Selve - J Schlueter - Federal Lights - HMS Morris - Uncle Lucius - Phosphorescent

Photo - Joshua Tate

Selve - Breaking Outta Heaven (EP).

Multi-award-winning Gold Coast (Yugambeh/Kombumerri)-based alternative six-piece Selve, led by proud Jabirr Jabirr man Loki Liddle release Breaking Outta Heaven, the companion EP to their history-making, internationally praised 2025 album Breaking Into Heaven: the first LP by an Aboriginal artist ever to be recorded at Abbey Road Studios. The EP - featuring focus track 'Run Boy Run' expands the album's prismatic universe with adventurous new colours and thrilling spaces in the band's uniquely playful-yet-esoteric way.

Liddle explains, "we broke into heaven [which] may indeed just be a big old trap we’ll need to wrestle our way out of in the end". Also including previous singles 'Creature of the Night' and 'Desire', the EP draws from Liddle's own book release earlier this week Damn Good Television out now via Magabala Books. Another stop on the Selve sonic rollercoaster EP focus track 'Run Boy Run' chugs breathlessly along a dark bassline with a mysterious-yet-heroic, cinematic energy almost akin to the anime intros the band grew up loving, featuring flourishes of 80s-esque synth-pop that shifts irregularly into verse and chorus; all made rewardingly earnest with Liddle's soaring vocals. 

Lyrically dense and somewhat of a cousin to 2025 album focus 'Leading Man Lost'; the track digs further into the Breaking Outta Heaven EP's themes of getting lost in the sauce, the pursuit of big dreams, the subversion of the cult of celebrity while echoing one of the project's core sentiments “You said it’s made of matter, I said it’s made of love” - and, as Liddle so esoterically explains, "the idea that we all might die waiting for our train to come - another reminder that our desire can be our liberation and our cage. And that it takes art to walk that line with grace".

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Photo - Andreas Weiss

J Schlueter - The Other Mile (Album).

Jörn Schlüter has been recording his songs for his band Someday Jacob for twelve years. Fifty-five songs, four albums, one EP. A new album by the Bremen/Hamburg Americana band is in the works. But something else is happening first – Schlüter has made a solo album. At the beginning of 2024, a repertoire unexpectedly emerged from nowhere. "Normally I first have one song from which the entire album flows," says Schlüter, "but these songs came in one go. They hung together like a flock of chickens that someone forgot in the fields they needed a home." 

These songs were written during a moment of crisis – Schlüter spent a lot of time with an old acquaintance – anxiety. "She's a good friend, but sometimes she stays too long," he says, "like the last guest at a party who doesn't understand that the hosts want to go to bed. It took a while to make that clear to her." Such challenging times are part of Schlüter's biography. He is familiar with them and wants to see them as an invitation to integrate what has not yet been integrated. 

That's how you can grow. Not so much to become better, faster, fitter and more productive. But in such a way that you get one step closer to yourself. The songs on "The Other Mile" reflect such considerations. "For me, songwriting is like a milky mirror," says Schlüter, "I polish it until I can recognize myself – or at least the part of me that the song is about. You put something of yourself out there so that others can do something with. Perhaps they see themselves in it."

In the fall of 2024, the songwriter called two friends to record the resulting music. Matthias Meusel, who is best known for being Roger Cicero's drummer for 20 years. Stephan Gade, who plays with Niels Frevert and sometimes with Udo Lindenberg. During the crisis Schlüter listened to Neil Young's 1974 album "Comes A Time" on repeat. He realized that he wanted similarly reduced arrangements for the new songs. Drums, bass, acoustic guitars. "I felt something gentle, but also something rooted," Schlüter describes, "in my head it was always Matthias and Stephan playing these songs."

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Photo - Christel Lanthier

Federal Lights - Celebration of Failure (Album).

A full decade after intentionally disbanding, Federal Lights return better than ever, with their new (and third) album Celebration of Failure, (Aporia Records), which was released yesterday June 19th. Starting in 2010, Jean-Guy Roy built his band Federal Lights slowly, stubbornly, with a lot of himself in it. From Winnipeg, they carved a sound and a following that crossed oceans. They toured Germany. They made records that mattered. They stood on stages in cities that had no reason to care and made them care. Roy had a vision of what Federal Lights should be, but somewhere along the way, by 2016, the distance between that and the reality became too heavy to carry – not because the band had failed, but because he’d decided it had. Roy turned off all the Federal Lights: social media accounts, gone; the digital footprint of years, deleted; all of it vanishing into the ether.

Eventually, Roy found that he couldn’t delete the part of himself that needs to make music, any more than he could delete a lung. In the post-band silence, he didn’t find relief, but absence. Eventually, the absence asked, “Now what?” The answer was a reckoning, not a resurrection. Roy turned the Federal Lights back on.

The result, Celebration of Failure, offers deep, authentic explorations of the vulnerable emotional states encountered on this long journey of destruction and rebuilding. Deploying few but well-chosen words in each song, Federal Lights move through desperation, obsession, depression, escape, defeat, loss, and ultimately, redemption through choice. The sound is anthemic, atmospheric rock – with compelling synth and treated-electric-guitar textures – that would fit neatly on a playlist beside Radiohead, Brian Eno, and Arcade Fire.

Federal Lights · Celebration of Failure

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HMS Morris - Bwletin Brys.

This summer HMS Morris will be releasing their first new music since 2023's Dollar Lizard Money Zombie. Their new single is called Bwletin Brys, a driving, angular, sci-fi frolic about eco-aliens taking over the management of Earth. It combines a gritty drums/bass/guitar rhythm section with inter-galactic vocal processing and a dazzling range of blipdy-blops. Its effect has been described as 'comparable to having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick'. "It's Sparks x Adult DVD, channeled through a 21st century woman raised in Carmarthenshire." 

Bwletin Brys ('Emergency Transmission') begins with an overwhelmingly powerful spaceship settling in Earth's orbit and transmitting the message that humans' mismanagement of the planet will no longer be tolerated. The normal wake-up calls in a case like this (climate instability and species loss) have effectively been ignored. Even dispatching one of their agents to lead the human counter-movement (Greta Thunberg) has proved ineffective. Regime change is the appropriate next step. 

The song channels the lightness and glee of Hitchhikers Guide, but the rapid leap forward in artificial intelligence technology over the last few years brings an element of urgency to the questions raised. Would we be better off if human's weren't in charge? Should we be happy to hand over control of Earth to a species/entity that prioritizes ecological harmony over cheap smartphones and beef? 

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Uncle Lucius - Election Day.

Phosphorescent - If I Could Only Fly.

Lost Art Records has just announced a new Blaze Foley tribute album "Sittin' with Blaze" with a double single by Uncle Lucius covering "Election Day" and Phosphorescent's version of "If I Could Only Fly." The compilation includes new recordings by Phosphorescent, Willie Watson, Lucy Dacus, Cactus Lee, Dylan Earl, Uncle Lucius, Riley Downing, Joshua Ray Walker, Twain, Angela Autumn, John R. Miller, John Moreland, and Lucinda Williams. The album will be released digitally on August 7, 2026 with a physical release to follow in the fall. 

Sittin’ With Blaze showcases an assemblage of thirteen contemporary songwriters covering classic early Blaze recordings from his ‘tree house’ days in Georgia. Those recordings were originally released by Lost Art Records as Sittin’ by the Road in 2010 culled from demos recorded by Blaze in the mid-1970s.

At the time of Blaze’s tragic murder in 1989 he was little known outside of Austin’s renegade songwriter circles. He is now revered among the pantheon of Texas’ great songwriters. Townes Van Zandt and Lucinda Willliams both penned moving tributes to Blaze and his songs been covered by John Prine, Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett, Billy Strings, and Willie Nelson.  This project's goal is to share Blaze’s music with a new audience who appreciates masterful songwriting.

Writer Joe Nick Patoski, who contributed the liner notes to the forthcoming release writes, “The songs Blaze created resonate and ring truer than ever. The hallmark of a great song is outliving its author. In Blaze’s case, there’s a whole catalog of songs like that.”



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Celine Cairo - Kate Schutt - The Bernadette Maries - Dogviolet - The Surge - Resa Saffa Park - sundayclub

Celine Cairo  - Panacea (Album).

Dutch singer-songwriter Celine Cairo this week releases her third studio album Panacea. Having amassed of 45 million streams and a devoted international following, Celine Cairo forges her own path. Entirely independent and supported by a close-knit circle of music collaborators, the spirit of creative freedom is at the heart of her new record. Made the way Celine has always worked - on her own terms - it was recorded over nearly two years between partner and co-producer Benjamin Rheinländer's studio outside Amsterdam and a handful of spaces across the country, with contributions from band members, songwriters and musicians drawn from a small circle of trusted friends. The result is a collection of songs that could only be intimate, unhurried and entirely her own.

A meditation on growth, surrender and truly feeling alive, it was created during a period of real personal change, tracing a journey toward hard-won acceptance and the unexpected lightness that comes with it. Panacea means "a solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases", a title that captures both the album's searching quality and its profound sense of release.

Celine Cairo: "Panacea reflects on the paradox of our endless search for happiness. The harder we try to 'heal' and better ourselves, the farther we find ourselves from inner peace. I've struggled with depression and anxiety my whole adult life, and in recent years found relief in letting go of that insatiable search for happiness and peace. I hope these songs bring some compassion and a sense of relief to listeners - that we are enough, and that the idea that there's something inherently wrong with us is simply not true."

The title track announced the album's arrival in powerful fashion earlier this year as a hopeful meditation on self-acceptance, recorded on Wurlitzer piano at her Amsterdam home with her partner and brought to life with strings played by India Bourne of Ben Howard's band. The haunting 'Cycles' follows a similar emotional thread, finding calm in life's recurring patterns and the quiet wisdom that comes with learning to accept rather than resist, while the album's focus track 'Feel' draws on a similar alt-pop sound reminiscent of a downtempo 90s sound. 

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Kate Schutt - “Sippin’ On Sunshine.

Award-winning singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Kate Schutt shares “Sippin’ On Sunshine,” a warm and radiant new single that transforms emotional connection into pure sensory bliss. Blending adult contemporary songwriting with breezy pop melodies and subtle vocal jazz textures, the track captures the feeling of being so fully lit up by another person that language itself struggles to keep pace.

Written while immersed in the creation of an entirely different project centered on the Arctic, “Sippin’ On Sunshine” arrived unexpectedly. “This was one of those gifts from the muse that we songwriters sometimes get,” Kate explains. At the time, she was deep into research and songwriting inspired by her trips to the Arctic and the history of Polar exploration, surrounded creatively by “ice and snow and flinty skies.” In contrast, one phrase suddenly surfaced: “Sippin’ On Sunshine.”

“I suppose I was craving some warmth,” Kate says. “The whole song revolves around this one simile. The experience of being so madly, joyfully in love that language is left reaching for comparisons, ‘Your kiss… it’s like Sippin’ On Sunshine.’” The result is a track that feels buoyant and deeply sincere, balancing lightness with emotional intimacy. Built around glowing melodies and Kate’s unmistakably clear vocal delivery, “Sippin’ On Sunshine” leans into warmth without losing its sophistication. There’s an effortless quality to the songwriting, but beneath it sits a careful attention to detail and craft.

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The Bernadette Maries - Missing Bernadette.

'Missing Bernadette' is the brand new track from Brussels-based The Bernadette Maries. This track is the third single from their debut album "Soft," due out on September 18th via Géographie. From the first notes of “Missing B.”, the Bernadette Maries transport us to the misty British soundscapes of the '90s, reminiscent of Slowdive and The Stone Roses. 

After boldly blending shoegaze and drum & bass in “ESO”, the Brussels-based band unveils a new single that still drifts through dreamlike realms, while grounding its music with heavy guitars echoing the most anthemic choruses of Smashing Pumpkins or Deftones. It’s a way of connecting the memory of loved ones to the present, keeping your head in the clouds while feeling the rest of your body pierced by a complex emotion—somewhere between melancholy and deep gratitude. 

As mentioned before on Beehive Candy The Bernadette Maries is a band from Brussels, established in 2024, with members Daria, Guy & Romain. Their sound merges post-punk energy, shoegaze’s dreamy textures, and indie rock hooks. TBM’s music is about love and existentialism, melancholy & meaning of our lives in a world that is slowly falling apart. It is inspired not only by music, but society, books, and movies as well.

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Photo - Tommy Lin

Dogviolet - Daughter.

London’s Dogviolet announce their anticipated debut EP Wilting, and share the evocative new single ‘Daughter’ (June 18th). A gritty and evocative blend of the band's ethereal-grunge meets post-punk aesthetics, the single captures both a driving sense of energy contrasted against their ethereal tendencies. 

Produced by the band’s own Ella Patenall, recorded and mixed alongside Tom Hill (GENN, Pollyanna, Knuckledust, I Feel Fine), ‘Daughter’ showcases the more immediate, intense and raw side to Dogviolet’s sound. Born out of the pressures of being the eldest daughter in a family, the track uses its angst to drive a soundscape of biting guitar tones, punching drums and Naz Toorabally vocals which move between the floating verses and a more visceral, pointer chorus delivery. 

Speaking about the single, Naz and Ella explain: Naz: “Daughter is about wanting to break the cycle of generational trauma and resist the eldest daughter compulsion to hold our families together, but not being quite ready to let go of control. When you’re in the throes of your perceived duties as an eldest daughter, you become delusional. Like believing you’re the sun and water for your family, that without you they would wilt and eventually die. And so you keep smiling and justify the chronic anxiety, exhaustion and constant choosing between your happiness and theirs.”

Ella: “Daughter is our loudest and most cathartic song. It’s the one we end the set with, crank all pedals on and go a bit wild. Capturing that energy in the studio was really important to us, so we let ourselves have fun with it. We were picking up every guitar in the studio and stacking layers to get that wall‑of‑sound feeling. I also threw an e-bow part into the final chorus for extra lift. We weren’t sure it would work, but it really did!”

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The Surge - See Your Face.

England's South Coast alt-rockers The Surge return with their latest single, "See Your Face", out now and taken from their forthcoming album Meow. Blending the band's trademark heavy, tightly-crafted sound with sharp lyrical observations, "See Your Face" explores how even the smallest misunderstanding can spiral into something much bigger than it ever needed to be. At its heart, the song is a reminder that communication remains the key to any healthy relationship.

The band explains: "See Your Face is about how even a small misunderstanding in a relationship can create a big problem. Things are often blown out of proportion and could easily be sorted out if we all had the patience to communicate and understand each other. Don't let things fester, life is too short."

Driven by powerful riffs, infectious energy and relatable themes, "See Your Face" continues The Surge's knack for pairing social observations with memorable hooks. The track offers another glimpse into Meow, an album set to showcase the band's evolving songwriting while retaining the raw energy that has become their calling card.

Hailing from across the Hampshire and Dorset border, The Surge have spent recent years building a reputation as one of the South Coast's most exciting independent rock acts. Their debut album Amped arrived in 2023, while a nomination for Best Breakthrough Artist at the 2024 Original Music Awards highlighted their growing profile on the UK independent music scene.

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Resa Saffa Park - Love Is a Lonely Feeling.

Oslo-based singer/songwriter and composer Resa Saffa Park today unveils new single 'Love Is a Lonely Feeling'. Born in Dubai, with her musical upbringing rooted in Liverpool (Resa is a graduate of LIPA), and now based in Oslo - Resa Saffa Park's work pulls from jazz, soul, indie and noir-pop in equal measure - drawing influence from artists as varied as Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, Mitski, Julia Jacklin and Nirvana, while sitting somewhere in the orbit of Tamino, Michelle Gurevich and Portishead.

New single 'Love Is a Lonely Feeling' traces a fallout with her own artistry, through picked acoustic guitar, feathered drums and jazzy keys. Speaking more on its release, Resa Saffa Park shared: "Love Is a Lonely Feeling is my heartbreak song about my relationship with music. For a long time, the love I had for creating didn’t feel strong enough to break the silence I felt in return. A quiet, one sided devotion. I felt lonely in my artistry, and I slowly started falling out of love with music, losing trust in my own intuition. The biggest loss was not knowing when my spark faded, or where it went."

Following the release of her independently-released debut full length 'Silver Bead Eyes' in 2025, Resa has cultivated a devoted international audience, with sold out headline shows across Turkey and further live dates spanning Stockholm, Milan, Paris, Copenhagen and London.

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Photo - Evie Maynes

sundayclub - Sad Summer.

Winnipeg indie band, sundayclub, return with new single, “Sad Summer,” the latest preview of their forthcoming self-titled debut album, SUNDAYCLUB, arriving July 10 via Paper Bag Records.

Built around a simple guitar riff that would go on to define the band's sound, “Sad Summer” captures a feeling of emotional paralysis familiar to many: wanting to retreat from the world while feeling increasingly pressured to keep pace with it. Blending hazy indie rock, shoegaze textures and deeply personal songwriting, the track finds sundayclub at their most direct and emotionally exposed.

Written during a period of social withdrawal and creative frustration, “Sad Summer” began as a stream of unfiltered thoughts before evolving into one of the emotional cornerstones of the album. “‘Sad Summer’ came about as a result of feeling extremely unmotivated, both to create and to socialise,” explains vocalist Courtney Carmichael. “The chorus just kept repeating itself: ‘Sad summer, it's a sad summer.’ Everything about the song felt candid because we didn't shy away from exposing that inner dialogue of feeling tired, down and disconnected. There's something freeing about being that direct.”

The band leaned into that honesty throughout the production, incorporating phone calls and conversational fragments beneath the track's warm guitars and blurred textures, creating a song that feels simultaneously intimate and expansive.

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Speedial - Sondre Lerche - Semisonic - Okay Lindon

Photo - Leo Cicero

Speedial - Perfume / One Half.

London four-piece Speedial today release new tracks 'Perfume' and 'One Half' previously only available as part of a limited-run 7" vinyl released at the band’s sold out headline show at Windmill Brixton last month. The new songs mark the band’s first new music since their 2025 debut EP 'Light Of The Late Night'. Pulling from jazz fusion, post-rock and off-kilter indie, Speedial build songs that constantly mutate in motion. Dual vocalists Serena Garrod and Millie Kirby drift between conversational intimacy and explosive release, while Monarch Vavrechka’s spectral saxophone lines weave directly into the band’s dynamic rhythmic core alongside drummer Joe William Killick’s fluid, shape-shifting percussion.

Produced by the band's trusted collaborator Joseph Futak (Tapir!, lilo), 'Perfume' unpicks guilt and resentment, whilst 'One Half' explores family, distance and emotional inheritance. Moving between hushed, suspended passages and sudden bursts of tangled noise, Speedial fold jazz-informed rhythmic interplay, wiry guitar lines and uneasy melodic tension into something both intimate and volatile.

Speaking on the release of the two tracks, Serena Garrod said: "Perfume is about empathising with someone that hurt me, because I had hurt someone in that same way before. That puts you in a really weird position where you can’t simply be angry at the person because you know exactly where they’re at. Some of that anger you transfer to yourself too, because now you know how it feels to be on the receiving end, and there’s a lot of immediate self reflection that has to come from that."

"One Half is one of the many songs I wrote about my mum when she moved back to her home country of Thailand. Leading up to her moving, she had this spark in her that I hadn’t seen for a really long time. That was wonderful to see but it equally triggered this guilt that I have for her staying in a country that doesn’t treat her well, as she had to look after me here growing up. The song explores how she’s hurt me, not trying to erase that but to be empathic towards it and acknowledge how much care she extends to me at the same time."

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Photo - Hilde Solli

Sondre Lerche - Follow The River.

Acclaimed Norwegian singer/songwriter Sondre Lerche today releases euphoric new single 'Follow The River' - a flamboyant 9-minute pop-odyssey that captures the Norwegian songwriter in an unabashedly romantic, ecstatic state of mind, energised by renewed faith in love and life. 'Follow The River' marks the second reveal from Lerche's newly announced eleventh studio album 'Acrobats', out 21st August via PLZ / Virgin. 'Acrobats' - his first full-length of brand new music in over four years, marks the return of the beloved Norwegian artist with an album that’s bold and bombastic; a polarising reflection on the dichotomy of finding love while in times of soulless global unrest and unfathomable human atrocities.

Originally beginning life as “quite a small and simple song”, new single 'Follow The River' gradually expanded into what Lerche describes as his “very first disco odyssey” - a sprawling nine-minute epic in its full album form, packed with ever-new scenes, encounters and experiences. Each of its six verses zooms in on the profound and mundane details of two lost dreamers meeting and falling in love through music, scent and taste, on breezy bar visits and through sticky, sweaty city streets in summer.

“This one doesn't make excuses for being completely overcome with feelings of love and desire,” says Lerche. “So naturally I thought, ‘I need a gospel choir on this,’ because it’s almost indulging, maybe, as an act of defiance, in the beauty of two humans finding each other, reveling in all the little, mundane moments of that.” Featuring a rousing gospel-style choir and adlibs from singer Suzanne Sumbudu, 'Follow The River' stands in striking contrast to much of the wider 'Acrobats' album - unashamedly upbeat, optimistic and love drunk in all its glory.

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Photo - Tony Nelson

Semisonic - Don’t Give Up Yet.

Today, the GRAMMY-nominated trio Semisonic return with “Don’t Give Up Yet,” their first new single release following their critically-acclaimed 2023 LP Little Bit of Sun, which marked their first studio album in more than 20 years. The song is the first in a series of singles the band will be releasing over the next year. “Don’t Give Up Yet” is a deeply personal message of hope that Dan Wilson began writing for a friend in crisis that expanded into a universal reminder to hold onto hope and remember the fight is far from over. 

About the song, Dan Wilson explains, “I started writing ‘Don’t Give Up Yet’ for a friend of mine who was going through a terrible chapter. I wanted to tell him he still had time and there still was hope. When I got to the second verse, I realized the song was about something else, too – the fight against the dark philosophy that has stormed our country, our institutions, our freedom, our peace. That’s when the line ‘A king on a throne, Tyrannicus Rex,’ suddenly arrived and my band had a very different song on our hands. 

My friends have asked me why it’s ‘Don’t Give Up Yet,’ rather than simply ‘Don’t Give Up.’ I tell them that the ‘yet’ means this: ‘Keep trying - don’t lose heart - you’re so close! Keep your hopes alive, because you’re going to make things better in the end. As they say in baseball, it’s not over yet. So don’t give up yet.’ My wish is that someone who hears the song will take heart and remember that there is still time and that if they keep trying, they’re going to change the world.”

Semisonic · Don't Give Up Yet

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Photo - Odinsauga

Okay Lindon – Pinto vs Pinto.

Okay Lindon shares the first single/video from its forthcoming self-titled full-length for Lost in Ohio. Dustin Smith had this to say about it: 'Pinto vs. Pinto' was originally the result of a songwriting challenge a bunch of my friends did during the covid lockdown. Our friend Noah mailed us each a torn page from the 1978 Book of Lists and we each had to write something from whatever we got. The one I got had this two or three sentence anecdote about a wrestling heel named Stanley Pinto that gets tangled in the ropes entering the ring and is counted out before the match even starts.
 
On the surface the Stanley Pinto story is almost a joke, but I kinda saw this angle where maybe we could have a little sympathy for this guy, so I painted him as a tragic character instead of a punchline. That felt very on brand for us and made it a good fit for this record. Fourteen years after their last full-band album, Okay Lindon return with the record that finally gets to carry their name. 

The self-titled Okay Lindon is the fourth proper full-length from the Cincinnati band, and the first to feature the full five-piece since 2012's Everything Will Work Out Fine. It serves as both a reintroduction and a vindication: a melodic, searching, unpretentious Midwestern rock record from a group that sounds less like they are trying to recapture something than finally trusting what was there all along. 

The first three Okay Lindon LPs, released between 2009 and 2012 and mixed by Jason Martin of Starflyer 59, were tracked meticulously and with great care, but with members now spread across 60 miles of Ohio and Kentucky, the reunion started almost by accident. Singer Dustin Smith proposed a simple structure: meet the first Sunday of every month, bring one mostly-written song, and see what happens.

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Rusty Shackle - Mike Little - South Summit - The Indie Pea

Rusty Shackle - Riders Of The Purple Sage.

Rusty Shackle are back with a moody new single 'Riders Of The Purple Sage' released last week and it's the second single taken from their brand new 'Mayfield' album, that the band will release and showcase at Caldicot Castle on Saturday 29th August with special guests Taff Rapids, Tom Jenkins and Ernie Emmanuel.

Freedom comes in many forms. From the small, everyday moments that bring us joy, to the wind rattling our bones as we ride out along the wild frontier, wild and free beneath the open skies. An expansive song of two halves, about the tough roads we all must travel, the peaks and troughs of a life well lived, and how we must treat each moment like it’s our last.

Musically, the intense-yet-ethereal acoustic first movement takes its cues from the prog-tones of Atomic Rooster and King Crimson, whilst the second movement leans on the riff-driven carefree romps of Uriah Heep and The Groundhogs. This is a song about freedom-the kind that lives in your chest when you throw off the things that bind you. The purple sage isn’t a place-it’s a symbol of the wild, of inner battles and wide, open skies.

Rusty Shackle are a hard-gigging folk-rock band from South Wales, known for their infectious energy, anthemic songs, and genre-blurring sound drawn from folk, rock, and indie roots. Since forming in 2010, they’ve built a loyal following through relentless touring and a reputation for exhilarating live shows that get crowds on their feet.

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Mike Little - Keys to the Universe (Album).

Although he’s now known as co-founder of the internationally acclaimed Canadian alt-country collective The Hello Darlins, Mike Little has spent over 35 years proving that keyboards don’t have to be in the background—they can be a full-blown event. As a master of the Hammond B3 organ, Mike has played on over 100 radio singles and over 30 Top 40 hits, many of which have attained Gold and Platinum status and earned him a stack of CCMA Keyboard Player of the Year awards. In other words, if there’s a keyboard part on a hit Canadian record, there’s a decent chance Mike Little played it.

Mike has now fulfilled a lifelong dream of making his debut solo album, Keys To The Universe, which finds him and many of his closest collaborators cutting loose on both brand new and old school funk jams. The 11-track collection was recorded in often-spontaneous situations in Mike’s home studio in Calgary, with a core band consisting of drummer Adam Dowling, bassist Mike Lent and guitarist Murray Pulver, with other friends such as guitarist Russell Broom (Jann Arden) and bassist Chris Byrne (The Road Hammers) chipping in.

Along with seven instrumentals that include The Meters’ classic “Cissy Strut” and Jimmy Smith’s “Chicken Shack,” four songs feature guest vocals from Matt Andersen, Cory Tetford, Jack Semple, and all of The Hello Darlins—led by Mike’s partner in life and music Candace Lacina—on the album’s jubilant first single, “Good Thing Going On.” Mike says, “Candace and I have spent years building music together both on and off the stage. Our relationship is woven into the album because she was my biggest supporter and the one who encouraged me to make it. Having The Hello Darlins on the song feels less like a guest spot and more like part of the record’s vibe. We also already had the song written, and it was a good fit.”

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South Summit - Run It Back (Album).

West Australian five-piece South Summit released their second album Run It Back last week (June 12), alongside focus track “New World” — a reflective and expansive centre piece that captures the band's evolution over the past two years.

Arriving after a steady run of singles including “On The Dash” and “Heartless,” Run It Back marks a significant step forward for a band that has rapidly grown from local Perth favourites into one of Australia's most promising live exports. Following support tours with The Cat Empire and The Terrys, and ahead of a newly announced UK and European headline run later this year, the album arrives at a moment where South Summit are looking well beyond home shores. See full UK and EU live dates below.

Written across multiple sessions before reuniting with longtime collaborator Dave Parkin at Blackbird Sound Studio in Perth, Run It Back reflects a deliberate shift in approach. Rather than building songs piece by piece, the band focused on capturing performances together in the room — prioritising instinct, chemistry and the energy that has become central to their live reputation. Among the album's twelve tracks, “New World” stands as one of its most personal moments. Built around themes of growth, perspective and learning to embrace change, the song reflects on leaving behind familiar versions of yourself in order to move forward.

“'New World' is about stepping into the unknown and finding beauty in that uncertainty,” explains lead guitarist Fynn Samorali. “It's about accepting that growth often means letting go of what feels comfortable and trusting where life takes you next.”

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The Indie Pea - Is It You Or Is It Me?

We have the third single from The Indie Pea taken from their upcoming album Life Lessons (Out December 18, 2026). After the panoramic intensity of "Staring At The Sun" and the atmospheric noir of "The Masquerade," The Indie Pea flips the script once again. Their third single, "Is It You Or Is It Me?", is a brilliant exercise in sonic irony, a high-energy, sun-drenched banger that hides a bruised heart beneath its euphoric surface.

The Pumping Pulse of the City - Stepping out of their usual comfort zone, the band has traded heavy guitar walls for a driving, melodic bassline that serves as the track's heartbeat. While the signature DNA of The Indie Pea remains, lush staccato violins and sweeping cellos that provide a symphonic grandeur, the focus here is on the "schwung." It’s high-energy British Indie Pop at its finest, channeling the rhythmic ingenuity of Bombay Bicycle Club and the jangly, conversational charm of The Kooks.

A Masterclass in Contradiction - Lyrically, the track is much darker than its upbeat tempo suggests. It is an honest, mid-tempo autopsy of a relationship caught in the "static." Between the "paper moons" and "hollow tunes," the song captures that frantic, circular questioning of a love that is losing its signal. It’s the sound of someone dancing in the heavy rain, not because they’re happy, but because they’re trying to "lose the weight and break the chain." "Can you hear the frequency? Is it you or is it me?"

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Rick Hromadka - Frank Rabeyrolles - Hanne Leland

Rick Hromadka - Are You Magical? / My Son.

Rick Hromadka has long been a major player on the LA power pop scene, from his early days fronting Double Naught Spies in the '90s through the 25-year (and counting!), four-album run of the mighty psych-rock and power pop quartet Maple Mars. Most recently heard from on the hit 2022 album Someone's Got To Listen and last year's special Anniversary Single, Maple Mars is still going strong, but it's far from Hromadka's only musical venture. Recent years have seen creation of his occasional sunshine pop-oriented side project Ruby Free, and he's always maintained a solo career with album releases in 2014 and 2020, as well as occasional standalone singles including one each for the Christmas and Halloween seasons, both now firmly enshrined as perennial holiday favorites. 

It's to those solo endeavors that the singer-songwriter returns on the new double single, pairing AM Gold vibes with a touch of psychedelic melodicism on “Are You Magical?” and mining real life experience on the sweetly whimsical B-side “My Son.” Of the lead track, Rick says: “This song was originally written and recorded for the first Ruby Free album. I’ve always loved the tune, but because the album was self-released, I felt it never reached the audience it deserved. That inspired me to revisit the song, re-recording it with new musical parts and updated lyrics. I also wanted to involve family members, especially my kids! The song is about meeting someone very special, but hoping the love is real, and not just some grand illusion!” 

If the B-side “My Son” brings not just a smile but also a hint of cinematic origins, that's down to Hromadka's other job in the movie industry. “While doing sound design on Dog Man for DreamWorks Animation, which went on to be the number-one box office film for two weeks in 2025, I noticed the story carried a strong father-and-son emotional thread. During one of the early animatic screenings, an older song I had written years ago suddenly came back to me. 

'My Son' was originally written shortly after my oldest son Dylan was born. I decided to revisit the song and record it with a cinematic, film-score-inspired feel, hoping it might eventually find its way into the film’s end credits. Unfortunately, the director was also a musician and already had several of his own songs featured in the movie, so there simply wasn’t room for another track. I played all the instruments on the recording and brought in my stepdaughter, Kylah Langevei a tremendously talented singer to add the background vocals.”

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Frank Rabeyrolles - Bossa in My Heart.

Last February saw the release of "Slow" by Frank Rabeyrolles (Too Good 47). In three weeks' time, the album will be joined by its companion piece. Made up of eleven tracks drawn from the same writing session (with the exception of one song whose title hints at a later composition). 

"Slow 2" was entirely written, performed, produced, mixed and mastered by Frank at home, driven by an almost obsessive desire for freedom and independence, and created with whatever means were available.

"Slow 2" (Too Good 56) will be released on June 19 as a limited edition CD (presented in an 8-page A5 booklet featuring a variation on the artwork from the first volume - once again designed by Studio Trois Quatre) and digitally. 

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Hanne Leland - Say It Once More.

Hanne Leland is a Norwegian indie pop artist and songwriter based in Oslo, known for her melodic, emotionally charged songwriting and a distinctive crystal-clear voice. She has amassed over 26 million streams across all platforms (17M+ on Spotify alone) and has toured the UK extensively, supporting All Saints across 10 sold-out shows and Gavin James at O2 Academy venues in Brixton, Sheffield, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham.

Her new single "Say It Once More" is an 80's-inspired summer pop anthem, female-led, storytelling-driven and production-forward, sitting in the emotional cinematic pop space. It was picked up by Amazing Radio the UK station credited with the early discovery of Dua Lipa, The 1975 and Wet Leg — with 29 UK and USA airplays across their Pop and Easy Listening streams, plus a feature on their flagship "Audition" show with DJ Charlie Ashcroft.

In the studio Hanne has collaborated with Jim Eliot (Ellie Goulding), Red Triangle (Little Mix, Charlie Puth), Hight (Charli XCX, Ava Max) and Brian West (Nelly Furtado). Her track "Stay" went viral on YouTube with over 4 million views, and her 2024 single earned a five-star review from Norway's leading newspaper Aftenposten. 

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