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| Photo - Titus Simoens |
We have featured Portland a few times and it's a pleasure to share the full album along with it's background and comments regarding some of the tracks, this really is an exceptional collection of songs. 2023 was supposed to be Portland’s year. The Belgian indie band led by Jente Pironet was set to release its second album ‘Departures’, took part in a popular prime time TV show and was set to conquer Rock Werchter that summer. And they did—but just days after Pironet delivered the performance of a lifetime there, the dream briefly came crashing down: the doctor marked a big black C on his forehead. Brain cancer. Suddenly, summer turned ice cold.
But the singer and his band pushed through, and the result speaks for itself: Portland has never sounded more energetic, mature, and richly layered than on the new record ‘Champain’. It’s an unflinchingly honest travelogue of a wandering soul, moving from the stage to the hospital bed to the writing desk and back again.
“I heard you calling me / and you still know my name,” Pironet sings on ‘Time Is Now’, the album’s opener. The lyrics exude a newly regained self-confidence from a man ready to seize life with both hands: “Something’s in the air / I’d like to face it all alone.” It’s Portland’s key message today: there’s no time to waste—and he should know.
On ‘Lay Me Down’, Pironet shows the other side of the coin. Catch me when I fall, he asks his loved ones and lay me to rest when I once again push myself too far. Musically, ‘Time Is Now’ and ‘Lay Me Down’ form a diptych that reveals where Portland stands today: energetic indie rock built for festivals and big stages, with a frontman who feels increasingly at home there. Yet the melancholic, introverted pop of predecessor ‘Departures’ hasn’t disappeared entirely. The acoustic title track ‘Champain’ nods to the best of Bright Eyes, while ‘Aurora’ is a hushed piano piece in true Portland tradition. It reflects how the promise of safety still unsettles Pironet, even after years of turmoil. He wants to explore, to experiment, to meet extraordinary people—nesting instincts are foreign to him. Or as he sings himself: “Her home ain’t where I’ll be.”
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| Photo - Kate Suter |
Home Front share their final single "Between The Waves" from their new album Watch It Die, due this Friday via La Vida Es Un Mus. The band tell, “'Between The Waves' is about that lonely journey we all take at some point in our lives. Where we wander away from the numbers to seek meaning. A solitary space between connecting with people. Call it growing up or growing apart, but this is the place we all visit from time to time to remember who we are. In all this confusion the space between the waves is where we discover things will never be the same again, yet we move forward in this new skin."
For decades Home Front’s Graeme MacKinnon and Clint Frazier have embedded themselves in grass roots music making, community building, and the overpowering ebbs and flows of diy punk. Formed in 2020, they’ve given their lifetime of experience a chance to distill and then power into this musically omnipotent project which equally conjures textured Tangerine Dream sounds in a film montage, or the pummelling soundtrack to the first steps taken towards winning the fight of your life.
Home Front holds on to a particular kind of passion. The sort of thing that guides you - like a climbing vine steadily blanketing your bests and worsts, cutting through changes and impasses; victory and loss. MacKinnon and Frazier’s nod to influences and the themes of their lyrics are direct and detailed while maintaining enough creative distance to feel universal and unique. The production has again been bolstered by a team of long time confidants making a huge and unique record under the humble and hard working circumstances of remote pre-production and choosing to do their recording in home studios in their home town in Edmonton, Alberta.
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Ava Franks is an indie pop singer-songwriter based in New York City. She’s obsessed with all things writing, and developed a love for songwriting from an early age. Singing in school musicals and local talent shows, she slowly and surely honed her vocal craft, a staple of her unique sound. The storytelling she’s inspired by stems anywhere from Taylor Swift’s pop hits to Hamilton’s soundtrack, and from James Baldwin novels to animated movies like Soul. In short, she’s motivated to create tangible worlds through her music for the sake of sweet escape.
Her discography began in 2021, when she released “3 Pines,” a ballad about falling in love in the desert. Subsequently, she released “Silhouette,” “Wait For You To Apologize,” “Golden Child,” “Do Or Die,” and, most recently, “I’ve Been Waiting.” She leans towards both classic and contemporary pop production references, like timeless synths and novel vocal layering.
Her latest single, “Every Day” is a lush acoustic guitar-driven embrace featuring Ava Franks' warm vocals singing luminous melodies. The relatable song narrates that first taste of love. She shares, "It explores the beginning stages of a relationship when you’re feeling all of the uncertainty, hope and mystery that goes along with falling in love. It’s about wanting to see that person all the time and hoping they can read your mind."
Born and raised in suburban New York, Ava was a competitive swimmer throughout high school and college. She attended Yale, where she was a four-year member of the varsity swim team and majored in English. She’s close to her two younger brothers, Finn and Kelly, and often visits her mom and dad in Irvington, NY, where they live with their two dogs. When she’s not writing songs or performing, she’s usually finding some way to discover her next favorite food. Currently on the hunt for the best burrito in New York, she’s accepting any and all recommendations.
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Brighton quartet School Disco announce their fourth studio album School Disco SDIV and share the hypnotic new single ‘Simulation III.’ A distinctive fusion of prog and jazz flavours ‘Simulation III’ showcases the distinct musicality of the upcoming album. Infused with the band’s signature psychedelic sensibilities, the track unfolds through a shuffling 6/8 groove, distant vocals, and intricate guitar work to create a haunting yet buoyant offering. Midway, it transitions into a downtempo swell of fuzzy synths before building toward a sporadic yet climactic guitar solo. Balancing a vivid 1970s character with a sharp modern edge, at 3:33 the single stands as one of the band’s most concise and direct offerings.
Talking about the track, Laurence Underwood shares: “Simulation III came out real quick. I was meant to put a different song forward, then this one sort of just presented itself. It sounded menacing to me, so I thought I’d have to match that with the lyrics. At the time, I was seeing a lot of people online talking about ‘the simulation’ and thought that the idea of actually believing that is pretty funny. Pair that with rewatching the Matrix movies and there you go, a song about living in a simulation.”
Building their reputation for their live high-octane live shows which have seen the band open for Wolf Alice, Lime Garden and Froth, the band's textural, experimental and musically rich sound shines bright on ‘Happen’. Recorded at Farm Road Studios with engineering from Jake Smallwood alongside Rory Lethbridge himself, and mastered by Harry Hayes (School Disco, Roebucks), the upcoming EP showcases some of School Disco’s most inventive and complete work to date.
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Alpha Pet are back with their new single "Time", the first of two releases arriving in November and the start of an intense run that will culminate in the band’s debut EP in early 2026. Musically, "Time" pushes forward the band’s irresistible blend of 80s-infused post-punk and new wave. Lyrically, the track explores our strange, ever-present relationship with time itself, constantly there yet always slipping away. The counting woven into the lyrics stems from singer Rocky Åberg’s lifelong habit of mentally counting to ten to get things done, almost like an internal timer that may or may not be entirely reliable.
When Swedish new wave outfit Cat Princess dissolved in 2020, founder, songwriter and guitarist Rocky Åberg suddenly found himself a free agent on Stockholm’s music market. To stay sharp during the transfer window, he began playing with friends Joakim Almén, Patrik Eklund and Markus Ljungholm, who back in 2019 mostly jammed IDLES and Broncho covers for fun.
With Rocky joining, the covers soon shifted toward the band’s shared all-time favorite: The Clash. But as fun as it is to unleash your inner Joe Strummer, it’s always more exciting to write your own material. And when Alpha Pet’s first track "Concept of Power" practically wrote itself during a rehearsal, the covers were quickly dropped in favor of a sound that initially leaned toward Manchester’s 1977-era post-punk.
By the time the band entered the studio in late 2021, Patrik Eklund had taken over drums from Markus Ljungholm and Tom Cehlin Magnusson had joined as rhythm guitarist. The result was the singles "Concept of Power", "Too Fast" and "TV Personality", three dystopian, adrenaline-tipped tracks touching on everything from deserters to the emperor’s new clothes. In 2024 the band signed to Rama Lama Records and put out the two singles "Numbers Wrong" and "Snake Eyes"
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| Photo - Kat Nijmeddin |
Begging Dog’s Jeff Kleinman's latest single “‘Common Place’ was written about my 5 years living in Salt Lake City,” he tells. “One of the most thrilling times of my life full of community and art and an overwhelming feeling of love from everyone around me. It was also an incredibly difficult time in my life, and a kind of turning point in my descent into alcohol addiction. I knew true love, I witnessed a suicide, I joined my favorite band, and I drank far too much. ‘Common Place’ is a song looking back at all of the beauty and heartbreak from that time, a reflection on everything I have learned and come to cherish from Salt Lake, and a thank you to everyone that I know there. Missing something more than you expected can be a very humbling experience.”
Begging Dog, Kleinman’s new indie punk project has become an outlet for his work outside of the band Choir Boy. The now LA based multi-instrumentalist and artist embraces the mundane with a raw, homespun sound that nods to classic punk and plain language lyricism. Word of his debut DEMO 1 spread quickly across the underground, catching the ear of Dais Records who signed Kleinman and will be giving the original album a wider vinyl release.
DEMO 1 is 26 minutes packed with rolling bass and synth lines, charismatic riffs, and motorik drum beats. Lyrically, the songs feature a range of lived-in observations, scenes, and characters: a pushy union rep; a mailman with a steady federal job; a compulsive gambler; a beloved neighborhood homeless man. Ex-loves become collaged together, haunting several tracks, out of context, with blunt, sharp-witted free verse. Kleinman cites Bruce Springsteen as an inspiration in how his songs are penned with plain ink, opting for direct simplicity over flowery prose.
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