Sister Gemini is one Remy Jean, supported on her debut album Screaming Crying Laughing Sighing by a quite select collaborative crew, with musicians and producers that have worked with the list of likes that reads as a sort of ‘who’s who’ list of currently hip artists, from Father John Misty to Phoebe Bridgers, to Blake Mills, among others. So why would such a hip list enlist their services for a relatively new artist’s debut? Well, Remy Jean has got that, as French would say je ne sais quoi that covers an intriguing ground as if Camera Obscure was covering Liz Phair and Throwing Muses at the same time.
It all comes down that Remy Jean is coming out with her debut album with a fully formed, personal sound that was shaped by her…
Category: indie-pop
The spirit of Liz Phair, Fiona Apple and the late great Jill Sobule emanates from this fantastic first record, and these 11 songs show Emma Gerson (aka lucky break) is a name to look out for. The album was mixed and mastered by Grammy-nominated Jessica Thompson and was recorded with Gerson and her friend and co-producer Elliott Woodbridge in a studio in Burbank. They did all the instrumentation together; Gerson was on acoustic guitar, Woodbridge did everything else. And what a confident and truly enjoyable listen it is.
It opens with ‘Big Swing’, a dreamy, guitar-drenched ode to the challenges of reaching adulthood. This new feeling is a difficult one, and she’s voicing her feelings of being all at sea. An opener that captures the imagination…
Modernism functions as both a companion piece to Chris Stamey’s 2025 LP Anything Is Possible and a love letter to the wide spectrum of crafted pop hooks and freeform rock that saturated AM/FM radio frequencies in the ’60s and early ’70s. Working out of his Modern Recording studio in Chapel Hill, N.C., the dB’s cofounder and onetime Alex Chilton collaborator revisits classics by the Beatles, the Kinks, Sly and The Family Stone, the Left Banke and others, also throwing in a few of his own songs.
Modernism’s formidable guest list includes Big Star’s Jody Stephens, Wilco’s Pat Sansone, members of the dB’s, Brian Wilson alumni Probyn Gregory and Nelson Bragg, the Uptown Horns, drummer Jon Wurster (Mountain Goats,…
Swim Deep’s evolution has been fascinating to watch. Since forming in 2011, the British indie band have zigged and zagged through different shades of alternative music, taking in everything from the dreamy indie-pop of 2013 debut Where the Heaven Are We and the synth-led psych wigout of follow-up ‘Mothers’, to third album Emerald Classics’ ‘90s dance-pop leaning sounds. Another left turn landed in 2024, with There’s a Big Star Outside – rich, warm, introspective alt-rock that twinkled and swelled.
Two years on from that last record, Swim Deep – frontman Austin “Ozzy” Williams, keyboardist James Balmont, bassist Cavan McCarthy, guitarist JJ Buchanan and drummer Thomas Fiquet – are breaking the habit of a lifetime.
…featuring 8 new tracks & reworks.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Rialto’s greatest ambition was to obtain immortality as the answer to a pub quiz question, that being: which band had the longest period between second and third albums? In the case of this band, who fizzled to a couple of minor hits only at the very end of the Britpop era, it’s been 24 years. Nearly a quarter of a century is a long time to be away, only then to be coming back.
Contemporaries Pulp are also releasing a new album after an uncannily similar time between releases, but Jarvis Cocker and co have sporadically toured in between. Rialto have not. Will anyone remember them? Do they start from scratch? And, perhaps most pertinently, why now?
Following up on their expansive 2024 double album Stung!, the Western Australia-based psychedelic rock outfit Pond wanted to tighten things up. The result is the much more focused Terrestrials, a collection of synth-heavy rockers that shine with a neon gleam.
The group – Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, Joe Ryan, Jamie Terry, and James Ireland entered the studio with three rules: no fuzz pedals, no ballads, and, as they say, “no Pink Floyd shit”. The resulting ten songs are supremely focused on an early-80’s electro-pop sound. The opening “Skyworks” successfully sets the tone for what is to follow as the New Wave-laden synths, tight, revved-up riffs, and drum machine get the dance floor packed in rousing fashion.
Can we get a “WOO-HOO”? For “lost” albums to see the light of day during an artist’s lifetime is something of a rarity. Fortunately, Graham Coxon is very much alive and kicking and has gifted us with his ninth solo LP Castle Park. Recorded in 2011 during the sessions for A+E, it fell by the wayside as Coxon found himself occupied with another Blur reunion tour and album. It was then further buried by his soundtrack work on The End of the Fucking World, his graphic novel and accompanying music for ‘Superstate’, his life as half of The WAEVE with partner Rose Elinor Dougall, and then another roll of the dice with his old Britpop chums for some mega Wembley and festival shows and the sublime ‘Ballad of Darren’.
Now, in a rare moment of calm, Coxon is…
Andrew Jim Gannon feels like he’s lived multiple lives. Starting off in an indie/guitar band, then sliding into studio work, then being asked to set up a studio for an unknown client.
This led to him producing, and engineering, the 2010 Giggs album Let Em Ave It. In the early 2020s he stepped away from anonymous studio work to release music as On Man. This led to a glorious self-titled album, which led him to finally release music under his own name.
Listening to his new album Hydrate Those Folds! it’s all there – a lot of it in plain sight, but some of it hidden just below the surface.
‘Golden Kayak’ is the first great song on the album. The backing track as a pulsating drone, stuttering beats and languorous synths,…
Sometimes, you just have to let things go and while it can be uncomfortable, it can also be incredibly liberating – and the Embrace boys are championing this philosophy superbly in Avalanche, their ninth studio album and their first release in four years. When you stop anticipating the big moments and let it flow, the need to have your life figured out swiftly fades away. It becomes about the small things – the ones you’d otherwise miss. The name of the album is a metaphor for the force of feeling when the little moments all snowball together and how it’s important to celebrate those smaller imperfect moments of life as opposed to being laser focused on the ‘big picture’. It was conceived on the idea that life doesn’t pause for permission; it keeps on…
Hit That Perfect Beat: The London Records Story is a double-CD companion to a podcast of the same name, charting the history of the label from the early 1980s, after the British branch of Decca Records was acquired by PolyGram. Though the label was reopened in the 2010s, the compilation stops in the early 2000s, bringing highlights from more than 20 years of hit releases.
The set starts out in the new wave era, with a few classics like Bananarama’s enduring “Cruel Summer” and Bronski Beat’s queer anthem “Smalltown Boy,” along with U.K. hits by acts drawing from folk (the Bluebells, Hothouse Flowers) and soul (Total Contrast, Carmel). Bronski Beat appear again with the compilation’s namesake tune, and leader Jimmy Somerville’s…
Having a solo project has been Josh Conway’s dream since he was a child. Between then and now, he has found international acclaim with The Marías, of which he is the drummer, primary producer and co-writer of nearly all of their material. With this outfit, Conway broadcast his distinctive production style, blurring bedroom-pop and dream-pop hallmarks with psychedelic undertones. There is an ethereal, understated and cohesive quality to The Marías, whilst still retaining a penchant for pop capacity and heterogeneous production. As many listeners of Conway will likely have come from The Marías’ fanbase, there will be trepidation about how similar it may sound, how far he will drift from the band sonically, or whether his production style works without his band.
Nicholas Krgovich and Joseph Shabason’s shared musical journey began in 2020 when, along with Chris Harris, they released Philadelphia, one of that year’s best and most highly acclaimed albums. In the six years since, the pair have joined forces with a series of other notable collaborators, including M. Sage and, most recently, Japanese avant-pop heroes Tenniscoats. Four Days in June, though a Shabason and Krogovich album by name, sees the pair enlist a wide range of musicians, including fiddle and banjo player Sam Amidon, guitarist Thom Gill, bassist/keyboardist Bram Gielen and drummer Phil Melanson. Krgovich sings and writes the lyrics, while Shabason plays synth, piano, sax and flute. The result is an album of subtle, often delicate layers, borrowing…
Meltt is a psych-ish rock band from Canada that is set to drop its third album, Pathways, on June 12. The 13-song album is preceded by the release of no fewer than eight singles, the earliest of which, “Hesitate,” dropped almost a year ago, in July 2025. All eight were collected in the order of appearance on the “In Good Time” single, the last one released on May 28 of this year.
There’s a method here of giving each single the chance to capture the attention of the non-album-oriented public before releasing the complete album, a strategy the band began experimenting with for the rollout of Eternal Embers in 2023. If album-oriented folks tilt their heads in anti-climactic wonder, well, that’s too bad. They’re not a big part of the music-streaming…
Arguably the worst fallout of the American Democratic Party’s decade of humiliation and ineptitude was the 2016 release of Le Tigre’s “I’m With Her”. To fashion the aesthetic and soul of art-punk into an establishment worshipping, pro-Hillary Clinton ‘anthem’ has banished the genre into the deepest reaches of musical hell since; every set and record must now begin with an apology and a land acknowledgment. Like a trip to KFC after eating rotten chicken, even the sound of a punk timbre over a synth has given me nausea to this day. 2026 may be a year of rekindling, as La Sécurité joins Mandy, Indiana in going ornate and reckless with the genre.
Whereas the latter’s Urgh is a masterpiece of industrial sound design and ultra-propulsive…
Slippers‘ cozy brand of indie pop is baked to perfection on their second album Slippers 08. Madeline BB is the writer and singer, and drummer too, and she’s got the whole thing figured out. It’s never a bad idea to mix together intimate C-86 noise pop, woolly Elephant 6-sounding indie, and hooky, pocket-sized power pop, especially when the songs are short and focused, the guitars are crisp and jangly, the rhythm section plays with economical punch, and the vocals have best friend warmth. BB’s lyrics feel like that same friend telling you about her hopes, dreams, problems, and feelings; it’s so small scale and intimate that it’s impossible not to be drawn in right away. She never overstays her welcome musically, keeping the songs very short and never…
When Joan As Police Woman released Real Life in 2006, it felt like the arrival of a fully formed solo artist rather than a debut in the usual sense. Joan Wasser had already lived several creative lives as a violinist, band member, collaborator and arranger, and the album gathered those histories into a poised, intimate set of songs about grief, love, survival and the possibility of carrying on. Twenty years later, Real Life Evolution returns to the same ten songs with a different kind of knowledge. The title is well chosen. These are songs that have aged, travelled, stretched, tightened and changed emotional weight through performance.
A clear sign of that evolution is the running order. The original album began with ‘Real Life’ and ended with ‘We Don’t Own It’. The new version…
Dea Matrona have returned to the limelight with their sophomore album Hate That I Care. Written, self-recorded and self-produced entirely on the road, this 12-track body of work vocalises the 10-year history of Mollie McGinn and Orláith Forsythe – from busking on the streets of Belfast to opening for The Beaches, and every story in between. Hate That I Care represents the intrusive thoughts that haunt every listener; the self-reflection, the self-assessment and the choice to stay silent or do something with that self.
Immediately, the feeling of nostalgia is ignited. The beauty in this album is the pure ’80s rock and alternative sound at the core of every song, reminding listeners of The Cranberries or Fleetwood Mac. The title track, ‘Hate That…
…featuring a previously unreleased demo, alternate versions of much-loved album favorites and a cover from the sessions for their seminal debut album.
Light Upon the Lake is the moseying debut album of Whitney, a septet built around the core songwriting team of Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek, both formerly of Smith Westerns. Often surprisingly intimate for a seven-piece, the group makes subtle use of instrumentation like brass and strings to flesh out without symphonizing their country-tinged indie pop.
The melancholy opener, “No Woman,” begins with cushiony keyboards and a short brass fanfare before Ehrlich — who doubles as the band’s lead singer and drummer — introduces his misty, double-tracked falsetto. He appears…
…four new tracks: new single ‘Should’ve Known Better’ joins unreleased songs ‘Perfect 10’ and ‘Hypothetical’, plus an acoustic ‘Lesbian of the Year’.
The Beaches have been slingshotted to a level of fame seen by few bands this side of the border, with their 2023 smash “Blame Brett” now sitting pretty at well over a hundred million streams on Spotify alone. They’ve been on the cover of Exclaim! and featured on the Freakier Friday soundtrack, as well as playing prestigious festivals and exponentially larger shows — stateside and beyond. The Toronto-based four-piece undeniably have more eyes on them than ever for the release of their third studio album, No Hard Feelings.
At 11 tracks, No Hard Feelings is full of…
It seems obvious and trite to say that Liz Lawrence‘s fifth album was one that she should never have had to write. The story behind Vespers is a heartbreaking one – in the summer of 2024, Lawrence’s sister Jessie suddenly died following an accident while on holiday in Ireland. For the next few months, Lawrence was understandably plunged into a kind of creative inertia, until six months later, the songs for Vespers were written over a period of three weeks.
The result is an album that couldn’t be more different to Lawrence’s last record – the funk-pop behemoth that was Peanuts – but one that’s likely to stand as one of the most beautiful, affecting and life-affirming records you’ll hear all year. As grief is, sadly, the most universal of…