Aug 11, 2024

beabadoobee • Beaches • 2024




Just a few days before the release of her third record This is How Tomorrow Moves, beabadoobee shared the record’s final single: “Beaches.” Bea dips back into the pure indie rock sound of her criminally underrated debut Fake it Flowers, detailing how her creativity thrives in the right environments (in this case, Rick Rubin’s Shangri La studio in Malibu). “Days blend to one whеn I’m on the right beaches / And the walls painted white, they tell me all the secrets / Don’t wait for the tide just to dip both your feet in,” she sings alongside a double-tracked melody of glockenspiel and driving guitars. Bea has fully come into her own on this record, and she wants you to know it. —LW

Wings of Desire • Some Old Place I Used To Know • 2024


“A bit like if Bruce Springsteen had a mid-’80s Jesus And Mary Chain phase” Stereogum

“Now Hear This” The Independent | "Wings Of Desire craft dazed pop jewels" CLASH

“Uplifting” DIY | “freefalling, expansive indie” DORK


The duo explain the themes around the new single - a caustic message belying the track’s downtempo elegance:

“Some Old Place I Used To Know explores the idea of an ever-changing cultural landscape. We have all come accustomed to think that we are constantly evolving but what if things weren’t actually getting better but worse. As we are being pushed towards the digitalisation of culture and as our creativity is increasingly undervalued and attention harvested. 

What is the cost on our collective sanity? 

One of the best acts of rebellion in this climate is to stare out of the fucking window, get lost in your own imagination for a few hours or speak to someone in the real here and now. And if none of those work for you try making something beautiful. You see you’re dangerous when you make something beautiful, something that could snap someone out of the illusion and light up their heart. That’s why they like to keep us ‘busy’.”

Aug 10, 2024

HORSEGIRL • Presented by NEW NOW • 2024



chicago phenoms horsegirl finally grace the new now stage! fresh off a summer tour with cindy and tv buddha, the band returned to chicago to be with friends and family. hear a taste of horsegirl new and old, plus a warm tribute to nora's cat ramona. we recorded this new now at the godstar megamax practice space in early july 2024. 

setlist
sport meets sound 
world of pots and pans 
where'd you go? 
anti-glory 
live + ski 
ramona song 

Clem Snide • Free • 2024




It's like....
Falling asleep at the wheel 
only to be startled awake
right back at the hospital 
where you were born
bodies shed like goggles
back up off the pedals 
and surrender
to the pull
and finally...
break
Free.

Matt Costa • Explorations of Sight and Sound Volume 1 • 2024




Acclaimed indie singer-songwriter Matt Costa's newest film project, Explorations of Sight and Sound, created in collaboration with Rivian + Roark, is out today. He directed and scored the documentary in Sardinia, while exploring the questions "How does the road inspire us to create?" and "What does cultural saturation do to influence the process and results?" 

The result was a series of four music videos with original tracks and scores that recount Matt’s experience and song inspiration in Sardinia with Roark’s ambassadors as they climbed, surfed, run and skateboarded across the Island.

"Explorations of Sight and Sound is a new type of show," Matt reflects, "focusing on a collection of 16mm footage that will be scored live. Traveling and filming has influenced my music and now it’s an immersive live show, highlighting Sardinia with a full performance showcasing my travel/adventure films from around the world.”

Aug 5, 2024

Sarah Mary Chadwick • Don't Like You Talking SMC Remix / Break Up, Break Up! • 2024

https://www.riceisnice.net/

Orville Peck & Beck • Death Valley High • 2024




Orville Peck breaks the mold with his duets album Stampede, a sprawling collection of collaborations showcasing Peck’s unique ability to blend his distinct sound with a diverse array of voices including Willie Nelson, Elton John, Beck, and more.

Aug 1, 2024

Wishy • Just Like Sunday • 2024


Wishy shows their soft side on their newest single “Just Like Sunday," out today with a brand new music video. An acoustic and twangy dream-pop track that flirts with the frothy nostalgia of the early aughts, “Just Like Sunday” is the final single ahead of the band’s highly-anticipated debut LP Triple Seven. One of the more breezy tracks off the new record, the new track is a love song about yearning and letting go of your inhibitions, says Wishy's Nina Pitchkites. 

Jul 31, 2024

Gold Connections • Fool’s Gold • 2024


The result is a record that sounds like “a conversation between old Virginia and the buzzy psychedelic world of post-COVID New Orleans”, according to Marsh. The previously recorded five tracks blossomed into eleven, fully fleshed out by a new band that included the rhythm section from fellow New Orleans band Motel Radio (Eric Lloyd and Andrew Pancamo), and notably, Marsh’s younger cousin, guitarist Fraser Wright– himself based in New Orleans and wielding a degree in music industry at Loyola University.

Marsh remembers meeting up with Wright for some Thai food: “You play guitar, right?” Marsh said. Wright nodded over his curry. “Are you any good?” Marsh asked. “Yeah,” Wright replied, with such subtle conviction that Marsh suspected he might be right.

“Turns out, he’s fucking great,” Marsh says plainly.


deary • Selene • 2024


The second new track from London-based dreampop duo deary since last year’s acclaimed debut EP is the stunning slow-build of ‘Selene’, which was produced by the band with Iggy B (Spiritualized) and features Simon Scott of Slowdive on drums.

The follow-up to last month’s breakbeat driven ‘The Moth’ slows things down but dials up the atmosphere, combining great walls of guitars with sequencers and Greek mythology.



Jul 30, 2024

Mol Sullivan • Cautiously • 2024




"Cautiously" is off Goose, self-released earlier this year. The song explores the subdued melancholy of a relationship’s anti-climactic finale, and the trepidation of having found new love.

“Count your blessins
you found me winnin’
Winter kept my hollow form
Cautiously, we explore the reaches
While we keep our cover from the storm”

Nap Eyes • Passageway • 2024


“Masters of subtlety.” – NPR

“Snapshot of a Beginner feels as much a modest masterpiece as [The Go-Betweens’] Spring Hill Fair or [Belle and Sebastian’s] Tigermilk. What sets them apart is the fear and trembling.” – Uncut

“One of the most fascinating songwriters we have today.” – Newsweek


The Neon Gate is due October 18 through Paper Bag Records / Paradise of Bachelors, marking the band's first release for the former. It was recorded between Montreal and Windsor, NS, with mixing by René Wilson and Brad Loughead, and includes recent singles "Demons," "Ice Grass Underpass" and "Feline Wave Race" — featured in Exclaim!'s Staff Picks.


On the parade ground across the great divide

I saw 1000 candles flickering

And through a peasant’s eyes I saw a green-clad man

Ringing blue bells of offering

Beside him, astride, in neon fuchsia robes

And more beautiful than anything

A woman the sight of whom changed his mind

In a permanent way


Well, as for me, I rode the three miles north

Back to old York town

And lodged my horse in a stable there

Before walking to the castle grounds

Strange to make a parade so far away

Where there were so few others around

But I let the thought drop from my head

And that night my sleep was sound


When I awoke, I knew not the hour

But it seemed all the people had fled

I returned to my room and where the mirror had been

I found a blue doorway instead

Bracing myself against a bone-chilling wind

I wrapped my scarf around my head

And entered down a rainbow crystal pathway

Strangely compelled to follow where it led


Well, ever since then I’ve been in this gem-sea land

Where the night is as warm as the day

People talk on phones and they drive down roads

To places many miles away

As for me, I remain by my edge-of-town home

Watching the ocean’s peaceful sway

I’ve been drifting in and out of a mysterious dream

Of that old-time passageway


Is this what I get for listening to “Iris”

At nine o’clock on a Monday morning

In the shadow of the foreboding sculpture

In the diamond circular saw ring?

Far away, the dawn-bright dew

On some blue fields sparkling

In the deep mind, in the well,

In the heart of things

Jul 28, 2024

Pang Attack • "Can't Make The Fates Like You” • 2024




Pang Attack is a Montreal-based trio with Alex Hackett (guitar, voice), Yann Geoffroy (drums), and Dave Clark (keys, bass). They concoct a super dreamy sonic recipe that's equal parts shoegaze, ambient-drone, and psych-pop. Fuzzy northern soundscapes for introverted souls.

Jul 27, 2024

Julia-Sophie • ‘forgive too slow’ • 2024


“After years of playing in a rock band and, more recently, dream pop collective Candy Says, supporting the likes of Blondie and IDLES, the Oxford-based musician is carving out a path of her own.” – DMY





“My journey with music has been weird and long. I think people assumed that the music I made was exactly what I intended to make, when it’s always just been me trying to figure it out. Being a solo artist has allowed me to really find myself and show who I am in all my messy states.” – Julia-Sophie

Jul 26, 2024

MAITA • Waking up at Night • 2024




Portland indie rock artist MAITA has released a devastating new album called want via Fluff & Gravy Records. Led by Japanese-American singer-songwriter Maria Maita-Keppeler, the band’s third full-length release is their most crystallized work thus far. With the album’s release, the band also shares the official music video for waking up at night,” a tender anti-lullaby about depression and self-improvement. As Maita-Keppeler says, “Sometimes all you can do is research every vitamin, tackle every deficiency, gain control of some aspect of your life that perhaps might be improved upon.”
 
The band has also announced a fall/winter tour in the Pacific Northwest, with stops in Portland, Seattle, Boise, Spokane and more. See a full list of dates below, and find more information HERE.

Lea Thomas • The Gift • 2024



Lea Thomas’ album “Cosmos Forever” unfurls in a moment of exquisitely gentle suggestion: “Let’s go for a walk/Don’t talk.” Hers is a voice that is at peace with itself, that is trusting of its own ability to convey the truths of her experience and her personal philosophy, and to express her enduring love for the natural world. These truths, inspired by growing up on Maui, are embroidered with elegantly simple imagery. Fragments and fine details of a myriad different landscapes–a spray of leaves, a winding river, a bracing trade wind–seem to weave themselves together into a blanket of sound that is warm and wholly enveloping.



Jul 25, 2024

Starflyer 59 • 909 • 2024




In the early ’90s, as his solo debut was gestating, Jason Martin lived at home with his parents in the suburban sprawl of Riverside, Calif. Refered to as the 909, by its area code.

Martin would frequent his local record stores, patiently waiting for the latest batch of import singles, EPs, and LPs from his favorite UK bands: Ride, Slowdive, the Stone Roses, Pale Saints, MBV, Catherine Wheel — devouring obscure B-sides and deep album cuts alongside the “hits.” 

Over this period, Martin was also penning the songs that would become the first Starflyer 59 record. While the album is officially untitled, fans affectionately refer to it as “Silver,” due to its monochromatic metallic cover, while its follow-up, a second untitled album, is referred to as “Gold,” for similar reasons.

These first two efforts firmly cemented the band in the history of the genre of noise pop or shoegaze. The pair are often mentioned in lists of the greatest shoegaze albums of all time — for reference, see Pitchfork, Stereogum, and Revolver, which found room for “Silver,” in its top-11 list.

Snowy Band • Age Difference • 2024




Age Difference is the third album by Snowy Band, but the trillionth album by Liam Snowy Halliwell. This one is a collection of songs that - as the title may suggest - explore concepts and constructions of time, memory, experience, reflection, and just existing in the shadows and light of it all - Blossom Rot Records

numb talking • walk with u • 2024


the credits roll at a midnight screening. an early 2000’s horror movie.

you didn’t ask for this. you pray you can say good night to an answering machine. in secular worship. trying to raise the dead.

released July 24, 2024



numb talking is the solo project of sufian m, a musical space exploring the duality of extremity and its absence, distance and closeness, acknowledgement and disavowal, pain and its mending, home and its cross-border search.

at the core of numb talking are the wishmaking and healing capacities of songs as hummed prayers, admissions, cautions, reminders and celebrations. the voice whispers and projects in a mix of shoegaze and nu-metal tendencies that invite, warn and laugh with the listener.

the music explores the electric guitar’s timbres and potential to vocally express without word, setting tension/connection between the spoken and unspoken. from overwhelmingly distorted arrangements to dreamier reprieves, the instruments play with energy and fatigue among layers of synthesis, distortion, and expression of the voice and its disfigurement.

Jul 24, 2024

The Clearwater Swimmers • Heaven's A Bar • 2024




The Clearwater Swimmers self-titled debut is, at its core, a collection of field notes exploring gratitude, and how to shape it into a salve, armor, and engine. With songwriting often invoking themes of the natural world, community, and the spaces between, this album deals in the components a person is made up of: millions of small, fleeting moments, experiences, people, feelings - some painful, and some soothing. As much as the lyrics are autobiographical, they are just as much a letter to the threads that comprise the group, what ties them together, and what extends beyond.