"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.
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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”).
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| Photo - Frederike Wetzels |
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.
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| Photo - Christian Harder |
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.”
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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.'"
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| Photo - Daniel Dent |
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.”
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