The Indie Pea - Guy Verlinde - La Peste - Ben Chapman - Trippers & Askers

The Indie Pea - Staring At The Sun.

While some bands are content to evolve in the shadows, The Indie Pea has spent the last year chasing the light. Following the introspective depth of The Questions and the radiant growth of Reflected Hearts, the band returns with "Staring At The Sun", a sonic earthquake that redefines their boundaries.

"Staring At The Sun" is The Indie Pea magnified. It carries the band’s signature DNA, lush orchestral strings and melancholic undertones, but delivered with a newfound, panoramic intensity. The production is sharper, the mixing more immersive, and the emotional stakes higher than ever. It is a masterclass in "controlled grandiosity"; a track that teases the bombastic, yet masterfully pulls back at the precipice, maintaining that aching, intimate tension that has become their hallmark.

This single serves as the definitive prologue to their upcoming full-length album, "Life Lessons" (arriving December 18). The record promises to be the band’s most eclectic venture to date. Across its tracks, The Indie Pea navigates a vast musical landscape, shifting seamlessly from the rhythmic drive of Bombay Bicycle Club and the anthemic energy of The Killers to the atmospheric noir of The National and the psychedelic textures of MGMT.

Life Lessons is an album of beautiful contradictions: it is a collection that feels diverse yet singularly focused, exploring the complexities of experience with the wisdom of a band that has found its true voice. If their debut was about the search, Life Lessons is about the discovery.

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Guy Verlinde - Best Of Blues (Album).

On March 22, Best Of Blues, the new album by Belgian blues artist Guy Verlinde, was released. The album celebrates his 50th birthday and crowns a career spanning seventeen albums and more than a thousand live shows. It is available on CD, vinyl and digital platforms.

Guy Verlinde is a mainstay of the Belgian blues scene and has built a strong international reputation. Over the years, he has appeared on the same bill as artists such as B.B. King, John Fogerty, Tony Joe White, Santana, John Hiatt, Canned Heat, and Jeff Beck.

Best Of Blues is not a classic compilation of old recordings. All twelve tracks were remixed and remastered; Do That Boogie and Gator Bop were partially re-recorded with a distinct old-school blues feel. Me & My Blues and Heaven Inside My Head were fully re-recorded. The album is also a tribute to Guy’s late blues brother Tiny Legs Tim, with whom he helped lay the foundations of the Ghent blues scene. Their collaboration lives on in the song Goin’ Down to Missy Sippy, which they wrote and recorded together.

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La Peste - Color Scheme.

“Color Scheme” is the last advance single from La Peste’s forthcoming compilation, I Don’t Know Right From Wrong: Lost La Peste 1976 - 1979 Vol. 1 (out 4/17). Here is what guitarist / vocalist Peter Dayton has to say about the track: “Color Scheme”!! Mark and I wrote this together and, wow, we both love this song. To me it was a big step because it really sounded like a complete song with clear intent and great chord progressions ….I felt like it showed we could do a lot of different things. I still love it.

I Don’t Know Right From Wrong tells the full story of La Peste with a presentation of their unreleased studio recordings, demos and the two tracks that were officially released during the band’s run. 

The accompanying book features tons of newly uncovered photos, a long-form essay by music journalist Andy Cush & micro-essays by Greg Hawkes (The Cars), Roger Miller (Mission of Burma), Peter Prescott (Mission of Burma), Clint Conley (Mission of Burma), Pat Place (Bush Tetras, Contortions), Willie Loco Alexander (The Lost, Boom Boom Band), Richard Parsons (Unnatural Axe), Malcolm Travis (Human Sexual Response) and more.

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Photo - Aubrey Wise

Ben Chapman - Feet On Fire.

Nashville-based roots rocker Ben Chapman announces that his upcoming album Feet On Fire will come out on May 22 via Soundly Music. His second collaboration with GRAMMY-nominated songwriter and producer Anderson East, Feet on Fire is an album about leaving old patterns behind, making room for new beginnings and searching for stability in an ever-changing world. Or, according to Chapman, this record is a snapshot of the year he became a man following a marriage to fellow singer/songwriter Meg McRee and the birth of their first child in September. He also shared the album’s title track, a sprawling psychedelia-drenched sonic journey that chronicles the life of a musician on the road. 

On the new song, Chapman shares: “This song hits you in the mouth from the first note. It’s a sonic adventure that reflects my growth as an artist and musician. It started out as a song about always being on the road and not feeling like yourself while sitting still, but as it took shape it gained a deeper meaning. It’s difficult to keep your feet planted in the moment sometimes in a world that places value on whatever comes next.” 

The new LP puts East’s Alabama roots on full display, in combination with the inspiration Chapman takes from R&B grooves, Stax-sized soul, psych-rock experimentation and Allman Brothers-worthy jams. With Feet On Fire, Chapman set out to capture the energy of one of his live shows – free-wheeling, electric and exploratory. Backed by a band of A-list instrumentalists, Chapman and East focused on live-in-the-studio performances, capturing each song with two or three takes. They experimented with fuzz pedals and overdriven guitar tones, too. It was a move that nodded not only to the soundtrack of Chapman's childhood, but to his willingness to step outside the box.  

“I grew up on the Grateful Dead and Dark Side of the Moon, so I wanted to pour some of that inspiration into these tracks,” Chapman shares. “This record asks you to let your hair down. It takes some fun sonic risks. It's cohesive but it's all over the place, too, in the best way possible.” 

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Trippers & Askers - No Coming No Going.

Trippers & Askers today share "No Coming No Going" featuring Chessa Rich from their forthcoming LP Tried To Do's due May 8 via Sleepy Cat Records.  "No Coming, No Going," is the second offering (third on Bandcamp) from Trippers & Askers' forthcoming release. Drawing sonically from Emmylou Harris and lyrically from Thich Nhat Hanh, this gorgeous duet with longtime collaborator Chessa Rich is a trance-inducing meditation on impermanence. 

Hammond and Rich open the track with a shared breath, singing, "When I breathe, I don't breathe; there is no breather," and in that moment, they set the intention for everything that follows. 

I love the way their voices pull my ear in opposite directions—blending perfectly while still remaining distinctly their own. The effect reminds me of the shape-note tradition, where individuality and harmony coexist in the same breath. Rich with meticulously crafted soundscapes, this record is a deep listen that rewards.

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Scorie - Ben Chapman - Eric Gabriel - Simone White - Lottie McLeod - Licorice Chamber - The Great Emu War Casualties

Scorie - Room Full of Gangsters.

The new single from French outfit Scorie "Room Full of Gangsters," is released this week. This new track heralds the release of the band's first 5-track EP, "Gallodrome," arriving on April 24th via Géographie. Room Full Of Gangsters, like an epic Western Spaghetti, tells the advent of an end, and glorifies human vice in order to ridicule it. This track is first and foremost a tale of self-awareness, through some sort of Death Row, where redemption does not exist. It’s the story of a monster whose epiphany occurs only when he ends up surrounded by his peers. 

This Purgatory’s waiting room, orchestrated by a burning crescendo, where trumpets rub against screams and punkish dirt, explores the classic theme of the last day of a condemned man, who fights his true nature to finally accept who he is, a preacher thirsting for decadence, a shabby, sweat-smelling Tony Montana, a lost sheep dreaming of being the Big Bad Wolf.

Scorie is a beef bourguignon where the red wine has been replaced by two bottles of  cognac. It’s a sunset drive with one wheel missing. It’s a tank top in the dead of winter and a  100% polyester turtleneck in the middle of a heatwave. After more than a year of meticulous distillation, the band is set to release their first 5-tracks  EP “Gallodrome” on Géographie. 

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Photo - Aubrey Wise

Ben Chapman - Everything’s Different.

Last year brought profound change for Nashville-based roots rocker Ben Chapman. Within ten months, he learned that his then girlfriend fellow singer-songwriter Meg McRee — was pregnant, they married in the spring, and welcomed their first child in September. It’s no surprise, then, that the phrase “Everything’s Different” were the words that defined their 2025. Now, today Chapman is officially entering a new era and releasing his first single of the new year titled “Everything’s Different” via Soundly Music. Written by Chapman, McRee and Bryan Simpson the homespun track finds Chapman reflecting on the passage of time over an ageless Southern rock sonic landscape with jangling keys, resonant organ and Chapman’s signature fluid guitar playing.

It was also recently announced that Chapman is featured in the 2026 music documentary Ten Year Town, which follows nine Nashville singer/songwriters across a pivotal stretch of their lives. The film celebrated its world premiere earlier this month at the Belcourt Theatre, and tonight Chapman will put on his first Peach Jam show of 2026 at the Basement East featuring other artists from the film including Brit Taylor, Gabe Lee, Chris Canterbury and more. 

“In a way this song was kind of a self fulfilling prophecy,” Chapman explains. “When we wrote it, the hurricane that was approaching my life hadn’t hit just yet, but just a few short months later we were expecting a baby and getting married. Even though 2025 changed everything, sometimes I still feel like the same kid trying to navigate it all. I love the way a song can grow in meaning long after the day it’s written, and this one definitely has.” 

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Photo - Alex SK Brown

Eric Gabriel - Lucky Day Roadrunner.

On a day off from tour in Phoenix, AZ, a curious stranger gestured toward Eric Gabriel from across the street. Following the direction of her finger, Gabriel saw the roadrunner perched on a curb. Remarking that they are always in motion, the binocular-clad woman said, “It must be your lucky day.”  

Fittingly, the NYC native's sophomore effort 'Lucky Day Roadrunner' is about the odd and meaningful connections found by taking a minute to look around or follow the directions of a friendly stranger. And it was a lucky day. Not just because he had never seen a roadrunner before, but also because the stranger shared her excitement, creating a collective experience and a new meaning in Gabriel's solitary, otherwise aimless walk in an unknown city.

Compared to his first solo record, Samara (2025), the album feels a bit looser, a bit less serious, and welcomes more roughness around the edges. Full of twists and turns, dive bars and long drives, Lucky Day Roadrunner presents a cohort of characters who feel as down on their luck as they do certain their luck is about to change. After all, we often feel luckiest when we escape near tragedy, or something bad almost happens: When a car almost crashes in “Blinded by the Light” or when the boy changes his wish over a birthday candle before "blowing it" on “Looking Back.”  The songs weave in and out of truth and fantasy, childhood memories and present moments, vulnerability and a humorous deflections — all together presenting a collection of magnetic stories filled with light-hearted cynicism and bittersweet nostalgia. 

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Simone White - Blueprint.

For her latest act, White conjures a curious baroque-pop composition that is as engaging as it is enigmatic. Reminiscent of complex, non-linear outings of Laurie Andersen, Agnes Obel, or Aldous Harding “Blueprint” finds White's gossamer vocal enveloped by dancing string arrangements by neoclassical minimalist composer Brent Arnold. 

A song that asks as many questions as it ever gives answers, “Blueprint” deconstructs urban settings familiar to all of us and unravels their existential mechanics, line by line. “How much do you think it weighs? Is it possible to learn from within the maze?” she wonders here. The single is accompanied by an official video, which is directed by Mark Benjamin. Layered, gliding and hypnotic, it lulls the viewer into a thoughtful reverie. 

“Blueprint” is taken from Simone White’s forthcoming album ‘Letter To The Last Generation’, available on CD + Digitally on 1st May 2026 (via Ghost Palace / Cargo). Something of a lost album, ‘Letter To The Last Generation’ has floated around the internet for some years. Lost in the twilight period of those first few weeks of the pandemic as the world readjusted to a new era, the album received an extremely limited vinyl release, before disappearing into the ether. With the majority of its tracks written and recorded in the weeks before White made a major move from LA to NYC, ‘Letter to the Last Generation’ feels like a collage from an artist in a restless, transitory state.

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Photo - Carrie McLeod

Lottie McLeod - Important To You.

Magan-djin/Brisbane-based singer-songwriter Lottie McLeod who has quickly built a reputation for atmospheres and lyrics that connect and resonate deeply, tapping into art's ability to comfort and even quietly heal wounds this week shares 'Important To You', a song that dives into the complexity of "setting boundaries for your own preservation", especially when both parties are struggling. 

Released following the recent announcement of her signing to ABC Music, joining labelmates Emily Wurramara, Playlunch, Flynn Gurry and more, 'Important To You' and its bayside black-and-white visualiser is the first new music from Lottie since her critically beloved debut EP Bug (2025) and live performance for triple j's 50th birthday. With the single marking a maturation in sound and perspective for the young artist, 'Important To You' is out now via ABC Music.

On 'Important To You', Lottie McLeod's initially soft but assured vocals carry grief, regret and determination across low-slung guitar and a bed of plaintive, stare-out-over-the-sea indie/alt-folk instrumentation that builds with fuzzed-out guitar, McLeod's increasingly resolute voice and splashy drums to a spontaneous scream of release in the track's dense, noisy outro.

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Licorice Chamber - Remnants (EP).

Led by goth siren Layla Reyna, darkwave / goth rock quartet Licorice Chamber from Tacoma, Washington, have just released their new Remnants EP (24 February 2026), ahead of a string of US West Coast live dates. Remnants is Licorice Chamber’s third EP since forming in 2021, and the first to feature new drummer Cory Sorrentino in place of the drum machine: joining guitarist Marc Jones (also a former member of Strap On Halo), and bassist Joe Fox. Discussing the themes explored by the new three-song Remnants EP, Layla Reyna says:

“The EP title Remnants suggests aftermath, what survives destruction. Rather than romanticizing despair, the songs feel like they’re exploring what’s left when illusions fall away. ‘Heavy’ explores the invisible weight of self-condemnation and the lasting impact of what we carry in silence.

With ‘Never the Same’, I was thinking about that moment when you realize there’s no going back and that something changes you permanently. Its origin is a dream I had that tasted like falling — the idea behind my first EP, and what ultimately convinced me to start Licorice Chamber. ‘Feign’ explores the armor we wear. The ways we perform strength when we’re actually unraveling.”

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The Great Emu War Casualties - Wanna See You.

'Wanna See You’ (out Friday, February 27), the second single from The Great Emu War Casualties upcoming debut album, ‘Public Sweetheart No.1' (out Friday, March 27), is a slice of everyday happiness in the band's otherwise cathartic and emotional repertoire. 

Following on from their earlier single this year ‘Donut’, ‘Wanna See You’ is proof that the band can write a happy song - if they choose to. Their previous three EPs sing to broken hearts, existential reflections, and candid commentary on life, but as the band moves into album territory, ‘Wanna See You’ breaks up that anxiety and reminds us that life can still be ok. Joe Jackson shares:

“Wanna See You is proof that I can write a happier song and just choose not to 95% of the time. It’s actually not that happy is it? It’s a simple song about the fact that I wanna see you every time you call and sometimes that’s all you need.” 

Even for their ‘happy song’, The Great Emu War Casualties have demonstrated their skill in contrast, combining the light and the dark through their bleak but evocative imagery, and bright, spirited musicality. Continuing with their sharp and observant lyricism, ‘Wanna See You’ explores that feeling of wanting to see someone when they call. 

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