Despite having been together for more than a decade and releasing a plethora of singles and EPs, Brisbane‘s Babaganouj had never put out a full-length album. That is, until Jumbo Pets dropped via Coolin’ By Sound last week. And the long gestation period shows in the vivid confidence of the dream pop/indie rock hybrid sound. Take single ‘She Wears Velvet’, a collision of hypnotic rhythms, playful details and cathartic peaks, all tied together by lead vocals from Harriette Pilbeam (AKA Hatchie). A song which captures the Babaganouj spirit in its ability to offer vulnerability and affirmation simultaneously.

Cosmo Sheldrake – Bathed in Sound

London-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Cosmo Sheldrake has made a name crafting inventive and endlessly curious soundscapes which draw upon inspirations from across the natural world. Previous album Wake Up Calls was built around recordings of British birds on the red and amber endangered lists, but forthcoming record Wild Wet World pushes deeper into nature, quite literally. An album of aquatic environments which promises everything from plaintive whale song to clicking parrotfish and snapping shrimp. Lead single ‘Bathed in Sound’, which is being released as part of Brian Eno’s EarthPercent Charity campaign, welcomes the listener into the world of its title—an ancient place of great majesty which seems to be already in mourning. As though feeling the consequences of human activity within the very water, and the slow drift toward a silence they did not choose.

glow in the dark flowers – Stay Close to Me

With their self-titled album coming coming later this month on Born Yesterday Records, New Douglas, Illinois duo glow in the dark flowers have unveiled latest single ‘Stay Close to Me’ to welcome us to the newest iteration of their sound. Having started collaborating back in the late 00s and developing a scuzzy garage rock style with their band The Funs, the pair have continually reinvented their work while staying true to their spirit, and the latest single signals a further step in this evolution. With its fuzzy textures and buoyant rhythm, the track is evidently born from The Funs DNA, but offers a more mature and poetic vision too.

Lila Tristram – shelter

Next month, Where It’s At Is Where You Are (wiaiwya) will release home, the new album by East London singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, artist and writer Lila Tristram. It’s the follow-up to 2020’s sister EPs Our Friends pt. I & II, promising a continuation of Tristram’s distinctively delicate brand of folk, combining intricate fingerpicking with gently melancholic vocals. First two singles ‘january’ and ‘caravan’ captured this tone perfectly and the latest, ‘shelter’, is no different. At its core a piece of timeless British folk music, all misty moors and rolling green hills, it’s elevated with gentle atmospherics which add a glowing ethereal layer that rises to the surface across the two minute runtime.

Lucy Liyou – Dog Dreams (개꿈)

Lucy Liyou is a San Francisco-based songwriter and composer who draws upon ambient, jazz and sound poetry to create impressionistic, collage-like soundscapes. Described as “a rumination on the doublesidedness of trauma and love,” forthcoming album Dog Dreams (개꿈) utilises such a style to explore the nuances and contradictions of life, looking to broach the big questions not so much with straightforward answers but something more ambiguous. This extends right to the record’s title, because though the Korean term 개꿈 downplays the significance of dreams, Liyou takes them seriously. “‘Dog Dreams’ is about desire,” they explain. “It is about naively rejecting “dog dreams” (개꿈)—a Korean term used to dismiss and diminish dreams as nonsensical impossibilities—and endlessly searching the mercurial “face” of desire.” This is explored further through a music video and interactive video game, further manifesting this abstract sense within aural, visual and tactile fields.

Mox – 4lilmonkeys

With LP Heart coming in a few weeks on Cherub Dream Records, Merced, California‘s Mox has unveiled new single ‘4lilmonkeys’ to give further insight into her sound. The record promises to follow in the lineage of Alex G, combining boundless creativity with tangible emotion, and the new track shows just how effective the mix can be. A song that might be about the titular monkeys making residence in Mox’s brain, or perhaps serves a metaphorical view of her childhood as a little monkey herself, starting as a woozy childlike hallucination and escalating into something with real weight.

The National Park Service – What is the sound?

Rochester, NY label (and VSF favs) Lily Tapes & Discs are kicking off the year with two reissues. Last summer’s sold out Jason Calhoun release ben c, this is for you is getting another run, complete with new artwork by Jeremy Ferris, and Room For Love by Lily Tapes staple The National Park Service is getting its first ever physical release. Originally released digitally in March 2019, Room For Love is what the label describe as “a massive statement built of meditations from the brink of parenthood,” a patient, gentle and deeply personal collage of guitars, keys, drums, samples, field recordings. Second track ‘What is the sound?’ captures the atmosphere beautifully, meditative guitar sliding across subtle percussion and ambient textures.

Stuck – The Punisher

“They’ve got good news / it’s so sick living in a fanfic” reveal Stuck on ‘The Punisher’, opening track from the upcoming LP Freak Frequency on Born Yesterday Records. “They’ve got good news / There’s new life springing from a death cult.” Politically-charged post-punk might be a dime a dozen these days, but rarely does a band commit to their ideas so completely. Drawing on everything from Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism to the mindless cycles of bombast and ruin portrayed by FromSoftware’s Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Stuck offer an image of the West in its crazed death-throe contortions, a public driven mad at the intersection of violent history and bleak (non-)future. As ‘The Punisher’ demonstrates, the result leans on neither sneering humour nor all-out gloom, but a darkly incandescent sound born of the contradictions of our age.

A whole new dark age!
It’s burning bright with a hot white rage!
What did we do before light?

Watch the video directed by Zack Shorrosh below:

Freak Frequency is out on the 26th May via Born Yesterday Records and available to pre-order now.

Tom Lark – Radio Blaster

Shannon Fowler had parked his Tom Lark moniker for the past seven years, favouring instead the more pop-centric style of alternate project Shannon Matthew Vanya, but the Ōtautahi-born, Auckland-based songwriter has returned to Tom Lark for his first full-length album, Brave Star, out later this year on Winegum Records. Lead single ‘Radio Blaster’ gives an insight into the psych-inflected folk style of the record, a patient and thoughtful introduction which shimmers with a desert heat and the slightest cosmic overlay. “Sunburnt psychedelic folk fit for sensitive cowboys to meander and philosophise to,” as the artist describes it, like staring off at the horizon as the sun dips and the sky reveals its real depth.

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Bo Milli is the recording project of Emilie Østebø, who is based in the Norwegian city of Bergen. Her debut single ‘At The Wheel’ caught the attention of the management firm who also look after Sigrid and AURORA and sent her on a trajectory toward indie rock stardom. New single ‘How is it’ makes good on the first’s promise, a “power-chordy” number that’s a very youthful mix of apathy, anxiety and self-confidence. Think Soccer Mommy meets The Beths, telling tales of hungover bus rides, dancing to The Strokes and a lingering unease that persists despite everything. “It was the second day in a row on the verge of crying,” Østebø sings. “And I had no idea as to why.”

Buggs – Mother

Following on from the success of previous single ‘Flaws‘, a track which landed on Killing Eve no less, London-based outfit Buggs are back with a brand new song on Sad Club Records. With its volatile tempo and nods to Greek myth, ‘Mother’ is full of the idiosyncratic personality of the previous releases. An examination of motherhood and femininity which doubles as both ode and urgent question. “It’s a cry out to my mother/women of the world,” lead Alice Western explains, “asking ‘how do we do this! How do you do this? How do we get through it!'”

Deniz Cuylan – Hidden Language Of Four

Back in 2021, Turkey-born, LA-based guitarist and composer Deniz Cuylan released No Such Thing as Free Will with Hush Hush Records, an album of which fused classic guitar, jazz and minimalist ambient styles into something playful and unique. Never one to settle, follow-up album Rings of Juniper sees Cuylan build this foundation, aiming for a more direct approach which allows his guitar and compositional work to test the line between natural spontaneity and an almost automated efficiency. The result, as shown by single ‘Hidden Language of Four’, is both of those things, possessing an organic sense of order akin to the inner workings of biology.

Gloria de Oliveira & Dean Hurley – Something to Behold

Next month sees the release of Oceans of Time, a collaboration between Gloria de Oliveira and Dean Hurley on Sacred Bones Records. Those familiar with Hurley’s work will recognise the ethereal, suggestive quality of the atmosphere, dreamscapes across which de Oliveira’s vocals play, though amid the intangible shimmer lies something more direct too. An understanding of the elastic strangeness of time, an appreciation of deep emotional truths. Single ‘Something to Behold’ sets the tone, its immersive, Lynchian blend of alluring and eerie all the more impressive for having been crafted between two people who have never met or spoken.

Mim Jensen – Germaphobe

Based in Ōtautahi (Christchurch), Mim Jensen makes soaring indie rock that rides the highs and braves the lows of love and loss. A prolific member of the local scene for a number of years, Jensen has just released her debut single, ‘Germaphobe’. It’s a song about that difficult point in a relationship when it becomes clear things are not working out. “Germaphobe was the result of some uncomfortable emotions and self-reflection,” Jensen explains. “It’s about navigating an incredibly hard time in your life but ultimately learning how to stand in your own power.” But despite its awkward subject matter, the song is delivered with gusto, growing from a quietly turbulent opening into a rock song full of energy and emotion.

Sister Gemini – Scooter Song

Sister Gemini is the indie pop project of Los Angeles-based songwriter Remy Gassman. A vehicle for songs both sharp and sweet, turning toward the rosy past in an effort to flee a difficult present. Latest single ‘Scooter Song’ deals with the process head on, presenting a series of images and events from childhood, remembering them fondly while mourning the inability to return. “Now that I’m older I still see things the same,” Gassman sings, “look back and wonder if you’ve grown into your face / and I’d give everything to go back to that place.”

Swamp Dogg – Soul To Blessed Soul

Back in February, Don Giovanni Records released I Need A Job​.​.​.​So I Can Buy More Auto​-​Tune by legendary soul/R&B artist Swamp Dogg (the musical alter ego of Jerry Williams). The album felt like a celebration of a long career, and proved that there is plenty life in the old Dogg yet, bursting at the seams with his characteristic risqué humour and irreverent persona. Fresh from celebrating his eightieth birthday with a sold out show in LA and a festival appearance in Berlin, Swamp Dogg has recently released a new video for the track ‘Soul To Blessed Soul’, the album’s swaying slow-burner that’s a genuine heartfelt love song beneath the smooth, suggestive surface. Take a look at the typically eccentric video, directed by MoogStar Clemon below:

I Need A Job​.​.​.​So I Can Buy More Auto​-​Tune is out now via Don Giovanni Records and you can get it from the Swamp Dogg Bandcamp page.

Tommy Lefroy – Dog Eat Dog

Based between London and LA, Tommy Lefroy is the project of Wynter Bethel and Tessa Mouzourakis, who make literate and pop-tinged indie rock in the vein of Phoebe Bridgers or Lucy Dacus. Latest single ‘Dog Eat Dog’ is a song that takes aim at the patriarchy from a position of dogged strength, full of the tenacious determination to live on one’s own terms. Check out the music video, which sees Bethel and Mouzourakis channel Joan of Arc and don literal armour in preparation for this fight, below:

‘Dog Eat Dog’ is out now via LAB Records and available via Bandcamp.

Why Dogs Why – List of Fears

The music of Why Dogs Why has caught our eye in the past with what we’ve called its “tongue-in-cheek humour and razor sharp commentary on the banality of contemporary life.” Yet none of the previous releases have been quite as sharp as new single ‘List of Fears’, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it slice of hyperactive panic delivered without even a pause for breath. Dying alone, answering phones, spinal injury, tall stacks of loans… all your worries are catered for, but they’ve never sounded like so much fun.

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