Born and raised in Valldemossa, a picturesque village on the island of Majorca, singer Júlia Colom grew up immersed in a rich tradition of Spanish folk music. The first song she learned, at age six, was The Song of the Sibyl, a medieval chant performed on Christmas Eve. Passed down orally through generations of Majorcans, The Song of the Sybil is long and ornate — a melismatic tune with lyrics that foretell the Apocalypse. Unsurprisingly, it left a lasting impression on Colom.
This musical memory sparked Colom’s passion for singing. Curiosity soon became vocation, and at 18, Colom left Majorca for Barcelona, where she earned a degree in music and expanded her practice into composition and contemporary music. Still deeply connected to her Majorcan heritage,…
Category: indie-pop
When Go-Kart Mozart released Tearing Up the Album Charts in 2005, Lawrence was in a bad place. Fighting addiction and hard times, he made one of the few missteps — self-proclaimed — of his career and put out a record made up of old songs written for a Denim album and demos that were in a half-finished state. He was never satisfied by it, and when he had the chance — brought on by a lifted profile thanks to some great Mozart Estate records and a book about his life — he jumped at it. Tower Block in a Jam Jar is a rework of Tearing that juggles the tracks, adds new instrumentation, and features all-new vocals. He also rewrote and retitled the song “At the DDU” to shift away from the subject matter — getting a dose of methadone — that no longer applied.
Vicious Delicious couldn’t feel more seasonally suited: the string-drenched ‘Spider’ and its creepy-crawly refrain – “Spider, spider, crawling inside her” – is like something from a horror movie. But Luvcat isn’t here for spooky season alone – this debut plays more like Halloween with a Valentine’s Day lens over the top. Light versus dark, innocence versus kink, desire versus destruction: Luvcat is always straddling both sides. “Nothing’s fictional, it’s all real,” she promises. And when she declares, “Can’t get off the ferris wheel / When the circus is in me,” during the carnival chaos of ‘Blushing’, it’s clear the ride’s about to start.
Opener ‘Lipstick’ gets straight to business with its flirtatious command: “Come kiss off all my lipstick.” Here, she toys with doll-like role-play…
Pete Namlook, one of the most influential figures in the history of electronic music, passed away in 2012, leaving behind a vast sonic legacy. Yet Air remains his most poetic, organic, and emotionally resonant project. Created between 1993 and 2006, the Air series is a five-part symphony of ambient, ethnic, jazz, neoclassical, and cosmic electronic elements.
Now, nearly two decades later, we proudly present the long-awaited reissue of the entire series – for the first time ever as a complete 5CD boxset. From the wind-kissed sensuality of Air I, through the abstract voyages of Air II, the rich instrumental palette of Air III, the stylistic fusion of Air IV, to the deeply personal and introspective Air V – this collection stands as a milestone in ambient…
California’s The Neighbourhood are on a mission to make goth R&B a touchstone in the musical lexicon. It’s a sound they championed on their debut album, 2013’s I Love You, and continue to explore on their sophomore effort, 2015’s Wiped Out! Once again working with producer Justyn Pilbrow, the Neighbourhood expand upon the moody synth, heavy bass, and echoey guitar-based style of I Love You with a collection of tracks that, while not mind-blowing, will pleasingly remind most fans of the group’s 2012 breakout track, “Sweater Weather.” While other artists have flirted with the darker side of R&B, including Lana Del Rey, the xx, and Halsey (who also worked with Pilbrow on her similarly inclined 2015 debut, Badlands), the Neighbourhood commit to…
This fifth studio album from Admiral Fallow is their first in four years, with at least one track (‘The Shortest Night’) dating back further, to the early days of the pandemic. Clearly, the Glasgow five-piece are the kind of band happy to allow their ideas room to breathe, to crystallise at their own pace, which is something palpable on First of the Birds; the best songs here are stately and refined, unfurling at their own pace.
Opener ‘First Names (Storms)’ is a case in point, as is the stunning ‘Dead in the Water’ along with gorgeous closer ‘All the Distractions’ – all tracks where the sparse, elegant instrumentation provide a foundation for frontman Louis Abbott’s stirring vocals to wash over. Elsewhere, there’s experimentation, with mixed…
With Fur & Gold, Bat for Lashes – aka Natasha Khan – brings a fairytale quality and air of mystery to her music, performing a delicate balancing act between everyday emotions and the power of fantasy. As the title suggests, there’s something gorgeous but raw about her songs, which fly from spare British chamber folk to shades of lavish rock, pop, and dance as she throws herself into stories that update the traditions of other iconic female artists. She’s a warrior princess of the moors with only her steed to keep her company on “Horse and I,” a song whose dramatic sweep would do Kate Bush proud; on the fable-like sensual duet “Trophy,” Khan sings “creatures of mercy/shoot them down and set me free” with Björk-like urgency. Despite Fur & Gold’s unabashedly mystical vibe, Khan emphasizes…
…Damien Jurado‘s new album, Private Hospital is the fifth and final instalment of his “Reggae Film Star” pentalogy, a series that began in 2023.
On his Substack, Jurado expressed pride in the series but singled out the upcoming album, calling it a “very different album for me.” While the specifics of the album’s new sound have yet to be revealed, Jurado is making a notable shift in how he releases his music.
Private Hospital will be Jurado’s first album released exclusively in book form. He is moving on from traditional formats like vinyl, CDs, and cassettes, citing there are “a myriad of reasons, but environmental being at the top of my list.” In his announcement, Jurado urged fans to research the environmental impact of polyvinyl…
Entrancing tunes to calm the soul… Alice Phoebe Lou’s sixth album, Oblivion, arrives just two years after Shelter (2023), yet feels like it’s been growing quietly in some sun-dappled corner of the world, waiting for the right moment to unfurl. Recorded in an intimate, improvisational spirit, Lou has spoken of “opening my treasure chest of personal storytelling songs” and leaning into imperfection. The result is an album that shrugs off grandeur in favour of something far rarer: genuine tenderness.
From the opening bars, Oblivion casts a hushed spell. A jazzy Bossa nova breeze runs through several tracks, content to drift rather than demand. On paper, that could spell background music. In practice, Lou’s vocals stop you in your tracks. Sultry and hypnotic, she can sound like…
Jane Inc. began as both a product of lockdowns and a statement of liberation. The pandemic-spawned project has allowed its CEO — Toronto-based artist Carlyn Bezic — to present a more stylistically promiscuous, lyrically provocative identity separate from her collaborative pursuits in the U.S. Girls universe, reinventing this seasoned indie axe-slinger as an all-seeing art-pop auteur equally enamored with electro-disco and bossa nova, like a DIY Madonna who never left the Danceteria. But the euphoric feeling of self-discovery captured on Jane Inc.’s first two albums — 2021’s Number One and 2022’s Faster Than I Can Take — was offset by anxieties over the horrors outside her window and life in their aftermath. “I can’t square the calm/And the eerie…
Suzie True are a fan’s band. Named after a line in a song by 1990s Memphis punks the Oblivians and self-described as “if the Powerpuff Girls formed a Blink-182 cover band,” they’re proud pop culture junkies. References abound — usually as shorthand for insecurities (“Collecting hearts like Pokémon/She’s such a ch-ch-cherry bomb!”) or objects of affection (“Dancing like it’s 1987/And you say I’m just like heaven”), almost always as outlets for escapism. These are songs for slamming your bedroom door because nobody understands, for pretending you’re in a music video even though you’re just driving around your hometown — with the windows down and the radio cranked all the way up, you can hardly tell the difference. The band’s embrace of youthful…
On her debut album Center of Affection, released under the alias Wilby, Maria Crawford manages to guide her musicians like a veteran.
With vibrant sonic ideas and intimate lyricism, the album stands as a striking distillation of beautifully composed rock.
Following a string of independently released EPs throughout the 2020s, Wilby signed with Hit the North Records earlier this year. Center of Affection, financed by a crowdfund, undoubtedly carries a more sweeping and grand scope compared to her past EPs. The production sounds large-scale, the song ideas are more ambitious, and Wilby sounds unapologetic and personal. Her vocals are quiet and intimate most of the time; she either channels the soft and ghostlike vocals of…
…remastered by Kevin Vanbergen.
By developing a flair for tight, melodic hooks on Star, Tanya Donelly unexpectedly achieved the crossover success with Belly that eluded her with the Throwing Muses and the Breeders. Evidently inspired by such success and eager to prove that Belly was a full-fledged band, not just a solo project, Donelly and company made a bid for stardom with their second album, King.
Veteran producer Glyn Johns gives the band an appealingly punchy sheen, and with the assistance of Tom Gorman and new bassist Gail Greenwood, Donelly cuts away her remaining arty preciousness, concentrating solely on big pop songs. While some fans will miss the occasional detour into spacy dream pop, Belly’s makeover is…
“Ike piano,” an instrumental highlight from Forever, is tasteful, pretty, and elegant. This is not where you expect to find Bassvictim. Henry ‘Ike’ Clateman is most at home behind the decks, detonating 808s and cheap-synthed dubstep in London basement clubs. Here, he’s steeping a piano in delay and letting tiny shoals of melody do their thing. Vocalist Maria Manow should be on stage, striking vape-flavored fervor into the hearts of sweaty moshpits. Now she’s letting amorphous, doe-eyed cello melodies float away like abandoned balloons at a birthday party.
All of this from a group who once wrote a banger about a G-string, the figureheads of London’s buzzy experimental scene who reportedly aren’t allowed back at Berghain ever again.
After years of obscurity, Pulp shot to stardom in Britain with 1994’s His ‘n’ Hers. By the time Different Class was released at the end of October 1995, the band, particularly lead singer Jarvis Cocker, were genuine British superstars, with two number two singles and a triumphant last-minute performance at Glastonbury under their belts, as well as one tabloid scandal.
On the heels of such excitement, anticipation for Different Class ran high, and not only does it deliver, it blows away all their previous albums, including the fine His ‘n’ Hers. Pulp don’t stray from their signature formula at all — it’s still grandly theatrical, synth-spiked pop with new wave and disco flourishes, but they have mastered it here. Not only are the melodies and…
‘Miss America’, the centrepiece of Jennifer Walton’s stylish, painful debut record, sits us down in a hotel room near JFK airport, watching on as Walton learns that her father has been diagnosed with cancer. The Sunderland-born musician had been touring the US for the first time, drumming with indie band Kero Kero Bonito, and now grief greys everything out. Faltering piano and hushed strings accompany gothic dispatches from the tour van: “Cattle farm and broke down shack / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks.”
Walton’s gentle vocals are deadpan, with the record’s tension brought by her penmanship (encompassing fiction, folksy sayings and blunt diary entries) and her sharp, surprising maximalism. Few songs this year have…