“i am a water polo instructor and a horse rider / i’m a duplicator and a sex addict / i am an architect and a dog sitter.” So opens ‘water polo instructor’, the latest single from kids on coke by Swedish artist and poet daniel d. hedin. You might know Hedin as the force behind Le Days, which put out its own album Are You Here? back in February, but while that release offered a shadowy, almost orchestral style of melancholy, this is very different. ‘water polo instructor’ is a bare spoken word track which plays like something between a surprise voicemail and oral short story. The monologue of a character which not only digs deep into their personal identity but also their relationship with a significant other, as odd as it is lonely and packed with the kind of strange details which evoke a far wider story in the margins.

i am a wine drinker
a recovering consumerist
and a clown maker
i am a tv conductor
and a manuscript writer
i am a feet enthusiast
and a cat whisperer

Eliza Noxon – You

Songwriter Eliza Noxon has been working towards debut full-length Monsters With Bad Habits for a number of years, having last put out the EP Save Your Breath back in 2017. What began as an attempt to chart a fairly typical experience of growing up and leaving home soon became something else entirely, when the sudden loss of her brother completely changed her life. Written a little over a year after this bereavement, single ‘You’ finds Noxon still in the dark depths of loss, isolated by grief and unable to move beyond it. But it also represents the first steps towards that goal. “In writing this song, I found a way to scream and kick and channel all the rage and fear and loss that I felt into something I could use to connect with people,” she explains. “But, I think the song really came alive in the studio, with the addition of Jake Reed’s gorgeous, driving drums, and Pierre de Reeder’s masterful production. When I play or listen to the song today, It feels like a mass catharsis—I hear the voices of everyone who’s ever lost their person and had to figure out how to keep living with that hole in their heart.”

Hank Bee – Corner

The project of Liverpool-based Hannah Brown, Hank Bee is an outlet for a distinctive brand of indie rock that is very much influenced by folk and country traditions. “I liked the idea of an androgynous queer woman going by Hank,” Brown explains of the project’s name. “It harks back to male country singers of a certain era, but I’m not a man and I don’t make traditional country music. It makes me giggle to think of someone seeing the name and expecting a fella in a cowboy hat.” In January Hank Bee will release a sudden hankering, a five-song EP on Memorials of Distinction that promises to be the wider world’s introduction to an act that’s already well established in its hometown. Lead single ‘Corner’ is our first taste, what Brown says is about “that point of transition—being at the corner of something, at a crossroads,” but still sounds warm and welcoming to my ears.

Jeffrey Martin – 1519

“The climate is collapsing, diseases rising, robots striving to take over the globe, and still there’s not enough money for the people who actually need it,” we wrote of Jeffrey Martin‘s Thank God We Left The Garden back in 2023, and while his latest single ‘1519’ sets its sights on a different era entirely, it still looks to evoke something of the politics of the present day. Inspired by Buddy Levy’s book Conquistador about Hernán Cortés, the track looks to both occupy the mind of its colonial subject in all of its faults and folly, and draw lines to the forces of exceptionalism and greed which mark the present day. “From his own letters [Cortés] seemed blindly certain that his mission, no matter how brutal to the people he met in the Americas, was a righteous one,” Martin explains. “That with God and Spain on his side he was infallible. It made me wonder what we are blind to today that future historians might look back on in disbelief and disgust. ‘1519’ is an attempt to place myself on the boat, to stand next to Cortés, to feel him as a man instead of some unreachable, towering, historical figure.” The track is part of Alive July 25, 2025, new live album coming early next year on Fluff & Gravy Records.

Major Murphy – Like A Wrecking Ball

Following on from the success of 2024 mini album Fallout, Grand Rapids outfit Major Murphy have returned with brand new single ‘Like A Wrecking Ball’ on Winspear. The band have always been hard to pin down, Fallout, as we put it in our review, “stitching together a patchwork of styles into a cohesive album,” and the new track sees them lean closer than ever to folk and alt country. A bright if wistful acoustic number not afraid to take its time, slowly drawing the audience in with an easygoing rhythm before packing its emotional punch. And, clocking well over seven minutes, the track is certainly immersive, core members Jacob Bullard (vocals, guitar), Jacki Warren (vocals, bass) and Chad Houseman (drums) joined by Mark Lavengood (steel guitar, mandolin, percussion) and Dutcher Snedeker (piano, organ) to lift the sound towards its full richness.

Mol Sullivan – Dog

We featured Mol Sullivan numerous times last year, with album GOOSE landing itself a place among among our favourites of 2024. A record which “serves as a portrait of a person within the arc of great change […] written in the aftermath of a relationship and during a nascent sobriety,” as we wrote. “An artist moving forwards and looking back, reflecting on who they were and who they want to be, reaching beyond stories of love and addiction for a more nuanced picture of life.” Of course, such personal change rarely comes without support from others, and new single ‘Dog’ is an ode to one such crutch amid an otherwise tragic time. “This song is a love song to my dog who came into my life in the last year of severe alcoholism and was with me through the bitter days of early sobriety,” as Sullivan describes of the Americana-tinged track. “In May of this year, there was a horrific fire in my home on the same day as my mother’s funeral and we lost my partner’s dog to it. My partner and I had been working on my next record but decided to throw ourselves into the recording and release it early as a way to process our grief.”

Robber Robber – Talkback

Burlington, Vermont quartet Robber Robber made a splash in 2024 with the release of their debut record Wild Guess, Nina Cates, Zack James, Will Krulak and Carney Hemler rejecting genre conventions for something looser, instinctive and curious. Post-punk by way of art rock and a few other styles besides, the songs felt delivered straight from the central nervous system, all reaction and twitch and pure feeling. Having recently signed with Fire Talk, Robber Robber have shared new track ‘Talkback’ in celebration. A song which doubles down on the spontaneous, impulsive style of the previous record, Cates’s vocals spiralling over the wiry rhythm like the contents of a racing mind blown up and projected onto a wall.

Oops I thought you wouldn’t see this
Start into it
Think twice look again
If I had come to this, to this
It would’ve been the perfect talkback, perfect quip
Stand clap from all around,
Gold win
So quick, hard stop, land flat, good talkback,
Clever, quick, the double threat, I win

Watch the video directed and filmed by James and Cates themselves below:

Talkback is out now via Fire Talk and available from Bandcamp.

Zoya Zafar – Strange Heaven

We’ve followed the Lahore-born, Orlando-based songwriter Zoya Zafar for a number of years, applauding how she uses “a controlled, unadorned style to communicate a considerable depth of feeling.” Latest track ‘Strange Heaven’ is both another lesson in the power of minimalism, and proof that restraint need not sound austere or stark. “I wrote ‘Strange Heaven’ from the liminal place where grief turns memories into dreams and dreams into memories,” Zafar explains. “After losing my father, I dreamt of him in soft cinematic flashes that were pulled from both real life and invented by my mind.”

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

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Having orbited around one another in the LA music scene for a short while, Derek Ted and Braden Lawrence gradually began to collaborate, helping one another with solo work, producing other artists, then eventually writing original material as a duo. The product of the relationship is beaming, a brand new project which will release its debut self-titled EP this June via Rose Garden, and lead single ‘slow sinkin’ gives a flavour of what to expect from the outfit. With Field Medic adding guest vocals, the track possesses all of the earnestness fans of Ted and Lawrence’s solo work will know well, the bright rhythm and heartfelt tone the sonic equivalent of shaking clarity into a clouded mind. “Lyrically, it’s about looking back on the past and how easy it is to get caught up in your own BS,” the band explain. “It’s our most acoustic track on the EP, and we wanted it to feel more natural and organic.”

Watch the video directed by Olivia Alonso Gough with cinematography and colour by Michael Greenwood below:

Beaming EP is out on the 13th June via Rose Garden and you can pre-save it now.

Bouquet – Hold On

Almost a decade since their previous album was released, LA-based dream pop duo Bouquet are preparing to unveil a brand new full-length. Consisting of interdisciplinary artist, writer and composer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs and songwriter and producer Max Foreman, the project made a name with a rich and romantic style that championed restraint within a genre often prone to excesses, and new single ‘Hold On’ represents a continuation of the style. With Pennypacker Riggs providing vocals and guitar and Foreman vocals, synthesizer and drum machine, the song is a lesson in precision, not drowning the audience in reverb and haze but instead beckoning them into its ethereal, wistful world.

Course – Hue Mirror

Led by Jess Robbins, Chicago synth pop outfit Course formed in the months before the pandemic, so adapting to challenging conditions has always been part of the project’s DNA. Their third album Hue Mirror is no exception. After suffering with chronic pain for years, Robbins was diagnosed with the autoimmune condition ankylosing spondylitis, and wrote the record within the vertiginous early days of processing the news. The lead single and title track introduces the tone of the record, one delivered with equal doses of tenderness and fear. “I wrote this song during the confusion and uncertainty of my future,” Robbins explains. “The song touches on the idea of how a medicine for this disease comes at a price, the pain I had been having for so long, and the sneakiness of not knowing when the next flare will come.”

You find me again
And again
Driving fear
Comes over me
In the light of pain

Hue Mirror is out on the 25th April and you can pre-order it via the Spondylitis Association of America, with all proceeds being donated to research.

Jess Kerber – I Wonder If I’ll Forget This

Born to musician parents, and a guitarist herself since the age of twelve, Nashville’s Jess Kerber makes warm and timeless songs that feel like worthy entries to the American folk tradition. New single ‘I Wonder If I’ll Forget This’ is a case in point, a wonderfully understated track that aches with real emotion. Kerber’s vocals are flanked by acoustic guitar and the barely-there texture of organ drone, an arrangement that allows the songwriting to shine through. It’s impressively mature, particularly in the way it combines genuine vulnerability with a sense of steadfast tenacity, a sensation Kerber likens to “the feeling of being little and learning to swim, grabbing the edge of the pool.”

‘I Wonder If I’ll Forget This’ is out now via Felte Records and is available on streaming services.

JLJR – Arms For Eyes

With new EP The Rest of Your Life coming soon via Paper Moon Records, JLJR has shared new single ‘Arms For Eyes’. Building upon the mix of emotion and narrative which marked the JLJR debut, the track adopts a tone both reflective and defiant to chart the end of a distinctive kind of relationship. One troubled and difficult to live through, yet equally one whose closure takes something from you too. “It’s a reflection on the disintegration of a bad friendship,” as JLJR puts it, “and the struggle to be yourself after someone robs you of part of your identity.”

‘Arms For Eyes’ is out now via Paper Moon Records.

Luah – Wanting You

“Something like a memory, or rather several memories superimposed. A way in which to not so much return to the past as view it more vividly, somehow striking in both its intimacy and remove. That place we long for but can never return to.” So we wrote of ‘Ocean O. (home 4 the holidays)’ by Brendan Paul Sullivan’s Luah back in January. It was a song which embodied the sincerity and heart of the project, not to mention the gentle patience with with emotion is brought to life. With album Some Blue Heaven coming next month, latest new single ‘Wanting You’ takes this sense of patience even further. A layered, slow burning psych folk song that taps into the rhythms of the diurnal cycle, moving from day to night as it progresses and gradually coalescing into something almost cosmic.

Molly Ganley – Comparisons

Last week saw the release of Eldest Daughter, the debut album from NYC indie folk artist Molly Ganley. Described as “a nostalgic and honest account of finding your way,” it’s a very human record about growth and change and navigating life’s strange turns with as much grace as is possible. One standout is ‘Comparisons’, a track that sits at the centre of the album and proves the perfect introduction to what Ganley does so well. Backed by pedal steel, piano and backing vocals from country folk duo Raising Daughters, the song confronts the futile and needless woes that result from comparing oneself to others.

Monnone Alone – Dry Doubt

Eighteen months ago, Melbourne‘s Monnone Alone released single ‘Loose Terrain’, a stellar slice of jangle pop where bright playfulness was shadowed by the slightest mark of wistful longing. With three albums already under their belt, the track seemed to be a culmination of their talents and experience, only for the project to settle into a prolonged period of radio silence. Such quiet can go one of two ways in the music industry—positive or negative—but luckily for us, in Monnone Alone’s case, the answer is the former. Because while they might have have appeared inactive from the outside, the truth was they were hard at work on brand new full-length, Here Comes the Afternoon. Pencilled for early May, the release is a joint endeavour, with Lost And Lonesome (Aus), Meritorio (EU), Safe Suburban Home (UK) and Repeating Cloud (US) teaming up to spread the record far and wide. Album opener and new single ‘Dry Doubt’ suggests ‘Loose Terrain’ was anything but a flash in the pan, so the date can’t arrive soon enough.

Orchid Mantis – Spirit Circle

Over the years, Atlanta, Georgia-based artist Thomas Howard has used the Orchid Mantis project as a space in which to explore a host of musical styles, each release responding to and building upon that which came before it so that the work was always in flux. Coming this spring on Daydream Records and Start-Track, the latest Orchid Mantis full-length Possession Pact pivots towards a nineties slowcore style, channeling forebears like Low, Bedhead and Codeine to offer a new dimension to the project. Opener and lead single ‘Spirit Circle’ typifies the understated brooding atmosphere. A song bathed in shadowy textures and melancholic quiet, always threatening to rise into something more intense but for the most part maintaining its muted darkness.

Steven van Betten & Andrew Rowan – Cloud Behind the Sun

Back in 2023 we wrote about Friends and Family, the debut solo full-length by Steven van Betten on Future Gods which highlighted the LA songwriter’s distinctively compassionate, humane style. Now van Betten has returned with brand new EP Cloud Behind the Sun, though has parked the solo venture in favour of continuing a collaboration with composer Andrew Rowan which stretches back more than a decade. The lead single title track shows the three-song release to be every bit as thoughtful and heartfelt as its predecessor, taking the ostensibly ordinary experience of passing an ex on the street and mining the moment for all of its depth and weight. Something made possible not least thanks to Rowan’s almost cinematic arrangement, its intricacy revealing itself as slowly yet decisively as spring through a thawing winter ground.

Wryn – Only Thing

We’ve covered a couple of singles by Californian songwriter Wryn in recent weeks, with both ‘Snake‘ and ‘Slow Down‘ introducing the themes of change and self-actualisation which run through their upcoming full-length, Shapes. The record’s release is fast approaching on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records, and Wryn has returned with new single ‘Only Thing’ to further expand upon these ideas. The song opens with a spare, almost hesitant tone, but gradually builds in momentum, as though deciding to embrace life’s inevitable forward motion. “Life is always shifting and evolving,” as Wryn puts it, “and that’s a good thing. Change is the only constant.”

Watch the suitably literal video directed by DanTroon-Sazani below:

Shapes will be released on the 28th March via Righteous Babe Records and you can pre-order it now.

Zoya Zafar – I don’t love you

Writing of release Spring Songs in April of last year, we described how Lahore-born, Orlando-based songwriter Zoya Zafar utilised a controlled, unadorned style to communicate a considerable depth of feeling. “Zafar uses minimalism not as an austere stylistic choice but as a tool to hone her music’s emotional weight,” as we put it, “suffusing it with warmth despite its direct and unfussy arrangement.” New single ‘i don’t love you’ is no less charged in its mood, beginning life with no accompaniment other than acoustic guitar before Max Helgemo helped evolve it into something richer without sacrificing the poignant spareness.

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Such care is a signature of Some Songs, the forthcoming album from Zoya Zafar, set for release later this year. Featuring songs written in her early twenties yet developed with patience over the years, the album was originally meant to be released in 2018, only for life to get in the way. “I put a pause on music and ended up moving across the world,” Zafar explains. “I went through a very numb phase where I hardly even listened to music. Shortly after I developed an aggressive auto-immune disease that left me barely able to walk for three years. It also caused bone erosion in my shoulder making it difficult to play instruments.” But if any blessing could come from such a difficult period it was the kind of patience only gained via the slow passage of years. Time allowed Zafar opportunity to understand the tracks beyond the usual level, and thus gradually shape them towards their ideal, essential form.

Latest single ‘Sweet Talk’ is the perfect example. A dispatch from isolation which yearns for human contact, voiced against a precise dream pop arrangement which evokes both the still space of loneliness and the possibility of some freeing alternative. Zoya Zafar’s vocals barely break a murmur, though come loaded with a longing which far exceeds the given moment, as though the song condenses months of suffering into a single prayer released into an empty room.

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Back in 2023, North Carolina post-punk/dream pop outfit Cor de Lux released Media, an album which channelled the uncertainty of the present and attempted to turn its energies into something more constructive. Single ‘Rumors’ came complete with an animated video created by Matt Smithson which further delved into these themes, matching the song’s story of losing a friend with a picture that captures the folly behind so many human interactions. “The video is a super abstract story of some amoeba/single cell things emerging, becoming sentient, trading ideas, fighting about their ideas,” the band explain, “until there is nothing left: no color, just rage until it all implodes at the end.”

Media is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Cordelia Gartside – December

Based in Hastings, Cordelia Gartside is a singer-songwriter who uses a mix of indie folk and rock sensibilities as a vehicle for delivering succinct and emotionally charged vignettes. Centring on  what she describes “spinning out in December when the light goes and time’s weird and it’s hard to know how you feel about anything,” latest single ‘December’ is the ideal introduction to her narrative-driven work. A track hushed in tone but winding taut with feeling, capturing the volatility of one’s internal weather when the outside world presses in a little too heavily.

Crying at commercials, I know
I should try to be discerning with
My emotions
Don’t know how I’m feeling
December it’s me again

Ground Loops – Get It Right

“The lasting impression is that of organic development,” we wrote of Ground Loops‘ self-titled debut release via Rue Defense back in 2020, “the various components reaching out in all directions and meshing with those around it, knitting together to form a dense and textured sound.” Follow-up EP When A Stoppable Force Meets A Movable Object sees TC Brownell (Wild Pink, Dead Painters) channel his new surroundings of the Pacific Northwest to offer a freshly verdant edge to the sound, as opener and single ‘Get It Right’ attests. A song which exists within the landscape’s foggy breath without sacrificing the level of detail Brownell’s precision and patience creates.

My Best Unbeaten Brother – Slayer on a Sunny Day

With Ben Fry joining Ben and Adam Parker, who you might now from Audio Antihero favourites Nosferatu D2, The Superman Revenge Squad Band and Tempertwig, My Best Unbeaten Brother is the latest project to rise out of Croydon swinging. This year will see the band unveil their debut EP, and for now we have the non-album track ‘Slayer on a Sunny Day’ by way of introduction. First appearing on Joyzine’s 20 Years of Joy compilation, the song channels the wry contradiction of its title, pairing a racing momentum with droll delivery in an attempt to look on the bright side and make the best of the present moment, no matter how difficult outside forces conspire to make such a mindset. As Parker sings: ‘The apocalypse can wait until tomorrow.”

‘Slayer on a Sunny Day’ is out now via Audio Antihero.

Routine Caffeine – In The End Now

Louisville, Kentucky‘s Routine Caffeine are prepping a new EP for release in 2024, and latest single ‘In The End Now’ offers a glimpse at the band’s penchant for rich, bittersweet soundscapes. Rising from careful beginnings, the song explores the benefits and pitfalls of holding your tongue within a relationship, and if the quiet tiptoeing of the opening suggests a certain hesitance to raise difficult topics, the track soon gathers conviction as the momentum builds and tips into a cathartic back half. Speaking the truth might cause things to unravel, but sometimes change requires a few things to be broken in order to precipitate.

SAVAK – Leash Biter

Brooklyn post-punk outfit SAVAK come from strong musical stock. Founded by Sohrab Habibion (Obits, Edsel) and Michael Jaworski (The Cops, Virgin Islands), the band features Matt Schulz (Holy Fuck, Enon) on drums and welcomes Jeff Gensterblum (Small Brown Bike, Her Heads On Fire) and Matt Hunter (New Radiant Storm King, Silver Jews) for live performances. New full-length Flavors Of Paradise utilises every inch of this collective experience to create a brand rock as politically-charged as it is catchy. Single ‘Leash Bitter’ shows off the brooding swagger and bite of the SAVAK sound, simmering around a taut rhythm and gradually coming to a boil.

Dogs on every corner
Biting at my heels
Teeth cut through like a razor
A scar that never heals

Secret Secret – She’s Tired!

Consisting of childhood friends Sadie Alan, Marika Stuurman, Maria Donjacour and Thomas Fendert, and cutting their teeth in the San Francisco underground scene, Secret Secret is a band centred around collaboration and trust. Their self-titled debut full-length introduced their brand of “lullaby punk” in 2020, and now the outfit are preparing to release a brand new EP. Single ‘She’s Tired!’ is the first taste, a song which explores ideas of exhaustion and burnout with a playful energy, capturing Secret Secret’s trademark balance between fun and emotion. “Are you tired? / Are you waking up with no desire?” as Alan asks. The song is also supported with a surreal video which pitches the band into their own dreams.

‘She’s Tired’ is out now via the Secret Secret Bandcamp page.

Tractor Beam – Set In Stone

The project of Toronto-born, New York-based songwriter Sasha Balazic, Tractor Beam is less a solo endeavour and more an outlet for collaboration and friendship. Following last year’s debut album Turtles All The Way on Kingfisher Bluez, Tractor Beam have returned with ‘Set In Stone’, a brand new single that sees them continue their signature style, what the label calls “an eloquent mix of freak folk and 2000’s indie rock.” Balazic’s earnest vocals are joined by gentle guitars and lapsteel, building from a soft and subdued beginning to something genuinely stirring, complete with propulsive percussion and joyous call and response lines. But it’s not all good vibes, melancholy and potential tragedy linger at the edges, something brought into relief with the use of audio samples from the 25th Challenger space mission towards the end.

‘Set In Stone’ is out now via streaming services.

wheel kid – shortcut through graveyard

wheel kid is a project based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire that combines folk sensibilities with sound collage and noise styles to evoke both the New England landscape and the emotional terrain of those who inhabit it. The first in a series of small releases, burning sister taylor river might seem a modest offering with only three songs, but each provides into own miniature world into which the listener is invited. Take ‘shortcut through graveyard’, whose sparse lyricism is supported by a rich and patient sonic palette.

ester born in 17-5
21 years old when she died
buried in the yard on the highway side
see her grave from the kitchen window

captain alexander 1812
sailed to the far north in pursuit of the right whale
buried underneath the pool at the motel
where the kids do laps in the shallow end

Zoya Zafar – You Meant Nothing, Too

Back in October, we wrote about ‘Tunnel Vision’ by Orlando’s Zoya Zafar, the lead single from her forthcoming album Some Songs. With the record due for release this spring, Zafar has unveiled a second song to further whet appetites. Titled ‘You Meant Nothing, Too’, it’s a slow and solemn song built on droning piano, Zafar’s softly intimate vocals and strikingly poignant negative space. Acoustic guitar and subdued percussion eventually join too but things remain pared back to their essential elements. Zafar uses minimalism not as an austere stylistic choice but as a tool to hone her music’s emotional weight, suffusing it with warmth despite its direct and unfussy arrangement.

‘You Meant Nothing, Too’ is out now via streaming services.

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