Cat Nova is back with another hauntingly reflective tune about love, with the beautiful 'Heaven When It's Easy' Before taking a hiatus from music to complete a doctorate, write a book, and establish herself as a clinical psychologist, Cat spent a decade as a much-adored frontwoman of Oxford-based indie rock bands the Courtesy Kill & At Risk (the latter’s catalogue recently re-issued for streaming by indie label Quickfix Recordings), supporting the likes of Kasabian, King Adora & other 00’s luminaries at the now legendary Zodiac in Oxford.
This, and previous releases Parallel World and IFLY mark a new chapter for the singer-songwriter, who has traded (at least for now) her primary writing instrument/accompaniment from the guitar to a piano, with sparse instrumentation that allows the melodies to take centre stage. Drawing inspiration from artists including The Cure, AFI, Cigarettes After Sex and Garbage, her instinctive songwriting process blends atmospheric indie pop rock and her trademark open-hearted, somewhat doomed romantic lyricism with an intimate yet cinematic feel.
"Sometimes songs just download into my head while I'm driving or walking. The melody and lyrics arrive almost fully formed, and I have to quickly record a voice note before they disappear. Other times, writing lyrics is a way of processing emotions and experiences before the music follows."
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| Artwork - Sidonie Osborne Staples |
This week Tindersticks have announced their 15th studio album, Dog roses, out March 12, 2027 via City Slang Records. Alongside the announcement, the band released the album’s opening track and first single “Loving, leaving.” Opening with an undeniable glockenspiel-and-organ hook, with the faintest hint of saxophone underneath, “Loving, leaving” is the sound of a band trading 20 years of habit for new instincts. From synth-flecked atmospheres to a hazy dream-pop period piece and a lush orchestral high point, Dog roses finds Tindersticks pushing into new territory while drawing on the distinctive musical interplay that has defined their sound for more than three decades.
“With our last album, 2023’s Soft tissue, we felt like we were looking over the fence into a new landscape, maybe even leaning over,” Stuart Staples explains. “Making 15 albums we have learned that sometimes there are steps forward, sometimes there are leaps. Soft tissue was a great step, but it was time to try and leap over that fence.”
Written and recorded between December 2025 and August 2026, Dog roses emerged from a period of change for the band where they left behind their beloved studio home of 20 years, an ambient, almost church-like space, for a hidden underground studio. As Staples describes, “A place where old methods didn’t seem to work and new solutions had to be found.”.
Produced and recorded by frontman Stuart Staples, the album features the effortless feel of Earl Harvin’s drums, Dan McKinna’s adventurous bass, David Boulter’s unexpected touches and choices, and Neil Fraser’s guitar always pushing at the song’s edges.
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| Photo - Libby Rodenbough |
A couple of days ago Durham-based indie folk duo Viv + Riley released “Sourwood” via Free Dirt Records, a new single inspired by the brilliant autumn colors of Virginia’s sourwood trees and the parallels between the natural world and our collective human experience. Written by Appalachian songwriter Vivian Leva, the track reflects on aging, loss, and the beauty of life. Recorded live to tape in Frome, England, with producer Dom Monks (Big Thief, Adrianne Lenker, Paul McCartney), the track features the duo singing together into a single microphone. A homemade music video for “Sourwood” premieres alongside the release, and follows the duo’s same raw, unfiltered approach that runs through much of their other work.
“‘Sourwood’ was inspired by the sourwood trees that erupt into orange and red blazes in the mountains of Virginia every fall. I was thinking about how these trees display such vibrant beauty before they inevitably lose their leaves and become bare each winter,” Vivian shares. “There is something that seems parallel to the human experience too, how people spend their lives growing, creating, and connecting, but also lose many of those things as they grow old.
“‘Sourwood’ is a shared moment of companionship with someone in their autumnal season of life as they look back on the things they’ve done and the people they’ve lost, and wonder how many springs are in their future. It was recorded live to tape in Frome, England with producer Dom Monks, just the two of us singing into the same mic, a few feet apart.”
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| Photo - Hannah Zimmerman |
Rising creative force QUESTA has released his dreamy new pop rock single and music video “She Gave Me.” Juxtaposing dark lyrics with joyful melodies to capture a toxic relationship fueled by control, “She Gave Me” explores the imbalance of a one-sided relationship. Drawing inspiration from the dystopia of A Clockwork Orange, the Freudian, tongue-in-cheek visual follows QUESTA as he undergoes intense conditioning to become a better person – someone completely different from who he really is.
“‘She Gave Me’ touches on the idea that there is no such thing as unconditional love. In many instances there is a cost to pay or at least an expectation for receiving love,” shares QUESTA, the musical alter ego of singer-songwriter Emilio Cuesta. “The song is also about being too immature to be in a relationship and not being ready to receive love in the first place because you might not be able to give it back. Ultimately, as I learned in the relationship I was in, the milk – or the love - was never free and she needed me to be someone I was not ready to be.”
As an actor and filmmaker, QUESTA brings a visual sensibility to his lyrics, recordings, and live performances – creating music that feels equally at home on stage and on screen. His recently released single “Sophie’s Plan,” a hazy, dream pop diary entry which laments leaving a failing relationship as the loneliness is worse than the toxicity, embraces his melody-driven sound and infuses vintage psychedelic folk-rock with modern sonic elements.
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We have the brand new album by Scott Allen's band Big Mess called Report Card, which is out now and streaming everywhere on Underflow Records. Report Card is a concept album exploring the universal experience of high school through its many personalities, social hierarchies, awkward encounters, and unforgettable moments.
From overachievers and underachievers to bullies, outcasts, class clowns, and hopeless romantics, the album examines the roles we play during adolescence. Some identities are assigned to us, others we choose, and a few we spend adulthood trying to outgrow.
Rooted in American high schools at the turn of the millennium, Report Card reaches beyond any particular graduating class. Music, fashion, and cultural references may change, but the desire to belong, the fear of embarrassment, first love, heartbreak, and uncertainty about the future remain remarkably familiar. Through humor, irony, nostalgia, and the occasional uncomfortable truth, the album celebrates a time when insignificant moments felt monumental and important lessons often went unnoticed until years later.
Ultimately, Report Card is about more than looking back. It’s about recognizing how those formative experiences continue to shape who we become. The names and faces may change, but the characters and stories remain surprisingly familiar. After all, we may graduate from high school, but some part of high school never quite graduates from us.
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| Photo - Photo - Kaylee Vaughan |
Schaefer Llana will release her label debut, Full Circle, on November 13, 2026 via Strolling Bones Records. The 10-song set was produced by Llana and Starlin Browning and recorded at Matt Patton of the Drive-By Truckers’ Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Mississippi. The captivating debut is lush and literate, meditative and dreamy, and radiates a languorous Southern heat as it drifts between past and present, connection and isolation, love and loss. Llana delivers her songs with a tender, almost casual ease, and the result is a cinematic slice of alt-Americana.
Met with early critical acclaim, Glide Magazine said “Full Circle carries an understated power. The songs don’t strain for drama; they unfold naturally, carried by Llana’s relaxed vocal delivery and arrangements that seem to shimmer in the humid air.” Of her performance at the Americana Music Festival last month, Pandora said she “exuded atmospheric intimacy, hypnotizing the room with a set of spellbinding siren songs. While her performance occasionally channeled the ghostly, nocturnal coo of Hope Sandoval and the peerless vocal control of Paula Frazer, Llana operates in a sonic stratosphere entirely her own. It was an otherworldly, magnetic display that left the crowd deadlocked in silence, hanging onto her every word.”
Born in Missouri, Llana moved to Mississippi as a child where she spent her formative years first singing in church. After high school, she headed deeper into the cradle of American music to study at Delta State University. It’s there where she fell in with a likeminded crew of artists and writers and landed a job working at the recording studio Dial Back Sound.
She says, “Matt Patton gave me real opportunities early on. I worked at the studio for several years as an engineer and would record background vocals for anyone who came to record there.” That’s how she met Jimbo Mathus, best known as a founding member of Squirrel Nut Zippers (and more recently for his work with the Black Keys). Mathus was a fellow Mississippi native who took an immediate shine to her voice, first asking her to sing on records he was producing and then later inviting her to join his band on the road for several years. Full Circle features two songs written by Mathus and he also appears on its lead off track.
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