her bright ballpoint light appears

The diversity of tones continues across the record. ‘Mountain’ is charged with a bristling energy, the promises of the lyrics delivered in a tone which could be sardonic or genuine hope, while ‘Lessons’ offers a more reflective air, its bright warmth grasping for fond memories within a difficult present. “But I’ve had some good times,” Water sings, “and I admire / how you ride your bike in the night / in your rain pants and your black boots and the moon so bright.” Likewise, ‘Your Apartment’ opts for a slow burning momentum, its weight building with every passing line but never quite tipping into the promised storm, while ‘Fund Ppl Without Weapons’ is far calmer, clear in its intentions (a simple repeated chorus of “defund the police” capturing its anti-facist, anti-white supremacist, pro-community message).

But no matter the sound or style, each of the tracks are bound by Water’s idiosyncratic observations and compassion in the face of our often troubling modern world. ‘Spiders’ is a good example, a song full of dark paths and deep water, a place to lose yourself, hide yourself, to perhaps never quite find your way out of. But it also holds a metaphor for Unravel as a whole. “I’m sure every spider on this short trail spent all day spinning webs just so when I crash through them I know they exist,” Waters sings in the chorus. Perhaps, in a world that can feel dark and vast and dislocated, all any creature can do is continue to build the small things they are able to, whether it brings them comfort or joy or simple distraction, just to prove they are still alive. “I’m sure every spider on this short trail,” Waters continues in the chorus’ second half, “spent all day spinning webs just so when I crash through them I know they persist.”

Unravel is out now via Antiquated Future and available from the Guidon Bear Bandcamp page.

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