With a new album announced for release next month, veteran Northern California indie rockers The Morning Line and Big Stir Records bring you the second single to preview the record. “Spellbound,” with its textured guitars and plaintively melodic vocals, is a moody but lovely change of pace from “Anhedonia,” the band's previous indie hit single, and together they hint at the stylistic depth the band displays on the new album Stars. The single is released this weekend (three weeks ahead of the release of the full-length record's street date).
Frontman Stephen Smith reveals the intention behind the track. “It's about someone re-entering the world, after a period of loneliness, upset, or treatment.” He goes on to point out some details that listeners, whether hearing the song for the first time now or when its original version appeared on the band's 2007 debut album Stay My Satellite, might overlook: “One word people often miss when listening to it is 'Darien,' the Connecticut town. The song was featured on the soundtrack of the 2012 film Just Like Being There, a documentary about the makers of rock show posters. It is the only The Morning Line song with horns – a trumpet part that leads the song to its end. It’s anthemic and earnest.”
With dense lyrical and musical touches like this, the song still packs a visceral and emotional punch as its layers ebb and flow. It's another side of The Morning Line's fascinating take on guitar pop and just one of 21 examples on display on Stars, a record that's rapidly emerging as an essential event on 2026's indie rock calendar.
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Musical contortionists Ungus Ungus Ungus return to bending boundaries with more of their signature mind-tickling tracks on their seventh studio album 'The Fun House', out yesterday August 28th.
With six full-length albums under their belt and having taken the stage at an array of internationally regarded festivals, including Woodford Folk, Port Fairy Folk and Rainbow Serpent, Ungus Ungus Ungus are back with an electrifying album that promises to deliver an unpredictable and enlivening experience, at times intentionally disorienting in its stylistic turns but always staying on track to a good time - much like the fairground ride from which the album takes its name.
With players based across three states, the Naarm/Melbourne-centred band returns with their shapeshifting, dancefloor-friendly sound. Conceptually, the album explores foundational dimensions of life together with its assorted peaks, valleys and contrasting flavours. Bandleader Max Schollar-Root says of the album: “As a band that plays fast and loose with genre, we have held nothing back stylistically, taking the listener on a journey from our signature circus party freak folk through psychedelic dub, funky hip-hop, electro swing, drum and bass, and ambient spaciousness.”
The album opens with ‘Funlerable’, a driving, moody track featuring circus organs and haunting vocals that speak to the duality of joy and vulnerability as an oscillating feature of life. ‘Poltergeist’ follows with a theatrical lament to lost love that builds from a slow cabaret feel to an uptempo frenzy. ‘Dr Quiet’ slows down the pace, giving way to atmospheric dub and sensuous, leisurely horns, setting the scene for the conceptual funk odyssey of ‘Wishes Three’, a foray into the foundations of where food comes from through deep grooves, group vocals and character-driven lyrics.
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'Green Light' is the first single from 'Part Time Signals’ upcoming album 'Duck’s Back, Baby'. Placed as the opening track to their new album, Green Light symbolises the urge to get moving after remaining stagnant for quite some time. It’s like checking your watch and feeling like time is standing still but taking comfort in the knowledge that a green light will eventually shine. The song features layers of warbly guitars and keyboards, vocals drenched in spring reverb, luscious harmonies and crisp saturated drums.
The band self-recorded Green Light at Giant Wafer Studios, and it features additional instrumentation from Stephen Black (flute & clarinet), Rhodri Brooks (pedal steel) and David Newington (vibraphone). Duck’s Back, Baby is the brand new album from Part Time Signals and the follow-up to their debut album Another Day In Paradise and EP The Window. It was self-recorded over an intensive five days at Giant Wafer Studios in Mid Wales, with subsequent additional recordings made at their rehearsal space and homes.
The band say, “We’ve been quietly chipping away at this album for a few years, assembling it piece by piece since the initial studio session. In its essence it’s a collection of songs that reflect some of the many aspects of the human condition, and listening from start to finish there are plenty of dots to be connected.”
With the main recording session being the band’s first time recording in a professional studio together, they explored the extensive instrumentation and equipment at hand to create different textures and atmospheres, further developing their sound. During subsequent sessions back in Cardiff, the band recorded additional performances from David Newington (vibraphone), Rhodri Brooks (pedal steel) and Stephen Black (clarinet, flute, saxophones).
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| Photo - Matthew Chenet |
After more than three decades writing songs for Grammy Award–winning artists and fostering some of the top talent in a rich North Carolina scene, Merlefest favorite Laurelyn Dossett is finally ready to step out for her debut solo album How Many Moons? The album, produced by M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger, is set for an August 28 release via Sycamore Road. Taylor says, “Laurelyn Dossett is a songwriter and human that I find immensely inspiring. A survivor and a wonder-er. I know she has played a huge part in the lives of so many creative people, and I'm honored to have played a part in her new album.”
How Many Moons is an embarrassment of sonic riches—and Dossett has clearly been saving her 12 best for her first. There’s everything on here from saucy, swampy, bluesy waltzes (“Tomorrow Won’t Remember”) to back-barn country rambles (lead single “How Many Moons”) and back-alley jazz-bar laments (“Run to the River”). “You and the Moon” has a gentle, ear-worm melody. She previously shared the heartbreaking single “Believe Me,” featuring producer M.C. Taylor. One could easily picture the song in a Norah Jones set. The serene lilt of “Glory Glory, is an original song that features Taylor on electric and acoustic guitars and mandolin.
Dossett assembled a who’s-who of N.C. and regional players to help her deliver this stunning, eclectic solo debut. Players include Charly Lowry, artist and activist of the Lumbee and Tuscarora, who lends her vocals to “The Vision And The Call” (out June 29); Stephanie Coleman, a Brooklyn fiddler and musical partner of Nora Brown, whose worked with everyone from Rhiannon Giddens and Aoife O’Donovan to Béla Fleck; sacred steel legend DaShawn Hickman, whose pedal steel skills have wowed millions on America’s Got Talent; jazz/folk bassist Jason Sypher, whose list of notables includes Irma Thomas, Kermit Ruffins, and Clarence Gatemouth Brown, among many others; drummer Nick Falk (Molly Tuttle, The Wood Brothers, CAAMP and Hiss Golden Messenger); Riley Baugus (Willie Nelson, Alison Kraus and Robert Plant) and Taylor, who pitches in on acoustic/electric guitars and mandolin when he’s not behind the boards.
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| Photo - Sasha Pedro |
Indie singer/songwriter Brooke Annibale has released her new single “Try Again.” The track is the latest to release off her forthcoming album Bolder Font, which is due out on September 17th. The emotional centerpiece to Bolder Font, “Try Again” finds Brooke turning the lens on her own complicated relationship with music after a series of disheartening and unexpected setbacks: the thing that has always healed her is also the thing that has wounded her.
"There was a point between records where it actually pained me to work on music, which was an unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling,” stated Annibale. “Music has been my safe place since I was a teenager, the one thing I've always turned to. Losing that felt like losing a relationship. So that's exactly how I wrote about it — like I was talking directly to music itself, the way you'd speak to someone you were afraid of losing. The conversation in this song toggles between talking to myself and talking to music like it was a person slipping away. Somewhere in the making of this record, I found my way back to that safe space again.”
“Try Again” follows the release of the wry, nostalgic “Birthday,” which was featured on Atwood who raved “A gentle giant of a song, it carries years of memory on a brooding pulse, wrapping Annibale’s raw, unflinching songwriting in sweet warmth.” Annibale also recently released the electrifying, irresistible “Make You Mine,” as well as “Daily Dose,” a spirited reflection on unfiltered enthusiasm; “My Favorite Part,” the heartbreakingly vulnerable opening track; and the title track “Bolder Font,” which wrestles with the album’s underlying theme of self-worth and the gap between who we are and the identities that have been placed on us.
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| Photo - Pierpaolo Saccomandi. |
Disgusting Sisters just shared their new single "Not Cool", taken from their upcoming debut album Skin & Blisters, which will be released October 30 on Source Records. "Not Cool" is, a punchy, hilarious new offering that blends tongue-in-cheek lyricism, addictive melodies and a strong dose of defiance. The single also references The Strokes, MDMA, Candy Crush and 36 year old men still buying boxers with their mum.
On the new single, Disgusting Sisters say - "'Not Cool' is a song inspired by an ex boyfriend. We’ll let you decide if he’s cool or not. It’s also the first song we ever wrote as Disgusting Sisters, so it means a lot to us as it feels like the beginning of everything."
A lot of songwriters might use their craft as a means to process life, but not many end up with a wild end result like Disgusting Sisters. A winning mix of horror, humour, musical influences that span from electro to emo and a wealth of joint experience, it speaks to a childhood of pet rats and pranks; world-building and wicked games. The duo have already received press support from the likes of The Guardian, DIY and Clash as well plays at BBC Radio 1 and BBC 6Music. The album will arrive on Source Records, the iconic Anglo-French label historically home to artists including Air, Phoenix and Kings of Convenience.
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