TGIF and we could scream from the top of our lungs, in the form of sentimental guns, how much we need some good music and rest. This is our best new collection of new releases.
Ark White – Crave
Ark White is a Berlin-based genre-defying Psychedelic Folk artist previously known as Bit, the producer and composer of experimental German rap duo Ruhe & Bit. Their 2019 debut album was released on experimental Hip-Hop label Sichtexot and received very positive press in German Hip-Hop magazines and airplay on German public radio. Since mid-2019 Ark White has returned to songwriting centred around his own voice and his guitar. His seven-track Debut-EP “Foldin’ Love” is released this year. His intricate, yet intimate songwriting sits somewhere between Jeff Buckley, Thom Yorke, the later Beatles and contemporary psychedelic artists like King Krule or Connan Mockassin. He fuses unorthodox backgrounds in classical guitar, Hip-Hop production and Indie-Rock to assist his soulful voice in gaining a haunting momentum while transferring impressionistic and psychedelic poetry.
Released a week ago (September, 9) Crave is the third single out of the EP and was written in a moment of isolation and loneliness during Covid quarantine, dealing with feelings of lust, and longing for intimacy, but also disappointment and anger following a failed relationship. The demo was then rerecorded in Trixx Studios in Berlin-Kreuzberg and produced by Bruno Breitzke using tape echoes, leslie speakers and analogue synths to achieve its loving modern vintage sound.
Atticus Sorrell – Time Slips Up
Atticus Sorrell is a guitarist, singer, and songwriter who has gigged and recorded throughout the midwestern US for over a decade, but that’s not what’s important. Anything of real importance to you won’t be read here, it’ll be found through an immersive listen to the music. Whether he’s rolling solo, raising rockin’ hell with The Be Colony, or stretching out in other settings, Atticus employs a unique and expansive approach to the guitar which enhances some cunningly crafted tunes. Sounding like George Harrison, Bill Withers, Neil Young, and Curtis Mayfield jamming and crooning out ideas born from those of Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins, his new self-titled debut album took him over 10 years to finish but is out and “Time Slips Up” is on it.
This track is a song about how time is finite and that we get older every day. It’s about making the time to follow your dreams and do what you love while you’re inspired and driven before time catches up to you. People think they have all the time in the world and waste their lives doing meaningless things when in reality our time is short and we should be making the most of it.
Crystal Rose – Working on Myself
Crystal Rose is an independent artist from San Diego but currently living in Brooklyn, steeped in the sounds of dreamy soul, alternative pop, and the heartfelt tinges of folk music. As a passionate singer/songwriter, Crystal Rose seems to always bring an emotional immediacy to her work, as felt in her newest EP “Anew” (to be released) and written in collaboration with her good friend and old roommate, guitarist/producer Emiliano Trevena. Her songs and voice are both intimate and soft, yet powerful and hypnotizing. Crystal Rose’s work has earned her comparisons to pioneering artists such as Janet Jackson or Bjork.
Crystal’s latest single “Working on Myself” is about the power of overcoming generational traumas and finding strength in the journey toward self-growth. Vulnerable, yet playful vocals soar overtop of ascending synths, attention-grabbing energetic drums, and suspenseful drops. Working on Myself pushes through the adversity while finding solace in the unpacking of the self. Rose conquers that self-doubt on the road to acceptance by ultimately turning inwards. “Trying to find the balance / Of out and within / The magic of the daily / Gets me restless / so I climb within,” sings Rose. “It’s important to remember where we come from, to converse with our generational trauma, without letting that trauma keep us from pursuing our own dreams and desires” says the artist.
Elron Gardy – Reflex and Movement
“Reflex and Movement” is a song “about how mankind has convinced itself that it has surpassed evolution and that we are better, or at least above, all other things that live on our planet – when in reality we are simply just another species that roam it. By denying our animal instincts we have moved further toward the existence of rootlessness, loneliness and anxiety. With our lack of care for the things that gave us life, that life will inevitably, at some point, be taken from us. But perhaps without humans, the world would be better off…”.
The track signals more music to come from Elron Gardy in the near future. The project was in part inspired by the creator’s struggles with Depersonalisation/Derealisation – a dissociative illness which makes one feel as if reality is crumbling around them. Removed from their body and emotions while everything they see seems fake and unreal while plagued with intrusive existential thoughts. It has been described as enlightenment’s evil brother but in reality, no truth is to be garnered from it – just fear.
HAAL – Janus
HAAL are a post-rock band from Bristol, but calling their sound strictly post-rock is a bit misleading.
On “Janus“, their latest single, they certainly take a page from bands like Slint on their riffs, but they mix it up with industrial rock sounds and electronic elements that give a full-on psychedelic, trip-hop feel to the song (they are, after all, from the same place as Massive Attack…). It’s a weirdly sounding, mega creative track, one that could certainly put HAAL alongside bands like Black Country, New Road or deathcrash in how they are twisting genres on its head – it really gets us excited to hear more from the band.
Hunter Ellis – Is This Your Card
Hunter Ellis is somewhat a veteran in the music world, ever since he picked up the violin and guitar in his young days. He passed through bands in the Northern California scene such as The Coma Lilies, and become a part of the musical landscape of Portland, Oregon, before coming back to the place where he grew up for further musical adventures.
In his latest record, “Princess Daddy“, Ellis presents an album that flows through his post-rock roots, drenching them with the world of psychedelic and alternative rock. The opener, “Is This Your Card”, featuring contributing vocals from Samantha Dakin and J.Lately, is a haunting, gorgeous, psychedelic odyssey, where post-rock guitars come up with Radiohead-esque style influences. Be entrenched by this tune, fellow music lovers.
Leah Dunn – Happy
Leah Dunn is an indie rock singer-songwriter from Belmont, California, currently living and studying in the Big Apple, who in 2022 embraced the project of releasing a new tune every month.
The latest release from that project is “Happy“, a grungy indie pop tune akin to a Courtney Barnett or a Lucy Dacus, where Leah’s mundane songwriting shines through, funnelling between teenage anger and adulthood maturity, exploding every time the chorus comes up.
Les Gold – Easy, Easy (It’s All)
Portland indie rock outfit Les Gold was founded by frontman Jenson Tuomi and guitarist Tim Kaye, and consists of bassist Jake Jarvis, drummer Alexander Geiszler, and multi-instrumentalist Victor Gennaro. The band has cultivated a sound that mixes homegrown Northwest indie rock with elements of folk rock, dream pop, desert rock, surf, and other influences. Les Gold showcases catchy, poppy melodies and tones layered over unique vocal harmonies and often macabre lyrics – crafting a sound that’s been described as ‘gloom disco’ and ‘bummer fun’.
An ode to one’s lack of self-control, “Easy, Easy (It’s All)” is a song about self-realization, recognizing problems, and relapsing into the habits that created them before you have time to change anything. Creepy yet grooving, featuring a mixture of psychedelic guitar tones, textured synths, and floating vocals – the track offers a soothing yet sobering lullaby to the unstable mind. “It’s all easy, easy, easy, until it’s not“
Maripool – This Time Again
Maripool is the musical project of London-bound, Lisbon-born artist Natasha Simões and she’s getting ready to release “It All Comes At Once“, her new EP out on October 14th via Practise Music.
Her newest single, “This Time Again“, is the second song extracted from the EP, and is described as a track that “summons a deep feeling of nostalgia that gently tugs on the heartstrings”, a “hypnotic, lush arrangement with lyrics that are both lackadaisical and sinister”. The song flows between a lo-fi indie rock sound, akin to Mac DeMarco, infused with dream pop aesthetics, shining bright with its shimmering melodies, sharp guitar lines and melancholic danceable grooves. A great track from an artist certainly capable of exciting us.
Morabeza Tobacco – Touch You
Morabeza Tobak is a little tobacco store by the neighbourhood Mariatorget in Stockholm, Sweden. They’ve been the beneficiaries of a significant amount of free advertising recently, as their name has been borrowed (with a slight translation change) by Swedish pop duo Morabeza Tobacco. Gustav and Vanilla met when he saw her DJing at an underground club in Norrkoping and was blown away by her set. Introductions were made, songs were swapped online and they decided that their shared musical taste made collaboration seem a worthwhile endeavor.
Now releasing “Touch You“, the duo’s latest single, the approach remained the same as ever – to chill out in the studio, explore things and find their way to what felt fun and natural. The outside world doesn’t intrude on them when they make music – it’s about doing what feels good for them, and not worrying about how it’ll sound when it leaves the studio. There were, however, a couple of new influences dancing around in Vanilla and Gustav’s heads while working on the record. They’ve always inspired each other by swapping songs – this time soul singer Sade was a frequent presence on the speakers while writing. A couple of new toys also came into the mix, with a fretless bass and a DX7 synth helping to steer the direction of the songs. With easily memorable hooks, pop-drenched synths and a transversal groovy good-feeling, effortlessly this putts an honest smile on your mouth!
Sarah La Puerta – A Gun
Built around the gentle pulse of a Baldwin Fun Machine, a midcentury organ and synthesizer, the tracks on Sarah La Puerta‘s “Strange Paradise” revel in uncanny sounds that call on a world gone by. Swirling in the background are traces of Mexican boleros, Bulgarian choral music, and the melodic sensibilities of Old Bollywood. But even as La Puerta’s musical textures drift off into warm nostalgia, her words cut right to the present.
On the opener, “A Gun” she sings: “That’s why I’m buying a gun: I’d like to have some fun, now while the chips are down“, a peculiar levity throughout offers a distinct counterpoint to the ever-present themes of memory, desire and grief. Sarah La Puerta weaves between them in swaying arrangements that foreground her careful sense of melody and ascendant voice.
S.C.A.B. – Tuesday
Originally a working title representing the first letters of the band members’ names (Sean, Cory, Alec, Brandon), S.C.A.B. is an acronym with a shifting meaning – its phonetic double acting as a metaphor for protection and healing for a group that’s always been there for one another.
Following the release of the band’s debut album, 2019’s Beauty & Balance, COVID-19 put the brakes on the Brooklyn-based band’s burgeoning career. Not content with sitting still, the band decided to travel down to Georgia to record their sophomore, self-titled LP (“S.C.A.B.“), which they engineered and produced themselves. Having distance from their beloved city during this unprecedented, tragic time helped them hone a sound that is even more distinctly New York.
About S.C.A.B.‘s most recent release, “Tuesday“, frontman Sean Camargo tells us that it “is a song about disillusionment with trying to form meaningful connections, and searching aimlessly for something worthwhile. There’s a scene from Seinfeld where Newman says “Tuesday has no feel. Monday has a feel, Friday has a feel…” and that type of unspecific, hard-to-pinpoint vibe is what I wanted to express with the lyrics… you’re trying to get through the week, find any ounce of happiness to cling on to (sitting in the sun, feeling it burning your skin), looking for something but not finding it.”
Sofi Gev – Stay Awake
Sofi Gev is the solo project of American singer-songwriter and indie pop artist Hannah Lovelady. Influenced by such artists as Birdy, Aurora, Maggie Rogers, or Regina Spektor, her music layers introspective, offbeat lyrics and delicate vocals over a dreamy blend of indie pop, electronica, and indie folk. Her earliest and most enduring musical influence came from her father singing Joni Mitchell songs to her at night as a child. It was also in her childhood that she started to entertain herself on family road trips by making up silly songs with her younger sister. After piano lessons, she started playing the French horn in middle school band class and continued through high school. She honed her sense of melody by singing the words of recipes from cookbooks accompanied by her father playing acoustic guitar.
About her latest single, “Stay Awake“, Sofi tells us: “When I was in high school, I started struggling with depression. It made me so tired. That, combined with what I now know was probably ADD, made me feel like I was constantly playing catch-up. I still deal with these issues, and some pretty universal new ones: existential dread, dissatisfaction with a disconnected and materialistic society, and the pressure to perform at the level I see on social media. Stay Awake is a personal promise to myself to be present, take life at my own pace, and do only what feels right to me, not what is dictated by all the noise around me.“
Strumbrush – Optimist Eyes
What started as a solo coming-of-age passion project towards self-exploration has rapidly evolved and shape-shifted through various forms into what has become a DIY art rock band emerging in the Atlanta music community. Founder and songwriter Foster Wells has been fortunate enough to end up with a dream team of musicians and creatives in the band, with Jack Pace on lead guitar and vocals, Tyler Sherman on bass and Thomas Evans on drums. Strumbrush is known for its innovative sound design and worlds built within the songs and albums they produce. Matched with the distinct guitar tones, memorable vocal melodies and painfully surreal lyricism, energized by the high-energy melodic bass lines, and introducing the reckoning of Thomas Evans on the drums, the Strumbrush sound is quickly growing into something worth diving into.
“Optimist Eyes” is the B side of the double-sided single they’re releasing today. It is the first two tracks featuring their latest addition, Thomas Evans on drums. His added presence to the band inspired a period of prolific writing. This song embodies the exhaustion of missing opportunities for perceived growth as a human, and feeling stuck in a cycle of hope against uncertainty.
Sub Cultures – Smoke Room
Sub Cultures are an indie/alt-rock band with members from South Wales, The Forest of Dean and Gloucester. Their eponymously-titled debut EP was recorded at the legendary Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire with producer Jack Boston (The Cure, Beth Orton) and was released in March 2021. Sub Cultures band members are Lewis Parks (lead guitar), Charlie Foster (bass), Eric Karvik (drums) and Kane Radnor (lead vocals and rhythm guitar).
Following on from the success of their previous single Peeping Andrew, Sub Cultures are due to release their new spikey, punk-fulled tune, Smoke Room on September 9. Produced by Gethin Pearson (Charlie XCX, Crystal Fighters) and mastered by Robin Schmidt, it is believed that this may be the song that propels the Welsh /Gloucestershire quartet, kicking and screaming into the mainstream.
The Cookie Jar Complot – Cookies
The Cookie Jar Complot is an instrumental post to math rock band from Luxembourg. Composed of the songwriting duo Sven Schmeler and Gilles Glesener, the band has been active since 2020, having very recently released their newest single, “Cookies“.
“Cookies” is a track baked from their post-rock sound, flowing through pretty and weirdly (in a good way) paced guitar riffs (in moments, they almost feel like something out of the Foals‘ debut record), crumbling drum patterns and gorgeous explosions of melody and texture, not too far from something out of an Explosions In The Sky song.