Bedolina - Melys - Avery Friedman - Hallelujah The Hills

Bedolina - We Are the Clock Ourselves Again.

Out today March 28th, "We Are the Clock Ourselves Again" is an indie rock hymn about perceiving life through your own innate sense of right and wrong. Highlighting the importance of self-reliance, Bedolina encourages those listening to march to the beat of their own "clock". Featuring keys and drums laid down by Robbie Bennett and Charlie Hall (both of The War On Drugs), the new track is the first offering from the upcoming LP Sun and Flamingos.

Bedolina is spearheaded by the Philadelphia-based Ken Gould, who crafts eerie experimental rock that furthers the band's artistic evolution. Gearing up for the release of their second album Sun and Flamingos, Bedolina once again enlisted the collaborative efforts of Miner Street Recordings producers Brian McTear and Amy Morrissey (The War on Drugs, Kurt Vile, Sharon van Etten) and engineer Joe Lambert (Thievery Corporation, The Black Crowes, Cracker) Throughout the upcoming LP, themes of surrealism, the ever-lurking future, and modern contradictions are studied in depth, creating a palette of diverse and digestible tracks.

============================================================================

Melys - Sgleinio.

Ahead of their Record Store Day UK album release, Melys launch their new single "Sgleinio" (Shine) on Friday, March 28th. The synth-infused indie pop track is the next single from their upcoming album "Second Wind," arriving on April 12th.

In the glare of the modern online world, "Sgleinio" (Shine) explores the pressures of online life and social media and the need for self-acceptance. In true Melys style, Sgleinio begins with stripped back verses that feature the old art of finger clicks and claps before its chorus bursts into life with lush layered vocals, crashing guitars and analogue synths.

“Sgleinio' came from seeing the difficulties of comparing ourselves with others online. We all have some experience of this, either personally or seeing someone close to us struggle. We put too much pressure on ourselves to project the perfect image, and I wanted to create a song that reminds us that we're enough just as we are.” Andrea.

============================================================================

Avery Friedman - New Thing.

Today Brooklyn's Avery Friedman releases the final single from her April 18th debut album. Featuring: James Chrisman (Sister. / Ciao Malz) and Felix Walworth (Florist / Told Slant).

“I wrote ‘New Thing’ in one sitting after riding the subway home alone at night for the first time since being mugged at knifepoint months prior. I was shocked and disoriented by the anxiety I experienced doing something so routine—I felt foreign to myself. It’s one of the first of my songs that I truly loved, which is part of why I chose it as the title of my upcoming record. I’m grateful for how this song continues to bring me back into my body.” – Avery Friedman.

After writing her first few songs and feeling a sense of completeness that she hadn’t felt since she was a kid in choir practice, she knew that music wasn’t something she would want to turn away from again. “I am the type of person where, when I see something and identify it, I cannot really look away or put up a wall,” she says. “I made a really conscious choice to make a practice out of songwriting and just try.”

Avery Friedman · New Thing

============================================================================

Hallelujah The Hills - Fake Flowers at Sunset (Featuring Cassie Berman).

Boston legends Hallelujah The Hills are back with their ambitious new project, DECK - a four-album endeavor featuring a who's who of indie rock. The first single, “Fake Flowers at Sunset,” featuring Cassie Berman, drops today March 28th ahead of the album’s full release on June 13, 2025.

“Fake Flowers at Sunset” is a folk song with a disco beat - a love song that remains wary of love’s intensity - breaking away from nature as an easy metaphor for human emotion. It’s a striking preview of DECK, a project that was two and a half years in the making, featuring collaborations with Craig Finn, Ezra Furman, Patrick Stickles, Sadie Dupuis, Tanya Donelly, Clint Conley, and many more. Funded independently through a dedicated fan Patreon, this is a passion project of epic proportions.

With a career spanning nearly 20 years, Hallelujah The Hills have earned praise from Pitchfork, Spin, and Aquarium Drunkard for their anthemic, genre-blurring rock. Their last album, I’m You, was called "one of the best American rock albums of recent years” by Exile Magazine, declared “a lyrical masterpiece” by Metro, and their live shows continue to draw fans from across the country.

Hallelujah The Hills · Fake Flowers at Sunset (Featuring Cassie Berman)

============================================================================

Zach Berkman - Fast Romantics - Georgia Mooney - Bedolina

Photo - Nicole Mago

Zach Berkman - Alone.

Zach wrote "Alone" at the beginning of the end of a relationship, just when he knew he could feel something slipping away. "The verses describe a crumbling house as a metaphor for a crumbling love. The crooked pictures and fading marks of a thing untended," he says. "I thought about my grandparent’s old farmhouse where we made these recordings, left dusty and in disrepair for so long then restored and renewed, and I wondered whether you could do that with people.

I know that when I wrote the song, the chorus was meant to be sung to someone else. It’s all in the second person, but I hear and sing those lyrics now as directed to self. The repeats of the title are at once mantra, warning, and a facing of fear. If we can’t reconcile our differences, we will end up Alone."

A renowned songwriter whose compositions have been featured on ABC, NBC, The CW, Nickelodeon, The Travel Channel, and more, Zach had found himself at a crossroads artistically. He enlisted his inner circle to help him flesh out what would be his ninth LP, The Heart Of. Recorded over four days in his family's rejuvenated farmhouse in rural Michigan, these songs, which began as a quest for answers, became a beautiful celebration of the journey itself. It's a fantastic listen.

======================================================================

Photo - Jen Squires

Fast Romantics - Smoke + Lightning.

Toronto duo Fast Romantics offer up another provocative new single and video, “Smoke + Lightning,” taken from their new album, Happiness + Euphoria, scheduled to be released September 29 via Postwar Records.

Fast Romantics never shy away from exploring the complicated or the contemplative. Kirty takes the lead on “Smoke + Lightning” with her ethereal vocals, and offers this insight on the track: "‘Smoke + Lightning’ was written during a time that I felt like I was being swallowed up in the most vivid dreams every night. It started to blur my waking hours with a twisted, colourful dream-life in my sleeping hours. This song is filled with stream-of-consciousness words and images that made up those dreams.”

Fast Romantics have built a reputation as tenacious musical adventurers, working their way up the mountain of classic pop songwriting, eager to carve out a piece of it for themselves. Matthew Angus and Kirty - partners on and off stage, are bringing F.R. fans, ten sprawling new songs, masterfully crafted and equally and intentionally split into two distinct sides this fall.

======================================================================

Photo - Cybele Malinowski

Georgia Mooney - Full of Moon (Album).

Sydney-based polymath Georgia Mooney has just unveiled her stunning debut solo album ‘Full of Moon’. The record is a meticulously crafted sonic universe, the birth of which marks the stepping forward of a major talent. Carried by Mooney’s soaring ethereal voice over lush, cinematic soundscapes, Full of Moon features the singles ‘War Romance’, ‘Break It Off’, ‘I Am Not In A Hurry’, ‘Soothe You’ and ‘Nothing Is Forever. “Go look at your eyes, they’re full of moon” - Joni Mitchell

This album is for daydreaming. Lyrically, it yearns for connection, examining intimate human relationships, and their variations in perception and fantasy. When stories have many sides, they also have many truths. Musically, it’s a glorious and cinematic sonic fresco, holding beauty, musicality and romance in highest regard. It was recorded remotely over 18 of the strangest months in living memory, linking an all-star band based across three continents. The album grew outward in response to the physical world closing in; even the more intimate songs luxuriate in their drama.

Full of Moon’s songs were penned between All Our Exes Live in Texas tours, on solo writing trips all over the world, half on piano and half on a handmade dulcimer Mooney won in a raffle and subsequently fell in love with. Influences from every member of the Wainwright family, Joni Mitchell, the sophistication of the Great American Songbook and even classical composers sift through the songs seamlessly, alongside fuzzed out guitars and production that evokes the unsettling genius of Kate Bush. It was made during a period of global tragedy, as a way to find solace and catharsis in art and love. This record seeks someone to spend the end of the world with.

Georgia Mooney · Full of Moon

======================================================================

Bedolina - Bedolina (Album).

Bedolina are thrilled to share their self-released debut album, Bedolina.  Developed at Miner Street Recordings, the album dissects society’s greatest imperfections and their effects on human nature, all with a crooked smile.

Philadelphia’s own Ken Gould is the heart and brain behind sleek new indie rockers, Bedolina. Debuting after previous singles “Yellow Boat” and “C’mon Fun”,  Bedolina continues to test the limits of conventional pop music. With jackhammer beats and smooth guitar solos that flow effervescently throughout, the record’s eight tracks each tell a unique story.

Altogether, Bedolina is an abstract musical cornucopia that channels the listener to ponder the faultiness of the digital age. Centerpieces of the album are “Cicadas” and “The Zoo”, with the former charging into a snapping drum beat with atmospheric sweeps in the background. About halfway through the track, Gould laments “This year’s gone so wrong”, allowing the listener to question what begins as a triumphant, happy-go-lucky sounding tune. Then there’s “The Zoo”, who’s purposely out of tune third chord creates an eerie sense of dissonance, further pulling the audience towards an unsettling atmosphere. Here, the crude message of human beings acting animalistic is put on display, building up to a shocking climax of shrieking and a nasal guitar tone that sounds like a hornet’s nest.

Another album highlight is the final track, “Taking the Canyon”, a saturated bass-heavy dance track that invokes classic shoegaze guitar motifs of My Bloody Valentine. The repeated refrain “Boots marching in a line” showcases the narrator’s disdain for fascist dystopia as it cascades its way into a final minute of drone-like noise. Ending the album on a just as surprising note as it begins, Bedolina show that although this is their debut, their musical gusto and expertise couldn’t be clearer.

======================================================================