…Peanut is the sixth-ish album by New York-based musician and engineer Otto Benson, and the first with vocals. He shed a lot of skin before arriving at this album’s dusky, dusty sound, which is defined by gentle nylon-stringed guitar and shivery Rhodes piano and lands somewhere at the intersection of Frankie Cosmos, Hayden Pedigo, and Let It Die-era Feist. A scan of his meticulously maintained website reveals a trove of hyperactive vaporwave under the name Memo Boy; ambient music as Ronnie P; puckish hyperpop under the name OTTO; a tingly beat tape with Mietze Conte; and at least a handful more experiments with different forms of contemporary electronic pop.
…All of this is to say that form is clearly important to Benson; although Peanut is his…
Category: indie-pop
Throughout 2024, the Swedish duo Club 8 released a single a month, then gathered them up on an enchanting record titled A Year with Club 8. The idea was such a good one that they did the same thing in 2025.
This time the resulting album was titled Seasonal Echoes and it finds them walking a similar path of warmly melancholic indie pop spiced with the occasional burst of noise pop and a wistful ballad or two. This is the kind of music Johan Angergård and Karolina Komstedt were seemingly born to make, and it should heat the hearts of pop lovers both vintage and newly minted to hear them still making music this sweetly real. As always, Angergård constructs perfect pop miniatures for Komstedt’s lilting voice;…
Syd dePalma’s Paris is dreamlike. Echoes abound, sculpting recognizable rock, folk, and pop stylings into imaginative new shapes. As he plays with light and shadow, the borders between fantasy and reality blur. The familiar soars. An eerie melancholy fills even the most straightforward of dePalma’s melodies, a desperation buried deep in the foundation of every line he sings. The lyrics are uncanny, the sounds constantly shifting. Only two years out from debut, El Lugar de Arder, Paris is a ferocious next step for dePalma, one that radiates surreal energy.
Vivid imagery abounds: of body parts, desire, tears, the sky, the ground, the city, the country. As lead singer on almost all tracks, dePalma makes for a compelling guide to his uncanny world.
European Sun came together when musician/writer Steve Miles met U.K. indie pop stalwart Rob Pursey (of Heavenly, Tender Trap, the Catenary Wires, etc.) through a mutual musician friend. With Miles on lead vocals and guitar, and backed by Pursey and his frequent bandmates Amelia Fletcher and drummer Ian Button, they launched European Sun with an eponymous album in 2020. It showcased Miles’ anxiously observant, underdog-minded spoke-sung lyrics within a tuneful, D.I.Y indie pop setting. With the vocally kindred Elin Miles stepping in for Fletcher on backing vocals, their second album, When Britain Was Great, sees Miles let loose more as a writer, with confessional songs full of observant social commentary, pop culture references, and timidity.
…features two bonus tracks not on the original album. The bonus tracks, “My Lover” and “I Love(d) New York”, were originally left off the initial release due to vinyl space constraints.
Seven albums in, White Lies continue to evolve while keeping their signature mix of shadowy synth-pop and widescreen emotion intact. Night Light finds the London trio leaning deeper into electronic textures than ever before, with the guitars now playing a supporting role to shimmering synths, pulsing basslines, and Harry McVeigh’s commanding baritone.
It’s a sleek, modern evolution that keeps the band’s DNA intact while exploring new sonic territory. The album bursts to life with ‘Nothing On Me’, a quickfire opener that clocks in at just…
…’Growing Pains (Deluxe)’ features six added tracks, including “Heavy Heart,” and “Tumbleweed,” and four acoustic tracks that were recorded at Second Nature Vintage in Nashville.
Closing in on their 20-year anniversary, LA’s blues and hip-hop-infused indie pop/rock band Andy Frasco & The U.N. continue to mix sharp humor with often weighty issues on Growing Pains, their 10th studio album.
Though the band has always been willing to wade into the occasional deep lyrical waters in the past (though admittedly with plenty of sly humor and subtlety), this new record finds Frasco and company reflecting on growing up and mortality. That is apparent on the album’s first single, the undeniably catchy “Try Not to Die,” ticking…
Since the dissolution of Yura Yura Teikoku, Shintaro Sakamoto has refined a solo language built on understatement. Where his former band favoured volatility, his solo records proceed at lower pressure, privileging texture, spacing and grooves that remain deliberately underdeveloped. On his fifth solo album, Yoo-hoo, that approach resolves into a two-part movement, the record gradually shifting from suspension into motion without ever announcing the change. ‘Is There a Place For You There?’ establishes the album’s opening register, its unhurried and blown-out vocal and flattened delivery setting a mood of controlled inertia, melting against, even slowing the beckoning rhythm of Yuta Suganuma’s drums. The early stretch is governed by tactile…
Although Whitney K is widely characterised as being the artistic expedient of itinerant Canadian musician Konner Whitney (see what he did there?), his latest recording venture Bubble feels much more like a band project than his/their previous recordings. Whitney himself is responsible for all the lyrics here but the musical backings are credited to the core band responsible for recording them in their ‘home studio’ in Montreal. This is mostly Whitney himself alongside Josh Boguski, Michael Halls and Avalon Tassonyi, with support from James Perry. There are other supplementary musicians on ‘Bubble’ but for the most part this is the line-up that has worked on Whitney K’s recent records. Here they deliver a raw and restrained set of songs nourished by warm…
The last time we heard from The Format, the pop duo of Nate Ruess and Sam Means, the world was a much different place. The band’s previous LP arrived 20 years ago in the summer of 2006, and if anyone ever asks what that summer sounded like, The Format’s Dog Problems is a good place to start. Their youthful energy, fueled by curiosity and anxiety, was drenched in danceable melodies and sun-blenched instrumentation, creating an infectious LP of pop anthems. The bright aesthetic of the LP defines a sound that has been lost in time, carefree pop that wanders listlessly through life waiting for the next opportunity to drop its shoulders. That relaxing time, though, is far in the rearview, and pop music has changed drastically.
Much like the world around them, Ruess and…
Like a sausage supper or a good slug of whisky, The Just Joans will keep you warm during these dark winter months. One of Scotland’s greatest indie bands, they’ve been around for two decades, and their latest LP mixes their trademark sardonic humour with a new year music cocktail of Blur, The Kinks, Elastica and The Lightning Seeds.
Led by siblings David and Katie Pope, The Just Joans’ latest album, Romantic Visions of Scotland, is about “mundane failings, bitter regrets and missed opportunities”, perfect for those January blues. There are great titles like ‘Strictly Presbyterian’, ‘Here Come the Rugby Boys’ and ‘Drinking On a Weeknight’ and whipsmart lyrics like ‘Back On the Meds’ ‘I started crying in the chip shop / Do you want salt and vinegar?’
In their infancy, Vancouver trio cub embraced the term cuddlecore — coined by friend and Destroyer guitarist Nicolas Bragg — as a cheeky tagline for their ramshackle fusion of ‘60s bubblegum pop and three-chord punk rock. It was an apt descriptor; their 1993 debut record Betti-Cola had garnered a cult following on North American college campuses in part because of its Archie Comics-inspired cover art, riddled with sentient teddy bears, rainbow Popsicles, and lucky pennies.
Where cub’s visuals exuded cuteness, their songwriting possessed a campy bite. Like their twee-punk contemporaries in Heavenly and Tiger Trap, cub’s best songs capture the emotional confusion and lost innocence of adolescence, stories of teenage runaways and…
We live in an age of multitudes. Our emotions today tilt from joy to horror to humour with the flick of a doom-scrolling finger. Likewise, the art of this era has started to reflect this boundaryless mania. See the multiverse trope in cinema and pop music’s embrace of darker themes and avant-garde producers. Recent cultural history could even be viewed as an arms race of increased emotional complexity; from modernist sincerity to postmodern scepticism to contemporary multiplicities.
These sorts of oscillating moods are something Clothesline from Hell (the solo project of Toronto multi-instrumentalist Adam LaFramboise) utilises with intuitive aplomb. The accessible but gently complex music he comes up with…
Some albums take years to make. The Stone Roses famously took their sweet time over The Second Coming, while Guns N’ Roses made fans wait for over a decade before finally delivering Chinese Democracy. Tugboat Captain? They made Dog Tale in a week, mate – done and dusted in seven days, it’s a refreshing testament to creative brevity.
Recorded at South London studio Ctrl P – run by Sox and Josh from the band – there’s a pervading comfort to the material on Dog Tale. As time has gone on, Tugboat Captain have added baroque flourishes to their songwriting, and while the arrangements here testify to that, they equally refuse to be smothered by ad hoc additions.
As a result, it’s a beaming grin of a record, a witty series of quips, diversions, and…
…The Australian singer-songwriter Georgia Knight‘s debut record, Beanpole, is a dark, introspective meditation on desire — the Lacanian kind: desire rooted in the Other. Always is, isn’t? In some sense, we’re actors waiting to be seen and chosen, as if by a film director (where are you, Antonioni? Dead. Oh.). You won’t be hearing Knight drawing these conclusions — as the narrator, in the throes of an all-consuming desire, can barely think, let alone think critically.
Desire is about escaping yourself; this is why, on Beanpole, you will hear of a character wanting to be a “rockerbilly”, and, although it might seem silly, transcendence is at the heart of desire and, thus, the record.
Recorded between Knight and Andrew “Idge”…
Dreams can be either of two things: alluring or fleeting. It can either pull you into its fascinating details, stirring enough to stick with you for quite some time. Or it just washes over you, where hazy moments can be observed, but feel like there’s not much to glean at the end of it all. Sassy 009’s newest project, Dreamer+, falls under both edges. Carrying an intriguingly amorphous character to its soundscapes, yet simultaneously never fully embracing its capabilities.
Take the meditative, atmospheric rock of “Tell Me”. Its moody presentation and Sunniva Lindgård’s airy singing eventually bring Blood Orange into the fray. His voice nestles well within the song’s atmosphere, yet the track just ends there, like a faint breeze that glides across. Its impact…
Despite only being in his twenties, Cavetown, aka Robbie Skinner, boasts a large discography – five studio albums, a live album, several EP’s, and more – each track detailing a phase of his life with disarming honesty. From the palpable teen angst in his first two albums, to the soothing sense of self-acceptance in his 2022 album, worm food, Skinner never shies away from exposing every part of himself. His sixth studio album, ‘Running With Scissors’, is no different.
Cavetown’s discography tells a tale of growth, with Running with Scissors at the forefront, exhibiting a new chapter in his life – one of self-assurance and self-expansion.
Using his introspective lyrical talent to shine light on happier experiences, Skinner…
Ya Tseen is a continually evolving musical collaboration guided by Nicholas Galanin/Yeil Ya Tseen. Born into the Sitka Tribe of Alaska (Tlingit) Galanin is L’uknax.ádi (Raven Coho clan). He began learning music from his father, Dei Kee Tla Tin (Dave Galanin, 1955-2021), an accomplished Blues guitarist who performed under the name Strummin’ Dog. In 2013, Galanin was in a serious boat accident while returning home from a hunting trip that broke his back and ribs. He recalls the stars overhead as he was airlifted from the boat, connecting him to his earliest memory of looking up at the night sky, and his connection to Land. Galanin has returned to this experience of intense connection to Land throughout his career; in many ways, it guides his creative practice.
Amanda Bergman has long been one of Sweden’s most quietly powerful singer-songwriters. Her best work to date, Your Hand Forever Checking On My Fever, was only just released in 2024, making it a fantastic surprise to receive embraced for a second as we die so soon afterwards.
Where Bergman previously folded her vulnerabilities into folksy arrangements, here she leans into a soft-rock warmth.
Songs like ‘grasp’ feature unashamedly ’80s arrangements, big open road melodies and hooks that feel almost Californian, somewhere between the glow of Dylan’s Infidels and the clean, sun-soaked sound of HAIM.
These songs exist in the space between despair and consolation. The grief-stricken never…
After nine albums with indie rock trio Peter Bjorn and John, Peter Morén began to confront the issue of who he really was as a songwriter. Given plenty of time to think during the pandemic, he emerged as SunYears with a debut album, Come Fetch My Soul in 2023. It had elements of guitar pop, indie rock, and folk, a mixture he’s evolved on his second album, The Song Forlorn. Morén credits The Beatles’ Revolver and The White Album as influences that leaned on a variety of styles. There certainly is something for everyone here.
Things kick off with ‘Where Are We’, a grumbling garage rock instrumental leading into the folk rock of ‘Dark Eyes’, inspired by a friend in the throes of depression. A theme continued by the piano ballad ‘Your Dad Was Sad’, written…
Forty years ago, The Twinsets were the ultimate “you had to be there” band, a vibrant, ethereal presence in the history of Scottish independent music. They commanded massive fees for an unsigned act on the university circuit and delivered high-octane sets at the Edinburgh Nite Club, yet they vanished into the mid-80s ether without ever releasing a formal record. Only with the archival devotion of Precious Recordings of London, that silence has finally been broken. This release of the 1982–1983 sessions is more than just a compilation; it is a vital act of musical restitution and a long-overdue correction to the indie-pop canon. The mastering preserves the tension between the girl group sweetness of yesteryear with the grit of punk, ensuring the tracks…