Originally released in 1998 and on vinyl for the first time, Rites finds the saxophonist and composer exploring electronica, taking on synthesizers, samples, and percussion alongside his usual horn duties.
UK-based songstress Laura Musgrave has released her new EP, The Longest Time.
Drawing on themes of alienation, belonging and the experience of feeling like a stranger in a strange land, Xeno is the debut album from Charlotte, North Carolina, indie-electronic artist Midniter.
For an album built from loops and jams and a cat’s inspiration, that is no small thing. ‘Common Primitives’ asks very little and gives a great deal. An album expected to be playing long after the autumn has gone cold.
The band consistently chooses atmosphere over drama and that discipline is their strength. Nothing here overstays, nothing shouts for attention, and the interplay among the four musicians leaves room for natural chemistry to surface. For a debut, ‘Just For A Goodbye’ sounds remarkably settled in its own skin.
More than two decades on, ‘The Dream of a Modern Day’ still sounds like hope with good posture. It believes in the future without being naive about it, and it asks only that listeners stand still long enough to look out through the glass roof. With this remaster, the view is clear again.
It clearly comes out of a rich Oakland musical community, yet it doesn’t lean on locality as a badge. Its sense of place lives in the recording itself: the warmth of the instruments, the intimacy of the performances, the feeling that these songs were made by people who pay attention to the spaces between sounds.
‘Bow and Arrow’ is a thoughtful study in transformation, but it’s also a record with real physical appeal. Arc rae strikes a rare balance between experimental and accessibility. You can pick apart the clever layers and unexpected combinations or just get lost in the beauty of a cello phrase appearing at exactly the right moment.
New York, Frankfurt, quarantine apartments, family homes, rehearsal rooms, friendships, and teenage beat-making all end up as pieces of one larger musical identity. Janoschka doesn’t try to smooth the differences away. He gives them a shared language, and that is where the album’s real achievement sits.
Pan’s background is key to the record, but it never plays like a résumé or a rebellion against classical culture. Her real achievement is turning what she learned into something freer. Her grip on loops and arrangements hasn’t loosened, but the pecking order has: improvisation, electronics, post-punk bursts and gentle pop melodies now coexist with equal weight.
Everything on ‘Eye Wander’ circles around vanishing, looping and noticing. With no names or backstory to lean on, you’re left with the sound itself: steady rhythms, distant voices, guitars glimmering through fog, and arrangements one step from giving the game away.
The title suggests a project still hardening, an outline waiting to fill in, and the band’s habit of releasing 7-inches in quick succession (this is the second in as many years) points to a group that prefers to work out its identity in public, one tight statement at a time.
Australian power-pop rockers The Summertimes return with their highly anticipated new EP, ‘Luminous.’
Music by Jeremy is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Banbury, England, making his debut with a project that defies the usual boundaries of a first release.
CANARY COMPLEX is the visual kei project of American musician and artist Canary Kasey.
As a co-founder of Truth & Soul Records, a producer on Aloe Blacc’s breakthrough ‘Good Things’ album, and a composer for Rockstar Games, Jeff Silverman aka J. Dynamite has shaped the funk & soul scene for close to 3 decades.
Songwriter Scott Allen draws inspiration from personal history and life lessons. He uses both memories and significant experiences to shape the storylines, often focusing on moments shared with others.
Duane Hoover is a musician, songwriter, designer, and visual artist whose career has been shaped by decades of creative exploration.
The Sean Shiff Project is a Minneapolis-based musical collective that brings together the sharp songwriting vision of Sean Shiff with the diverse talents of Minnesota’s vibrant music scene.
Desire Machines return with “Searching for the Soul of Marianne Moore” via Now Listen), a propulsive new single that pushes the international dream-pop and art-rock collective into vivid psychedelic territory.
In 2018, jazz saxophonist/composer/leading light James Brandon Lewis receives a phone call from maverick American musician William Parker with an offer: compose the music for a production put on by the Czechoslovak American Marionette Theater Company that pays tribute to the Czechoslovakian classical composer Antonín Dvořák.
Whereas posthumous releases often carry an eeriness in their finality, Elephant 6’s experimental daydreamers have chosen to bring piñatas to this going away party. The Olivia Tremor Control’s long-awaited third album is as contemplative as it is celebratory, and just as essential as those that came before it.
LA rockers Blacklist Union return with their new single “Heavy Is The Crown”, out now via BLU Records
Asian-Australian singer, songwriter, violinist and model ANDI releases Still Believe in Love.
Felix Rockey is a 20-year-old French singer based in Paris. Influenced by the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Michael Jackson and Earth, Wind & Fire, he took up the guitar at the age of nine and has since developed a unique musical style, blending elegant pop with radiant energy.
Long Island multi-instrumentalist Dylan Taganas steps into a defining new chapter with ‘A Moon of Mercury’, his debut album.
Liverpool blues-rock powerhouse The Heavy North return with their latest single ‘Alive’, a passionate exploration of infatuation, uncertainty and the intoxicating feeling of finding someone capable of making everything else disappear.
Funk, soul and R&B trio Molly Gone Mad introduce their world with debut album Modern World, an ambitious 14-track record that looks directly at the anxieties of contemporary life before finding its antidote in love, friendship, movement and human connection.
Australian Ned Collette enlists pals Leah Senior and Will Oldham to flesh out an astounding foray into modern music making. Too vague for you? Read the review!
Born in Cornwall, sharpened in Kent, LiVES are the kind of band that rock needs — a visceral, white-knuckle collision of post-punk fury and hard rock precision that doesn’t ask for your attention, it demands it.
At the Carousel Club is his first album of non-soundtrack compositions in fifteen years, and it was worth the wait.
Singer-songwriter Steve Stinson transforms heartbreak, uncertainty and years of life-changing experiences into his debut album ‘Cocoon’.
Richard Tyler Epperson is an independent songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer from Salt Lake City, Utah.
Through all of it, Nguyen’s voice stays the center of gravity, dry, tender, quick to swerve. ‘Show Me’ belongs to a writer who has quit managing her own vulnerability and started spending it, a risky trade she makes with her eyes open.
Dummy’s real accomplishment isn’t a futuristic record. It’s a record deeply invested in what music itself can do. It draws on dream pop, post-rock, drone, rave, electronic music and shimmering art-pop without settling into homage. History is something to use, and the present is something to question.
Cole wrote every song, and she seems to understand that honesty works better when it leaves space for doubt. The lyrics avoid neat conclusions and offer observations that get you thinking instead of telling you how to feel. The music falls somewhere between indie rock, folk and thoughtful pop, and the variety always works in the album’s favor.
‘Murphy Horse’ embraces complexity without turning obscure. Murphy trusts listeners to move through uncertainty with him, offering songs that ask real questions instead of handing out convenient answers. It’s melodic, curious and generous, and it shows Smidley can keep reinventing itself while staying grounded in the honesty that has always defined Murphy’s writing.
Through patience, curiosity and sparing sound, Shapiro and Khouja have made something that works as a lullaby, an ambient record and an experiment in perception without being limited to any of them. ‘Music For Babies’ is quiet music with a big imagination, interested in a person’s first encounter with the odd fact of sound.
‘The Leaving Kind’ never fully romanticizes getting away. Majcen knows what the highway gives you and what it takes away. That honesty is what lingers: every mile forward might be a mile back toward the place you left.
This album’s staying power is its sense of a person deciding, in the middle of the worst stretch of their life, to keep reaching toward other people, toward pleasure, toward light. That decision is the real subject of the album, and it’s a brave one to document.
Plenty of protest music announces its politics and forgets to be music. Osmia does the opposite: they build the room first, then let the anger and grief move around inside it. ‘Cult Country’ is not an easy album, nor does it want to be.
Pretend hits from Australia and New Zealand, way back when.
Sacha Mullin is a Chicago-based singer–songwriter and educator noted for his “commanding yet vulnerable” singing style, wide vocal range, and jazzy, intense, and ethereal compositions
Tom Hartman is a singer-songwriter from Holland, crafting his own blend of folk & blues.
The Race releases their four-track EP, FAMILY, on 19th October, alongside its previously unheard closing track and new single, “Where You Go I Go.”
South London folk-punks The Early Swerve release their debut album More People Than Teeth — twelve tracks packed with horrible bastards, dodgy geezers, toxic relationships, dark humour and distinctly British storytelling.
CorMae’s lyrics are reminiscent of a furiously scribbled diary entry, delivered with an unhinged vocal style built on a snotty, punk-infused riot grrrl foundation. Aggressive garage punk supports themes condemning social media toxicity, attacking unrealistic social expectations, and an overwhelming sense of futility one may feel within this divisive, political landscape.
Working together for almost two decades, the work of multi-instrumentalists Paul Elliott and Dan Smith has included composing for TV, film and commercials, as well as writing and performing in both studio and touring bands.
Rev It Up shows the full range of Divergent’s musical identity. Their influences stretch from the Beatles to Queen, Whitesnake, Kansas and Boston, with a strong current of classic ’70s rock running through the record.
Despite making it all up as they went along, Hanson and Hirsh keep the music flowing like two streams meeting as one river.
