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| Photo - Deidre Huckabay |
Em Spel - Geographic.
Em Spel is scheduled to release the new LP "Bird or Snake" on the 27 March on Birdwatcher / Carilloni, the first single "Geographic" is released this week. Em Spel's intricate, flute-driven alt-folk sounds like nothing else in Chicago. Led by songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Emma Hospelhorn, Em Spel's debut album, The Carillon Towers, was hailed by the Chicago Reader as "Scintillating" and by Dusted Magazine as "a folktale turned oddly, surreally modern, a magical realist scenario set in the right now."
Hospelhorn is a flutist in avant-classical group Ensemble Dal Niente, and her discography includes work on flutes, bass guitar, and keyboards for V.V. Lightbody, Mute Duo, and others working in a diverse array of genres including folk, drone, garage rock, post-punk, and classical. In this solo endeavor, she fuses all of these influences with story-driven lyrics to create invitingly strange folk vignettes.
Em Spel’s second full-length album, Bird or Snake, finds the artist teetering joyfully between art-folk and intimate indie rock. Recorded in Chicago by veteran Califone and Iron & Wine producer Brian Deck, Bird or Snake is an exuberant leap forward for Em Spel. Hospelhorn is at her arranging best, folding dizzying vocal harmonies, elegant instrumental writing, and deftly deployed electronics into a musical tapestry that evokes the warmth and wildness of an industrial Midwestern landscape. The album pulses with life, from the driving drums and propulsively patterned guitars of “Poet” (featuring guest Sam Wagster on soaring pedal steel) through the organ and vocal-driven road trip love song of “Fruiting Body,” which features bird songs Hospelhorn recorded on a handheld microphone at an artist residency in Maine.
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Ninå’s “Truth or Dare” blends pop-soul with a bluesy edge and an unmistakably adult feel, classy, confident, and made for late-night rotation. Driven by a locked-in bass line and acoustic guitar, the track moves with effortless groove while letting the vocal lead with warmth, control, and attitude.
The songwriting keeps it timeless: sharp, vivid lyrics, a chorus that sticks after the first listen, and a guitar solo that seals the mood with real personality. It’s the kind of record that feels both intimate and bold, polished but still human.
Behind it is Ninå, a vocalist who turns real-life turning points into music that feels honest, fearless, and alive. She doesn’t oversell the emotion, she delivers it, and that’s what makes the song hit. "Truth or Dare" is the latest single leading into her upcoming album Bloom with Fire.
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“Violet Grey” is the latest single from Los Angeles-based electronic darkwave project Chalice Sect. Merging electro-industrial style vocoder, darkwave romance, and dance-driven club rhythms, “Violet Grey” is ready to rouse goth boots onto dancefloors worldwide.
With “Violet Grey,” the band forges a path into goth club rotations with their characteristic blend of industrial-rich beats reminiscent of Kontravoid resculpted with New Order-esque melodicism. Showcasing a unique blend of dark dance fare and '80s alt-inflected songwriting sensibilities, "Violet Grey" delivers a charged reanimation of classic darkwave sounds into heavy electronics for a retro-futuristic sound all its own.
Chalice Sect is a darkwave/post-punk project from Los Angeles, drawing from post-punk, new wave, and dark electro while maintaining a modern electronic edge. Built around driving basslines, synth-heavy arrangements, and direct songwriting, the music balances atmosphere with momentum.
Rather than leaning on nostalgia, Chalice Sect focuses on clarity, rhythm, and energy — creating songs that reference classic influences without sounding dated, and delivering a sound that is both recognizable and current.
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Some artists spend their whole lives getting ready for the moment the world finally hears them. Brother Wallace is one of them. This week, the West Point, Georgia-bred singer, pianist, and soul revivalist announces his debut album 'Electric Love', out on 8th May via ATO Records, and shares the album’s title track—a Motown-esque number that’s equal parts playful, revelatory, and gloriously cathartic—alongside an official music video.
On “Electric Love,” Brother Wallace doesn’t just sing about joy—he fights for it. The song moves like a shot of sunlight through a storm cloud: Stax-and-satin soul, piano-driven, and bursting with momentum, it’s built for the exact moment when you decide you’re not going to let the world harden you. “It’s about choosing connection,” Wallace says. “Finding that current again—the thing that reminds you you’re alive.”
Across its 13 songs, Electric Love is less a debut than a revelation—a body of work fueled by gospel roots and classic soul lineage (Sam Cooke, Little Richard, Southern soul greats) while refusing to live in nostalgia. Wallace writes in lived-in scenes and hard-earned feeling: heartbreak without defeat, joy without naïveté, vulnerability without apology. The album’s rhapsodic opener “Who’s That?” (released last fall as his first ATO single) entered the Top 30 at Triple A radio in the US for the first time this week—an amazing feat for his first-ever single. Now, the title track “Electric Love” expands the frame: this is an artist building a world where joy is radical, and connection is survival. Now, the title track “Electric Love” expands the frame: this is an artist building a world where joy is radical, and connection is survival.
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| Photo - Nic Knelleken |
German Indie Folk/Americana institution The Green Apple Sea are releasing their new, very personal album "Dark Kid" on February 20th via KF Records. “Big Heart” is a song for and about people who would rather say nothing at all than say something wrong. For those who sneak out of parties without saying goodbye. Who don't answer the phone when it rings because they're afraid of an awkward situation. For people who postpone or don't do important things at all, for fear of messing everything up.
Those who laugh too loudly at the wrong time. For those who avoid eye contact when talking. For those who use "one" when they mean "I." For those who lower their heads when spoken to. For those who don't reply to a message for weeks because they're afraid of saying the wrong thing. For those who are actually quite funny, but also very strange. For those who feel they don't fit in. For those who know they can't. For those who are far too honest for anyone to take seriously. For those who rarely reply, "Very good. Thank you. And you?" For those who are best off on their own. For those who rarely plan more than a few weeks ahead, because who knows what might happen then. For those who talk to themselves far too loudly when others are around. For those who can't simply be happy when something good happens, because it's supposedly impossible and will inevitably turn into crap. For those who are constantly preparing to die in every possible way. For those whose philosophy of life is more or less reduced to the phrase "I'd rather not."
The theme running through the episodes on the album "Dark Kid" is Stefan Prange's not always easy childhood and adolescence. The fact that his stepfather nicknamed his father "Satan" only seems a bit strange in retrospect. The fact that his stepbrothers chained him to a stair railing with a bicycle lock when no one else felt like watching him might seem a bit cruel in hindsight. But for 10-year-old Prange, it was nothing out of the ordinary. When he tells these stories and sings lines like "I wasn't afraid to die, I was just waiting to die," it's meant with the same pragmatic naiveté with which the protagonist, "Dark Kid," accepts his surroundings.
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MUKI (pronounced mʊk.ie) makes his first impression with 'Gasoline', an emotionally charged indie pop and folk-leaning debut, out this Wednesday, January 21. Born in Dubai with Indian roots, the now Naarm/Melbourne-based Mukul Jiwnani has built his life around making and performing music. A full-time performer, 'Gasoline' marks his official debut under the MUKI moniker, a project shaped slowly and deliberately after years of writing, refining, and searching for the right moment to step forward.
'Gasoline' unfolds with a gentle sense of space and restraint. Layers of finger-picked electric guitar sit against a spacious kick drum and a hypnotising, echoed snare. While piano drifts through the arrangement to create a lush, dreamlike atmosphere, subtle guitar licks and warm bass lines add colour without crowding the song.
MUKI’s vocals move between intimacy and emotional release, shifting from wispy softness to impassioned cries and airy falsetto, before opening out into a chorus lifted by layered, choir-like harmonies that wrap the song in warmth. The result is a loving, immersive intensity that feels deeply personal. Captured in its slow-burning, impassioned sound, 'Gasoline' reflects on the aftermath of a relationship where love has faded, and acceptance begins to take its place. It captures the moment when holding on no longer makes sense, even while the feeling still lingers. Speaking on the single, MUKI shares:
“'Gasoline’ is my debut single as MUKI, and it’s deeply personal. With ‘Gasoline’, I wanted to capture the tension of a relationship that wouldn’t survive despite every effort. It’s a breakup song, but one about acceptance and moving on.”
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