Category: indie


Samantha Crain – Gumshoe (2025)

Filed Under: indie-folk by exy — Leave a comment
May 2, 2025

With Gumshoe, Samantha Crain overcomes her tendency to self-isolate. Crain’s signature blend of folk, blues, and rock has appeared on Reservation Dogs and Lily Gladstone’s film Fancy Dance.
A member of the Choctaw nation, Crain used Gumshoe as an opportunity to take on their motto “Together we’re more.” Gumshoe feels more fluid and celebratory than Crain’s work has in some time, as she invited her band to collaborate more in the process.
The album kicks off with  “Dragonfly,” a retro rocker with a flittering, angular guitar line that will catch your ears immediately. The rev-up contrasts what was with what’s to come: balancing Crain’s fierce independence with the human need to build connection with others.

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VA – Electric Junk: Deutsche Rock, Psych and Kosmische 1970-1978 (2025)

Filed Under: box-set, electronic, prog-rock, psychedelic rock by exy — 9 Comments
May 2, 2025

Electric Junk: Deutsche Rock, Psych and Kosmische 1970-1978 is Cherry Red’s deep dive into the German underground, mainly focusing on rock music but also delving into spacy, abstract electronic sounds. The liner notes make a point to immediately disavow the K word, though it makes the set’s title slightly misleading, as Deutschrock is actually a much more mainstream, blue-collar form of German rock music than the experimental styles lumped together as Krautrock.
The compilers intentionally avoided Can and Kraftwerk, instead shining light on a lot of more obscure acts, yet also making the case that Faust should be regarded as a pop band. The release doesn’t shy away from including lengthy jams, with a righteous Guru Guru cut starting things…

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Lucius – Lucius (2025)

Filed Under: indie-pop by exy — 1 Comment
May 2, 2025

After joining the Fantasy Records roster in 2023, Lucius released the single “Stranger Danger” as a preview of their fourth studio album, but the following year, the seductive indie pop outfit instead delivered a re-recording of their debut LP, 2013’s Wildewoman (with a new duet with Brandi Carlile added to sweeten the pot). It turns out that the two releases, much like the band’s tandem lead vocalists, are complementary.
Following divergences into more stylized ’80s pop, new wave, dance-pop, and more over the years, the expected album, titled simply Lucius, finds them looking back across the intervening years with a more direct indie pop reminiscent of their early material. It’s a poignant set of earnest songs focused on the acclaimed singers’ voices…

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Lael Neale – Altogether Stranger (2025)

Filed Under: indie-pop by exy — 1 Comment
May 2, 2025

Over its crisp 32 minutes and nine songs, Altogether Stranger embraces electropop, lo-fi terrain and gothic solo contemplation. By deconstructing modern R&B, the upbeat “Come on” is as close as it gets to pop’s mainstream. The unifying factors are Lael Neale’s way with a tune – she writes a memorable song – and her penetrating yet translucent voice.
The Virginia-born, now Los Angeles-resident Neale’s third album is firmly in the art pop bag. Her main instrument is the electronic Suzuki Omnichord, which can employ pre-set rhythms, be played with buttons and strummed via a touch-sensitive plate. Effectively, it’s a rhythm-assisted analogue of an autoharp. Despite this, Altogether Stranger is not a folk-slanted album.

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Real Estate – The Wee Small Hours: B-Sides and Other Detritus 2011-2025 (2025)

Filed Under: indie-rock by exy — 2 Comments
May 1, 2025

The Wee Small Hours feature B-sides, covers, and previously unreleased songs from the New Jersey band’s 14-year tenure with Domino. It includes also Real Estate’s renditions of Television’s “Days,” the Nerves’ “Paper Dolls,” and the Strokes’ “Barely Legal.”
“This is something we’ve talked about doing for a while now,” Real Estate frontman Martin Courtney said in a press statement. “The title comes from the lyrics to an unreleased song we recorded during the Atlas sessions at Wilco’s loft in Chicago back in 2013, which in turn references a great Frank Sinatra record. This feels to us like a worthy addition to the catalog and we hope you all love it.” Real Estate released their self-titled debut via Woodsist in 2009. They joined Domino in 2011…

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TV Smith – Channel 5 (1983, Remastered 2025)

Filed Under: post-punk, remastered by exy — 3 Comments
May 1, 2025

TV Smith’s first solo album, reissued from the master tapes for the first time.
The artwork has been professionally restored and packaged in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with extensive liner notes by longtime fan and author Dave Thompson.
In January 1983, TV SMITH reunited with their ex-promoter Tim Cross and David Bowie’s ex-guitarist Tim Renwick to record “Channel 5” at Wickham Studios in Croydon. 3 weeks later the album was finished and was to be released in June.
“War Fever” was intended to be the first single, but at that time there was a general election in the country in which the ruling Conservative Party played the card of victory in the Falklands War, so the single disappeared without trace.

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Car Seat Headrest – The Scholars (2025)

Filed Under: indie-rock by exy — 1 Comment
May 1, 2025

The first studio album from Car Seat Headrest in five years, The Scholars.
From Shakespeare to Mozart to classical opera, Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo pulled from the classics when devising the lyrics and story arc of ‘The Scholars,’ while the music draws, carefully, from classic rock story song cycles such as The Who’s ‘Tommy’ and David Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust.’ “One thing that can be a struggle with rock operas is that the individual songs kind of get sacrificed for the flow of the plot,” Toledo notes. “I didn’t want to sacrifice that to make a very fluid narrative. And so this is sort of a middle ground where each song can be a character and it’s like each one is coming out on center stage and they have their song and dance.”

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