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| Photo - Kersti Nagel |
Glasgow's Hank Tree return with 'Tagalong', a striking new single that pairs intricate classical guitar with bursts of distortion, electronic percussion and haunting dual vocals to tell a powerful story of vulnerability, exploitation and the need for human connection.
Led by songwriter Fergus MacDonald, Hank Tree have long balanced fragility and intensity, but 'Tagalong' is among the project's most immediate and emotionally affecting releases. Built around fast-picked classical guitar, accordion, electronic beats and rich vocal harmonies from Clarissa Cheong, the track was shaped alongside acclaimed composer and producer Peter Broderick, whose production expands the song's intimate core into something both unsettling and beautiful.
Inspired by MacDonald's experiences working in the care sector, 'Tagalong' reflects on the story of a vulnerable person with learning difficulties who is manipulated into criminal activity by those seeking to exploit their trust. While rooted in real experiences, the song avoids becoming a literal retelling, instead exploring universal themes of dependence, manipulation and the search for acceptance. "I resisted writing about my work in care for a long time," says MacDonald. "But eventually I realised these experiences had stayed with me too deeply to ignore. They're stories that exist all around us, yet they're rarely reflected in music or the arts."
Rather than dwelling solely on darkness, 'Tagalong' invites listeners to consider the ways we all depend on others throughout our lives. "The more I wrote," MacDonald explains, "the more I realised the song wasn't just about care work. It's about relying on other people. Whether that's through family, friendship or love, it's something everyone understands."
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Brooklyn rockers Sorry Darling released their new single, "Like You," yesterday, the latest preview of their forthcoming EP, Mirrors, out October 6th. Amongst the EP's heavier hitters, "Like You" stands out as the melodic one — melancholic in tone but still driven by the band's signature rock n' roll pulse. Lead singer Liz Wagner Biro brings a smoky, plaintive quality to the track reminiscent of Placebo's Brian Molko, lending the song's ache an extra edge.
"Like You" tackles the way a relationship can erode someone's sense of self and capability. Its accompanying music video follows a pageant queen who places second and wakes up questioning the life she's built. - "It's almost as if you can do everything right, everything you think is being asked of you, and you still might not win," the band add "The real winning is choosing yourself."
The single is the second offering from their upcoming EP Mirrors. The collection takes its title from the way a mirror can reflect backward, reveal what's around the corner, and throw light, or blame, wherever it's needed, with the EP's songs circling the idea of projection and being truly seen within a relationship. It was recorded with producer Mike Dwyer at The Bunker in Cairo, NY, marking the first time the band decamped upstate together to record — a departure from the day-commute sessions that shaped their self-titled debut LP.
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Twice A Man - Desert Snow.
Twice A Man unveil a beautiful visualiser for 'Desert Snow', the first to be plucked as an advance single from the electronic environmentalists' forthcoming album "Reveries Before Silence". The Swedes' new full-length has been chalked up for release on November 20, 2026.
Twice A Man comment: "The first single track, 'Desert Snow', is one of our musical footprints in a time marked by uncertainty, division, and change", Karl Gasleben explains on behalf of the band collective. "This song reflects on the world we live in today while reminding us that hope and positive thinking can still be a path toward unity. As modern societies continue to challenge our sense of human connection, we need to find what brings us together rather than what drives us apart.
If we can discover a common voice that leads us away from war, polarisation, and the climate crisis, there is still a future worth believing in. We want to be able to look our children in the eyes and speak about tomorrow with honesty, responsibility, and hope. 'Desert Snow' is our contribution to that conversation – a song that carries both reflection and faith in a better future."
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| Photo - Cole Silberman |
Nashville-based artist Oscar Lindsey recently signed to Mom + Pop Music (Courtney Barnett, Caamp, Tiny Habits, Hudson Freeman) and will release his label debut, Sunshine, on October 16. Described by Lindsey as "every phase of an early-20s, fucked up love story," Sunshine is an honest and vulnerable chronicling of the final shove into "real adulthood," a period of change, growth, and self-annihilation. He self-produced and recorded the 10-track set primarily in his home studio, with strings and horns overdubbed by instrumentalist friends throughout the greater Nashville area.
Lindsey previously teased the upcoming album with singles "Metal Through Her Lips" and "Flip A Coin," and he returns today with "Painting The Walls." Of the new song, he offers, "I was attempting to see how honestly I could explain the mental anguish I was in. It was written in a particularly bad downward spiral of anxiety paired with OCD that makes me do a lot of self-soothing behavior.
I knock things, I count things, everything has to be a certain way. I have to complete little tasks or I feel like something terrible will happen to me. The verses question why my brain is sabotaging itself. The chorus of the song expresses how these little tasks and rituals add up, and I can’t leave the house without doing them. All of this feels like a unique experience, but I have hopes that it will reach more people who can relate to it, and try to find some peace listening to it the same way I did by writing it."
Lead single "Metal Through Her Lips" has received an enthusiastic welcome from the internet's Alex G-loving lo-fi folk circles since its release in June, with Ones to Watch calling it a "complex and entirely captivating work of art." Written during Nashville's catastrophic ice storm this past winter, while in the midst of a long-term breakup, the song's opening line — "She puts metal through her lips like a fish that got caught by a fisherman" — showcases Lindsey's ability to set a scene in a way that immediately pulls the listener into his singular POV.
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Have you ever kept going back - again and again - even when you knew a relationship was bad for you? Beast lives in that uncomfortable space between knowing and leaving. It explores the guilt we have for returning, for wanting, for still hoping — even when the greater guilt belongs elsewhere. At its heart is a deliberately twisted image: a fragile mind “leeching on a beast.” The narrator sees herself as the parasite, clinging to something she knows will hurt her, while slowly confronting the possibility that she may have been blaming the wrong creature all along.
Amélie is a Franco-Australian, London-based singer-songwriter whose work turns an observant eye towards the contradictions of human behaviour. Her writing explores the nuances of power - between individuals, within systems, and within ourselves - moving between vulnerability and control, complicity and resistance. Drawn to ambiguity rather than easy conclusions, her songs are often laced with dark humour and a wry self-awareness.
Raised on a small tropical island, Amélie developed an early sensitivity to the textures, colours and rhythms of nature - a sensibility that continues to shape both her music and its visual world. Alongside her music, she works across international environmental and human rights policy, a parallel life that exposes her to complex and often uncomfortable realities and sharpens her attention to human instincts and contradictions. Music offers another space in which to process and reframe what she sees.
Following her debut Sombre Maze and second single Red Pill, Beast marks the next chapter of the Colour Bound project - a body of work that will continue unfolding throughout the year.
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