Ahead of their upcoming fourth studio album’s 2027 arrival, New York’s Earthquake Lights share “Mr. Always-What-He-Had-To-Be,” a confident, brooding new single that turns psychedelic alt-rock swagger into a character study of arrogance, narcissism and questionable wisdom. Inspired in part by the unruly spirit of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the track inhabits the mind of a self-described artist whose certainty in his own worldview is as compelling as it is misguided.
The song began with a handful of chords the band initially considered disposable. Once they played them together, however, the feeling proved too good to abandon. The confidence of the emerging arrangement soon suggested a personality of its own, providing the foundation for vocalist/pianist Myles Rodenhouse and collaborator Will Cavanaugh to develop the character at the centre of the song.
The result is a narrator who is arrogant, self-important, and convinced he has life figured out. Yet rather than reducing him to a caricature, “Mr. Always-What-He-Had-To-Be” leaves a small but uncomfortable possibility hanging in the air: somewhere beneath all that narcissistic bluster, he might actually have a point. The question is whether he’s someone whose advice you would ever want to take.
The song’s unusual title emerged from one of its defining lyrics, a line that seemed to capture the character so completely that it ultimately sparked the broader lyrical concept. That sense of self-assurance permeates the arrangement as well, allowing the personality of the narrator and the music surrounding him to become increasingly difficult to separate.
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| Photo - Álex Ortega |
Where does the latent content of a dream begin, and where does its manifest content end? Are the adventures we experience in our dreams part of a collective unconscious, or merely electrical impulses giving voice to our individual fears and shortcomings? ‘Microdreams’ raises more questions than it answers. Through its lyrics, Javier Vicente emerges as restless and apprehensive, yet simultaneously enthralled by the yearning images that linger in his memory the morning after.
Javier Vicente is Carasueño, a musician and producer based in Zaragoza, Spain, and the founder of Lar de Maravillas recording studios. Following his debut full-length, I’ll Be Neon Too (2024, Cielos Estrellados) — an inward-looking musical world in which Brian Wilson, Bradford Cox, The Notwist and Brian Eno coexisted in a glorious sonic implosion — Carasueño now joins the Great Canyon Records family.
To mark the occasion, he unveils ‘Microdreams’, the first single from his forthcoming EP, Tiny Islands, due for release on 13 November. Produced, recorded and mixed by Carasueño himself, ‘Microdreams’ bridges unorthodox Americana and bedroom pop, weaving intricate syncopated string arrangements around the warm, unmistakable tones of a Wurlitzer.
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| Photo - Meghan Tansey Whitton |
On his new EP Big Red Sky, Aaron MacDonald continues to prove why he’s one of the east coast of Canada’s most popular singer-songwriters. Based in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Aaron’s most recent accolades area 2026 ECMA win for Fans’ Choice Video of the Year (“Beaches &Bands”), and multiple Music Nova Scotia Awards nominations, including Country Recording of the Year, for his 2025 EP It’s In My Blood.
Aaron is carrying that momentum forward on Big Red Sky, with its six songs drawn from long drives, hard lessons and the bright chaos of family life. Produced by Jamie Foulds at Sound park Studios in Sydney, Nova Scotia, the EP features Aaron backed bya four-piece band that includes Foulds on keyboards along with guests, creating a sound that is equal parts folk grit and country soul. In total, Big Red Sky reaffirms Aaron’s place among a generation of songwriters from the Maritimes who understand that honest stories still cut the deepest.“
I am on a mission to record and document this life of mine through song,” Aaron says. "A few years ago, as our oldest kids started leaving home, I had a bit of a realization—I’ve written hundreds of songs over the years, but songs don't really exist until they’re recorded. It hit me that life moves fast, and if I wanted these stories to outlive me, I had to start documenting them properly. I want my kids, grandkids, family and friends to always be able to hear the stories that made up my life. That’s really what drives me now.”
Aaron makes that point clear on Big Red Sky’s first single “Makin’ Time,” a classic road song that also serves as a metaphor for getting the most out of what we’ve been given. Other highlights from the EP include “Be,” inspired by Aaron’s return to Cape Breton after living in other parts of Canada, “Kind Phenomenon,” written for his wedding in 2003 but not recorded “properly” until now, and “Horizon Line,” a song that brings the story of he and his wife up to date as they embrace life as empty nesters.
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| Photo - Tess Disturnal |
Kyla Marlena - Bit the Bullet.
Hold Time, the debut album by Toronto-based cellist and songwriter Kyla Marlena, finds her embracing unpredictability, collaboration and the full weight of the human condition.
The record, out November 6th via Idee Fixe, marks a significant departure for Marlena, who spent her early years writing instrumental compositions before teaching herself guitar and moving into songwriting. The result is a devastating, graceful and remarkably assured collection of songs about love, loss, memory and the relentless passage of time.
New single 'Bit the Bullet' injects an almost euphoric energy into a story of heartbreak. Of the track, she says: "Bit the Bullet felt like infusing some levity into a heartbreak story. I gave myself permission to be less self-analytical and to give voice to more immature notions of love. A lyric like " guess that I'm the winner, I had the final say" is not a real belief I hold. There are no winners and losers. But it felt liberating to express "forbidden" thoughts.
The energy in the studio was especially high for this one and it felt important to keep in idiosyncratic moments captured in the recording. Playful moments caught by room mics, for example, felt integral to the song by the end."
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| Photograph - Kaylee Vaughan |
Schaefer Llana will release her label debut, Full Circle, on November 13, 2026 via Strolling Bones Records. The 10-song set was produced by Llana and Starlin Browning and recorded at Matt Patton of the Drive-By Truckers’ Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Mississippi. The captivating debut is lush and literate, meditative and dreamy, and radiates a languorous Southern heat as it drifts between past and present, connection and isolation, love and loss. Llana delivers her songs with a tender, almost casual ease, and the result is a cinematic slice of alt-Americana.
Born in Missouri, Llana moved to Mississippi as a child where she spent her formative years first singing in church. After high school, she headed deeper into the cradle of American music to study at Delta State University. It’s there where she fell in with a likeminded crew of artists and writers and landed a job working at the recording studio Dial Back Sound. She says, “Matt Patton gave me real opportunities early on. I worked at the studio for several years as an engineer and would record background vocals for anyone who came to record there.”
That’s how she met Jimbo Mathus, best known as a founding member of Squirrel Nut Zippers (and more recently for his work with the Black Keys). Mathus was a fellow Mississippi native who took an immediate shine to her voice, first asking her to sing on records he was producing and then later inviting her to join his band on the road for several years. Full Circle features two songs written by Mathus and he also appears on its lead off track.
One of those songs, is the album highlight “Skateland Baby.” Llana says, "'Skateland Baby' is a song written by Jimbo Mathus about a first love. He says it’s about holding her hand and 'skating around the rink one way…and then the other.' I used to play this song a lot when I was in his band on the road, and I was drawn to it because it felt timeless. Everyone knows the bliss of falling. Skateland tells you where he lands."
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| Photo - Isobel Clark |
Manchester's Phoebe Green today releases new album PREMATURE NOSTALGIA, via The Green Dream Machine / Absolute. The album releases follows the previously shared singles 'Clothes Still On', 'There's Always Someone Kicking The Seat' and 'Polluting You With Me'. Phoebe Green plays an album release show at Rough Trade East in London on 6th October.
Previously unheard album focus single 'I Don’t Play It Cool, I Play It Steaming', is a brilliantly over-the-top alt-pop duet with Picture Parlour’s Katherine Parlour, born from a long-running joke between the pair that they should one day write a "big gay" duet together. Trading vocals across the track, Green and Parlour lean fully into its sense of yearning and theatricality.
Written and produced alongside her sister Lucy Green (aka Elucyve) - a producer of contemporary classical and electronic music in her own right - PREMATURE NOSTALGIA was created between the flat the pair share in Manchester and their parents' home in Lytham St Annes. Across the album, Phoebe and Lucy draw inspiration from artists such as Imogen Heap, Oklou, Jockstrap, James Blake, FKA twigs and Sega Bodega - embracing warped electronics, fragmented structures and experimental forms of pop songwriting.
Speaking about the album, Phoebe said: "‘PREMATURE NOSTALGIA’ explores the feeling of missing a moment before it’s over, grieving the present in real time and trying to retain every detail of an encounter so that the memory is always intact and in full colour. My sister Lucy and I composed, produced and recorded this album in our flat in Manchester, it holds such sentimental value and is a real amalgamation of both of our influences, perspectives and individual style; dreamy, heavy, dramatic synths and confessional lyrics that document the beautiful and messy experience of living."
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