The Indie Pea - Guy Verlinde - La Peste - Ben Chapman - Trippers & Askers

The Indie Pea - Staring At The Sun.

While some bands are content to evolve in the shadows, The Indie Pea has spent the last year chasing the light. Following the introspective depth of The Questions and the radiant growth of Reflected Hearts, the band returns with "Staring At The Sun", a sonic earthquake that redefines their boundaries.

"Staring At The Sun" is The Indie Pea magnified. It carries the band’s signature DNA, lush orchestral strings and melancholic undertones, but delivered with a newfound, panoramic intensity. The production is sharper, the mixing more immersive, and the emotional stakes higher than ever. It is a masterclass in "controlled grandiosity"; a track that teases the bombastic, yet masterfully pulls back at the precipice, maintaining that aching, intimate tension that has become their hallmark.

This single serves as the definitive prologue to their upcoming full-length album, "Life Lessons" (arriving December 18). The record promises to be the band’s most eclectic venture to date. Across its tracks, The Indie Pea navigates a vast musical landscape, shifting seamlessly from the rhythmic drive of Bombay Bicycle Club and the anthemic energy of The Killers to the atmospheric noir of The National and the psychedelic textures of MGMT.

Life Lessons is an album of beautiful contradictions: it is a collection that feels diverse yet singularly focused, exploring the complexities of experience with the wisdom of a band that has found its true voice. If their debut was about the search, Life Lessons is about the discovery.

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Guy Verlinde - Best Of Blues (Album).

On March 22, Best Of Blues, the new album by Belgian blues artist Guy Verlinde, was released. The album celebrates his 50th birthday and crowns a career spanning seventeen albums and more than a thousand live shows. It is available on CD, vinyl and digital platforms.

Guy Verlinde is a mainstay of the Belgian blues scene and has built a strong international reputation. Over the years, he has appeared on the same bill as artists such as B.B. King, John Fogerty, Tony Joe White, Santana, John Hiatt, Canned Heat, and Jeff Beck.

Best Of Blues is not a classic compilation of old recordings. All twelve tracks were remixed and remastered; Do That Boogie and Gator Bop were partially re-recorded with a distinct old-school blues feel. Me & My Blues and Heaven Inside My Head were fully re-recorded. The album is also a tribute to Guy’s late blues brother Tiny Legs Tim, with whom he helped lay the foundations of the Ghent blues scene. Their collaboration lives on in the song Goin’ Down to Missy Sippy, which they wrote and recorded together.

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La Peste - Color Scheme.

“Color Scheme” is the last advance single from La Peste’s forthcoming compilation, I Don’t Know Right From Wrong: Lost La Peste 1976 - 1979 Vol. 1 (out 4/17). Here is what guitarist / vocalist Peter Dayton has to say about the track: “Color Scheme”!! Mark and I wrote this together and, wow, we both love this song. To me it was a big step because it really sounded like a complete song with clear intent and great chord progressions ….I felt like it showed we could do a lot of different things. I still love it.

I Don’t Know Right From Wrong tells the full story of La Peste with a presentation of their unreleased studio recordings, demos and the two tracks that were officially released during the band’s run. 

The accompanying book features tons of newly uncovered photos, a long-form essay by music journalist Andy Cush & micro-essays by Greg Hawkes (The Cars), Roger Miller (Mission of Burma), Peter Prescott (Mission of Burma), Clint Conley (Mission of Burma), Pat Place (Bush Tetras, Contortions), Willie Loco Alexander (The Lost, Boom Boom Band), Richard Parsons (Unnatural Axe), Malcolm Travis (Human Sexual Response) and more.

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Photo - Aubrey Wise

Ben Chapman - Feet On Fire.

Nashville-based roots rocker Ben Chapman announces that his upcoming album Feet On Fire will come out on May 22 via Soundly Music. His second collaboration with GRAMMY-nominated songwriter and producer Anderson East, Feet on Fire is an album about leaving old patterns behind, making room for new beginnings and searching for stability in an ever-changing world. Or, according to Chapman, this record is a snapshot of the year he became a man following a marriage to fellow singer/songwriter Meg McRee and the birth of their first child in September. He also shared the album’s title track, a sprawling psychedelia-drenched sonic journey that chronicles the life of a musician on the road. 

On the new song, Chapman shares: “This song hits you in the mouth from the first note. It’s a sonic adventure that reflects my growth as an artist and musician. It started out as a song about always being on the road and not feeling like yourself while sitting still, but as it took shape it gained a deeper meaning. It’s difficult to keep your feet planted in the moment sometimes in a world that places value on whatever comes next.” 

The new LP puts East’s Alabama roots on full display, in combination with the inspiration Chapman takes from R&B grooves, Stax-sized soul, psych-rock experimentation and Allman Brothers-worthy jams. With Feet On Fire, Chapman set out to capture the energy of one of his live shows – free-wheeling, electric and exploratory. Backed by a band of A-list instrumentalists, Chapman and East focused on live-in-the-studio performances, capturing each song with two or three takes. They experimented with fuzz pedals and overdriven guitar tones, too. It was a move that nodded not only to the soundtrack of Chapman's childhood, but to his willingness to step outside the box.  

“I grew up on the Grateful Dead and Dark Side of the Moon, so I wanted to pour some of that inspiration into these tracks,” Chapman shares. “This record asks you to let your hair down. It takes some fun sonic risks. It's cohesive but it's all over the place, too, in the best way possible.” 

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Trippers & Askers - No Coming No Going.

Trippers & Askers today share "No Coming No Going" featuring Chessa Rich from their forthcoming LP Tried To Do's due May 8 via Sleepy Cat Records.  "No Coming, No Going," is the second offering (third on Bandcamp) from Trippers & Askers' forthcoming release. Drawing sonically from Emmylou Harris and lyrically from Thich Nhat Hanh, this gorgeous duet with longtime collaborator Chessa Rich is a trance-inducing meditation on impermanence. 

Hammond and Rich open the track with a shared breath, singing, "When I breathe, I don't breathe; there is no breather," and in that moment, they set the intention for everything that follows. 

I love the way their voices pull my ear in opposite directions—blending perfectly while still remaining distinctly their own. The effect reminds me of the shape-note tradition, where individuality and harmony coexist in the same breath. Rich with meticulously crafted soundscapes, this record is a deep listen that rewards.

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Trippers & Askers - KiKi Holli & The Remedy - Asara - Simone White - Kimon Kirk feat. Robbie Fulks - Sarah & Collin

Photo - Charlie Boss

Trippers & Askers - Kin.

Tried To Do’s is the second full length album from Trippers & Askers the songwriting and recording project of Jay Hammond (releases May 8 2026 via Sleepy Cat Records). Drafts of this record started as early as 2019. The initial idea was a Parable of the Talents concept album to follow 2021's Parable of the Sower concept album Acorn and/or an album about Hammond's hometown of Jackson, TN. 

Many moves, much traveling and many losses later the loss of his future child, the loss of his grandmother, the near loss of his father in law, and the hit of hurricane Helene in his adopted hometown of Asheville, NC - this record became a record about loss. It’s a record about ways of mourning, ways of "remembering", both with the family in which Hammond was raised as a child and the family of which he has come to inhabit multiple roles as an adult.

The songs on Tried To Do’s deal with the quotidian themes of love, family and loss through the prism of both Buddhist and Christian ways of mourning. Through songs and stories of loss in relation to Hammond's upbringing in the bible belt U.S. South, Tried To Do’s sets up a productive tension between Buddhist and Christian rituals and beliefs about mourning.

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KiKi Holli & The Remedy - Running Out of Time.

Los Angeles based indie-pop vocalist and songwriter KiKi Holli returns with her cinematic new single "Running Out of Time", out yesterday March 4th under her expanded artist name KiKi Holli & The Remedy. Rooted in indie-pop but layered with dream pop, baroque flourishes, and dark wave atmosphere, "Running Out of Time" creates a fully immersive sonic world. Lush synths and sweeping orchestration pulse beneath Holli’s voice, building a sense of urgency that feels both intimate and expansive. Her vocals move from restrained vulnerability to soaring intensity, drawing listeners into a space where time feels fragile and essential, a sonic experience meant to be felt as much as heard.

The release marks a continuing evolution for Holli. The addition of “& The Remedy” reflects the magnetic energy of her live band and her ongoing creative partnership with two‑time Grammy‑nominated producer Ethan Allen (Ben Harper, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Tricky). Together, they shape a sound that blends cinematic scale with emotional precision — immersive, transportive, and grounded in songcraft.

Her December 2025 single "Wish", the first release under KiKi Holli & The Remedy, earned widespread acclaim, landing on Atwood Magazine’s Songs of the Year 2025 list. Ladygunn praised how “from the very first listen… the artist blends emotion and strength,” and EARMILK highlighted the track’s spacious depth and captivating atmosphere, noting its exploration of hope, longing, and the tension between past and future. 

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Asara - Cute.

Asara releases her first single and music video today for the song Cute. Asara is a Parisian multi-instrumentalist artist launching her first solo project. After spending the last four years with the band Dog Park, in which she plays guitar, bass, keyboards, and sings, she is now opening up a more intimate space.

Composed throughout 2025, her first solo album is structured like an audio diary, almost a documentary, recounting the past year. The project sets the voice at the center, and the tracks navigate between melancholy and rhythmic energy influenced by the songwriting of artists like Clairo, Smerz or Blood Orange. 

The first single, “cute,” addresses the difficulty and tenderness of watching someone cry. Carried by a deliberately bright tone, the song talks about break-up without dwelling on it, and looks resolutely toward the future. A fast-paced first single, “cute” relies on an effective drum machine and a voice brought to the forefront. A small rhythmic synth and a bouncing guitar riff carry the song, in a refined but haunting production. The whole finds its inspiration in contemporary pop music, direct and melodic.

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Simone White - Blueprint.

For her latest act, White conjures a curious baroque-pop composition that is as engaging as it is enigmatic. Reminiscent of complex, non-linear outings of Laurie Andersen, Agnes Obel, or Aldous Harding “Blueprint” finds White's gossamer vocal enveloped by dancing string arrangements by neoclassical minimalist composer Brent Arnold.

A song that asks as many questions as it ever gives answers, “Blueprint” deconstructs urban settings familiar to all of us and unravels their existential mechanics, line by line. “How much do you think it weighs? Is it possible to learn from within the maze?” she wonders here. The single is accompanied by an official video, which is directed by Mark Benjamin. Layered, gliding and hypnotic, it lulls the viewer into a thoughtful reverie.

“Blueprint” is taken from Simone White’s forthcoming album ‘Letter To The Last Generation’, available on CD + Digitally on 1st May 2026 (via Ghost Palace / Cargo). Something of a lost album, ‘Letter To The Last Generation’ has floated around the internet for some years. Lost in the twilight period of those first few weeks of the pandemic as the world readjusted to a new era, the album received an extremely limited vinyl release, before disappearing into the ether. With the majority of its tracks written and recorded in the weeks before White made a major move from LA to NYC, ‘Letter to the Last Generation’ feels like a collage from an artist in a restless, transitory state.
 

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Kimon Kirk feat. Robbie Fulks - Dashboard Hula Doll. 

Kimon Kirk & Robbie Fulks are excited to announce the release of “Dashboard Hula Doll” off Kirk’s forthcoming solo effort, Bikini Jardine, due Summer 2026. “Dashboard Hula Doll” chronicles the story  of a desperate man on the verge of losing everything – everything except his guiding light, the grass-skirted hula doll perched atop the dash of his family car. 

The story unfolds over the song’s two careening minutes and humorously evokes the downward spiral of a hapless husband “half-a-way to Denver on a three day bender,” to quote one of its lyrics. “Dashboard Hula Doll” pays tribute in spirit to one of Kirk and Fulks’s musical heroes, beloved NRBQ guitarist Big Al Anderson, whose tongue-in-cheek compositions and ferocious guitar playing clearly informed the mood of the recording.  

“Dashboard Hula Doll,” written with the pioneering alt-country artist Robbie Fulks, includes a video filmed in the Southern California desert. Recorded in one live session at LA’s Sunset Sound, “Dashboard Hula Doll” features Kirk on vocals and electric guitar, Fulks on vocals and acoustic guitar, Duke Levine (Bonnie Raitt) on lead guitar, and the powerhouse rhythm section of Paul Bryan (Aimee Mann) on bass and Jay Bellerose (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss) on drums.

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Sarah & Collin - She Made The Rain.

Sarah & Collin are a Los Angeles-based duo whose music lives in the tension between light and shadow, a place where atmospheric alternative-indie, industrial edges and cinematic psych-rock coalesce into something neither fully of this world nor outside it. Their debut album, This Time, out April 10th, embodies that meeting point with remarkable clarity, creating a world that feels immersive, dreamlike and charged with emotional depth.

This week the pair have shared their new single, 'She Made The Rain'. Of the track, Collin says, "I got rain-checked, and it humbled me, hopefully. A year later I met up with her and showed her the song and she didn't like it. I never saw her again."

Vocals from either singer drift above textured soundscapes before folding into one another and revealing a layered duality at the centre of their collaboration. On stage, they’ve already been described as offering a “cinematic music experience,” with listeners drawing comparisons to the strange, magnetic tone of a David Lynch film. The album extends that atmosphere, translating it into a fully realised sonic landscape.

Alongside the recorded work, the world around This Time has been growing through a series of intentional, carefully crafted DIY performances across Los Angeles. Rather than moving through the city’s traditional venue circuit, Sarah & Collin have rooted themselves in community-oriented, artist-driven spaces - pop-up shows in homes, backyards and unconventional rooms that mirror the cinematic intimacy of their sound. These events have become one of the main generators of early buzz, drawing crowds through word-of-mouth and the duo’s reputation for transforming everyday spaces into atmospheric environments.

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