EDIE - ALA.NI - Gelli Haha - Hilary Hawke

EDIE - Girl’s Girl.

Boorloo (Perth) songwriter EDIE has made a name for herself through biting back at the misogyny that lurks all around, and now she’s turning the camera around to the girls who take part in tearing each other down in her newest single, ‘Girl’s Girl’, out on June 12.

Perth’s indie/ pop-rock princess EDIE is back with the same punch of energy she’s growing to be known and loved for, as shown through her 2024 debut EP and live shows buzzing with electricity. She kick started 2025 with her last release, ‘Bleed’, catching the attention of Triple J, RAGE, Triple J Unearthed, Rolling Stone, and even receiving a WAM nomination in the pop category, showing off how people crave her blend of girliness and edge.

‘Girl’s Girl’ has that signature EDIE bite with its toe-tapping electric basslines and its catchy drum loops, with EDIE’s strong voice helping the lyrics to stand out and be heard. This tune is versatile and addictive, the kind of song that can be listened to as a background track or really heard with the meaning of it raining down. 

This song isn't afraid to call out those who aren't a ‘Girl’s Girl’— Girl's girls lift each other up and aren’t afraid to call out misogyny, even when it’s coming from another woman. As such, this song is a softer side to EDIE’s usually cutting discography, a song more sad than angry. When a man is sexist, it's half-expected, but the friendly fire of a girl turning her back on another girl feels like a betrayal. EDIE says,

“‘Girl’s Girl’ is about the girls who just don’t support other girls! The ones who say they are there for you but then stab you in the back. And the ones who say “I’m one of the boys” or “I don’t hang out with girls, they’re too much drama!” I am exhausted with it! Let’s all support each other and lift each other up!” 

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Photo -  Jerome Witz

ALA.NI - Summer Meadows.

Paris-based singer/songwriter ALA.NI releases new single “Summer Meadows” via No Format Records, her second new song of the year following last month’s “Something You Said.” Drawing from a rich tapestry of influences – from calypso, to jazz, to bossa nova – the track is an intimate, heartfelt homage to her time spent living in Jamaica. The song also arrives with a music video which further celebrates her Caribbean heritage by effortlessly weaving her music with footage from Trinidad’s 1959 Carnival. 

“I definitely wrote this one under my duvet, wishing for sunshine,” shares ALA.NI. “It was December 2023, and mentally, I was back in Jamaica. The contrabass you hear is actually Clément Petit on the cello, while the carnivalesque trumpets and horns were played by Okiel McIntyre, a great kid I met playing music in Jamaica. I needed someone who knew what Caribbean sunshine feels like! I called him out of the blue — and he just happened to be flying into Paris to play with The Skatalites a few days later, so I grabbed him.”

The track takes inspiration from the two and a half years she spent traveling across Barbados, Grenada – where her parents grew up – and Jamaica, a trip that helped her find a renewed sense of self. Music flowed naturally, and she found herself collaborating with many of the Caribbean’s most prominent artists. Back in Paris, she channeled the energy she felt on this journey – thinking of the sunshine, heat, beauty and soul of these islands. 

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Photo - Sophie Prettyman Beauchamp

Gelli Haha - Normalize.

Gelli Haha reveals “Normalize”. Influenced by 80s Nigerian soul boogie, her final single ahead of the release of debut full-length album, Switcheroo, delivers mid-tempo synth-funk underneath a raw but smooth vocal. Gelli Haha expresses her desire to be free of hardships in the chorus, singing “I want to fly away”. The video for “Normalize” adapts Gelli Haha’s live stage performance into film, and is the next chapter of the psycho-science experiment that began in the previous single, “Spit,” revealing Gelli has been transformed into a parachute monster. 

A shapeshifter, a sonic acrobat, a performer with one foot in the cosmos and the other in arthouse theatrics, Gelli Haha (pronounced Jelly-Haha) is a space for pure creative chaos that exists somewhere between Studio 54 and Area 51. Gelli’s music thrives on duality: playful but profound, tongue-in-cheek but sincere. Her debut album Switcheroo, out next month via Innovative Leisure, is the soundtrack to the Gelliverse, a sensory adventure sphere created by Gelli. 

With a shared taste for off-kilter pop and vintage gear, producer Sean Guerin (of De Lux) joined Gelli in turning freshly-formed demos into a high-voltage experiment, abandoning meticulous structure for something freer and more electrifying. Every song on Switcheroo makes use of a myriad of recording toys; wacky analog effects, such as the Eventide Harmonizer, MXR Pitch Transposer, and various Electrix units, fashion an intentionally flawed and strictly silly texture throughout the album. Switcheroo is an exercise in letting go, an inside joke turned theatrical spectacle.

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Hilary Hawke — NYC Waltz.

Hilary Hawke is a genre-blending banjoist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist whose sound is as rooted as it is boundary-pushing. Originally from upstate New York and now a longtime staple of the NYC music scene, Hilary brings warmth, charisma, and grit to every stage she steps onto. Whether fingerpicking with precision or digging into clawhammer grooves, her style radiates a rare combination of technique and heartfelt authenticity. 

She is looking forward to the release of Lift Up This Old World (coming July 11, 2025 on Adhyâropa Records). Featuring contributions from Ross Martin, Max Johnson, Jacob Jolliff, Camille Howes and Bobby Hawk, the album is raw and honest bluegrass and old-time music, exploring themes of self-belief, resilience, and reconnecting with your roots. Born out of heartbreak and the unpredictable journey through life and the music industry, it’s a return to authenticity-just real songs, played and lived. Nine of the 11 tracks are original, touching on themes of strength, perseverance, acceptance, and even a couple of tearjerkers. This album is about trusting your path and creating genuine connections through both traditional and original music. 

The album's first single "NYC Waltz," out today, is an ode to Hilary's locality, written and performed by Hilary on banjo, and featuring Ross Martin on guitar, Max Johnson on bass, Bobby Hawk on fiddle, and gorgeous harmonies by Ruth Merenda. 

Hilary current live project features a powerhouse trio, rounded out by celebrated guitarist Ross Martin and rising fiddle innovator Camille Howes. Since forming in 2023, the group has built its identity around improvisation, original songwriting, and a shared reverence for bluegrass and old-time traditions - while never being afraid to stretch the genre’s boundaries. In 2023, Hilary released Lilygild, an instrumental album, with guitarist Reed Stutz, followed by Open the Doors, a neo-classical collaboration with pianist/synthesist duo Ola & Claude Aldous. 

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Far Caspian - Emily Hines - Georgian - Gelli Haha

Far Caspian - An Outstretched Hand / Rain From Here to Kerry.

Far Caspian is Irish singer-song writer and producer Joel Johnston. Joel writes, records and performs everything on his albums from his studio in Leeds, UK and tours as a 6-piece band. Far Caspian have released two albums to date and sold out numerous shows across the UK, EU and USA whilst quietly building a streaming audience internationally totalling over 200m streams across platforms.  Autoficion is Far Caspian's third album due July 25th.

On his new album Autofiction, Far Caspian’s Joel Johnston is learning to make peace with the cards he’s been dealt. Following his Crohn’s disease diagnosis in 2021, Johnston felt stuck mourning the loss of his life before, and struggling to cope with not only his new reality, but also an ongoing battle with OCD and anxiety. Autofiction finds the Irish musician discovering the tools he needs to keep moving forward. “I’m now at the point where I don't really let it define me,” he says. “The lyric ‘your mind changed from a fear to a song’ [on ‘Lough’] is my expression of freedom: to no longer be held down by something you’ve got used to. I’m trying to not even make sense of it all, but just live in it, and be grateful for the things I do have.”

The lyrics across Autofiction—which dive deep into mental health burdens, self-forgiveness, recovery, and gratitude for supportive, uplifting partnership—are Johnston’s most direct, diaristic and literal to date. As such, it’s also his most vulnerable release yet. “I just wanted to get the message across,” he says. “People will sometimes comment on songs of mine saying ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ I wanted to make a record that was a bit more heard. I even made my vocals louder than I usually do.” Freeing himself from any internal judgments or inhibitions, Johnston wrote songs for Autofiction with a simple motto: “I’m enjoying this right now and therefore it’s good enough.” The process helped him reconnect with the joy of music, the reason he started making it in the first place. It felt like the first time he made an album for himself, rather than an audience. “The fact that I was less self-critical and worried about others' opinions–I think that’s why the lyrics became more straightforward. I didn’t feel the need to dress them up or hide behind something.”

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Emily Hines - All Of Our Friends.

Nashville songwriter Emily Hines releases "All Of Our Friends" this week, the third single from her debut album These Days, out August 1 via Keeled Scales.

Emily writes: "I wrote this song in a guy's bedroom while he was working in the other room. Fresh out of college, I was naive and earnest, putting everything under a microscope. I’d fallen in love a little too quickly and felt the familiar nausea of an intimacy hangover. The lyrics are mostly questions I knew better than to ask out loud."

About the recording, Hines continues: "One of my favorite parts of the recording was when we asked two of my dearest collaborators and confidants, Madelyn Baier and Liv Greene to come over and add some harmonies. We sat in a crescent and sang into an omni mic. At some point, my dog, Birdy, waltzed in and made her debut in the first verse. Because we’re sentimental and silly, we kept it."

The single comes with a music video directed by Nashville filmmaker Abby Holmes. "When I asked Abby to make a music video with me, she showed up to coffee the next morning with several pages of hand sketched storyboard to show me. I love working with her so much. Her tenacity is incredible. We shot this video in two days with the help and generosity of many friends. It felt a lot like camp. I was so happy to be with everyone, all my anxiety about being on camera melted away."

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Photo - Rob Smalley

Georgian - Learning to Forget.

Manchester based Georgian continues to explore her poised melancholic sound with new single and first new music of the year ‘Learning to Forget’ out now via Heist or Hit.
 
Formed and fronted by Georgia McKiernan and completed by her band (Harry George, James Poole, James Polglase and Connor Alder), Georgian’s genre fluid output is expansive; a soft bloom of sullen 60s psychedelia and folk horror peppered with Southern Gothic inclinations and a sophisticated jazz leaning. With lyrics that are mournful yet comforting, painted alongside a vivid cinematic landscape, her sound is one that is modern yet nostalgic.
 
Georgian introduced herself with the singles ‘Big Lips in Leather’ and ‘Soleil’ last year and new track ‘Learning to Forget’ continues to showcase the accomplished musical array of Georgia and her band. Produced and recorded in Amsterdam by Arno Stols (Magenta Studios), it is a track that is both intimately warm yet darkly melancholic, blending progressive rock with dark folk and building in intensity and emotion throughout. The video, filmed in Georgian’s hometown of Manchester and directed by harry right here, sees Georgia struggle through the emotions of re-emerging from a broken relationship.
 
Georgia says, “’Learning to Forget’ has a true Georgian structure, from starting quite slow, melancholy and reflective, to progressing to a heavy, distorted and powerful sound – expect the unexpected! The song itself discusses heartbreak and how you can be so eager to forget everything when a relationship ends. Even though you don’t want the memories and small reminders of that person, they still happen.”

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Photo - Sophie Prettyman-Beauchamp

Gelli Haha - Spit.

In Gelli Haha’s latest single “Spit” - only S-words are allowed. The track has underground-club grit, with a strong, consistent bass line and strange electronic effects. On “Spit”, participation is encouraged and surrender is required. The accompanying music video, directed by David Gutel, features Gelli strapped to a spiraling operation board as Gelli Kompany scientists conduct a surreal experiment on her.

A shapeshifter, a sonic acrobat, a performer with one foot in the cosmos and the other in arthouse theatrics, Gelli Haha (pronounced Jelly-Haha) is a space for pure creative chaos that exists somewhere between Studio 54 and Area 51. Gelli’s music thrives on duality: playful but profound, tongue-in-cheek but sincere. Her debut album Switcheroo, out next month via Innovative Leisure, is the soundtrack to the Gelliverse, a sensory adventure sphere created by Gelli.

With a shared taste for off-kilter pop and vintage gear, producer Sean Guerin (of De Lux) joined Gelli in turning freshly-formed demos into a high-voltage experiment, abandoning meticulous structure for something freer and more electrifying. Every song on Switcheroo makes use of a myriad of recording toys; wacky analog effects, such as the Eventide Harmonizer, MXR Pitch Transposer, and various Electrix units, fashion an intentionally flawed and strictly silly texture throughout the album. Switcheroo is an exercise in letting go, an inside joke turned theatrical spectacle.

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Speedial - Echo Valley - Lucette - Gelli Haha

Photo - Samuel George Franklin

Speedial - Tourist.

London four-piece Speedial blend melodic post-rock, shoegaze, math rock, jazz fusion and noise-rock into a captivating and distinctive sound, reminiscent of everything from Deerhoof and Big Thief to Radiohead, Faraquet and the atmospheric textures of David Bowie's Blackstar.

Dual vocalists Serena and Millie weave intricate harmonies over complex instrumental landscapes, with saxophonist Monarch and drummer Joe's technical ability adding a crucial layer of depth. Produced by Joseph Futak (Tapir!, lilo), new single 'Tourist' - released today - offers a taste of this interplay, with Serena noting the song's lyrics' depiction of "an exaggerated 'evil' version of myself."

Speaking more on new single 'Tourist', vocalist Serena said: "When I'm feeling guilty about something I tend to get quite dramatic and it's easy to spiral into thinking one bad decision makes people think the worst of you. It was cathartic in a way to write all of that negativity down and realise that that isn't really how I am. I wanted the lyrics to be quite bleak and matter of fact. I usually get caught up with flowery language and making my lyrics kind of opaque and hard to decipher but I didn’t want to hide behind that for this song."

A collective of musicians who grew up playing together, Speedial's shared history is evident in their tight-knit sound. Part of London's thriving alternative scene, the band are regulars at The Windmill, The George Tavern, and The Shacklewell Arms, recently sharing stages with acts like Picture Parlour, Camera Picture (black midi), Ugly (UK), Dog Race, The Orchestra (For Now), Deep Tan, Automotion, amongst others.

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Echo Valley - Lies.

Echo Valley is back with a brand-new single from their highly anticipated album, Leave You Behind, set to release this spring. This latest track is a lively and energetic breakup song, blending the band’s signature Bluegrass, Americana, and Country influences with a playful musicality that contrasts its weighty lyrics.

Fiddle player Emily Anderson steps into the spotlight with dynamic lead vocals, bringing both charm and attitude to the song. The contrast between the song's upbeat instrumentation and its poignant lyrics makes for a compelling and unforgettable listening experience.

“I wrote this song while helping a friend going through a breakup.” Says songwriter Lizzy Anderson, guitar player and harmony vocals on the song. “I was helping my friend delete the pictures of her ex off of her phone when I came across a picture that made me laugh. It was a poorly photoshopped photo of a cartoon gravestone with the boyfriend's name. It said “Here lies Billy. He died alone”. I chuckled about it for the next few days till I finally put it down in song.”

Recorded in Nashville, Leave You Behind marks a new chapter for Echo Valley as they continue to push musical boundaries while staying true to their roots.

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Photo - Sebestian Buzzalino

Lucette - Rodeo Clown.

Canadian singer-songwriter Lucette shares the slow-burn single "Rodeo Clown" ahead of her new EP Nice Girl From The Suburbs releasing this Friday. Co-written with producer Soren Hansen (New Politics, Elle King, Sam Palladio), "Rodeo Clown" finds Lucette on the wrong side of the joke as opportunities pass to the steady beat of anthemic dream pop synths.

Lucette will play a special hometown show at Edmonton's Double Dragon on April 24, followed by a performance in Calgary on May 2. "'Rodeo Clown' is about feeling like despite giving it your all, you won’t succeed," says Lucette. "Even if you have the same bruises and failures as the ones that have seen glory. It’s about feeling unseen while still admitting to your faults."

Continuing the musical inclinations Lucette (aka Lauren Gillis) first began exploring on her acclaimed 2019 release Deluxe Hotel Room, Nice Girl From the Suburbs is brimming with self-awareness and a sense of shared humanity. The six-song EP mixes self-pity with clever self-deprecation, as the wry observer in Lucette turns her sharply intuitive eye onto herself. She has previously shared three singles from the EP, including a pedal-steel-filled boot-stomper filtered through a slacker-pop lens called “Back in the Blue” (feat. Mariel Buckley), and “Heading for the End,” which finds her living in the complexity of being human while still resisting people-pleasing stereotypes. The latest single “Too Soon For Sorry” starts out as a yearning love song before building to a frenzy of fuzzed out guitar wails, and Atwood Magazine called it "the kind of cathartic confessional that sends shivers down the spine"

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Photo - Sophie Prettyman Beauchamp

Gelli Haha - Bounce House.

A shapeshifter, a sonic acrobat, a performer with one foot in the cosmos and the other in arthouse theatrics, Gelli Haha (pronounced Jelly Haha) is a space for pure creative chaos.

For the opening trick, Gelli Haha presents her debut album, Switcheroo. Gelli’s music thrives on duality: playful but profound, tongue-in-cheek but sincere. Switcheroo is the soundtrack to the Gelliverse, a sensory adventure sphere created by Gelli.

Her debut art pop single “Bounce House” flashes back to youth-like innocence with high upbeat energy, turning the dance floor into a playground. The track’s accompanying music video rockets viewers straight into Gelliverse. This live revue is an invitation into a world of choreography, dolphin balloons, flutes, mini trampolines, and a stage bathed in the project’s primary color, red - bold and full of mischief. The  360 experience was shot all in one take by director David Gutel.

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