DARREN HAYMAN • I’M YOUR TEAM • 2026

“Britain's most incisive songwriter." – THE GUARDIAN

”The thinking person's indie pop legend, and unaccredited national treasure.” – STEWART LEE (THE SUNDAY TIMES)

“The former Hefner frontman follows a set of Oulipian constraints to produce a set of typically affecting meditations of love, life and mortality.” – THE QUIETUS

"Darren Hayman has always been something of a niche and cult figure, but music as good and as important as this should be heard by far more than a cult audience.” – DIY

“Musically, it’s melodic electropop willfully reluctant to be tied to any reference points. Maybe Marianne Faithfull’s ‘Ballad Of Lucy Jordan’, for its quietly bubbling synths and domestic angst? Or a more humane Momus?” – ELECTRONIC SOUND

https://linktr.ee/darrenhaymancatalogue

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #207 • Heavy Gus

Formed in California’s high desert, Heavy Gus make fuzzy, grunge-soaked indie rock that balances scruffy guitar noise with unexpected flashes of melody, humor, and tenderness. On their forthcoming second album, the trio revisit the loose, live-wire approach of Notions, but life has changed: Dorota Szuta and Stelth Ulvang are now navigating parenthood alongside the creative intimacy of being partners and bandmates. New singles “Super Soaker” and “Past Lives” reveal two sides of that tension, one sticky, volatile, and loud, the other reflective and bittersweet. Heavy Gus leave the contradictions intact.

https://www.heavygus.com/

Arborist • Looking For Love • 2026

The album was engineered by longtime collaborator Ben McAuley (Van Morrison) and mixed by Jimmy Robertson (Anna Calvi, Beth Gibbons, Fat Dog). The results are staggering, devastating and uplifting in equal measure, calling to mind albums such as Songs Ohia’s Magnolia Electric Co., The Divine Comedy’s Regeneration, The Blue Nile’s Hats and Wilco’s Ode to Joy, as well as early-70s records from John Cale, John Lennon and Bill Fay. 

So Faint • Begin Again • 2026

So Faint is the collaborative project of Lyn Heinemann and Hannah Georgas, born from a chance encounter in a Vancouver recording studio and shaped by a decade-long friendship. After years on separate paths, with Lyn stepping away from bands, but still writing music for herself and Hannah building an acclaimed international music career that has recently seen her join Broken Social Scene for their latest LP Remember The Humans, the two reunited in 2023 to create the music they’d been quietly missing.

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ifitbeyourwill Podcast #206 • Julia Holter

Julia Holter has never been content to leave a song alone. Across a career spent blurring the boundaries between experimental composition and pop, she has built elaborate musical worlds, then found ways to unsettle them. On Materia, that impulse turns inward: old ideas are revisited, familiar structures loosen, and music becomes something fluid, open to revision.

On this episode of If It Be Your Will, Holter traces the path from her early experiments and studies in composition to the increasingly expansive, emotionally intricate records that followed. We talk about orchestration as a way of thinking, the strange relationship between control and intuition, and what changes when you stop treating a composition as a finished thing.

A companion to Something in the Room She Moves, Materia finds Holter continuing to question how music takes shape — and what might emerge when you return to it with fresh ears. Our conversation moves through creative uncertainty, the long life of an idea, and the possibilities that appear when you let a piece become something you didn't originally imagine.

Sometimes the most revealing way forward is to take things apart.

https://juliaholter.com/

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #205 • SHEAL

What if the things that scare you are also the things you need to move through?

On this episode of If It Be Your Will, SHEAL — the musical project of Toronto-based songwriter Sheilagh McNab — talks about stage anxiety, trusting her instincts, and learning to make room for both solitude and connection. We trace the path from Courage Again to golden hours and the new home-going chapter, exploring how motherhood, memory, and the quieter moments of everyday life find their way into her songs. It’s a conversation about letting go of old expectations, finding your footing, and figuring out what it means to feel at home in your own life.

https://www.instagram.com/sheal.music

untitled (halo) • easy rider • 2026

Born, in part, from a feeling that there was a “lack of a scene or music in LA, longtime friends and band members Ariana Mamnoon, Jack Dione, Jay Are, and Nicholas Noneman had already spent years moving through LA’s DIY community, absorbing its overlapping histories before eventually finding one another. That shared history has become part of untitled (halo)’s identity, the culmination of years spent contributing to, and being shaped by, the scenes around them.

Disgrace • Drive Away • 2026

“There is darkness, confusion and regret but there is also a horse to drive away on,”the band’s singer Daniel Bluer explains. “It might be a mistake but it is certainly exhilarating in the moment.”

https://orcd.co/driveaway

Nadia Faye • drift • 2026

Website

The light, rich, dreamy world throughout the video is sharply contrasted by scenes of solitude and darkness, suffocated by her own desire. Fayes adds, "I think this concept highlights the emotional center of the song, unfulfilled longing."

This Is The Kit • Ghost Coat • 2026

The concept of home haunts This Is the Kit’s tender, thoughtful seventh studio album, Ghost Coat. “I was interested in exploring our relationship with home,” says frontwoman Kate Stables. “Where home is, or was, where we come from, where we’re going. Sometimes it’s just where you put your bag down, especially for someone who travels a lot. Maybe it’s less to do with a place, and more who you’re with – people that make you feel like you’re at home.”

thisisthekit.co.uk

Gem Club • Emerald Press • 2026

iamgemclub.com

Avery Friedman • "You Move” • 2026

“You Move is about savoring the unexpected fruits that reveal themselves amid times of uprootedness. It is a song about putting trust in the glimmer of new love, and carefully sowing the seeds for it to sustain. Both thematically and sonically, it’s about searching, surrendering and allowing yourself to relish. My hope is that “You Move” invites people into the world of my soon-to-be-finished sophomore album – a world that encompasses a full-swing of emotionality, and lets loss and pleasure dance together. I’m so excited to share the song and video ahead of my first-ever UK/EU shows.” – Avery Friedman (she/her)

“Scarily accomplished…Inhabits a complex emotional realm where nervousness can coexist with (and inform) ideas of sexiness, sadness, tenderness.” – KLOF MAG

“Her full-length debut, New Thing, is a work of raw singer/songwriter confessionalism, evoking the knotted melodies, homespun arrangements, and searing edges of musicians like Squirrel Flower, Babehoven, or Adrienne Lenker.“ – UNDER THE RADAR MAGAZINE

“Plenty of stakes present themselves in debut efforts, but Friedman stands before audiences fearless – 5/5.” – NEW NOISE MAGAZINE

Wayfinding • A Nest of Wrens • 2026

The title of the new record refers to a poem by Michael Hartnett which explores the abiding power of our most profound early creative or aesthetic connections; those signal inspirations which tell us, in a language we don’t yet understand, who we want to be and what that might ask of us. We carry these experiences with us as memory, but our memory changes shape along with the other parts of our identity as we proceed towards and through adulthood. Their significance is muted as they take their place as but one of many memories. The creative person remains awake to the truth and importance of those early realizations by seeking out new ways of expressing and building, by reckoning with the present by questioning memory, and filling the parts of themself that time has emptied out with new community and shared purpose.

These things are rendered by the songs on A Nest of Wrens as a whirling, roaring autumn stormcloud of richly textured guitar interplay shot through with startling melodic flashes and flickering synthesizers, supported by a sturdy and heartening rhythm which both establishes a horizon to be moved towards, and promises calm at the centre. The sounds of the welcoming of a new friend, the departure of a sibling, an enduring alliance.

 https://ffm.to/anestofwrens

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #204 • Reveal Party

On Prettiest Flower, Emily Nyhuus spent nearly eight years figuring out what Reveal Party was trying to say. The result is a record about becoming yourself, but also about the strange detours that get you there: an imaginary character who gradually turns out to be you, songs rewritten until they finally feel true, and a musical world that refuses to stay in one genre. We talk about Midwest emo, Neutral Milk Hotel, crushes, songwriting, burnout, perfectionism, and why some records need years before they're ready to leave your hands.

https://revealparty.lyt.link/PrettiestFlower

Reveal Party's sophomore album, “Prettiest Flower,” blends her Midwest emo and lo-fi pop influences with elements of stadium rock and eclectic instrumental folk, creating a cohesive, self-referential, and wistfully nostalgic tour de force.

The record tells a coming-of-age story rooted in the trans experience, presenting a raw yet tender autobiography where truths are revealed between the lines and space is given to unspoken feelings. It explores the ache of transformation, the dreams simmering beneath the surface of a chrysalis, and the anxiety of being both larva and butterfly, marking an ambitious and emotionally resonant new chapter for this self-described professional yearner. - Livia Wendland 

desksnail • Lights Leak • 2026

Lights Leak is the first full-length album from desksnail, the solo project of former Smokebees frontman Taku Sudo. Drawing from the intimate worlds of musicians such as Sparklehorse and Florist, the record finds a tender balance between noise and melody, solitude and warmth.

Crimson99 • Daredevil • 2026

"Open Up Your Heart" 

- The Line of Best Fit's New Music Discovery

“A gentle yet emotionally charged track about the temptation to return to familiar habits, even when they no longer serve us...With Daredevil, Crimson99 is opening the door to what promises to be an instinctive and deeply personal artistic journey.” 

- VERGE Magazine UK

“‘Open Up Your Heart’ is rich indie rock with touches of folk that touches on hope..Crimson99’s unique voice reels the listener in, hitting the bullseye with emotion and conviction.” 

- ColoRisng

“The song showcases her vocals, which while being soulful and smooth, also have the slightest bit of grit that helps suck you in and elevates the song to the next level."

- If It's Too Loud

https://crimson99.com/daredevil

WHY? • Pretend So Real • 2026

 

By Wolf’s estimation, WHY?’s catalogue almost works in pairs. After the lush, band-driven The Well I Fell Into, he returned to a solo practice, seeking clarity in the unvarnished, close-to-the-bone arrangements of Oh Golly / Yes Lord. It mirrored the album’s themes, a process and sound as intimate as the album’s themes: Wolf alone, trying to figure himself out with little to hide behind and few people to lean on. “This isme being me in real time,” he says. Eventually, Wolf welcomed a few carefully chosen contributors, including his brother and longtime WHY? consigliere Josiah and producer Andrew Broder (Fog, Lambchop),who each co-write a track for the Oh Gollyside, as well as Ryan Olson (Poliça, Bon Iver), who consulted on some production. And after years of mutual admiration, Wolf ended up hanging in the studio with Nate Mercereau (André 3000, The Weeknd). Trading ideas and sharing recent work blossomed into an unexpected and extensive collaboration unprecedented in WHY?’s history. As Wolf aimed to locate the minimal sound he heard in his head, Mercereau worked on nearly all of the Oh Golly half, adding guitar arrangements, synths, and more that helped shape the final aesthetic of the album.

https://www.instagram.com/whywithaqmark

Edwin Raphael • Moonstruck (feat. Diya Britto) • 2026

“There's a particular way light particles interact that Montreal-based folk singer-songwriter Edwin Raphael captures in his thoughtfully expansive, globe-trotting soundscapes. "Mosaic in the Sun" and "A Sunbeam Lent to Us Briefly," arrive with the breathless wonder of language's inability to articulate the emotional heft of a momentary prism falling upon the scene just so.”
- Exclaim!, Most Anticipated Albums of 2026

“...it’s indie folk with enough orchestral weight to fill a room. These are songs built for distance and open windows.” - Montreal Rocks

“Buzzing drones meet uplifting guitar melodies as Edwin Raphael’s imaginative narrative unravels on First Time on Earth. The ebbs and flows from bursts of energy to pulled-back introspective moments. Life brings with it more questions than answers, but it’s seeking beauty in the mundane, in the wonder of small miracles, that we find meaning."
CBC Music, 'Songs You Need To Hear’

INSTAGRAM

https://www.edwinraphael.com

Delivery • Measuring Cup • 2026

“Measuring Cup,” the buzzing post-punk cut they’ve released in tandem with the news, builds around vocalist Rebecca Allan’s sardonic delivery and sharp guitar stabs. “There is a certain kind of pressure in modern society to be vigilant about who someone is,” the band shared about the new tune, “what they stand for and if they are ‘your people.’ But it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a challenge to engage positively with people who hold different values or stances, and a celebration when you know you’ve found someone who aligns with you, whether that’s politically, socially, or personally. ‘Measuring Cup’ is like an invitation to get on a level together and join the club.” FLOOD

fog lake • bogus • 2026

Montreal-based, Newfoundland-raised musician Aaron Powell’s new album Hollowbody, his seventh album as Fog Lake, represents a step up in Powell’s songwriting acumen, with its ten songs weaving travelogue-style lyricism, diaristic accounts of people and characters and a handle on pop songwriting that feels both new and distinctly Fog Lake. The album was co-produced, mixed and mastered by longtime collaborator Warren Hildebrand of Foxes in Fiction who helped push the record to an even more refined and crystalline sonic territory. Instagram