Thursday, 22 January 2026

The Goldberg Sisters - Danny George Wilson - Jont

Photo - Daniel Silbert
The Goldberg Sisters - The Great Resignation.

Between July 2020 and July 2021, more than 1.2 million people left the nation's urban centers and moved to the suburbs – one of those people was actor/director/musician Adam Goldberg who moved from LA to upstate New York. Now, under his moniker The Goldberg Sisters, he’s releasing his new single “The Great Resignation” and its accompanying music video that chronicles that experience.

The warm psych-rock track features background vocals from Abigail and Lily Chapin of The Chapin Sisters and comes from his upcoming LP When the Ships of My Dreams Return, releasing on February 20. Already, Atwood Magazine praised the “eerie, Beatles-tinged new single” as “...a sharply observed portrait of American unease still unfolding in real time,” saying, “There’s a lilting, McCartney-esque ease to its melody, paired with a high, delicate vocal that recalls the lush intimacy of John Lennon’s solo work in the ‘70s.” 

“This is one of those rare songs wherein the idea for the song came to me before any of the musical elements,” shares Goldberg. “While our fleeing from Los Angeles to the Hudson Valley in New York, where my wife grew up, was more a byproduct of my work, we did opt for living outside of the city in part because of Covid and because I may have overidealized the concept of a simpler life. What I didn’t expect was the culture clash that awaited us in our particular neck of the woods.”

He continues: “It seemed fitting to ask our friends Abigail and Lily Chapin of The Chapin Sisters who also moved back to their hometown, to add some vocals. It was Lily, in fact, whose house and incredible vintage recording studio we visited years before we had any inkling about leaving LA, that got me thinking: Hmm…”.  


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Photo - Simon Weller
Danny George Wilson - Distant Seasons.

Danny George Wilson will release his new album 'Arcade' on 20th March via Loose Music. 'Distant Seasons', the first single to be taken from the album, is released this week. "It’s a song about an imagined return. There’s a wonderfully melancholic string section and arrangement (by producer Hamish Benjamin), which is something of a theme throughout the album. As is the case with the new album, it’s about losing people, time & place. Sonically, it’s both rootsy and experimental…a kind of altered earthiness”.

'Arcade' finds Danny George Wilson returning to Hamish Benjamin’s studio in East Sussex - five years on from his startling, post-lockdown solo album Another Place – to construct its sequel. With Lewes-based Benjamin and right-hand man Henry Garratt, again given free rein, 'Arcade' presents a fresh collection of sonically inventive, deeply romantic songs, with atmosphere taking primacy over meaning, and narrative dissolving. As Wilson tells it: 

“The songs are about the ways we deal with losing people, time, place, or don’t deal with it… Looking back, we discover what was always there, or things that are just easier to ignore - different and contradictory perspectives. And I wanted a chance to work with Hamish and Henry again, and this seemed like their thing, and it was”.

Traditional instrumentation meets technology; the majority of tracks feature a string quartet, while Benjamin and Garratt employ synthesiser and mellotron along with a plethora of guitars. Gerry Love again provides backing vocals with cameos from Emma Tricca and Annie Dressner. Fragile, tender, full of uncertainty, ultimately 'Arcade' is a song-cycle in which the premise of each track subverts the previous, and demonstrates most assuredly, we still move in doubt.

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Photo - M. Coleman
Jont - The One I've Never Met Who I Long For.

Jont's first single of 2026, "The One I've Never Met Who I Long For," arrives as a contemplative, gently defiant song about longing, inner peace, and the stories we tell ourselves about love. Wry, passionate, and deeply human, the track examines the myths we inherit and the freedom that comes from stepping outside them. It accompanies Jont's announcement of his forthcoming new album, Walk Right Through, set for release on May 15th, 2026.

The song opens like a classic love story: vivid imagery, a magnetic gaze, the familiar promise of romantic rescue. But Jont upends the narrative in one soft but devastating line – Do you see this picture that I love to draw… of the one I've never met who I long for? What follows is a meditation on the myth of "the one," the cultural conditioning that keeps us searching outward for completion.

"We carry a myth of love around with us. It's so handy (no responsibility!) and so utterly false and disempowering yet we believe it," Jont reflects. "True happiness lies outside of me. Repeat that. Let it sink like the deepest ink into your soul so that it can never be rinsed out. That is what lifetimes of conditioning have done. That is what we hand down to each other and is the lie we gorge on each day."

Instead, the song points to a quieter, more grounded kind of wholeness: the bliss of being settled in yourself, the strange joy of lying awake and feeling fully alive, the satisfaction that asks nothing and proves no one is missing. Is the narrator singing about the contentment of self-discovery or about a more mysterious, spiritual connection? "Is there a double meaning?" Jont asks. "Is he actually happily staring at the ceiling feeling connected to something so much more because he has actually finally met and returned home with 'The One I’ve Never Met Who I Long For'? I'll leave it to you to decide."

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Wednesday, 21 January 2026

Em Spel - Ninå - Chalice Sect - Brother Wallace - The Green Apple Sea - MUKI

Photo - Deidre Huckabay

Em Spel - Geographic.

Em Spel is scheduled to release the new LP "Bird or Snake" on the 27 March on Birdwatcher / Carilloni, the first single "Geographic" is released this week. Em Spel's intricate, flute-driven alt-folk sounds like nothing else in Chicago. Led by songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Emma Hospelhorn, Em Spel's debut album, The Carillon Towers, was hailed by the Chicago Reader as "Scintillating" and by Dusted Magazine as "a folktale turned oddly, surreally modern, a magical realist scenario set in the right now." 

Hospelhorn is a flutist in avant-classical group Ensemble Dal Niente, and her discography includes work on flutes, bass guitar, and keyboards for V.V. Lightbody, Mute Duo, and others working in a diverse array of genres including folk, drone, garage rock, post-punk, and classical. In this solo endeavor, she fuses all of these influences with story-driven lyrics to create invitingly strange folk vignettes.

Em Spel’s second full-length album, Bird or Snake, finds the artist teetering joyfully between art-folk and intimate indie rock. Recorded in Chicago by veteran Califone and Iron & Wine producer Brian Deck, Bird or Snake is an exuberant leap forward for Em Spel. Hospelhorn is at her arranging best, folding dizzying vocal harmonies, elegant instrumental writing, and deftly deployed electronics into a musical tapestry that evokes the warmth and wildness of an industrial Midwestern landscape. The album pulses with life, from the driving drums and propulsively patterned guitars of “Poet” (featuring guest Sam Wagster on soaring pedal steel) through the organ and vocal-driven road trip love song of “Fruiting Body,” which features bird songs Hospelhorn recorded on a handheld microphone at an artist residency in Maine.


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Ninå - Truth or Dare.

Ninå’s “Truth or Dare” blends pop-soul with a bluesy edge and an unmistakably adult feel, classy, confident, and made for late-night rotation. Driven by a locked-in bass line and acoustic guitar, the track moves with effortless groove while letting the vocal lead with warmth, control, and attitude. 

The songwriting keeps it timeless: sharp, vivid lyrics, a chorus that sticks after the first listen, and a guitar solo that seals the mood with real personality. It’s the kind of record that feels both intimate and bold, polished but still human.

Behind it is Ninå, a vocalist who turns real-life turning points into music that feels honest, fearless, and alive. She doesn’t oversell the emotion, she delivers it, and that’s what makes the song hit. "Truth or Dare" is the latest single leading into her upcoming album Bloom with Fire.

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Chalice Sect - Violet Grey.

“Violet Grey” is the latest single from Los Angeles-based electronic darkwave project Chalice Sect. Merging electro-industrial style vocoder, darkwave romance, and dance-driven club rhythms, “Violet Grey” is ready to rouse goth boots onto dancefloors worldwide.

With “Violet Grey,” the band forges a path into goth club rotations with their characteristic blend of industrial-rich beats reminiscent of Kontravoid resculpted with New Order-esque melodicism. Showcasing a unique blend of dark dance fare and '80s alt-inflected songwriting sensibilities, "Violet Grey" delivers a charged reanimation of classic darkwave sounds into heavy electronics for a retro-futuristic sound all its own.

Chalice Sect is a darkwave/post-punk project from Los Angeles, drawing from post-punk, new wave, and dark electro while maintaining a modern electronic edge. Built around driving basslines, synth-heavy arrangements, and direct songwriting, the music balances atmosphere with momentum.

Rather than leaning on nostalgia, Chalice Sect focuses on clarity, rhythm, and energy — creating songs that reference classic influences without sounding dated, and delivering a sound that is both recognizable and current.


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Brother Wallace - Electric Love / Who's That?.

Some artists spend their whole lives getting ready for the moment the world finally hears them. Brother Wallace is one of them. This week, the West Point, Georgia-bred singer, pianist, and soul revivalist announces his debut album 'Electric Love', out on 8th May via ATO Records, and shares the album’s title track—a Motown-esque number that’s equal parts playful, revelatory, and gloriously cathartic—alongside an official music video.

On “Electric Love,” Brother Wallace doesn’t just sing about joy—he fights for it. The song moves like a shot of sunlight through a storm cloud: Stax-and-satin soul, piano-driven, and bursting with momentum, it’s built for the exact moment when you decide you’re not going to let the world harden you. “It’s about choosing connection,” Wallace says. “Finding that current again—the thing that reminds you you’re alive.”

Across its 13 songs, Electric Love is less a debut than a revelation—a body of work fueled by gospel roots and classic soul lineage (Sam Cooke, Little Richard, Southern soul greats) while refusing to live in nostalgia. Wallace writes in lived-in scenes and hard-earned feeling: heartbreak without defeat, joy without naïveté, vulnerability without apology. The album’s rhapsodic opener “Who’s That?” (released last fall as his first ATO single) entered the Top 30 at Triple A radio in the US for the first time this week—an amazing feat for his first-ever single. Now, the title track “Electric Love” expands the frame: this is an artist building a world where joy is radical, and connection is survival. Now, the title track “Electric Love” expands the frame: this is an artist building a world where joy is radical, and connection is survival. 



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Photo - Nic Knelleken
The Green Apple Sea - Big Heart.

German Indie Folk/Americana institution The Green Apple Sea are releasing their new, very personal album "Dark Kid" on February 20th via KF Records. “Big Heart” is a song for and about people who would rather say nothing at all than say something wrong. For those who sneak out of parties without saying goodbye. Who don't answer the phone when it rings because they're afraid of an awkward situation. For people who postpone or don't do important things at all, for fear of messing everything up. 

Those who laugh too loudly at the wrong time. For those who avoid eye contact when talking. For those who use "one" when they mean "I." For those who lower their heads when spoken to. For those who don't reply to a message for weeks because they're afraid of saying the wrong thing. For those who are actually quite funny, but also very strange. For those who feel they don't fit in. For those who know they can't. For those who are far too honest for anyone to take seriously. For those who rarely reply, "Very good. Thank you. And you?" For those who are best off on their own. For those who rarely plan more than a few weeks ahead, because who knows what might happen then. For those who talk to themselves far too loudly when others are around. For those who can't simply be happy when something good happens, because it's supposedly impossible and will inevitably turn into crap. For those who are constantly preparing to die in every possible way. For those whose philosophy of life is more or less reduced to the phrase "I'd rather not."

The theme running through the episodes on the album "Dark Kid" is Stefan Prange's not always easy childhood and adolescence. The fact that his stepfather nicknamed his father "Satan" only seems a bit strange in retrospect. The fact that his stepbrothers chained him to a stair railing with a bicycle lock when no one else felt like watching him might seem a bit cruel in hindsight. But for 10-year-old Prange, it was nothing out of the ordinary. When he tells these stories and sings lines like "I wasn't afraid to die, I was just waiting to die," it's meant with the same pragmatic naiveté with which the protagonist, "Dark Kid," accepts his surroundings.


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MUKI - Gasoline.

MUKI (pronounced mʊk.ie) makes his first impression with 'Gasoline', an emotionally charged indie pop and folk-leaning debut, out this Wednesday, January 21. Born in Dubai with Indian roots, the now Naarm/Melbourne-based Mukul Jiwnani has built his life around making and performing music. A full-time performer, 'Gasoline' marks his official debut under the MUKI moniker, a project shaped slowly and deliberately after years of writing, refining, and searching for the right moment to step forward.  

'Gasoline' unfolds with a gentle sense of space and restraint. Layers of finger-picked electric guitar sit against a spacious kick drum and a hypnotising, echoed snare. While piano drifts through the arrangement to create a lush, dreamlike atmosphere, subtle guitar licks and warm bass lines add colour without crowding the song.  

MUKI’s vocals move between intimacy and emotional release, shifting from wispy softness to impassioned cries and airy falsetto, before opening out into a chorus lifted by layered, choir-like harmonies that wrap the song in warmth.   The result is a loving, immersive intensity that feels deeply personal.  Captured in its slow-burning, impassioned sound, 'Gasoline' reflects on the aftermath of a relationship where love has faded, and acceptance begins to take its place. It captures the moment when holding on no longer makes sense, even while the feeling still lingers. Speaking on the single, MUKI shares:  
 
“'Gasoline’ is my debut single as MUKI, and it’s deeply personal. With ‘Gasoline’, I wanted to capture the tension of a relationship that wouldn’t survive despite every effort. It’s a breakup song, but one about acceptance and moving on.”


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Monday, 19 January 2026

Samuel Taylor - Fast Money Music - Annika Zee

Samuel Taylor - Lost & Overgrown (EP).

Suffolk (England) indie-folk newcomer Samuel Taylor has released his debut EP Lost & Overgrown via No Roads Records (Mt. Desolation). The EP release comes following two radiant singles released in 2025 which established the Suffolk newcomer as one to watch, gaining support across tastemakers including: Notion, Atwood, Earmilk, Amazing Radio and BBC Introducing to name just a few. Alongside the new EP in January 2026, Samuel will also be releasing his first music video of EP track ‘Little World’, by director Mat Kirkby (Adele, Basement Jaxx).

Having been discovered and quickly signed to No Road Records by founder Jesse Quin (Keane, Mt. Desolation), Taylor’s upcoming EP showcases the solo artist's heart-rending songs of love and longing that leave you certain that, however bad things get, it will all be alright.

Produced and mixed by Jesse Quin at Old Jet and mastered by Kevin Tuffy at Tuff Mastering, Lost & Overgrown presents a cohesive and deeply considered musical palette that runs throughout the EP. Rooted in Taylor’s heartfelt, organic indie-folk sensibilities, the collection is defined by a sense of emotional intimacy and careful restraint, allowing each song to unfold naturally and with purpose.

Across the EP, Samuel Taylor’s fragile, emotionally attuned vocals sit at the centre of meticulously crafted soundscapes, anchored by finger-picked acoustic guitar and gradually enriched with subtle layers of strings, keys, banjo and understated percussion. Ambient textures and distant swells create a feeling of space and reflection, while bass and fuller rhythmic elements emerge sparingly, lending the music a cinematic sense of growth around the central folk leaning elements. 


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Fast Money Music - Unfortunately.

Fast Money Music returns with “Unfortunately”, a bittersweet anthem and the latest glimpse at his self-titled debut album arriving this spring. Following the momentum of “Round and Round” (Steve Lamacq BBC 6Music, Clash Magazine) and “Lover Boy” (HERO, Flaunt Mag, John Kennedy Radio X), Fast Money Music is back with “Unfortunately”, and the announcement of the debut album ‘Fast Money Music’, arriving on April 17th 2026.

“Unfortunately” is a bittersweet anthem built on dueling guitars, a driving pulse, and lyrics that sway between intimacy and distance. The track unfolds with seaside imagery: waves, moonlight, and hushed silences, all echoing the cycles of timing in relationships. At its core is a refrain that admits to carrying too much, with both voices weighed down by baggage they can’t quite put aside. Tender yet restless, it captures that familiar space between holding on and letting go.

Recorded between Hackney Road Studios and Fast Money Music’s own space in Dalston, “Unfortunately” pulls from the grooves of The War On Drugs, infusing early New Order sentimentality with a dash of Orange Juice’s bright jangle. “It’s my haunted reply to Rupert Holmes’ ‘Escape (The Piña Colada Song)’,” explains Nick Hinman, “this time centred around NOT drinking, and with the uncertainty of whether the two ever end up together. At its core it’s about intuition, the weight of self-doubt, and how often we’re at the mercy of the forces of nature.”


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Annika Zee - Emerald Spy (Album).

Annika Zee, the Toronto-born multimedia artist and genre-defying musician, returns with her most conceptually daring project to date: Emerald Spy, a vivid and emotionally resonant album released today 19 January 2026.
 
Emerald Spy weaves together diverse sounds and global perspectives into a project that challenges dominant narratives around technology, race, and identity. A fusion of 90s pop nostalgia, ambient electronica, and abstract lyrical storytelling, the album explores the tension between personal fragmentation and collective empowerment in the digital age.
 
Anchored in a commitment to reimagining community and collaboration, Emerald Spy defies conventional pop frameworks. It speaks to a future unbound by extractive technologies and white supremacist AI models, offering instead a vision rooted in memory, resistance, and radical tenderness.
 
“This album connects people across socio-economic and cultural boundaries,” says Zee. “It's about challenging imposed systems while also celebrating the beauty of imagination, resilience, and multiplicity.”

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Sunday, 18 January 2026

Lauren Minear - Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys - Sin Cos Tan - Anna Smyrk

Lauren Minear - Perfect Girl.

New York–based alt-pop singer-songwriter Lauren Minear returns with "Perfect Girl," a razor-sharp, darkly playful exploration of what it means to be a woman expected to shapeshift endlessly to please others. Written from the perspective of a fictional, satirical character, the track leans into the absurdity of "perfection" and the way chasing it strips away humanity in the process.

Built on deliberately hard, robotic production choices, "Perfect Girl" captures the inhumanity of trying to be universally palatable. Minear originally drafted the song in 2021, but it found its true place during the creation of her new album, Boxing Day (released October 17th), a project rooted in anger, honesty, and reclamation. At a co-writing retreat, the track came fully into focus with the help of Dan Weeks, Dan Barrenechea, and Leah Wheatley, who pushed the melody and arrangement into sharper, more subversive territory.

"This song is unlike anything else I've ever written," explains Minear. "It plays with themes of body privilege and power to illustrate how the construct of perfection hurts and disconnects everyone (including men)."

Though the track is built around a fictional voice, "Perfect Girl" taps straight into Minear's longstanding thematic terrain: womanhood, mental health, self-perception, and the quiet wars we wage between who we are and who we’re told to be. "I don't deliberately write about the female experience," she says, "but I am a woman, a mother, and a psychotherapist trained in a feminist relational approach – it comes very naturally to me." In the end, "Perfect Girl" lands as defiant, mischievous, and liberating – a mirror held up to the impossible standards women navigate every day, delivered with a wink, a snarl, and a fully embodied alter-ego.

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Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys - Damp.

As the release of their seventh studio album Pale Bloom approaches (February 13th via Unique Records), Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys unveil the record’s final single, “Damp,” which arrived Friday January 16th.

What began as a stripped-back acoustic sketch from Kruger was later reshaped by guitarist Liú Mottes into something more urgent and propulsive, gradually unfolding into a deep exploration of collapse, raw vulnerability, and the fragile promise of renewal. A steady pulse runs through the track, lending it movement and momentum while leaving space for uncertainty. Feelings of isolation are rendered physical and warm, with drifting violas fading in and out like the last light of day.

“Like most of what I write, it’s about a desire for depth and connection—a kind of quiet mocking of the mundane and domestic,” Kruger explains. “The first verse reflects that polite culture of not saying what you mean, of being too afraid to ask for what you need in case you seem too much, or expose the mess of falling apart. There’s a wanting, though—to give in, give up, or simply to give. Eventually, the fantasy of a breakdown moves closer to the tongue, almost reaching release, before slipping back into silence. Something restrained that feels both tender and oppressive, mirroring the path that led me to the mess of not making a mess in the first place.”

At its core, “Damp” wrestles with the distance between feeling and expression. The lyrics circle restraint, politeness, and the fear of asking for too much. The song builds toward release without ever fully arriving, settling instead into a quiet tension that reflects its central paradox: holding everything in, even when it might be easier to let it spill. Kruger adds, “I like that the thought that can’t quite be spoken hovers veiled above a bed of sound that expresses the feeling far better. It’s in that clash—the friction between what’s said and what’s felt—that the song finds its meaning, or at least does justice to its complexity.”


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Sin Cos Tan - In My House.

Finnish synth-pop duo Sin Cos Tan continue their new chapter with In My House, the second single from their forthcoming album Greed. The track deepens and expands the album’s world by highlighting a more rhythm-driven, club-aware side of the band, without losing the melodic precision and emotional restraint that define their sound.

Formed by producer-DJ Jori Hulkkonen and singer-songwriter Juho Paalosmaa, Sin Cos Tan are known for their rare balance of Nordic melancholy, classic pop songcraft, and precise electronic production. Their music exists between nostalgia and the future: timeless synth pop that feels equally at home in headphones, on night drives, or in late-evening settings.

In My House is darker and more direct than the album’s opening single Cutting Losses. It is built on a steady pulse, repetition, and a rhythmic structure that reflects the duo’s long-standing relationship with club music. Rather than referencing house music as a genre, the track draws on it as an understanding of movement and space. There is something distinctly nocturnal about the song, about the moment when rhythm takes over and carries the listener forward. Within Greed, In My House approaches themes of power, ownership, and desire from its own angle, without explanation or emphasis.

Jori Hulkkonen is one of the central figures in Finnish electronic music, with a career spanning over three decades across multiple strands of electronic sound. In the 1990s, he emerged as a key artist on the influential French label F Communications, contributing to the golden era of French electronic music alongside the label’s founder Laurent Garnier and contemporaries such as Mr. Oizo.


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Photo - Michelle G Hunder
Anna Smyrk - Skin Thinner.

Naarm/Melbourne based singer-songwriter Anna Smyrk lets down her walls with ‘Skin Thinner’. The new single is here ahead of her debut album ‘Spectacular Denial’ which will be out on the 20th of March via Community Music. Arriving as a catchy dose of indie-pop, ‘Skin Thinner’ shines a light on the complex processes that come with the loss of a loved one. Sonically upbeat, the lyrics bare an unexpected and powerful vulnerability.

Sharing more Anna explained: ‘I wrote this song about trying to peel away the layers that I put up to protect my mind after my dad passed away unexpectedly. It’s a resolution to try to work through the shock and denial and be open to the world again.  

Denial and staying numb can be a useful part of the process, it can protect you when you’re not ready to feel your feelings. But at some point, if you want to feel all the good stuff as well, you need to find a way to stay open and hold the painful stuff and the joyful stuff at the same time.’

With the release of her first full length album ‘Spectacular Denial’ coming in March, listeners can look forward to a beautifully compelling body of work. Shaped by her deeply personal journey with grief and her exploration of the many forms denial can take, the new album sonically sits in a rich space between indie, alt-pop, and folk.


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Saturday, 17 January 2026

Phantom Pink - Jasmin Wagner - Special Friend - Farveblind feat. Emmeline - The Tammy Shine - Son Little

Photo - Rachel Frichette
Phantom Pink - Czech New Wave.

Phantom Pink is the hauntingly tender alias of Los Angeles-based artist Brayton Walls, whose dark, cinematic strain of art-rock captures the beauty in emotional chaos. Blending jagged textures with dreamlike melodies, Phantom Pink’s sound is otherworldly, yet familiar. 

Originally from Las Vegas, Walls began writing songs at 10 as a way to navigate his growing pains and identity. After years of shaping his voice in DIY scenes across the West Coast, Phantom Pink has emerged with a sound uniquely bruised and beautiful

In October, he released the first single “I’m at the right place at the right time” from his forthcoming full length album Gothika (due 2026). The song - mastered by Joe LaPorta (Beabadoobee, Laufey, Future Islands) - is loosely based on the cult classic thriller, Possession (1981). This year, he follows with “Czech New Wave” (out 1/16/26) inspired by the film movement of the same name, it’s a splash of color in a black and white world.  


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Jasmin Wagner - Were You Happy Today.

Jasmin Wagner comes from Kerns in the Swiss canton of Obwalden and is releasing a catchy new single titled “Were You Happy Today.” The 23-year-old singer and songwriter didn’t just discover her love of country music today. In fact, this sound has accompanied Jasmin since childhood—alongside her second passion, besides music: flowers. How does she combine these two loves? Quite simply, as “The Singing Florist,” as she likes to call herself.

It’s therefore no surprise that ideas for songs often come to Jasmin when she’s out in nature. She loves being in the mountains and finds inspiration when moving through the fresh air amid the Alps.

Growing up with a guitar in her hand, Jasmin began performing at weddings, christenings, and celebrations at the age of 14—and for several years now, also in renowned Swiss clubs. Always with her Western guitar and her expressive voice, which truly shines in the country and folk repertoire.


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Special Friend - Breakfast.

Special Friend have become the masters of weaving elegant and sophisticated pop musical webs while staying true to their DIY roots.  The French/American duo (Guillaume on guitar and vocals, Erica on drums and vocals) manage to create a sound like no other band.  When they play live, audiences marvel at the huge, intricate structures the band construct, while falling in love with the crystal-clear vocal melodies that are threaded in between the shards of guitar and the rattle of the drums.  How can a duo achieve so much?  UK audiences will be able to ponder this question in March: Special Friend are coming over from France to do a substantial tour of the UK. 

The new album is more diverse that the last, with the high-tempo indiepop of first single ‘Breakfast’, the majestic, Yo La Tengo like dreampop of ‘Clipping’ and the country-ish, gentle, homesick melancholy of ‘Isolation’.  Final track ‘OOO’ is a bold piece of Krautrock inspired experimentation; ‘Mold’ is a beautiful slice of slowcore and opener ‘Paint A Picture’ is modern pop at its catchiest and most direct.  

‘Clipping’, the album title, refers to the discipline of pruning growth back, removing dead wood to create a perfectly shaped tree with abundant blossoms: an accurate description of the album, and of the songs that hang from its elegant branches.  The album artwork is by Erica: Special Friend are in control of every aspect of this elegant artifact.


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Photo - Noemi Kapusy
Farveblind feat. Emmeline - Natural Behaviour.

Copenhagen trio Farveblind just announced their debut album 'Micro Pleasures', will be out 15th May. Produced by Farveblind and mixed by Swedish engineer Gustav Brunn (whose credits include work with Yung Lean and Viagra Boys), the album will feature a cast of contributors and guest vocalists including Django Django, k.flay, Elliphant, USERS, Foreign Air and Emmeline. With touchstones ranging from Battles and The Chemical Brothers to Underworld and Viagra Boys, Farveblind's hard-edged brand of electronic music collides breakbeats, acid-drenched techno, punk fury, and sweeping cinematic layers. 

Their forthcoming debut album 'Micro Pleasures' pulls that punk volatility, industrial precision and widescreen electronic drama into the same gravitational field and is previewed now by new single 'Natural Behaviour', featuring London vocalist Emmeline. Built on a pulsing, subterranean groove, Emmeline’s vocal moves between shadow and clarity, circling the refrain “I’ve been waiting for a change in your natural behaviour” while the skittering instrumental tightens around her.

Speaking about the track, Emmeline says: “When the boys sent me the rough draft of this instrumental it was already so driving and epic. I wanted to write something equally dark but with a momentum and force to it that would move the song into something broadly philosophical and/or existential. The phrase ‘Natural Behaviour’ came to the fore pretty quickly, and I started to think about what that actually means. How much are we a product of the music around us? Of the people? Of the availability of light? Then I started thinking about someone waiting for someone’s natural behaviour to shift — and how that can be a pretty futile task. Maybe the song exists in a club at the ends of the earth, where we’re all questioning why the grass grows upwards, why the bassline hits harder when the beat drops, why we punish the earth for what it gives us — and how some patterns are hard to break.”

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The Tammy Shine - So Very Little.

Just released the new solo single and video So Very Little by indiepop legend and lifer Tammy Ealom of the band Dressy Bessy. It's been 6 years since the last Dressy Bessy album, but this time Tammy is back under a new name The Tammy Shine with an album she wrote, recorded, and mixed all herself. It doesn't stop there as she also shot all the promo photos, made the videos, and did all the album artwork and packaging. This was her first time in full control of an album from start to finish. 

Set for release on February 20, 2026, Ok Shine Ok finds the perfect home on Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records (HHBTM), a label known for championing idiosyncratic and authentic indie pop. The album title itself serves as a mantra—an affirmation of positivity amidst the chaos, a nod to the "shine" Tammy has always brought to her visual art and stage persona.

Fans of Dressy Bessy will still find the undeniable hooks and melodic sensibilities that are Ealom’s trademark. However, they will also discover a new depth—a vulnerability that comes from the singular approach and the confidence of a woman who has lived through the changing tides of the music industry and emerged even stronger.


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Jasmin Valcarcel Photography
Son Little - Be Better.

Son Little has announced ‘Cityfolk’, his fourth album and first since 2022. Although Little is often placed in the category of “roots musician”, ‘Cityfolk’ defies genre and lets the evocation of his storytelling pierce through. “The industry likes to keep artists in little boxes, and for Black artists it has meant being defined by your proximity to ‘urban,’” Little admits. “But my music has always had flashes of country, rock and folk, as well as hip-hop, blues and R&B. So I've always struggled as an artist who kind of, I think, lives in the spaces between genres.” 

With today’s album announcement comes 'Be Better', a track that is perfectly apt for the start of a new year. A song about release, resilience, and the quiet power of self-belief, 'Be Better' sheds the weight of old stories and broken expectations, trading despair for movement and renewal; it’s a hymn for transformation, challenging anyone ready to leave the past behind to step forward, even when the road ahead is dark. 
 
Now living outside of Atlanta, Livingston attributes the development of ‘Cityfolk’ to going even further south to record in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in January 2025. It was there that Little connected with Ben Tanner, a two-time Grammy-winning musician, Alabama Shakes band member and producer of St. Paul & The Broken Bones, John Paul White, Foy Vance and more, to flesh out sketches of songs that he’d crafted through epiphanies about his family’s roots. Already having an understanding of his father’s side, Little views his maternal line as a “mystery unfolding,” but it was in Shoals that the stars aligned, both through retracing his history and formulating an organic chemistry with Tanner.

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Photo - Daniel Silbert The Goldberg Sisters - The Great Resignation . Between July 2020 and July 2021, more than 1.2 million people left th...