“Structure” by Odd Sweetheart: Driving, Intense Emo
As the people say, it’s the little things that make you remember. Maybe you’re strolling through the mall. Maybe you pass by a Hot Topic. And maybe you keep walking, but there’s this microsecond where you slow down a little, peer over a little too casually, and get a whiff of that old leathery smell, […]
Mila Webb on “Lucky Nights” and Coming to Peace with Change
Mila Webb weaves sly, psychedelic melodies into a ghostly folk palette in her new single “Lucky Nights.” Webb leans into the gentle swing of traditional folk here while employing a fresh, subversive twist. Her sound is reminiscent of Faye Webster, with the lyrical punch of Wolf Alice. The song is plainspoken, drifty, and unapologetically sentimental […]
“Titania” by Night Palace: A Song of Strange Magic
The music video for Night Palace’s new song “Titania” dropped on February 22, 2022. This numerological timing, intentional or otherwise, tells you everything you need to know about this strange and magical track. It’s a tense lullaby. A chorus of ghosts. A fairytale landscape that feels just barely wrong. Throughout the song I kept waiting […]
Half-Shadow’s “Moonless (Unmoored)”: A Strange, Evocative Dream
Half-Shadow’s new song “Moonless (Unmoored)” is the type of track that, if listened to before bed, will trigger some very strange dreams. And it’s no wonder, seeing as Half-Shadow is known for their simmering, psychedelic style. Jesse Carsten, the face behind Half-Shadow, self-describes their work as “song collages,” a phrase which offers a certain vulnerability: […]
“Just As If New” by Early Signs: Lush, Atmospheric Indie
In my early introduction to the ambient indie project Early Signs, I stumbled across an interview with the band’s songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, Petter Näse. In the interview, Näse is asked to name a perfect song, and he offers “8 (circle)”, a massively underappreciated track by Bon Iver that lives on my own “Best Songs […]
“You Think You’re Like the Rain” by Jenny Berkel: Swirling, Poetic Folk Music
Jenny Berkel lays down a series of fresh, urgent images in her new release “You Think You’re Like the Rain.” The track swings in swirls of blue and smudges of indigo, conducting images of drowsy rain and leaky facuets and water that has a hitch in its breath. “You Think You’re Like the Rain” has […]
Philippe Nash’s “Wounded Love”: Drifting and Sensual
Philippe Nash beckons listeners into a drifting, half-familiar landscape with his new single “Wounded Love.” To my own mind, the four-minute track shimmers with textures of gray: the unflinching glare of steel, the raw swirls of mountain fog, the pearly accents of snow crushed into your windshield. Much of Nash’s past work has been concerned […]
“The Rain” by Lunar Noon: Melodic, Eclectic Beauty
Now the rain has come again/I’d forgotten of it since/Now the rain is pouring in/Can’t escape, it’s everything Michelle Zheng’s musical project Lunar Noon shimmers with cosmic urgency in their January single “The Rain.” This three-minute track is couched in bone-chilling harmonies, Zheng’s voice circling around itself over a deliciously menacing bass played by Rodrigo […]
“Honeybee” by Adrift: Effervescent Cool
Honeybees have swagger. That is an indisputable fact from any human who has seen a honeybee in action. My father is a beekeeper, and as a child I often sat in the grass and admired how these strange insects flew in lazy loops through the clover. There’s a thrumming playfulness and a careless confidence to […]
Lack the Low on “The Sharpest Knife” and the Yin-ward Lean of Her New Album
Lack the Low, an experimental music project led by Kat Hunter, drenches the world in an iridescent sheen with their new song “The Sharpest Knife.” Lack the Low lives in the deliciously strange in-between, dissolving musical and artistic boundaries with sheer force of will. “The Sharpest Knife” glows in a pulsing membrane between realities: between […]
