Enabling Behaviour - Gwenno - The Widows

Photo - @meatgrinder

Enabling Behaviour - Electric Pop Songs (EP).

This is our introduction to Enabling Behaviour and what a welcome event that is. They have a new video for 'Tarantulina' that we have included however the entire EP is definitely one to hear as the band shift across genres with creative flair whilst maintaining a distinctive identity that is quite addictive.

Some background: Cardiff-based Enabling Behaviour are back with a new EP “Electric Pop Songs” (out on 25th November 2025 via Krautpop!). The six-track collection follows the band’s 2024 debut album “GILT!” and showcases an expansion of their musical sensibilities. Still rooted in post-punk, dripping with fuzz, and giving space to Eli’s soft, idiosyncratic vocal, the EP glitters with psychedelic folk and hints at their early shoegaze aspirations.

Recorded by bass-player Billy Tucker at Vault Studios in Cardiff and mastered by Billy Mattock, “Electric Pop Songs” is released in full on 25th November 2025. Pre-orders for a limited run of CDs and cassettes are live now on Bandcamp. Enabling Behaviour are gearing up for more shows across the UK and a European tour in 2027. Enabling Behaviour are: Eli Alison - Vocals, Guitar. Will Bevis - Guitar, Vocals. Bully Tucker - Bass. Conor Havard - Drums.


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

Photo - Clare Marie Bailey

Gwenno - Hireth (QUINQUIS Remix) / Dancing On Volcanoes (Stone Club Remix).

Following her recent UK tour, Gwenno today shares two exceptional remixes of tracks from her universally acclaimed album Utopia. The first is by Breton producer and Mute artist QUINQUIS (aka Émilie Quinquis) who supported Gwenno across her UK tour. The two artists met when they interviewed one another earlier this year, talking extensively about preserving their cultural identities through their art. Both QUINQUIS & Gwenno sing in their native tongues: the Celtic languages of Breton, Cornish and Welsh. Here, QUINQUIS has re-imagined Gwenno’s magical album closer “Hireth” into an otherworldly reverie, delicately stripped back with an added electronic hook, alluring the listener into a dreamlike state reminiscent of the astral projection found in the original harp-led track.

Gwenno has also shared a Stone Club remix of “Dancing On Volcanoes”, the first single to be released from Utopia. A reimagining of Gwenno on the Vegas dancefloor via Cardiff and the Cornish landscape that this remix was made within. Seeking out sounds and the feelings of club nights and the transcendence of repetitive beats with a vision of future free festivals in an alternative cultural reality. 

43 years into her life, Gwenno Saunders has been many people. The disaffected Cardiff schoolgirl; the teenage Las Vegas dancer; the singer in indie pop group The Pipettes. There was a turn in a Bollywood film, a nightclub tour, a stint cleaning floors in an East London pub. Long before she would become an acclaimed solo songwriter in both Welsh and Cornish, a winner of the Welsh Music Prize, a nominee for the Mercury, a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh, there were the days of Nevada, London, Brighton; of Irish dancing, techno clubs, messiness and chaos.

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

The Widows - Bardo Blues.

London’s genre-defying group The Widows are back. Post-punk, psych, rock ’n’ roll—call it what you like. Their sound is raw enough to shake the walls and hypnotic enough to make you forget your pint (unlikely for our editor, but great PR comments nonetheless)...

Formed in 2015, The Widows earned a reputation for electrifying live shows and releases that stirred equal parts confusion and acclaim—most notably their album Popular Demand and the provocatively titled single Brexit Chainstore Massacre. After a hiatus (blame a disappearing drummer), the band re-emerged in 2023 with a revitalised line-up: Kim Le Tan – vocals/synth, Francesco Manzi – guitar/vocals, Roger Salsas – bass/vocals, Vince Johnson – drums.

Influenced by the likes of The Stooges, Bowie, The Cramps, Television, The Fall — but imitation isn’t their game. Instead, The Widows conjure shadowy guitars, psych-tinged textures, and grooves that grip hard. Songs swing between melodic and chaotic, anchored by Kim’s vocals—seductive one moment, savage the next. Having haunted Camden Rocks and other notorious events around town, The Widows now prepare to release their most ambitious record yet.

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

Palm Ghosts - Rhett Miller - Gwenno - Black Dahlia - White Birches

Photo - Chad Crawford

Palm Ghosts - Content Providers (single).

Nashville-based indie rock trio Palm Ghosts releases its Content Providers album via Sweet Cheetah Records/Steadfast Records/Poptek Records on October 10. Content Providers is not just an album, it's a howl from the neon gulag of 2025, where rock bands aren’t bands anymore, but social media vending machines doling out dopamine and desperation in equal measure.

Palm Ghosts, ever the beautiful b*tards of post-punk gloom and cinematic pop, have cracked the mirror and are pointing to the ugly thing squirming behind it. These eleven songs don’t whisper or plead; they seethe, spiral, and spit in the face of algorithmic servitude. There’s blood under the fingernails of every chorus. You can hear the band clawing for something real in the white noise of followers, filters, and faux vulnerability. This is a world where authenticity has been weaponized, where the artist is just a dancing bear with a ring light and a Patreon account.

So, Content Providers does what any sane record would do—it loses its mind on tape. There are echoes of Gang of Four wielding a synth like a machete, Joy Division driving a burning Tesla into a lake, and sweet, sweet melodies that feel like postcards from a collapsing civilization written in faux-blood and tears. It’s ironic and earnest, brutal and beautiful.

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

Photo - Jason Quigley

Rhett Miller - All Over Again.

Rhett Miller releases “All Over Again,” the final single from his tenth solo album A lifetime of riding by night that arrives this Friday, October 10 via ATO Records. Co-written with Nicole Atkins, the tender song of hope and resilience poses the poignant question: What if everybody was there for each other just for a minute? 

About the single, Rhett Miller explains, "Nicole Atkins was the brains and driving force behind ‘All Over Again.’ She challenged me to go with her to a musical place I'd never gone before. We did something that felt big and sweeping and positive in a way we had no idea the world might need a few years later when the song finally found a home on this new record of mine."

Nicole Atkins adds, “I was out on tour with the Old 97’s, it was the first few months of my life being sober on the road and this music and melody came to me. I showed it to Rhett one night and the next day he had all the words and they were so beautiful and positive. Just like Rhett. It’s tough to write a song that’s happy but he always has the perfect lyrical twists that are so natural to him.”

Rhett Miller · All Over Again

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

Photo - Clare Marie Bailey

Gwenno - Utopia (Cornelius Remix).

Gwenno shares a dazzling Cornelius remix of “Utopia”, the title track from her new album that was released to universal acclaim via Heavenly Recordings in July. The Japanese producer / musical genius takes the track from Cardiff via Las Vegas and transports it to a starlit, sky high Tokyo piano bar. The result is pure utopian pop heaven - a sweeping orchestral love song to life itself. .

Commenting on the remix Gwenno says: “Cornelius is such a huge musical figure in anyone's life who came of age in the Naughties, and so I was over the moon when he agreed to remix Utopia. He has not only managed to enhance the musicality of the song, but has also added to the hyper real efflorescence that was in the air at the turn of the 21st century, which is what Utopia is all about. I see it as a perfect musical marriage between Las Vegas and Tokyo in the year 2025.”

Cornelius adds: “A few months ago Gwenno contacted me on social media asking if I’d do a remix. I didn’t know her music at the time, but once I listened I realized it was exactly my taste: psychedelic in feel, with production that hints at Krautrock and at Jean-Claude Vannier - Serge Gainsbourg’s arranger. I was also drawn to her natural, clear voice and her Welsh background. I was genuinely happy that an artist making music like that took an interest in what I’m doing all the way over here in Japan, so I gladly accepted. For my version of ‘Utopia’ I aimed for an elegant sound that updates the 1950s exotica of Esquivel and Martin Denny for today. I hope you enjoy it.”

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

Black Dahlia - The Imposter (Album).

Black Dahlia is an experimental musician and performance artist whose work blurs the boundaries between theatre, sound, and surreal spectacle. Her creations exist in dreamlike spaces where masks, characters, and worlds collide—flamboyant, avant-garde expressions that draw as much from performance art, mime, and surrealism as they do from music itself. Whether inhabiting strange personas on stage or building vast sonic landscapes, Black Dahlia conjures universes that feel both alien and intimately human, inviting her audience to step into the unknown.

Her new album The Imposter (out this week via her own imprint School of Dahlia) is a theatrical concept record that unfolds like a surreal stage play. Written, produced, arranged and performed by Black Dahlia, it follows a lone wanderer, The Imposter, who chases an enigmatic light away from a distant Paradise, only to find himself lost between realms, drifting through an interstellar limbo of time and strange encounters. The Imposter introduces this cosmic odyssey—an otherworldly tale of displacement and identity as the wanderer grapples with his fall from Paradise and the haunting uncertainty of existing between worlds.

Upon landing on Earth, the story continues with “Amphibian Man,” where The Imposter washes ashore in Germany and confronts the bizarre, dazzling reality of humankind. As he adopts new masks and identities in an attempt to belong, his confusion and frustration reach a breaking point, culminating in an explosive metamorphosis that symbolizes both rebellion and rebirth.


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

White Birches - Breathing.

Back in 2017 we first came across White Birches and were struck at the time by their incredible song construction and the atmosphere they create, so it's a big welcome back to Beehive Candy.  "Breathing" is the first single to be taken of the brand new upcoming album "A New Reign" (Release November 21 2025). 

The track sets the tone for the album with its raw pulse, hypnotic synths, deep bass and intense vocals. Written in the aftermath of loss and upheaval, the song captures both pressure and relief. It is about survival — the simple act of breathing, where one wave of sound inhales and the next exhales.

Fans of Chelsea Wolfe, PJ Harvey and Anna von Hausswolff will recognize the haunting balance between fragility and ferocity.

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

We are trying out a new Beta feature today with Google search links automatically added. Apologies in advance if they are not all appropriate, as said this is a Beta application we are trialing.

Cactus Lee - Sons of Sevilla - Gwenno

Cactus Lee - Got A Heart Like Rainwater Blues.

This spring Cactus Lee released a new self-titled album (with R. Crumb artwork) via the esteemed Austin label Western Vinyl. Yesterday they released a music video for the single "Got A Heart Like Rainwater Blues." Culled from Super-8 tour footage this spring, the video captures the nostalgia-tinted quality of Cactus Lee's timeless Texas music. 

Fronted by Austin songwriter Kevin Dehan, Cactus Lee's music shares the outsider spirit of the Lone Star state -- the dusty dive bars, the humming jukeboxes, the packed sweaty nightclubs. With a lilt to his voice, Dehan explores the highs and lows of loneliness and self-discovery. Often backed by a pedal steel and a shuffling drumbeat, his music evokes summers long-gone, days spent in the heat and humidity. Throughout you’ll find Dehan coming to terms with change and reflecting on life as memories float by and friendships grow.

The band has toured the US heavily, with headline shows in New York, Chicago, Nashville, and Los Angeles. Their music has been included on Spotify's Fresh Folk, Emerging Americana, Fresh Finds Folk, and NPR's New Music Friday playlists.

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

Photo - Seb Gardner

Sons of Sevilla - Butterfly.

Today, UK-based duo Sons of Sevilla announced the upcoming release of Street Light Moon, an album built for endless summers and retro-futurist reveries. Produced by GRAMMY-winning Adrian Quesada of Black Pumas, the album was inspired by a world's worth of influences and the pursuit of a vintage, real sound. The duo of brothers Henry and Reuben Smith have also released the lead single “Butterfly,” an immersive song that conjures up the tranquil daze of Spanish summers.

“We don’t sing about where we’re from,” says Henry. “The music escapes it. We’re trying very hard not to be an English indie rock band, because the world already has a lot of those. Instead, we’re trying to step into something else… and somewhere else.”

With a sound that exists out of time and off the map, the band draws from a world’s worth of influences: the family-owned British pub where brothers Henry and Reuben Smith grew up, watching their parents sling drinks as songs by John Prine and J.J. Cale played over the speakers; the marina in Gibraltar where they spent three weeks aboard an old fishing trawler, writing the album's songs as waves splashed against the dock; the recording studio in Austin, Texas, where they recorded Street Light Moon with Adrian Quesada and a small group of multi-instrumentalists.

Raised on the outskirts of Leeds, Henry and Reuben spent countless hours in their parents' taproom as pre-teens – all that time indoors was a musical education, introducing the young boys to songs by Buena Vista Social Club, Bob Dylan, Terry Reid, Neil Young, and Gene Clark. The summer months offered a different sort of education, with the family leaving their hometown of Featherstone and heading to the Spanish city of Sevilla. The area's Mediterranean climate felt downright exotic after a long, chilly British winter, and the new city helped broaden Henry and Reuben's appreciation for different cultures. Years later, when they began recording their debut album, the brothers nodded to those summertime vacations abroad by naming the project "Sons of Sevilla.

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

Photo - Clare Marie Bailey

Gwenno - Utopia.

This Friday, July 11, Gwenno releases her hugely anticipated and already highly acclaimed new album Utopia via Heavenly Recordings. Following the singles "Dancing On Volcanoes”, “War” and “Y Gath”, today Gwenno shares a ravishing video for the album’s gorgeous and dreamlike title track. “Utopia” paints a picture of someone living their life against the rapidly fading colors of Las Vegas. That story is sung over an ever-evolving groove that sounds like a Philly Soul band taking Moon Safari on an exciting new journey into the cosmos. The accompanying video was shot “Casino”-style on location in Las Vegas by Claire Marie Bailey.

43 years into her life, Gwenno Saunders has been many people. The disaffected Cardiff schoolgirl; the teenage Las Vegas dancer; the singer in indie pop group The Pipettes. There was a turn in a Bollywood film, a nightclub tour, a stint cleaning floors in an East London pub. Long before she would become an acclaimed solo songwriter in both Welsh and Cornish, a winner of the Welsh Music Prize, a nominee for the Mercury, a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh, there were the days of Nevada, London, Brighton; of Irish dancing, techno clubs, messiness and chaos.

Utopia, Saunders’ fourth solo album, is an extraordinary exploration of all of these selves. If the singer regards her first three solo records — 2014’s Y Dydd Olaf, 2018’s Le Kov and 2022’s Tresor as “childhood records”, rooted in her upbringing, her parents, her formative identity, then Utopia captures a time of self-determination and experimentation. These are songs of discovery, of the years between being someone’s daughter and becoming someone’s wife and someone’s mother. They range from floor-fillers to piano ballads, via contributions from Cate Le Bon and H. Hawkline, and encompass William Blake, a favorite Edrica Huws poem, and the Number 73 bus. It is her finest work to date.

There is a sense of revelation to Utopia, a feeling markedly different to that of previous records. Having released three albums in Welsh and Cornish, Utopia is Gwenno’s first album recorded predominantly in English, and presents a very different side to her life and songwriting.

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

Gwenno - Wylderness - Lawn Chair - The Bones of J.R. Jones - Sourwood - T. Hardy Morris

Gwenno - Y Gath.

"Ghostly and addictive, "Y Gath" sounds like spectral feline poetry being delivered at a midnight pagan gathering".  Sung in Gwenno's native Welsh, it comes ahead of her English-language release Utopia (out July 11 via Heavenly). We have already featured two tracks from the forthcoming album and have been very impressed by them both and this latest release is equally as gorgeous, these are some real teases ahead of the album. 

As mentioned before... Forty-three years into her life, Saunders has been many people. The disaffected Cardiff schoolgirl; the teenage Las Vegas dancer; the singer in indie pop group The Pipettes. There was a turn in a Bollywood film, a nightclub tour, a stint cleaning floors in an East London pub. Long before she would become an acclaimed solo songwriter in both Welsh and Cornish, a winner of the Welsh Music Prize, a nominee for the Mercury, a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh, there were the days of Nevada, London, Brighton; of Irish dancing, techno clubs, messiness and chaos.

'Utopia', Saunders’ fourth solo album, is an extraordinary exploration of all of these selves. If the singer regards her first three solo records — 2014’s Y Dydd Olaf, 2018’s Le Kov and 2022’s Tresor as “childhood records”, rooted in her upbringing, her parents, her formative identity, then Utopia captures a time of self-determination and experimentation. These are songs of discovery, of the years between being someone’s daughter and becoming someone’s wife and someone’s mother. They range from floor-fillers to piano ballads, via contributions from Cate Le Bon and H. Hawkline, and encompass William Blake, a favourite Edrica Huws poem, and the Number 73 bus. It is her finest work to date.

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

Wylderness - Safe Mode (EP).

Cardiff Indie-gaze band 'Wylderness' release their brand new and highly anticipated EP 'Safe Mode' via digital streaming platforms. The concept for this EP is reimagining the software and tech boom of the 90s. But instead of being centred on the west coast of America, it takes place in the south coast of Wales. Opening track Big Idea is a song about weighing up the pros and cons of different locations –whether that’s looking for a place to live, joining a cultural scene or where to base your dotcom business in the 90s. The message is that sometimes taking a cold logical approach doesn’t work and you have to go with your heart. This is the only song title on the EP that doesn’t reference the weather, but the rain does get a mention in the first verse (“So what’s the big idea / To find a place that’s near / And keep our raincoats on”). 

Is It Summer? This started out as a riff with loads of delay played on an old Vox amp we found where we were practicing. We then jammed about and it developed into a song in two parts. It has a cinematic quality in the first half with hints of Interpol. It reflects the wild west nature of the 90s tech boom. Then it erupts in the second half and outro (“Stand up count everything / If you want to / If you want to”). 

Sun Scream This is our Pavement meets Super Furry Animals song –it’s a bit loose, has some unexpected instrumentation, and a psych-folk middle eight. The opening lines and melody came to Dan in a flash of inspiration (“Maybe she was born with it / Maybe it was Maybelline”) and the song took off from there. To date we have not received a cease and desist letter from a major cosmetics firm. 

What Happens To The Rain This is the closer to the EP and really it’s another two songs in one. The title could be a question or a statement. The first half has a Real Estate vibe and the second half goes in a more trippy Brian Jonestown direction. It’s a song about going back to where you grew up, retracing memories and finding that they don’t quite add up to how you remember them (“Seeing faces you had forgotten / Crying for no-one / Recollections made of concrete / Fade in the sun”).

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

Photo - Frederike Wetzels

Lawn Chair - Waste Your Potential!

German-American indie punk outfit Lawn Chair is set to make waves with their highly anticipated debut album, You Want It! You Got It!, slated for release on September 5th, 2025. This week the Berlin-based outfit return with their electrifying new single ‘Waste Your Potential!’, a track that channels the restless energy of confronting a life that didn’t turn out as planned. Fierce, distorted guitars crash into buzzing synthesizers to create a tense, cathartic soundscape that nods to the jagged edge of acts like Shelf Lives - unleashing a track as emotionally charged as it is sonically unrelenting.

The single is accompanied by a striking and surreal music video, featuring a gang of vampires navigating the quiet monotony of farm life while secretly longing for the thrill of the night. It’s a tongue-in-cheek meditation on desire, domesticity, and the wildness we’re taught to repress.

For three years, Lawn Chair has been a vital force in the German indie scene, captivating audiences with their dynamic sound. Their previous two EPs, crafted in collaboration with producers Olaf Opal (The Notwist) and Chris Coady (Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs), solidified their reputation as one of the most exciting acts in Germany. With countless gigs across the country, a successful tour in the UK, and unforgettable performances alongside bands like Sleaford Mods and DeadLetter, as well as at festivals like Reeperbahn and Fusion, the band has proven their staying power.

Written during a time of personal and creative transition, You Want It! You Got It! was crafted between November 2023 and September 2024, with extensive pre-production shaping its unique sound. The album’s title, a lyric drawn from the new single, is a tongue-in-cheek response to the relentless demands of the music industry. Lyrically and sonically, the album draws inspiration from the absurdities of late-stage capitalism, fragile male egos, the never-ending quest for inner peace - and front woman Claudia Schlutius’s own complicated relationship with both her family and her U.S. origins.

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

Photo - Christian Harder

The Bones of J.R. Jones - Start Again.

New York-based artist The Bones of J.R. Jones shares “Start Again,” the final single released ahead of his sixth studio album Radio Waves, out June 20 via Tone Tree Music. An ode to breaking old relationship patterns and bettering the way we show up for ourselves and others, the song arrives with a music video that stitches together behind-the-scenes moments from his nearly sold-out European tour. 

About the new song, The Bones of J.R. Jones (a.k.a. Jonathon Linaberry) says: “There's a repetition and restraint to our lives and relationships that I think we all subscribe to to survive.  We fall into patterns of comfort and norm. Healthy or unhealthy, it doesn't really matter. The usual arguments. The usual blowbacks. The mutual attempts to understand the other's side: that's what I was trying to express in ‘Start Again.’”

On the video: “The talented Mike D'Alton (Seba Safe) shot this footage over three weeks of touring Europe. I was lucky enough to spend the better part of every day with Patrick Blaney, Conchur White and Mike as we managed to not get lost, sick or arrested. Only one of us got punched (that's a win). Any touring musician will tell you it takes a special crew to hold it together on tour. I know there are probably thousands of touring videos out there, but when I look at this one, I really do feel the love — the relentlessness, the exhaustion and the pure joy and chaos of a successful show.”

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

Sourwood - Wrong Carolina.

Following their debut release "On the Road," progressive bluegrass collective Sourwood returns with "Wrong Carolina," a rhythmically complex and narratively playful second single that blurs the lines between heartbreak and highway maps. The track explores the chaos of mistaken direction – both geographically and emotionally – fueled by one of the band's most memorable musical arrangements to date.

"It started with this story [that bandmate Liam Lewis] told me," says frontman Lucas Last, recalling a tour mix-up where Liam's band mistakenly arrived at a South Carolina venue – only to find out they were booked at a bar of the same name in North Carolina. "He was also going through a rough patch with someone named Caroline, so I just mashed those together: wrong place, wrong time, wrong person."

The song's namesake, "Wrong Carolina," plays with the ambiguity of place and person, letting the title line hit with layered meaning. “We wanted the lyric to feel deliberately unclear – 'I was in the wrong, Carolina' vs. 'I was literally in the wrong Carolina,'" Lucas explains. "It's simple, but the ambiguity is where the real emotional weight is."
 
Produced by Roman Marcone and engineered by Danny Smart, the song also showcases Sourwood's willingness to push sonic boundaries. From phasers on banjo to ambient textures more common in indie rock than bluegrass, the track embraces experimentation. "When I came back to hear the mix, Danny had added all these weird effects. Roman looked nervous, like maybe he'd gone too far," Lucas laughs. "But I loved it. It was the first time I'd ever heard a banjo run through a phaser and just said, 'Let's go with that.'"

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

Photo - Daniel Dent

T. Hardy Morris - Juvenile Years.

T. Hardy Morris will release Artificial Tears on August 8, 2025 via the New West Records imprint Normaltown Records. The 12-song set was produced & mixed by Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket and follows Morris’ 2021 album The Digital Age of Rome, met at the time with critical acclaim. The album’s first single, “Juvenile Years.” is a bittersweet song and reaches back for memories of a simpler time and place that hang just out of reach. Morris says, “‘Juvenile Years’ is a song somewhat specific to Athens, GA and the live local music scene as I came up in it. It was often a whirlwind of intense bonds over music and what one another was creating. Some of the relationships survive & carry on and some have passed like a strange song, but all were and are meaningful to who I am now.” 

Artificial Tears is an electrifying work of existential exploration. It is a raw, rock and roll reflection on meaning and identity in a modern world that’s simultaneously more connected and isolated than ever before. The performances are blissed-out and hazy, captured primarily on a four-track machine, and Morris’ delivery is subtle and understated to match, fueled by tumbling, stream-of-consciousness lyrics rooted in a dreamy sense of longing and nostalgia. Despite the weighty ruminations at its core, the result is a remarkably grounded, down to earth album that’s at once honest and abstract, a poignant, clear-eyed look in the mirror from a master craftsman committed to his work for nothing more—and nothing less—than its own intrinsic value. 
 
In typical fashion for Morris, the songs came slowly at first, then all at once in a rush as he reflected on two decades of highs and lows, on the joys and struggles of a life in music. When it came time to record, he called on Broemel, who ended up not only producing, but playing the vast majority of the instruments on the album. “Hardy’s got a really direct and honest approach to music—and to life—which was refreshing,” says Broemel. “He likes to work fast and not get too precious about things.”

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

Gwenno - Josienne Clarke - Lou-Adriane Cassidy - The Slackers

Gwenno - War.

'War' is the brand new single from Gwenno's new album 'Utopia.'which is set for release on July 11th, 2025. Having released three albums in Welsh and Cornish, 'Utopia' is Gwenno Saunders’ first album recorded predominantly in English, and presents a very different side to her life and songwriting.

Forty-three years into her life, Saunders has been many people. The disaffected Cardiff schoolgirl; the teenage Las Vegas dancer; the singer in indie pop group The Pipettes. There was a turn in a Bollywood film, a nightclub tour, a stint cleaning floors in an East London pub. Long before she would become an acclaimed solo songwriter in both Welsh and Cornish, a winner of the Welsh Music Prize, a nominee for the Mercury, a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh, there were the days of Nevada, London, Brighton; of Irish dancing, techno clubs, messiness and chaos.

'Utopia', Saunders’ fourth solo album, is an extraordinary exploration of all of these selves. If the singer regards her first three solo records — 2014’s Y Dydd Olaf, 2018’s Le Kov and 2022’s Tresor as “childhood records”, rooted in her upbringing, her parents, her formative identity, then Utopia captures a time of self-determination and experimentation. These are songs of discovery, of the years between being someone’s daughter and becoming someone’s wife and someone’s mother. They range from floor-fillers to piano ballads, via contributions from Cate Le Bon and H. Hawkline, and encompass William Blake, a favourite Edrica Huws poem, and the Number 73 bus. It is her finest work to date.

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

Josienne Clarke - Tiny Bird’s Lament.

Critically acclaimed singer, songwriter and guitarist Josienne Clarke announces her raw and intimate new album Far From Nowhere, due out this autumn via Corduroy Punk. Alongside the album announcement, Clarke shares the first single ‘Tiny Bird’s Lament’, a haunting, minimalist track recorded direct to tape in a remote Scottish cabin. The single offers the first glimpse into the stripped-back sound and emotional clarity that define the new record.

The album will be accompanied by a short film titled Deluded, directed by Alec Bowman_Clarke, offering a candid, behind-the-scenes portrait of the album’s creation. Currently screening at festivals, the film will be shown throughout Clarke’s UK tour this October - full dates now announced - before its general release on November 30th.

Long admired for her crystalline voice and unflinching lyrical gaze, Clarke has always had an ability to evoke a communal melancholy. But with this LP, recorded at a remote Scottish cabin, she’s achieved the feat of stripping away the barriers between artist and listener. What emerges is a record of remarkable intimacy and integrity as Clarke embraces stillness and vulnerability. She sought total isolation but ended up creating something even more profoundly connective.

Also born of practical constraint, Far From Nowhere is a natural step and defiant response to the logistical and emotional tolls of trying to eke out a living in the music industry in 2025. “Making music today, for me, often feels like an exercise in retreat,” Clarke says. “The structure of the industry slowly suffocates the spirit of artists, starving them of the self-esteem that comes from remuneration for a job well done, so retreating to a cabin in the woods to make my album made sense.”


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

Lou-Adriane Cassidy - Triste Animal (Album)

Yesterday, fresh off the critical acclaim of her last project, Journal d’un loup-garou, Canadian singer-songwriter Lou-Adriane Cassidy returns with a bold and unexpected follow-up: Triste Animal. A raw, genre-defying album recorded entirely live to tape with zero edits, the album arrives just three months after her previous release, and marks a daring turn toward spontaneity and artistic freedom.

While wrapping up Journal d’un loup-garou, an album celebrated in Quebec for its cinematic scale and theatrical live shows, Cassidy found herself craving something looser, more instinctive. "After two years of deep focus on that project, I just needed to let go," she explains. That urgency led to Triste Animal: eight songs captured live over four days by eight musicians, with no overdubs or polish. The only exception? A guitar solo on “Adieu”, because, as Cassidy puts it, “our guitarist couldn’t make it that day.”

The result is a stripped-down, emotionally potent record that foregrounds Cassidy’s mesmerizing voice and sharp compositional instincts. Backed by some of Quebec’s top musicians (Alexandre Martel, Thierry Larose, Vincent Gagnon, PE Beaudoin), and with vocal arrangements crafted and sung alongside her longtime collaborators Odile Marmet-Rochefort, Ariane Roy, and Lysandre Ménard, the album captures lightning in a bottle: real-time performances that breathe and bleed.

Stylistically, Triste Animal is Cassidy’s most eclectic effort yet, weaving together threads of folk, soul, West Coast country, chamber pop, samba, jazz, and even traces of acoustic grunge. Tracks like “Tout le monde dans autour” (penned by filmmaker-musician Stéphane Lafleur) showcase heart-wrenching tenderness, while the brooding intensity of “Adieu” and the driving, dissonant “Valse frustrée” highlight her dynamic vocal range and emotional grit.

Lou-Adriane Cassidy · Triste Animal

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

The Slackers - My Last Star.

New York City’s longtime ska/reggae legends The Slackers have released their newest single “My Last Star,” now available everywhere fine records are sold as a 12” UV Printed Single from Pirates Press Records.

“My Last Star” began as a dream that Greg Lee of Los Angeles’s Hepcat had the week before his death in March of 2024. Greg dreamed of a Slackers song. The Slackers have completed this song, and released it into the world.

Now that the song is finally out for all to hear, and The Slackers, along with a team of close associates head up by writer/direct Pat Byrne, have crafted a poignant music video to accompany this beautiful collaboration with - and tribute to - their longtime friend.

The Slackers are currently stationed in the Los Angeles County area, where they are gearing up to perform five shows in six nights from May 7th through the 11th. These shows in Hepcat’s hometown will function as the record release for “My Last Star,” and they will be playing the song every night.

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

Claire Helm - Moving Into Tucson - Gwenno - Hannah Rose Platt

Claire Helm - Ghost.

Fusing pop and soft rock into hauntingly beautiful but pulsing melodies and lush musicianship, Ghost is a searing track all about the person who comes into your life like a game show host, showing you all of the best parts of themselves, and then when you pull back the curtain to look for the truth and the real person, you discover the smoke and mirrors that lie that behind the facade....and that in reality there is nothing there...like a ghost. Written by Mark Sykes and Claire Helm and produced by Steve Dutton with mastering from the highly respected studios of Carl Rosamond at RSS Music and Media.

This track features a veritable Huddersfield super group of superb, well established local musicians of the highest calibre. With polymath Steve Dutton from the mod legends The Killermeters on drumming, engineering, producing, cinematography and photography duties, local rock god Roger Kinder from one of West Yorkshire’s leading live bands Razorbach on lead guitar, the badass bass from Mark Sykes of Champagne Supernova, and the exceptional singer/songwriter and exemplary musican Nick Ryder on additional guitars and keys.

Ghost also features the stunning acoustic guitar of the late Boo Sutcliffe, and this fact is heartbreakingly significant as it is the last track that Boo was able to play on shortly before brain surgery led to him losing his renowned dexterity in his arm and hand. It was purely incidental that the track was called Ghost, as his playing is very much alive and in glorious technicolour on this powerful track, and will forever be.

Claire Helm · Ghost

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

Moving Into Tucson - Are You Ready.

Moving Into Tucson, the indie pop rock band known for their evocative storytelling and unforgettable melodies, returns with Are You Ready, a shimmering Britpop anthem for our times. Infused with the optimism and energy of the genre's golden era, this track is a call to action wrapped in an irresistibly catchy tune.

The song’s lyrics, driven by heartfelt imagery and a universal message, evoke childhood innocence and the urgent need for unity. With lines like, “Are you ready to build up a world of love / To build up a world of peace” the track challenges listeners to step up and create a better future. The nostalgic verses, painted with sunny playground memories and riverside conversations, are a poignant reminder of what’s at stake.

Anchored by the chorus’s soaring harmonies and upbeat rhythm, Are You Ready is not just a song, it’s an anthem of hope. The band’s Britpop influences shine through in every driving chord and uplifting refrain, making it impossible not to sing along.

Are You Ready is more than a rallying cry; it’s a feel-good reminder that change starts with all of us. So, turn up the volume, let the music inspire you, and join Moving Into Tucson in building a world worth dreaming about.

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

Photo - Clare Marie Bailey

Gwenno - Dancing On Volcanoes.

Gwenno today announces her new album Utopia due out July 11 via Heavenly Recordings. The album is the follow-up to her hugely acclaimed third album Tresor which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2022. To accompany the announcement Gwenno has shared lead single “Dancing On Volcanoes” together with a stylish B&W video shot in Las Vegas. Over a backing track that swirls, drives and punches like a motorik-fuelled version of The Smiths, Gwenno looks back on dancefloors that no longer exist, to the act of dancing as catharsis and the magic of losing oneself until 5am in a strange and beautiful new environment. It’s the perfect return of one of the UK's most creative and driven musicians.

Commenting on the track Gwenno says: “Jarvis Cocker dancing alone on stage, surrounded by dry ice, perfectly conveying the loss of our congregational dancing and drinking in small venues with a slight swing of the hip and flick of a hand... dancing 'til 5am at Le Mandela restaurant in Grangetown, Cardiff... the Pet Shop Boys' perfectly aimed observations on modern life... the spirit of Johnny Marr on guitar, his echoes of the Celtic sea passed down through the generations... the need to dance as a cathartic act... it's all here - Dancing on Volcanoes!"

43 years into her life, Gwenno Saunders has been many people. The disaffected Cardiff schoolgirl; the teenage Las Vegas dancer; the singer in indie pop group The Pipettes. There was a turn in a Bollywood film, a nightclub tour, a stint cleaning floors in an East London pub. Long before she would become an acclaimed solo songwriter in both Welsh and Cornish, a winner of the Welsh Music Prize, a nominee for the Mercury, a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh, there were the days of Nevada, London, Brighton; of Irish dancing, techno clubs, messiness and chaos.

Utopia, Saunders’ fourth solo album, is an extraordinary exploration of all of these selves. If the singer regards her first three solo records — 2014’s Y Dydd Olaf, 2018’s Le Kov and 2022’s Tresor as “childhood records”, rooted in her upbringing, her parents, her formative identity, then Utopia captures a time of self-determination and experimentation. These are songs of discovery, of the years between being someone’s daughter and becoming someone’s wife and someone’s mother. They range from floor-fillers to piano ballads, via contributions from Cate Le Bon and H. Hawkline, and encompass William Blake, a favorite Edrica Huws poem, and the Number 73 bus. It is her finest work to date.

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

Hannah Rose Platt - Young Men Need Their Wives.

While staying true to the themes of medicine and misogyny at the heart of her conceptual album, "Young Men Need Their Wives" is drawn from a much more personal well of influence. Ultimately pressured by multiple therapists and medical professionals to stay in an abusive relationship during a particularly challenging chapter of her life, this fierce track channels the chaotic, disorienting emotions she felt during that time.

As Hannah explains: “I wrote "Young Men Need Their Wives" as a fierce declaration that we are all worthy of love that is kind, genuine, and healthy—free from manipulation. Many of the lyrics are drawn directly from the harmful and dangerous advice I was given verbatim by therapists and medical professionals. This song is not just about reclaiming my own voice; it’s also about empowering anyone who has ever felt pressured to stay in toxic situations. It serves as a reminder that we deserve love that lifts us up, and we should never settle for being collateral damage in someone else’s journey of self-discovery.”

With lyrics that cut right to the bone and a score that blends the raw energy of Sonic Youth's distorted guitars with the soulful, catchy, yet vulnerable sound of The Shirelles; "Young Men Need Their Wives" shakes to the core with its rebellious spirit and defiant message.

A standout moment of her next album ‘Fragile Creatures’, this song is an assertion of independence and strength that turns a painful experience into a powerful call for self-worth and self-liberation. The track will feature on the record alongside previous singles ‘Curious Mixtures’ and ‘The Edinburgh Seven’.

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