In celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the first album from '60 hit makers and sunshine pop pioneers The Cyrkle and the band's landmark performances as the opening band on The Beatles' final tour, Big Stir Records proudly presents the first-ever Vinyl release of the group's acclaimed 2024 reunion album Revival. Remastered and re-sequenced from its original CD release, the album (featuring founding singer-guitarist Don Dannemann, original keyboard player Mike Losekamp and vintage vocals from late co-founder Tom Dawes) joins the band's original albums on wax in record stores and online retailers on July 10 2026.
Famed for their 1966 #2 radio smash “Red Rubber Ball” and its era-defining follow up hit “Turn-Down Day,” both regarded as classic cornerstones of the sunshine pop sound, The Cyrkle had an all-too-brief but astonishing heyday exactly sixty years ago. Beyond the beloved hits, they were the only American band to be managed by Brian Epstein and landed a coveted slot opening for The Beatles on their historic final tour. Despite their stratospheric early success, The Cyrkle would only issue two proper albums, their debut and 1967's underappreciated-at-the-time Neon, before disbanding.
It would be forty years before founders Dannemann and Dawes reconnected to explore a prospective reunion, only to have it cut short by Dawes' tragic passing. Yet another decade elapsed before Dannemann and Losekampre united as the anchors of a new lineup of The Cyrkle including bassist Dean Kastran (a founding member of The Ohio Express) as well as Pat McLoughlin (vocals, guitar), Don White(lead guitar, vocals) and Scott Langley (drums, vocals). They've been performing on the retro rock circuit to adoring crowds since 2016, mixing their own classics with other key '60s tracks and, most excitingly, brand new original material.
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| Photo - Lauren Stewart |
On the heels of their spellbinding new debut album folk fatale, which sounds ancient as dirt and scans post-modernly feminist as Bikini Kill, the charismatic and revolutionary Ukrainian-rooted duo DIVKA, launch their LP release tour of Ontario and Western Canada on July 7, 2026, at The Tranzac Club in Toronto. For more information, please visit the DIVKA website.
DIVKA is made up of Alina Kytasty Kuzma, a tradition-re-focusing player of the bandura (Ukrainian national harp/zither) and vocal forest nymph; and Zoë Santo, a guttural viola player and gremlin of chaos and sometimes vocals. DIVKA use bygone folk songs from Ukrainian and global women's music-making traditions to launch their ethereal, polyphonic vocals and throaty, primeval invocations – haunting as fear itself, hypnotic as a trance. As a sonic rebel reckoning, DIVKA's music is charged with mythology, traditional village singing, and generations of femme power, mystic whimsy, and a dash of vengeance.
DIVKA began with a deceptively simple mission: To find and perform songs where women are allowed joy, and not punished for desire, curiosity, pleasure, or power. From that seed, the project expanded into something larger: a sonic archive of women’s inner lives across time filled with flirtation, rage, grief, eroticism, humour, longing, survival, and magic.
DIVKA’s live performances, like the folk fatale album itself, range from playful rural songs celebrating the forces of nature and wildlife (“Of Storms, Babas, and Fiddling Rabbits,” “Kozel”); a cover of a feminist-gunslinger country novelty from the ‘50s, with an ending re-written to deservedly punish the patriarchy (“IDK”); to alternately raunchy and devastating songs of attraction, courtship, romance, and sex (“Harbuz,” “Oj Na Mori,” “Volodar,” “Shopski Prispevki”); to dead-serious meditations on the ecocide and genocide in Russia's invasion of Ukraine (“Rusalka”), as well as horrific income inequality and the impermanence of genocidal empire in “Garden of Time.”
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| Photo - Siria Ferrer |
Following the release of ‘In My Veins’, Freyja Elsy returns with ‘Control’ - a darker, more inward-looking chapter from her forthcoming EP to stop the world turning. Where its predecessor captured fleeting childhood vignettes, ‘Control’ turns sharply inward, navigating cycles of intrusive thoughts, emotional overwhelm, and the fragile grip we try to maintain over our inner world. “These facts all sound so fictional…”
Stripped back and deliberately tense, ‘Control’ trades Elsy’s signature sweeping strings for a skeletal palette of drums, bass, guitar, electronics and voice. The result is a moodier, more claustrophobic sound, placing Elsy’s exposed vocal at the centre, surrounded by fractured and reshaped vocal manipulations that denote the spiralling, nebulous thoughts of a chronically anxious mind.
‘Control’ reflects a psyche attempting to hold itself together as it slips between certainty and doubt. Lyrics like “Take control / nothing but a soul in me” and “I’ve seen it all / everything I’m scared I’ll be” capture a fragile internal dialogue where vulnerability, fear, and self-perception collapse into one another, while “Lead me on / make me believe I’m worthy” speaks to the struggle to maintain belief in oneself as that sense of stability begins to erode. Adam Walton described ‘Control’ as “an elevating slow burn… sumptuously produced.”
‘Control’ is the second single from to stop the world turning, following ‘In My Veins’, which was selected as a Fresh Fave by Freshonthenet and named Molly Palmer’s ‘Must Add’ on BBC Radio Wales. Alongside tracks ‘Another Life’ and ‘From Within’, the project explores memory, identity and emotional consequence through shifting sonic landscapes - moving between expansive, cinematic arrangements and darker, more insular moments.
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Melbourne/Naarm based multi-instrumental artist Kat Greta returns with her new single ‘Audacity’, released yesterday Friday, July 3. A melodically driven indie-pop anthem, deceptively enveloped with an underswell of grief, ‘Audacity’ and its accompanying music video are anchored in mourning and bolstered by shimmering electronic textures.
Following the release of her debut EP in November, which highlights Kat Greta’s unbridled pop-senses, ‘Audacity’ takes the pop dial and cranks it up to 10 with vibrant and energetic charisma. Below the surface of ‘Audacity’s pop rhythm lies the complex feelings and multitudes of grief and acceptance. Written after experiencing immense loss, ‘Audacity’ is a track riddled with mourning and the battle of understanding - masquerading in dance vibrancy.
From the outset, Greta’s vocal distortion emulates speaking through a mask as one uncovers the bitter reality of the lyrics at hand. Accompanied by the instantaneous punch of the drums, high-spirited electronic elements and guitar, Greta’s distinctive artistry takes centre stage, embodying the confidence and conviction that sit at the heart of ‘Audacity’.
Co-produced by Melbourne producer Seetali Mack, this collaboration has allowed for Kat Greta to explore the themes and elements of the world around her unvaryingly as her own collapses in. The track brings light to the blatant absurdity of loss as the days roll in and out - remaining unchanged for the masses while Kat Greta is wondering how this could be. Kat Greta shares: “‘Audacity’ explores the emotional whiplash of grief, where the world carries on as usual while yours quietly falls apart."
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Asara is the solo project of Paris-based French-Moroccan artist Sarah Pitet, a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, and video director whose debut album 028 Crises was released yesterday July 3rd via French label Géographie. After spending four years as a member of Dog Park, moving fluidly between guitar, bass, keyboards, and vocals, she now steps into a more intimate and personal space with her first solo work.
Having played music since childhood, Asara grew up through various band projects before joining Dog Park, alongside Erica Ashleson, Isabella Green Catani, and Jean Duffour. Together, they released the album Festina Lente in 2024 on the same label, Géographie. That collective experience now feeds a more introspective form of songwriting and a deeply personal approach to creation.
Written throughout 2025, 028 Crises unfolds like a near-documentary sonic diary, tracing the emotional landscape of her twenty-eighth year. Voice takes center stage throughout the record, balancing raw vulnerability with sharper rhythmic momentum. Her debut single Cute draws from the textures and pulse of hip-hop drum machines, while Thank You, Thank You stays rooted in a melodic, stripped-back bedroom pop aesthetic. On With Love, Asara blends upright piano with French touch-inspired electronic elements, while the rest of the album leans toward a darker, denser, and more organic form of rock. From her apartment studio in the Paris suburbs, she writes, produces, and shapes the entire visual and sonic identity of the project.
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Ryan Hamilton returns with Haunted By American Dreams, a powerful new album arriving July 3 via Wicked Cool Records. Blending heartland rock, power pop, and deeply personal storytelling, the record finds Hamilton examining ambition, identity, and the often-unspoken cost of pursuing the life we've been told we're supposed to want. Written from the perspective of someone looking back on the roads traveled and the expectations carried along the way, Haunted By American Dreams captures both the hope and disillusionment woven into modern life. Across the album, Hamilton balances soaring melodies, sharp songwriting, and emotional honesty, creating one of the most reflective and compelling releases of his career.
"'Haunted By American Dreams' is really about chasing something you were told would save you—and realizing it doesn't," says Hamilton. "It's the echo of small-town promises, late-night highways, and all the ghosts of who you thought you'd become. I didn't want to make a perfect record—I wanted to make an honest one, even if it rattles a little."
That spirit runs throughout the album, which finds Hamilton confronting uncertainty, disappointment, and reinvention without losing the warmth, humor, and melodic instincts that have long defined his music. The album's focus track, "Dreaming Screaming," serves as a fitting introduction to the record's themes, exploring the darker side of ambition while still finding moments of hope and clarity amid the noise.
With Haunted By American Dreams, Hamilton begins a new chapter—one that embraces hard truths while remaining deeply connected to the human experiences that have earned him a devoted international audience. It's a record about growing older without growing cynical, about confronting reality without surrendering optimism, and about finding meaning in the space between who we were and who we become.
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