12 Best Songs of the Week: Wolf Alice, Nation of Language, Coach Party, King Gizzard, and More
May 16, 2025
Welcome to the 16th Songs of the Week of 2025. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, Matt the Raven, Scotty Dransfield, and Stephen Humphries helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 25 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 12.
Issue 74, The Protest Issue, is out now. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.
Under the Radar subscriptions are currently 50% off, as are back issues. Check out the sale here.
To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last week, we have picked the 12 best the last seven days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.
1. Wolf Alice: “Bloom Baby Bloom”
Yesterday, British four-piece Wolf Alice announced a new album, The Clearing, and shared its first single, “Bloom Baby Bloom,” via a music video. The Clearing is due out August 29 via RCA.
The Clearing is the band’s fourth album and follows Blue Weekend, which was #2 on our Top 100 Albums of 2021 list. The band wrote the album in Seven Sisters, North London, England and recorded it last year in Los Angeles with Grammy winning producer Greg Kurstin.
Wolf Alice’s singer Ellie Rowsell had this to say about “Bloom Baby Bloom” in a press release: “I wanted a rock song, to focus on the performance element of a rock song and sing like Axl Rose, but to be singing a song about being a woman. I’ve used the guitar as a shield in the past, playing it has perhaps been some way to reject the ‘girl singer in band’ trope, but I wanted to focus on my voice as a rock instrument so it’s been freeing to put the guitar down and reach a point where I don’t feel like I need to prove that I’m a musician.”
Colin Solal Cardo (Charli XCX, Robyn, Christine & The Queens, Phoenix) directed the song’s video, which a press release says “deconstructs a classic rock performance by drawing on Bob Fosse and All That Jazz.” Emmy Award-winning choreographer Ryan Heffington (Euphoria, Sia, Kenzo + Margaret Qualley) choreographed the video.
The press release says The Clearing was influenced by ’70s classic rock and is akin to Fleetwood Mac making an album in North London in 2025.
Synth-pop trio Nation of Language have signed to Sub Pop and in honor of this exciting news this week they released a new single, “Inept Apollo,” and announced some tour dates in North America, the EU, and the UK.
The Brooklyn-based band features Ian Richard Devaney (lead vocals, guitar), Aidan Noell (synthesizer), and Alex MacKay (bass guitar).
“Work is a respite from pain. Whether it’s a paying job or just the thing you pour yourself into, having a direction to move in, finding a flow state, it can move focus away from the heaviness of the heart. So after life’s losses, in moments of despair, we resolve time and time again to dive headfirst into the work as best we can. But the artistic process also tends to be when imposter syndrome rears its ugly head—when I find my inner monologue spiraling: ‘this is the best coping mechanism I have at my disposal and I’m not even qualified to be doing it.’
“Accompanying the song is a killer music video by our friend and brother John MacKay: it is an homage to creative pursuits, and in some ways came to represent the feeling of living in a city as an artist. The video feels like walking through an old warehouse in Brooklyn, full of practice spaces and studios, each room occupied by artists striving to express and understand themselves and their place in the world. No matter how bizarre the act may seem or how much self-doubt or pain runs through the mind of the creator, the beautiful thing is the striving and continuing on, rather than the final product or any notion of ‘success.’ The power of creation belongs to all of us; requires the approval of none.”
Coach Party are back. This week the Isle of Wight four-piece announced details of their second album Caramel, set for release on September 26 via Chess Club Records. The new LP follows their acclaimed 2023 debut KILLJOY and sees the band take the reins on production for a raw, high-voltage snapshot of modern emotional life.
Across its 10 tracks, Caramel tackles the loneliness, rage and catharsis of existing in a hyper-online, burnout-heavy world, while celebrating the people who pull us back from the brink. The band describe it as a record rooted in real connection, honest, frustrated, but ultimately life-affirming.
To mark the album announcement, Coach Party released new single “Girls!,” a fiery call-to-arms with frontwoman Jess Eastwood rallying listeners with the line “where the fuck are my girls?,” the track leans into community and collective release, built around a call-and-response chorus designed to shake the room.
“It’s a mosh-inciting, live hype song,” Eastwood says. “Along the lines of: for the next three minutes, whoever you are, you’re all my girls and you’re all gonna fucking mosh. When it’s over, you can go back to being whoever you usually are, but for right now, let loose and have fun.”
Caramel marks a step forward for the band, Jess Eastwood (vocals, bass), Steph Norris (guitar), Joe Perry (guitar), and Guy Page (drums), who all grew up in the Isle of Wight’s tight-knit music scene. Since the release of KILLJOY, they’ve toured with Queens of the Stone Age and Wet Leg, stormed Glastonbury and SXSW, and played packed headline shows across the UK, US and Europe. By Andy Von Pip
4. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: “Grow Wings and Fly”
Melbourne-based psych-rock group King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are releasing a new album, Phantom Island, on June 13 on the band’s own p(doom) label. This week the band released its third single, “Grow Wings and Fly,” via a music video. Hayden Somerville directed the video.
In a press release, Somerville had this to say about directing the video: “There are so many strange and beautiful ways to grow wings and fly. We had a very special time down the coast with the band and our crew, releasing our sea creature—who somehow makes me feel a little ill and completely full of joy at the same time.”
Phantom Island follows Flight b741, a new album King Gizzard released in 2024. The initial tracks for the new album were recorded at the same time as the sessions for Flight b741, but still needed more work. In a press release, the band’s Stu Mackenzie says they “were harder to finish. Musically, they needed a little more time and space and thought.”
“The songs felt like they needed this other energy and color, that we needed to splash some different paint on the canvas,” Mackenzie adds.
And so they enlisted their friend Chad Kelly, who is a British historical keyboardist, conductor and arranger. “He brings this wealth of musical awareness to his chameleon-like arrangements,” Mackenzie says. “We come from such different worlds—he plays Mozart and Bach and uses the same harpsichords they did, and tunes them the exact same way. But he’s obsessed with microtonal music, too, and all this nerdy stuff like me.”
Summing up his change of approach to music these days, Mackenzie says: “When I was younger, I was just interested in freaking people out, but as I get older, I’m much more interested in connecting with people.”
10 Best Songs of the Week: U.S. Girls, Fiona Apple, Elbow, Moses Sumney & Hayley Williams, and More
May 09, 2025
Welcome to the 15th Songs of the Week of 2025. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, Matt the Raven, Scotty Dransfield, and Stephen Humphries helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 25 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 10.
Issue 74, The Protest Issue, is out now. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.
Under the Radar subscriptions are currently 50% off, as are back issues. Check out the sale here.
To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last week, we have picked the 10 best the last seven days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.
1. U.S. Girls: “Bookends”
This week, U.S. Girls (aka Meghan Remy) announced a new album, Scratch It, and shared its first single, the 12-minute long “Bookends,” via a music video. Scratch It is due out June 30 via 4AD.
The album came together when the Toronto-based Remy put together a new band for a one-off performance at a festival in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Aided by her friend, guitarist Dillon Watson (D. Watusi, Savoy Motel, Jack Name), Remy assembled a band of Nashville-based musicians. She then decided to travel to Nashville to record a new album with this new band, which features Watson on guitar alongside Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs, Loretta Lynn) on bass, Domo Donoho on drums, both Jo Schornikow and Tina Norwood on keys, and harmonica legend Charlie McCoy (Elvis, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison). They recorded Scratch It in only 10 days. On May 14 Remy will be reassembling the band to perform the album live for the first time at Soft Junk in Nashville.
“Bookends” is described in a press release as a tribute to Remy’s late friend and former Power Trip frontman Riley Gale, but done so “through the lens of Remy’s reading of John Carey’s Eyewitness to History, a historical collection of 300+ eyewitness accounts of great world events spanning twenty-four centuries. In consuming these first-hand accounts of human history, she began to ponder the thought, ‘there is not a hierarchy to suffering, and death is the great equalizer.’”
Caity Arthur directed the “Bookends” video and had this to say about it in a press release: “The video is ultimately about death and absolution—how death is one of the only certain things in life; the ‘great equalizer,’ nolens volens. However, it also subverts the traditional narrative of death as a despairing void, rather, portraying it as a euphoric transitory experience or new beginning through a hallucinatory ensemble cast, a 1960s pop-star performance, and sleight of hand magic. As the video progresses, the TV channels alternate through these scenes as Meg’s lyrics evoke death in its various forms.”
U.S. Girls’ last album was 2023’s Bless This Mess, which was inspired by Remy’s pregnancy and the birth of her twin boys.
Remy’s album before that, Heavy Light, came out in 2020. Read our interview with Remy on that album here.
2. Fiona Apple: “Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)”
This week, Fiona Apple shared a brand new song, “Pretrial (Let Her Go Home),” about how the cash-bail system negatively affects women and girls, especially Black women.
Apple had this to say about the song in a press release: “I was a court watcher for over two years. In that time, I took notes on thousands of bond hearings. Time and time again, I listened as people were taken away and put in jail, for no other reason than that they couldn’t afford to buy their way free. It was particularly hard to hear mothers and caretakers get taken away from the people who depend on them. For the past five years, I have been volunteering with the Free Black Mamas DMV bailout, and I have been lucky to be able to witness the stories of women who fought for and won their freedom with the tireless and loving support of the leadership. I hope that this song, and the images shared with me, can help to show what is at stake when someone is kept in pretrial detention. I give this song in friendship and respect to all who have experienced the pain of pretrial detention and to the women of the group’s leadership who have taught me so much and whom I truly love.”
Frontman Guy Garvey had this to say about the EP in a press release: “Finishing something for the band in lots of ways. We are having more fun in the studio than ever before. Craig’s on fire as a producer, Pete and Alex are the coolest rhythm section working and Pot’s unpredictable rhythm guitar has started working its way into such a soulful and accomplished place. The words are all stories from my past, sometimes joyful, often dark, but all of it exciting and mostly true. It feels like we’re having another go on the Waltzers after hours.”
In November Elbow returned with a brand new single, “Adrianna Again,” which is featured on the EP. The single was accompanied by a cheeky music video, as it featured a completely different band performing the song. The band in question was Novacane, who are a new band also from Manchester. “Adrianna Again” was one of our Songs of the Week.
Many of the songs on AUDIO VERTIGO were born of Elbow’s members working in smaller groups, before the whole band finished the songs.
AUDIO VERTIGO was the follow-up to 2021’s Flying Dream 1 and in contrast to that more intimate sounding album, the new record embraced a more varied and rhythmically diverse musical landscape, or as Garvey puts it, “gnarly, seedy grooves created by us playing together in garagey rooms.”
4. Moses Sumney and Hayley Williams: “I Like It, I Like It”
This week, Moses Sumney and Hayley Williams of Paramore teamed up for the new single, “I Like It, I Like It.” The duo has been teasing the track on social media since last week. There’s no official word if it’s a preview of a new collaborative album or EP or is just a one-off standalone single. It sounds a lot more like Sumney’s previous work than Williams’ and is out now on Sumney’s own label, Tuntum. The song was shared via a lyric video directed by Sumney.
Sumney co-wrote the song with quickly, quickly (aka Portland-based artist Graham Jonson). Sumney co-produced “I Like It, I Like It” with quickly, quickly and Rob Bisel.
Paramore released a new album, This Is Why, in 2023 via Atlantic. In 2024 they covered Talking Heads’ classic “Burning Down the House.”
5. Matt Berninger: “Inland Ocean”
Matt Berninger of The National is releasing a new solo album, Get Sunk, on May 30 via Book, Berninger’s imprint with Concord. This week he shared its third single, album opener “Inland Ocean.” The song features backing vocals from Ronboy (Julia Laws) and was co-written with The Walkmen’s Walter Martin.
Get Sunk is Berninger’s second solo album and follows 2020’s Serpentine Prison. For the new album, Berninger partnered with Grammy Award-winning producer and engineer Sean O’Brien, who co-wrote many of the album’s songs. Get Sunk was recorded in a basement studio in Silverlake, CA. The album features a slew of special guests, including Meg Duffy (Hand Habits), Julia Laws (Ronboy), Kyle Resnick (The National, Beirut), Garret Lang, Sterling Laws, Booker T Jones, Harrison Whitford, Mike Brewer, and The Walkmen’s Walter Martin and Paul Maroon.
A press release says Get Sunk is “not necessarily an autobiographical album, the narrator is processing how he became himself. Berninger is an expert in what it feels like to lose all bravery, and Get Sunk points to an undulating reflection in the water. It’s about realizing that you are not yourself without a thousand others: parents, friends, siblings, spouses and exes, college roommates, childhood best friends, cousins, kids, and even strangers.”
The album was partially inspired by the singer/songwriter’s move to Connecticut after years living in Los Angeles. Once there he enjoyed the flora and fauna of the state and “rearranged dust-covered items in his barn into strange and surreal works of art. It felt good to be creating and to understand why he loves what he does,” as the press release points out.
Berninger adds: “I was able to get the blurry picture as close to just right for me.”
British musician Baxter Dury announced a new album, Allbarone, this week and shared its first single, title track “Allbarone,” via a music video shot in Venice, Italy. Allbarone is due out September 12 via Heavenly. Tom Beard directed the video for “Allbarone.”
Dury had this to say about “Allbarone” in a press release: “This is the first track that Paul Epworth and I made and it quickly established why it was a good idea that we were working together. It’s a song about sitting in the rain outside an All Bar One contemplating why what just happened, happened in the way it did.
“It’s kind of a character arc that goes through the whole thing, two personalities. It’s very critical of people, this album, whoever they are, maybe some bloke with a moustache and sockless loafers in Shoreditch or a fat old Chiswick gangster lording it up in a really comfortable middle class part of London.”
Of the song’s sound, Dury adds: “I don’t want to say it’s contemporary. Because I sound like a cunt using that word. But it does sound really contemporary. It doesn’t sound like a Harrods hamper band made it. It doesn’t sound like a band made it all. Which is what I wanted most of all. It’s just something that’s brand new for me. It’s quite exciting, really.”
Welsh musician Gwenno (full name Gwenno Saunders) is releasing a new album, Utopia, on July 11 via Heavenly. This week she shared its second single, “War,” via a music video. The song is inspired by a World War II-era poem by Welsh artist and poet Edrica Huws entitled “Vingt-Et-Un.”
Saunders had this to say about the song in a press release: “I’ve loved this Edrica Huws poem for a really long time. She was an artist and poet, and she wrote this at the start of the Second World War. It kept resonating with me over this period where we’ve really normalized the idea of war, and actually at times have perhaps been quite enthusiastic from our sofas. I think her poem is really worth something in an age where we’re obviously tumbling towards something catastrophic. Those words have really reminded me of that very small window you have before it happens—the chance to be considerate, and more vigilant, and aware. It’s the elegance of her writing, the calmness of her writing, the wisdom.”
Utopia is her first solo LP sung mainly in the English language. Previously Gwenno shared the album’s first single, “Dancing On Volcanoes,” via a music video. It was one of our Songs of the Week.
The video for “Dancing On Volcanoes” was filmed in Las Vegas, where Saunders spent two years as a teenager in the lead role in Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance. She lived in an apartment complex with 40 fellow teenage performers, where there was a pool and a gym, but little else to do beyond “drink, drugs, eating disorders,” a press release explains.
“Then every Saturday we’d go to this techno club called Utopia and just get completely spangled until Monday, when we had to go back to work,” Saunders remembers, pointing out that the club inspired the new album’s title.
“In the original Greek, ‘utopia’ doesn’t mean the ideal place, it means ‘non-place,’” Saunders explains. “And that’s the point of the record as well.”
After her stint in Vegas, Saunders moved back to the UK, but not to Wales, instead settling in London. “I didn’t know anyone or anything, I would just hassle people and answer adverts in The Stage magazine, and go to really silly auditions,” she says. “I was looking for people to hang out with and make tunes.”
Eventually she ended up in the Brighton-based girl-group The Pipettes, alongside Rose Elinor Dougall, releasing two albums with them. Post-Pipettes, Saunders has released three acclaimed solo albums—2014’s Y Dydd Olaf, 2018’s Le Kov, and 2022’s Mercury Prize-nominated Tresor—all sung mainly in either Welsh or Cornish (an almost lost language that’s had a bit of a revival in recent years). Saunders felt like her previous albums dealt more with her childhood, whereas Utopia tackles a period of her life where she spoke mainly English and so she felt more natural singing in that language this time around.
“I feel as if I’ve written a debut record, because it’s a different language and it’s a different part of my life,” she says. “It’s about that point where I go out into the world on my own, which people generally write about first, and then get on with their lives. But it’s taken me so long to digest it—I needed 20 years just to make sense of things, and I realized the starting point of my creative life isn’t Wales, it’s actually North America.”
Saunders adds: “I think the way I’ve managed to write in English is by acknowledging that I can’t translate a lot of memories. I’ve found that idea really important to explore. I think if I’d just stayed in Wales, and I hadn’t lived anywhere else or experienced any other culture then it would be really different. I would’ve made records in Welsh, but I left home at 16.”
Saunders’ long term collaborator Rhys Edwards once again produced the album, which was recorded live with her band in her living room. The album also features fellow Welsh musicians Cate Le Bon and H. Hawkline.
Summing up the experience of writing and recording the album and revisiting her past with it, Saunders says: “I feel compelled as a songwriter to keep digging it all up. Everything’s a diary entry for me. And in writing about all of this I’ve remembered the chaos of myself.”
10 Best Songs of the Week: Stereolab, The Beths, Lael Neale, Blondshell, and More
May 02, 2025
Welcome to the 14th Songs of the Week of 2025. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, Scotty Dransfield, and Stephen Humphries helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 30 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 10.
Recently we announced Issue 74, The Protest Issue. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.
We’re also hoping to get 600 new (or renewed) subscribers on board in the next three months and so we’re offering 30% off subscriptions right now.
To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last week, we have picked the 10 best the last seven days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.
1. Stereolab: “Melodie Is a Wound”
Stereolab are releasing Instant Holograms on Metal Film, their first new album in 15 years, on May 23 via Duophonic UHF Disks and Warp. This week they released the album’s second single, “Melodie Is a Wound.” They also put out an accompanying crossword puzzle and expanded their tour dates. Check out the crossword puzzle and the tour dates here.
Alan Connor put together the crossword puzzle. Not only is he a Stereolab fan, but he has an impressive resume when it comes to puzzles. He’s the crossword editor for The Guardian, does the cryptic crossword for The Observer, has written several books (including 188 Words For Rain), and has also been question editor for the TV shows House of Games and Only Connect.
Connor had this to say about the Stereolab crossword in a press release: “Writing this puzzle I felt an unfamiliar sensation, at first in my knees. A recovered memory of Stereolab in a venue which sent the groop’s noise bursts—bass? sub-bass? whatever might be under that?—directly inside each of us in the crowd, reshaping us in wonderful ways. No one else has done that, but then no one else has done the alchemic things Stereolab has done. Happily for me, this is a band fond of titles which read just like fragments of cryptic clues. So long, that is, as your brain has been suitably warped by puzzles. Happily, mine has been warped this way—as well as my body by Stereolab. Thank you for the warping, thank you Warp and thank you Stereolab. By the way, I sincerely believe that anyone in public life would do public life better if they listened to Emperor Tomato Ketchup’s ‘Tomorrow Is Already Here’ a few times. What was then the future has borne out that one plenty.”
Previously Stereolab shared the album’s first single, “Aerial Troubles,” via a music video. “Aerial Troubles” was #2 on our Songs of the Week list.
Stereolab’s last studio album was 2010’s Not Music, although despite an indefinite hiatus the band has remained active since then reissuing older albums and since 2019 they have been touring. The band is led by founding members Laetitia Sadier and Tim Gane and also includes Andy Ramsay, Joseph Watson, and Xavier Muñoz Guimera. Instant Holograms on Metal Film also features Cooper Crain, Rob Frye, Ben LaMar Gay, Ric Elsworth, Holger Zapf, Marie Merlet, and Molly Read.
Instant Holograms on Metal Film was teased with an “Aerial Troubles” 7-inch being mailed to select fans (with an instrumental version of the song on the B-side). Cryptic posters featuring a Stereolab word search also appeared in some major cities.
In 2021, Sadier guested on Jarvis Cocker’s cover of Dalida’s 1973 duet with Alain Delon, “Paroles, Paroles.” It was featured on Cocker’s album, Chansons D’Ennui Tip-Top, which was a companion piece to Wes Anderson’s film, The French Dispatch.
The Beths are vocalist Elizabeth Stokes, guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and drummer Tristan Deck.
“In some ways ‘Metal’ is a song about being alive and existing in a human body,” Stokes explains in a press release. “That is something I have been acutely aware of in the last few years, where I have been on what one might call a ‘health journey.’ For parts of the last few years, I kind of felt like my body was a vehicle that had carried me pretty well thus far but was breaking down, something I had little to no control over. All of the steps in the Rube Goldberg machine of life are so unlikely, and yet here we are in it. I have a hunger and a curiosity for learning about the world around me, and for learning about myself. And despite all the ways that my body feels like a broken machine, I still marvel at the complexity of such a machine.
“I can hold that knowledge in one hand, and yet with the other hand I can point to my reflection and just be like ‘you are shit.’ Or ‘ugly.’ Or ‘worthless.’ I can reliably respond to any suggestion that I might be able to achieve any small thing with ‘no.’ And these are variations of the ‘short word’ referenced in the song.”
The press release says “the track sees The Beths fully embracing jangle rock.” As Stokes explains: “There was a propulsion to the acoustic strumming pattern on the original demo. Tristan’s drums meet that feeling so perfectly, the feeling of a train pushing up the tracks. Jonathan got to play his Burns 12 string guitar as sparkly as he wanted, and Ben as usual can’t be contained to the lower register. I think we ended up with an arrangement that embodies the frenetic intricacy of an engine in action. There’s a lot going on, until there isn’t.”
Minimalist singer/songwriter Lael Neale released a new album, Altogether Stranger, today via Sub Pop. Earlier this week she shared its third single, “Wild Waters,” via a self-directed music video.
Neale had this to say about “Wild Waters” in a press release: “The video for ‘Wild Waters’ was a collaboration with choreographer and dancer Sandi [Denton]. I had this vision of dancers playing the part of interdimensional beings performing a dance that would open a portal, calling my character through. In perfect synchronicity, when I approached Sandi with the idea, she had already been building a two-person dance that fit seamlessly. I love working with Sandi for this reason.”
Regular collaborator Guy Blakeslee produced and mixed the album, which was recorded at home. Chris Coady mastered Altogether Stranger.
Neale also had this to say about “Wild Waters”: “While the album was made by just me and Guy, the really fun part of creating this film was getting to include our friends in the production and experiment alongside some of the many visionary artists who are active in Los Angeles right now to bring the story to life. The guiding ethos for both the record and the film was an intuitive (vs. technical) approach, embracing the primitive simplicity of making things by hand.
Today Neale released music videos for all the remaining songs from the album as a short film.
Altogether Stranger finds Neale returning to Los Angeles after three years of living in rural Virginia. She was born and raised in Virginia before moving to Los Angeles then back to VA during the pandemic and now back to LA again. The video for “Tell Me How to Be Here” superimposes images of LA on top of a double exposed Neale as she sings the song.
“On returning to Los Angeles I felt like an extraterrestrial landing on a dystopian planet so I’m writing from the perspective of a being from another realm witnessing the peculiarities of humanity,” says Neale in a press release.
“In the course of writing this record there was one song I could never finish. The main line was, ‘I don’t belong here, I am an altogether stranger.’ I meant ‘stranger’ as a noun, not an adjective. Even though I abandoned the song, the lost chorus stuck with me & became the unspoken motif of the record,” says Neale of the album’s title.
Blondshell (aka Sabrina Teitelbaum) dropped her highly anticipated sophomore album, If You Asked For a Picture, today via Partisan. In the lead-up to the release, earlier this week Teitelbaum shared the final pre-release track, “Event of a Fire.”
A slow-burning epic, “Event of a Fire” begins with a fragile guitar arpeggio, building to a powerful crescendo of harmonies and crashing drums. Written during a haze of tour-life exhaustion The song explores existential fatigue, delving into body image, family tension, and the weight of just trying to hold it all together.
The song’s accompanying video stars up-and-coming French actress Ghjuvanna Benedetti and was directed by Emilé Moutaud. The narrative follows a diving team and one diver’s internal burnout, juxtaposing the mundane aspects of her life with the crushing weight of what she’s feeling inside.
You can grab our print issue (Issue 71) to read our exclusive interview with Blondshell. Read our review of her debut album here. By Andy Von Pip
5. Indigo De Souza: “Heartthrob”
This week, Indigo De Souza announced a new album, Precipice, and shared its first single, “Heartthrob,” via a music video. Precipice is due out July 25 via Loma Vista. Check out the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, followed by her upcoming tour dates, here.
Precipice follows 2023All of This Will End, which was released on her previous label Saddle Creek. De Souza worked with Elliott Kozel on the album.
“Life feels like always being on the edge of something without knowing what that something is,” De Souza says in a press release. “Music gives me ways to harness that feeling. Ways to push forward in new directions.”
Of the new single, De Souza says: “I wrote ‘Heartthrob’ as a way to help process something that is often hard to talk about—the harmful ways I’ve been taken advantage of in my physical memory. ‘Heartthrob’ is about harnessing anger, and turning it into something powerful and embodied. It’s about taking back my body and my experience. It’s a big fuck you to the abusers of the world. A sarcastic, angry cry for all bodies that have ever been touched in harmful ways.” By Mark Redfern
12 Best Songs of the Week: Miki Berenyi Trio, Samia, Preoccupations, Cut Copy, and More
Apr 25, 2025
Welcome to the 13th Songs of the Week of 2025. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, Matt the Raven, and Scotty Dransfield helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 30 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 12.
Recently we announced Issue 74, The Protest Issue. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.
We’re also hoping to get 600 new (or renewed) subscribers on board in the next three months and so we’re offering 30% off subscriptions right now.
To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last week, we have picked the 12 best the last seven days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.
1. Miki Berenyi Trio x Lol Tolhurst x Gray: “Stranger”
Miki Berenyi Trio—led by the former singer/guitarist with 1990s shoegaze, dream pop, and Britpop band Lush—recently released their debut album, Tripla, via Bella Union. This week they teamed up with Lol Tolhurst (formerly of The Cure) and his son Gray Tolhurst for the new song “Stranger.”
The collaboration came about when Lol Tolhurst opened for Miki Berenyi Trio with his Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee project on Berenyi’s 2024 U.S. tour. “Stranger” was recorded in Los Angeles, London, and St Leonards. Miki Berenyi Trio’s Oliver Cherer produced the song.
Cherer had this to say in a press release: “Stranger arrived as a demo from Lol/Gray, with guitar, synth and drums, with loads of room to develop riffs, hooks and melodies. I liked the insistent repetition of the long outro and was instantly minded to explore a Talk Talk approach, which is where the piano line with the Ashes to Ashes flanger wobble came from. The outro was extended to make a virtue of the repeated progression and the strings synths were added to help swell that into a wall of crescendo. Miki then took over adding lyrics and the gorgeous vocal melodies. Moose added layers of shimmering guitars and a rough mix was sent to Lol who added drum parts, recorded by Martin Fleischmann in Los Angeles, before it all came back to St Leonards for a mix where I also sneaked in a nice fat, squelchy Moog part. It developed quite naturally and easily, with each person’s contribution making the song bigger and more beautiful at every turn.”
Miki Berenyi says: “The lyrics are about being a friend to a long-term couple splitting. The tragedy at the centre is the people actually breaking up, but the repercussions ripple outward.”
Lol adds: “Sadly, Budgie couldn’t make this tour, but my son Gray is taking time out of his band Topographies to perform my set with me. ‘Stranger’ will feature all five of the touring party playing live together, and we’re excited to have a unique song for the shows.”
After Lush, Berenyi was also in the band Piroshka and for the trio she is backed by two members of that band—Berenyi’s life partner KJ “Moose” McKillop (of ’90s shoegazers Moose) and guitarist Oliver Cherer. Miki Berenyi Trio (or MB3 for short) is a full on collaboration between the three members and not just a Berenyi solo project. Tripla is the Hungarian word for “triple,” named in a nod to Berenyi’s Hungarian father.
Bella Union is the label founded by Simon Raymonde, formerly of Cocteau Twins, a band previously associated with Lush. Bella Union also released the two Piroshka albums.
Paul Gregory (of Bella Union labelmates Lanterns on the Lake) mixed the album. The album was recorded at home and the trio have also taken a DIY approach to touring. “There is something very ‘grass roots’ about what we’re doing,” says Berenyi. “There’s no point following the ‘announce the album, then tour, then record the next album’ route—we just want to wring as much enjoyment out of this as we can, and hope that it resonates somewhere!”
In 2022, Berenyi released her acclaimed memoir, Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success, and the trio was partially born out of the need to perform at book events.
Berenyi did a joint interview with Australian dream pop artist Hatchie in The ’90s Issue of our print magazine, where she discussed her memoir and Lush. Buy a copy directly from us here.
Earlier this week, Minneapolis-based singer and songwriter Samia unveiled “Carousel,” the final pre-release single from her new album Bloodless, which arrived today. Following a string of standout tracks—“Bovine Excision,” “Lizard,” “Hole in a Frame,” and “Pants”—“Carousel” offers one last glimpse into what promises to be her most ambitious record yet.
What begins as a fragile, acoustic-led piece with shimmering synths gradually expands into a sweeping, euphoric crescendo. Speaking about the song, Samia describes it as “a shadow of a long song,” adding, “it’s about spinning your wheels, and being afraid to make someone’s life less beautiful if you’re in it.”
The release is accompanied by another cinematic music video, once again directed by longtime collaborator Sarah Ritter. Each video from Bloodless has explored the theme of fearing oneself, with Samia often playing both protagonist and antagonist. For “Carousel,” the setting is an eerie indoor pool—an homage to childhood nightmares inspired by Are You Afraid of the Dark?‘s “Dead Man’s Float” and The Twilight Zone‘s “Mirror Image.”
Bloodless follows Samia’s critically acclaimed 2023 album Honey, which marked a breakout year for the artist. The new record was recorded in both North Carolina and her adopted hometown of Minneapolis. Co-produced with trusted collaborators Caleb Wright and Jake Luppen, and featuring contributions from Christian Lee Hutson and Raffaella, Bloodless sees Samia in poetic myth making mode once more. By Andy Von Pip
3. Preoccupations: “Ill at Ease”
Canadian post-punks Preoccupations are releasing a new album, Ill at Ease, on May 9 via Born Loser. This week they shared its third single, title track “Ill at Ease,” via a music video.
Frontman Matt Flegel had this to say about the song in a press release: “I was trying to convey the feeling of waking up, but not being able to shake the uncomfortable suspicion that you might still be dreaming. It’s also about making amends with the fact that you might never feel comfortable in your own skin, and finding solace in the fact that some things can’t be changed.”
Ill at Ease is the band’s fifth album and the follow-up to 2022’s Arrangements and 2018’s amusingly titled New Material.
Preoccupations is Matt Flegel (vocals, bass), Scott Munro (guitar, synth), Daniel Christiansen (guitar), and Mike Wallace (drums).
Flegel had this to say about the new album in a previous press release: “The well of dark things to write about seemingly has not dried up, and lyrically, it’s where I still tend to draw from. Draining all my anxieties into a song is often the only way I can get through a day. Some songs exist in a world with barren plains of burnt earth, covered in a dust of shame, dread, death, where all the things I love are things that kill me. Some come from the perspective of another distant world, looking skyward into a science fiction ocean of space, solitude, slight hope. Sometimes I’m looking around at the world that we live in now with incredulity, hilariously dissatisfied with how it’s all turned out, and assuming that it can’t be long before it’s all over. Some songs are just a reflection of me looking down at my feet while I trudge along wondering what I’m doing with myself, and if the ground is going to fall out from underneath me at any given moment.”
This week, Cut Copy released a new single, “Solid,” as well as the B-side “A Decade Long Sunset.” The two tracks will be released on a limited edition 12-inch single, shipping in late June. “Solid” was, well, a solid track, but the expansive seven-and-a-half-minute long “A Decade Long Sunset” was the one that truly impressed us.
The last album by the Australian electronic band was 2020’s Freeze, Melt.
Frontman Dan Whitford had this to say about the new songs in a statement: “We’re excited to finally share ‘Solid,’ our first new single in five years. It’s a song that came out of a pretty chaotic time, both personally and globally, and in some ways it became a kind of mantra for me. I started it as an instrumental years ago, then had a dream about it and felt pulled back in. It all came together quickly after that, like it had been waiting for the right moment to find its voice. ‘Solid’ is about resilience, about holding on to your vision even when everything feels upside down. I hope it gives you the same sense of forward motion it gave me.
“On the B-side is ‘A Decade Long Sunset,’ a track that is less of a traditional song structure and more of a slowly evolving soundtrack through dawn landscapes, neon-lit streets, busy highways, and festival crowds. To help paint this cinematic journey, we enlisted the amazing talents of KLF collaborator and member of legendary Australian band The Triffids, Graham Lee on pedal steel guitar. I love the evolution of different sounds and instruments through the course of the song. It’s probably one of the most psychedelic and evocative tracks we’ve recorded.”
The 12-inch will be a “limited-edition transparent coke bottle clear, yellow, blue, and green splatter vinyl. Limited to 500 copies only.” Pre-order it here.
South Korean indie band Say Sue Me are releasing a new EP, Time is Not Yours, on April 30 via Damnably / Beach Town Music. This week they shared another single from it, “In This Mess.”
Previously they shared the EP’s “Vacation,” which features Silica Gel’s Kim Hanjoo and was one of our Songs of the Week.
In 2022, in honor of the band’s 10th anniversary, Say Sue Me shared the 10 covers EP, featuring songs from Yo La Tengo, Pavement, Daniel Johnston, Silver Jews, Grandaddy, and Guided By Voices, along with two re-recorded versions of their own songs.
6. Fine: “I Could”
7. Sunflower Bean: “There’s a Part I Can’t Get Back”
8. Ezra Furman: “Power of the Moon”
9. Madeline Kenney: “All I Need”
10. Squid: “The Hearth and Circle Round Fire”
11. Model/Actriz: “Diva”
12. Natalie Bergman: “Gunslinger”
Honorable Mentions:
These songs almost made the Top 10.
Kelcey Ayer: “Ghosts of Neighborhood Dogs” (Feat. Jordana)
Bleach Lab: “Feel Something”
Florence Road: “Caterpillar”
Friendship: “Resident Evil”
HAIM: “Down to be wrong”
Leggs: “Gloss”
The Moonlandingz: “It’s Where I’m From” (Feat. Iggy Pop)
Picture Parlour: “Who’s There to Love Without You?”
The Swell Season: “Stuck in Reverse”
Here’s a handy Spotify playlist featuring the Top 10 in order, followed by all the honorable mentions:
10 Best Songs of the Week: Tunde Adebimpe, Fontaines D.C., Goon, illuminati hotties, and More
Apr 18, 2025
Welcome to the 12th Songs of the Week of 2025. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, Marina Mallin, Matt the Raven, and Scotty Dransfield helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 25 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 10.
Recently we announced Issue 74, The Protest Issue. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.
We’re also hoping to get 600 new (or renewed) subscribers on board in the next three months and so we’re offering 30% off subscriptions right now.
To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last week, we have picked the 10 best the last seven days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.
Of the new video, Adebimpe simply had this to say in a press release: “I’m positive I fell asleep on a couch with the TV on sometime in 1982 and fever dreamt this exact thing.”
Three Black Boltz includes “Magnetic,” a new song Adebimpe shared in October via a self-directed music video. It was one of our Songs of the Week. When the album was announced in January he released its second single, “Drop,” also one of our Songs of the Week. Its third single, “God Knows,” also landed on Songs of the Week.
Adebimpe produced the album with Wilder Zoby, and Zoby executive produced it. There was additional production and contributions from TV on the Radio members Jaleel Bunton and Jahphet Landis. Landis produced “Drop,” for example.
TV on the Radio also features David Sitek and Kyp Malone. In a press release Adebimpe says that when writing and recording music with the band he can rely on the other members to help finish his initial ideas, but with his solo album he was out on his own limb.
“I’ve been doing this thing with this group of people for so long, that I can just have a vague sketch of a concept and I know Jaleel or Kyp will have five brilliant ideas on where it can go,” he says. “But for Thee Black Boltz, I didn’t have that scaffolding to hang on. That was both terrifying and exhilarating.”
Adebimpe is also an actor, having appeared in last year’s blockbuster Twisters, as well as in Rachel Getting Married and the recent Disney+ show Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.As a solo musician he’s also collaborated with Massive Attack, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Run the Jewels.
After several years of inactivity, last September TV on the Radio resurfaced with plans to put out a 20th anniversary reissue of their debut album, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes, as well as the announcement of their first shows in five years. The reissue includes five bonus tracks and in September they shared one of them, “Final Fantasy.”Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (20th Anniversary Edition) came out in November via Touch & Go. The band’s last album, Seeds, came out a decade ago in 2014.
We first interviewed TV on the Radio in Issue 5 of Under the Radar in 2003, in honor of their debut EP, Young Liars. That article isn’t online, but you can revisit our 2008 interview with the band.
The deluxe edition also includes “It’s Amazing to Be Young,” which the band shared in February and was one of our Songs of the Week. There’s also a stripped back version of the album’s “Starburster” and melds into a cover of David Lynch’s “In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song),” from the soundtrack of Lynch’s 1977 film Eraserhead.
In a press release, the band’s Conor Curley had this to say about the new single, which was produced by James Ford: “‘Before You I Just Forget’ is a song that started with a vision of this really blown out sound, something that heaved and shifted with new details, becoming apparent every time you would listen. Like never being able to step in the same river twice, the song morphs and changes, finishing with an incredible string part by Grian [Chatten].”
“Before You I Just Forget” was originally released as a B-side on the “It’s Amazing to Be Young” 7-inch single.
Fontaines D.C. features Grian Chatten (vocals), Carlos O’Connell (guitar), Conor Curley (guitar), Conor Deegan (bass), and Tom Coll (drums).
Fontaines D.C. were interviewed about Romance in our previous print issue (Issue 73). Check out our in-depth interview and photo shoot with the band by buying the issue directly from us.
Romance is the band’s fourth album, the follow-up to 2022’s acclaimed Skinty Fia (which was #1 on both the UK and Irish album charts), 2020’s Grammy-nominated A Hero’s Death, and 2019’s Mercury Prize-nominated Dogrel. It finds them working with producer James Ford for the first time.
The band was formed in Dublin but is now based in London. Ideas for the new album started to form while they were touring the U.S. and Mexico with Arctic Monkeys. Then the band members went their separate ways for a while, before reconvening for three weeks of pre-production in a North London studio and one month of recording in a chateau near Paris.
In 2023 Chatten released his debut solo album, Chaos For the Fly. Read our interview with him about it here.
3. Goon: “Closer to”
On Wednesday, Los Angeles-based four-piece Goon announced a new album, Dream 3, and shared its lead single, “Closer to.”Dream 3 is due out July 11 on Born Loser.
As its title suggests, Dream 3 is the band’s third album. Goon began as a solo project for singer and multi-instrumentalist Kenny Becker but has since grown to feature Andy Polito on drums, Dillon Peralta on guitar, and Tamara Simons on bass.
The album was born of heartbreak. “I began this record so excited,” says Becker in a press release. “The songwriting was less scripted, letting me loosen up the reins a little and follow whatever idea seemed most interesting. It started off as a really joyful recording process. Then came the most devastating time of my life.”
Album opener “Begin Here” features the lyric “Let me cry to Tamara,” in reference to the band’s bassist. “The song started as a little reversed guitar progression that I had kicking around for a while,” explains Becker. “I showed it to our bass player, Tamara, who had a strong reaction to it and insisted we flesh it out. When I sing, ‘Let me cry to Tamara’ at the end, that’s because it’s what I was doing all the time we were recording it. To me, that song has this sunny, upbeat melody, but it’s coming from a place of total despair. I like that tension.”
4. illuminati hotties: “Wreck My Life” (Feat. PUP)
The project of Sarah Tudzin, illuminati hotties this week announced a new EP, Nickel on the Fountain Floor, and shared a new song from it, “Wreck My Life,” which features PUP, in particular the band’s Stefan Babcock. Check out illuminati hotties’ upcoming tour dates, including some with PUP here. Also watch her recent Tiny Desk Concert here.
Nickel on the Fountain follows illuminati hotties’ 2024 album, POWER.
Tudzin had this to say about the new EP and single in a press release: “There are a handful songs that I couldn’t quite figure out how to squeeze on to POWER—they live in a nearby neighborhood to POWER or perhaps weren’t fully formed in time, and ‘Wreck My Life’ was a tune that lay crying on the cutting room floor for a rework. I’m honored to be joined by the unmatched talent of Stefan from PUP on this tune, who took it to another level. You ALL know someone that fits the ‘Wreck My Life’ description and I PRAY you never let them (wreck your life).”
On Wednesday, quirky Welsh indie rockers The Bug Club released a new single, “How to Be a Confidante.” It is the latest track from Very Human Features, the band’s new album, due out on June 13 via Sub Pop. Check out the band’s upcoming tour dates, including some newly announced dates with labelmates Omni, here.
The initial core of The Bug Club is composed of Sam Willmett (vocals/guitar) and Tilly Harris (vocals/bass). Tom Rees produced and mixed Very Human Features, which was recorded at Rat Trap Studios in Cardiff, Wales. It is the band’s fourth album.
6. caroline: “Tell me I never knew that” (Feat. Caroline Polachek)
On Tuesday, London-based eight-piece caroline announced their sophomore album, the fittingly named caroline 2, and released a new single from it, “Tell me I never knew that,” which features guest vocals from another Caroline, Caroline Polachek.
The band’s own Jasper Llewellyn, Casper Hughes, and Mike O’Malley produced caroline 2, which was engineered by Syd Kemp, mixed by Jason Agel, and mastered by Heba Kadry.
“The first record was a compilation, but this one is a declaration,” says Llewellyn in a press release. Llewellyn adds that this album also feels more like a full-band affair. “We were just about an eight-person band on the last one, but now we’re a proper eight-person band.”
Llewellyn, Hughes, and O’Malley founded caroline in 2017 and over time the lineup grew to include trumpeter and bassist Freddy Wordsworth, violinists Magdalena McLean and Oliver Hamilton, percussionist Hugh Aynsley, and flute, clarinet, and saxophone player Alex McKenzie.
Of the new single and collaborating with Caroline Polachek, the band collectively had this to say: “We used to call this one ‘Backstreet boys’ because the opening top line felt like a Backstreet Boys song. The main riff was written by Casper on acoustic guitar and stuck out as a really catchy, bouncy, hypnotic thing. We wrote the opening top line together and straight away we thought ‘this sounds like a melody that Caroline Polachek might sing’ in its hooky-ness. We sort of joked that we’d ask her to sing it but didn’t think it’d actually be on the cards, until about a year later when we sent her the half-finished song and she was up for it!
“Caroline was amazing. She wrote a load of extra parts that gave the whole thing such a lift, and then spent a few hours tracking a load of more improvised parts. We were still recording at about 1.30am when we decided to call it, but there was no indication that Caroline was the slightest bit tired or that she had lost any momentum in her ability to sing, even though she’d been singing for about 6 hours. It was an inspiring thing to witness! We did a little bit more re-ordering together with Caroline a few weeks after the session and then the song was finally there.”
Of the song’s video, the band add: “This video collates footage from the last few years from the phones of lots of people that we love. Putting it together was a rush of euphoric nostalgia. We hope you enjoy.”
7. Deradoorian: “No No Yes Yes”
Deradoorian (full name Angel Deradoorian) is releasing a new album, Ready for Heaven, on May 9 via Fire. On Tuesday she released its fourth single, “No No Yes Yes,” via a music video. Jennifer Juniper Stratford directed the video.
“This album is partly about watching humanity erode,” Deradoorian says in a press release. “It’s about mental struggle, and it’s avowedly anti-capitalist. I mean; would we have all these identity labels we have to live by, if we didn’t live in a capitalist world?”
In regards to her process, she adds: “I love the production more than the songwriting…. In fact, I don’t even feel like a songwriter at times, I feel like someone who is just inspired by so much music. And I want to try it all out! Like Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Mingus, or ESG and Silver Apples, or making weird Krautrock and industrial music. I love dub, and Sly and Robbie. I love the productions of those records and the collective energies released by their creators in the studio. It’s just a weird thing to do it by yourself!”
This is Deradoorian’s first album for Fire, but the British label is already home to Decisive Pink, Deradoorian’s project with Russian musician Kate Shilonosova (aka Kate NV). They released their debut album together, Ticket to Fame, in 2023 via Fire. The album’s single, “Dopamine,” which satirizes consumerism and online shopping addiction, was #1 on our Songs of the Week list.
In 2020, Deradoorian released the album Find the Sun via ANTI-. She was formerly the bassist/vocalist for Dirty Projectors.
On Thursday, Chicago-formed psych-rock band Post Animal announced a new album, IRON, that sees them reuniting with their former bandmate Joe Keery (who also releases music as Djo). The album’s first single, “Last Goodbye,” was also released. IRON is due out July 25 on AWAL and on vinyl via Polyvinyl.
Keery left the band in 2017 (after recording the band’s When I Think of You in a Castle, released in 2018) to focus on his acting career, most notably playing Steve Harrington on Stranger Things since its first episode. The fifth and final season is expected this year on Netflix. He also played Deputy Gator Tillman in the fifth season of Fargo and Walter “Keys” McKey in the 2021 sci-fi/action/comedy Free Guy (also starring Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer). He also plays Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus in the experimental musical biopic concert film Pavements, which premiered at the Venice film festival last year.
The rest of the band—Dalton Allison, Jake Hirshland, Javier Reyes, Wesley Toledo, and Matt Williams—continued on after Keery’s departure and remained friends with their former bandmate.
Post Animal’s last album was 2022’s Love Gibberish. In 2024 they reunited with Keery to record IRON. Allison engineered the album with Charles Glanders and mixed it with Djo co-producer Adam Thein. Hirshland mastered IRON.
“This record felt like a revitalization of our friendships and our band,” Hirshland says in a press release. “We always work collaboratively, but it’s amazing how reintroducing Joe into the mix brought back that dynamic from 2017.”
Keery reflected why it was the right time to return to the band, saying: “When we made When I Think of You in a Castle, that was near the start of Stranger Things. And now with it kind of coming to an end in my own life, we all felt it’d be great to do something like that again, to go somewhere and be isolated and work on music together. It was a labor of love.”
Toledo says they tried to have realistic and relaxed expectations about the reunion: “We all agreed that even if we went and just hung out, we’d be happy with it. We’re just heartfelt, sentimental, and emotional, but there was a real positivity and optimism among us.”
Keery adds: “We’re all still such great friends, but now everybody has a lot more experience under their belts. I was just appreciative to be spending this time, knowing we might not get another chance to do this the way we’re doing it right now. The record reflects that enjoyment, and you can feel the fun.”
Previously Djo shared The Crux’s lead single, “Basic Being Basic,” via a lyric video. It was one of our Songs of the Week. Then he shared its second single, “Delete Ya,” which also made it on Songs of the Week. Its third single was “Potion.”The Crux is the follow-up to 2022’s DECIDE and his 2019-released debut solo album, TWENTY TWENTY.
9. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: “Deadstick”
On Tuesday, Melbourne-based psych-rock group King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard officially announced a new album, Phantom Island, and shared a new song from it, “Deadstick,” via a music video. Phantom Island is due out June 13 on the band’s own p(doom) label. Check out the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates, including their previously announced shows with a 29-piece orchestra, here.
Phantom Island follows Flight b741, a new album King Gizzard released in 2024. The initial tracks for the new album were recorded at the same time as the sessions for Flight b741, but still needed more work. In a press release, the band’s Stu Mackenzie says they “were harder to finish. Musically, they needed a little more time and space and thought.”
“The songs felt like they needed this other energy and color, that we needed to splash some different paint on the canvas,” Mackenzie adds.
And so they enlisted their friend Chad Kelly, who is a British historical keyboardist, conductor and arranger. “He brings this wealth of musical awareness to his chameleon-like arrangements,” Mackenzie says. “We come from such different worlds—he plays Mozart and Bach and uses the same harpsichords they did, and tunes them the exact same way. But he’s obsessed with microtonal music, too, and all this nerdy stuff like me.”
Guy Tyzack had this to say about directing the “Deadstick” video: “I started off wanting to create a frame that looked like a landscape painting with many different people and set pieces dotted about. Deadstick refers to when a plane propeller stops midflight so I decided to have a massive plane made out of cardboard crash land into a beautiful location. The song is big and chaotic so then I went about casting swing dancers and eccentric extras to fill the landscape.”
Summing up his change of approach to music these days, Mackenzie says: “When I was younger, I was just interested in freaking people out, but as I get older, I’m much more interested in connecting with people.”
On Wednesday, UK band Black Honey announced their fourth album, Soak, set for release on August 15. The announcement came alongside their new single “Dead.”
Following their previous records influenced by Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson, Soak takes a Kubrickian approach with retrofuturistic and unsettling visuals. The album promises dynamic shifts between gothic and psychedelic sounds, all led by frontwoman Izzy B. Phillips.
Phillips, now two years sober and working as a tattoo artist, brings deeper self-understanding to her songwriting. She describes the album: “Soak is me processing a decade of touring and creating music and art as an addict. It’s me picking at the layers of messy, romantic, confusing, woozy, beautiful and fucked up things. Who I thought I was, who I was supposed to be and who looks back at me now are all so different but I’m kind of here for it.”
The announcement follows their previous single “Psycho,” which featured a dystopian video depicting Phillips escaping from artificial realities—a commentary on our digital lives in 2025. By Andy Von Pip
Honorable Mentions:
These songs almost made the Top 10.
Julien Baker & TORRES: “Bottom of a Bottle”
Matt Berninger: “Breaking Into Acting” (Feat. Hand Habits)
Militarie Gun & Dazy: “Tall People Don’t Live Long”
M83: “A Necessary Escape (Part 2)”
Billy Nomates: “Plans”
Jon Spencer: “Come On”
Jesse Welles: “Domestic Error”
Yumi Zouma: “Bashville on the Sugar”
Here’s a handy Spotify playlist featuring the Top 10 in order, followed by all the honorable mentions:
12 Best Songs of the Week: Pulp, Stereolab, Florry, The Divine Comedy, and More
Apr 11, 2025
Welcome to the 11th Songs of the Week of 2025. It was quite a week for songs from ’90s artists. As a teenager, in 1995, I once saw Stereolab open for Pulp at the Brixton Academy in London and both those artists make this week’s list, as well as Garbage and The Divine Comedy.
This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, Issa Nasatir, Marina Mallin, Scotty Dransfield, and Stephen Humphries helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 30 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 12, with a lot of strong honorable mentions as well.
Recently we announced Issue 74, The Protest Issue. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.
We’re also hoping to get 600 new (or renewed) subscribers on board in the next three months and so we’re offering 30% off subscriptions right now.
To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last week, we have picked the 16 best the last seven days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.
1. Pulp: “Spike Island”
This week Britpop legends Pulp announced More, their first new album in 24 years, and shared its first single, “Spike Island,” via a music video. It’s disco 2025, as the new album is due out June 6 via Rough Trade. The band’s frontman Jarvis Cocker directed the AI-assisted “Spike Island” video, which attempts to bring photos from the band’s Different Class-era to life, sometimes to amusing results. Check out the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates, here.
Pulp’s last album was the Scott Walker-produced We Love Life, released in 2001. Since then the band went on hiatus, reissued their old albums, returned to touring from 2011-2013, put out the unreleased song “After You” in 2013, went back on hiatus, and reunited again in 2022 for a well-received tour that stretched from 2023 to 2024. The band’s bassist Steve Mackey sadly died in March 2023 at only 56, so he did not take part in the last reunion or the new album. Cocker also released several solo and collaborative albums, as well as guesting on various tracks by other musicians (including Air and Hot Chip) and collaborating with filmmaker Wes Anderson on songs for some of his movies. In 2019 Cocker formed the new band JARV IS… and released the 2020 album Beyond the Pale (it was one of our Top 100 Albums of 2020).
James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Fontaines D.C.) produced More, which was recorded at Orbb Studio in East London. Pulp’s main lineup is Cocker, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks, and Mark Webber.
“Spike Island” was inspired by the infamous Stone Roses concert of the same name in 1990. Cocker’s collaborator in the Relaxed Muscle side-project, Jason Buckle, co-wrote the song with Cocker. Apparently a DJ at the event repeatedly shouted all day the phrase: “Spike Island, come alive!” This got on everybody’s nerves and inspired Cocker to write the song, even though he didn’t actually go to the Spike Island concert. Pulp’s 1995 hit “Sorted for E’s & Wizz,” from Different Class, was also inspired by the Spike Island concert.
In a press release, Cocker had this to say about the “Spike Island” video:
“I was told that someone was interested in investigating A.I. and did I have any ideas?
“The first idea I had was to animate the photographs that Rankin and Donald [Milne] took for Different Class: after all, back in 1995 they had been an ‘artificial’ way of dropping us into real-life situations and getting an album cover done whilst we were too busy recording the music for that album to pose for pictures. No brainer.
“It was my initial idea to produce a kind of ‘making of’ video that showed how the photos had come to be taken—but as soon as I fed the first shot into the A.I. app I realised that wasn’t going to happen. So I decided to ‘go with the flow’ and see where the computer led me. All the moving images featured in the video are the result of me feeding in a still image and then typing in a ‘prompt’ such as: ‘The black & white figure remains still whilst the bus in the background drives off’ which led to the sequence where the coach weirdly slides towards the cut-out of me.
“The weekend I began work on the video was a strange time: I went out of the house and kept expecting weird transformations of the surrounding environment due to the images the computer had been generating. The experience had marked me. I don’t know whether I’ve recovered yet…..
“I have to thank Julian House for some expert post-production work and Rankin and Donald Milne for allowing me to use their work in this way. As it says in text at the end of the video, I think what they did for Pulp back in 1995 was ‘Human Intelligence at its best.’
“My final thought? H.I. Forever!”
Cocker also released a statement on the new album, which you can read here.
This week, Stereolab announced Instant Holograms on Metal Film, their first new album in 15 years, and shared its first single, “Aerial Troubles,” via a music video. Instant Holograms on Metal Film is due out May 23 via Duophonic UHF Disks and Warp. Laurent Askienazy directed the “Aerial Troubles” video.
Stereolab’s last studio album was 2010’s Not Music, although despite an indefinite hiatus the band has remained active since then reissuing older albums and since 2019 they have been touring. The band is led by founding members Laetitia Sadier and Tim Gane and also includes Andy Ramsay, Joseph Watson, and Xavier Muñoz Guimera. Instant Holograms on Metal Film also features Cooper Crain, Rob Frye, Ben LaMar Gay, Ric Elsworth, Holger Zapf, Marie Merlet, and Molly Read.
Instant Holograms on Metal Film was teased with an “Aerial Troubles” 7-inch being mailed to select fans (with an instrumental version of the song on the B-side). Cryptic posters featuring a Stereolab word search also appeared in some major cities.
In 2021, Sadier guested on Jarvis Cocker’s cover of Dalida’s 1973 duet with Alain Delon, “Paroles, Paroles.” It was featured on Cocker’s album, Chansons D’Ennui Tip-Top, which was a companion piece to Wes Anderson’s film, The French Dispatch.
3. Florry: “First it was a movie, then it was a book”
Philadelphia alt-country band Florry are releasing a new album, Sounds Like…, on May 23 on Dear Life. This week they shared the album’s latest single, the expansive seven-minute long “First it was a movie, then it was a book,” via a music video.
Band leader Francie Medosch had this to say about the song and video in a press release: “When the weather was nicer, and when I didn’t really have a job yet last fall, Jon Cox and I would often go into Waterbury, VT to visit a wild thrift store called Bargain Boutique where everything was either 50 cents or $2. One time I found a random VHS in a blank white case and I threw it into my basket. Later on at a dinner party at Trash Mountain, where we live currently, there were a bunch of friends on our couch in the living room so I busted out the VHS TV and the random tape and it turned out to be bull riding. We instantly knew then we had to use it for the ‘Movie’ video cos the vibe was right.
“We shot the rest of the video at our very own Johnny Brendas in Philly, forever our favorite place to play anywhere that has venues. It only felt right to have footage of us playing there captured forever in a music video. Kurt Vile is somewhere in there too, I was reteaching him Passenger Side and Beast of Burden in the green room for our encore. We’ve been playing there since our conception as a band, and since then we’ve played it almost 15 times or so. Shout out to JB’s, their staff is amazing, the green room hummus platter is amazing, the tea is amazing, great sound, great crowds, great lights, great everything.”
4. The Divine Comedy: “Achilles”
This week another ’90s artist, The Divine Comedy (the orchestral-pop project of Northern Irish singer/songwriter/composer Neil Hannon), announced a new album, Rainy Sunday Afternoon, and shared its first single, “Achilles.”Rainy Sunday Afternoon is due out September 19.
Rainy Sunday Afternoon was recorded at the legendary Abby Road Studios in London. Hannon wrote, arranged, and produced the album. “My musical output is, for better or worse, a representation of my personality,” Hannon says in a press release and social media statement. “A good chunk of that personality revels in the rumbumptious; celebrates the silly. And I made ample use of that for the Wonka songs.”
“I have, though, like everyone, a darker, more melancholy side. And for one reason or another it has been much in evidence of late,” Hannon adds. “I needed to use this album as an outlet for those feelings. To work through some stuff. Mortality; memories; relationships; political and social upheaval. Everyone should get to make an orchestral pop album once in a while. It should be available on the NHS,” he says, perhaps referencing his 1996 hit “Becoming More Like Alfie.”
There will be a limited edition deluxe CD release of the album that includes the bonus disc Live in Paris & London.
Hannon was one of several artists featured on the cover of our 20th Anniversary Double Issue, in honor of him being on the cover of Issue 2 of our print magazine.
The band’s frontwoman Shirley Manson had this to say about the song in a press release: “I love the title. The band sent it me and I was like, ‘This is great. I’m keeping that.’ But the lyrics are an action against that title. Because if we allow our fatalism or our negativity to really take over, we will crumble. It’s about a city, in my case, Los Angeles, but it could be anywhere where bad stuff is happening. After the George Floyd murder, which is one of few things in my life that I wish I’d never seen: I was changed entirely by seeing the footage of that cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck. In Los Angeles there were huge protests and a lot of upheaval after that. Above our house in Hollywood, there were helicopters all day long, for days on end. It was precarious, chaotic and terrifying.”
Garbage’s lineup remains all four founding members—Shirley Manson, Duke Erikson, Steve Marker, and Butch Vig. The album was produced by the band and longtime engineer Billy Bush and recorded in three main locations: Red Razor Sounds in Los Angeles, Vig’s studio Grunge Is Dead, and Manson’s bedroom.
Manson had this to say about Let All That We Imagine Be the Light: “This record is about what it means to be alive, and about what it means to face your imminent destruction. It’s hopeful. It’s very tender towards what it means to be a human being. Our flaws and our failures are still beautiful, even though we’re taught that they’re not. This is a tender, thrilling record about the fragility of life.”
Garbage’s last album, No Gods No Masters, was released in 2021 via Stunvolume/Infectious Music.
16 Best Songs of the Week: Wet Leg; Destroyer; Emma-Jean Thackray; Black Country, New Road; and More
Apr 04, 2025
Welcome to the 10th Songs of the Week of 2025. This week’s list covers the last two weeks, as I was out of town last Friday. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, Matt the Raven, Scotty Dransfield, and Stephen Humphries helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 50 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 16, since it covers two weeks.
Recently we announced Issue 74, The Protest Issue. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.
We’re also hoping to get 600 new (or renewed) subscribers on board in the next three months and so we’re offering 30% off subscriptions right now.
To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last two weeks, we have picked the 16 best the last seven days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.
1. Wet Leg: “catch these fists”
Earlier this week, Wet Leg announced their much anticipated sophomore album, moisturizer, and shared its first single, “catch these fists,” via a self-directed music video. Moisturizer is due out July 11 via Domino.
Moisturizer is the follow-up to 2022’s self-titled debut album, which was the #1 album on our Top 100 Albums of 2022 list and netted the band three Grammys. Wet Leg landed at #1 on the official UK album chart and in America also made it to #14 on theBillboard 200 album chart (and at #4 on the Billboard Album Sales Chart). Wet Leg also debuted at #1 on the Australian album chart. The album was nominated for the Mercury Prize. The band’s debut single, “Chaise Longue,” was #1 on our Top 130 Songs of 2021 list and was a viral hit.
Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers lead Wet Leg and they are backed by Ellis Durand (bass), Henry Holmes (drums), and Joshua Mobaraki (guitar, synth). The band from Isle of Wight, England once again worked with producer Dan Carey and this time all five members have writing credits on the LP. Wet Leg decided to build off the strength of their live shows with moisturizer. “We were just kind of having fun and exploring,” says Chambers in a press release. Teasdale adds: “We focussed on: Is this going to be fun to play live? It was very natural that we would write the second record together.”
A big influence on the album’s lyrics was Teasdale falling in love in 2021, which led to her writing a number of love songs. “I thought I was straight all of my life until I met my current partner—these love songs are about them,” Teasdale explains. “I just found it so much more interesting and empowering to be writing love songs where I’m not lusting over a man—it feels a little bit different.”
Destroyer (the project of Dan Bejar) released a new album, Dan’s Boogie, last week via Merge. When the album was released he shared the album’s title track, “Dan’s Boogie,” via a music video.
Colette Arrand directed the “Dan’s Boogie” video and had this to say about it in a press release: “I love headshots—they say a lot about the people who own them and almost nothing about their subjects. If you spend time in flea markets or convention centers or sandwich shops, you’re bound to see a headshot or two. I kept seeing one—Dan Bejar’s—often in places it shouldn’t have been. That probably says more about me than it does Dan.”
Destroyer’s last album, LABYRINTHITIS, came out in March 2022 via Merge. It was one of our Top 100 Albums of 2022. Read our interview with Destroyer on the album here.
3. Emma-Jean Thackray: “Maybe Nowhere”
Emma-Jean Thackray is releasing a new album, Weirdo, on April 25 via Brownswood Recordings in conjunction with Parlophone and East West Records. Last week, she shared its latest single, “Maybe Nowhere,” via a music video.
Thackray had this to say about the song in a press release: “After losing my partner I didn’t want to be here anymore, but hiding these feelings and thinking you’re a burden is what makes them even more dangerous. You need a place to explore these feelings and for me that’s music—my safe space. This song is a diary of when those feelings for me were at their worst, and the cavernous ending is wondering what it sounds like to die. Making this song, this album, is why it’s a wondering and not a reality; it saved my life.”
4. Black Country, New Road: “For the Cold Country”
England’s Black Country, New Road released a new album, Forever Howlong, today via Ninja Tune. Last week they released its third single, “For the Cold Country.”
The band’s lineup is Georgia Ellery (acoustic guitar, mandolin, tenor recorder, violin, vocals), Lewis Evans (alto saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet, flutes, tenor recorder), Tyler Hyde (acoustic guitar, bass guitar, clarinet, harmonium, piano, tenor recorder, vocals), May Kershaw (accordion, harpsichord, piano, vocals), Luke Mark (acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, electric guitar, lap steel, tenor recorder), and Charlie Wayne (banjo, drums, percussion, tenor recorder, tuned percussion).
Ellery wrote “Besties,” whereas Hyde wrote “Happy Birthday.” “For the Cold Country” is the first single from the album to feature May Kershaw on lead vocals.
When Black Country, New Road’s former frontman, Isaac Wood, announced that he was leaving the band in 2022 only days before the release of their sophomore album, Ants From Up There (also on Ninja Tune), the band vowed to continue on and to not perform any of the material from Ants From Up There without Wood and so they wrote all new songs to perform live. That resulted in the 2023 live album, Live at Bush Hall, and concert film of the same name.
Forever Howlong is thus the band’s first studio album recorded without Wood. Vocal duties, as well as the bulk of the songwriting, is now split between Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery, and May Kershaw. “It created a real through line for the album, having three girls singing,” says Ellery in a press release. “It’s definitely very different to Ants From Up There, because of the female perspective—and the music we’ve made also complements that.”
“Besties” was the band’s first studio single to feature lead vocals from Ellery. James Ford (Fontaines D.C., Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Blur) produced Forever Howlong.
Read our interview with Black Country, New Road on Ants From Up There and Wood’s departure here.
Read our interview with them on Live at Bush Hall here.
5. Cass McCombs: “Priestess”
Last week, singer/songwriter Cass McCombs shared a new song, “Priestess,” and also performed it during his Tiny Desk Concert for NPR Music. He also performed “County Line,” “Robin Egg Blue,” and “Opium Flower.” “Priestess” is out now via Domino.
In his Tiny Desk Concert McCombs was joined by Brian Betancourt (bass), Frank LoCrasto (keyboards), and Austin Vaughn (drums). McCombs recorded the song in Northern California, working with Jason Quever (Papercuts) and Chris Cohen.
McCombs’ last album was 2022’s Heartmind, released by ANTI-.
Brooklyn-based band Momma released a new album, Welcome to My Blue Sky, today via Polyvinyl/Lucky Number. Earlier this week they shared the album’s fourth single, “Rodeo,” via a music video. Richard Phillip Smith directed the video.
Momma is Etta Friedman (songwriter/vocalist/guitarist), Allegra Weingarten (songwriter/vocalist/guitarist), Aron Kobayashi Ritch (producer/bassist), and Preston Fulks (drummer).
Friedman and Weingarten collectively had this to say about “Rodeo” in a press release: “This song is written from the perspective of two people we kind of left behind, romantically. It’s our attempt at honoring their stories by tapping into the feeling of being replaced by someone else. We made the video with Richard Smith, who had the idea to put us on an ice rink and have someone skating around us, with a bull chasing her. It’s supposed to replicate the idea of being in the center of the ring of a rodeo, and feeling like someone is doing laps around you and you just can’t keep up.”
Ritch produced the album, which was recorded live with the full band at Studio G in Brooklyn.
“With this album we were less concerned with sounding cool and heavy and rock & roll and much more focused on good, clean songwriting that hopefully inspires people to sing along and mean every word,” said Weingarten in a previous press release.
In 2023 Momma released the single “Bang Bang.” It was also one of our Songs of the Week, but it’s not featured on the new album.
Momma’s last album, Household Name, came out in 2022 via Polyvinyl.
Last week, St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) shared a new song, “DOA.” It is featured in the new A24 film Death of a Unicorn, which hit theaters last Friday.
Death of a Unicorn stars Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, and Richard E. Grant. It was written and directed by Alex Scharfman.
14 Best Songs of the Week: caroline, Japanese Breakfast, Alan Sparhawk, Deradoorian, and More
Mar 25, 2025
Welcome to the ninth Songs of the Week of 2025. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, Issa Nasatir, Matt the Raven, Scotty Dransfield, and Stephen Humphries helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 50 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 14.
Recently we announced Issue 74, The Protest Issue. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.
We’re also hoping to get 600 new (or renewed) subscribers on board in the next three months and so we’re offering 30% off subscriptions right now.
To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last week, we have picked the 14 best the last seven days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.
1. caroline: “Total Euphoria”
London-based eight-piece caroline returned this week with their first single and video in three years and a new UK tour to boot. “Total Euphoria” is out now via Rough Trade. Check out the tour dates here.
This is their first release since “peak chroma,” a claire rousay cover they released in late October of 2022, after their self-titled debut in February of that year.
In a press release, caroline collectively explained the origins of “Total Euphoria,” saying: “The first iteration of this song was played as a three (Mike, Casper, and Jasper) in 2020 while we were writing our first album. It was a similar style to the guitars in the back half of ‘Natural Death’ (from their first album)—off-kilter/syncopated—but played much wonkier and messier, and then with a broken rock beat kind of erupting at different moments. It somehow didn’t quite fit with the music we were writing/recording at the time but there was a kernel in there of something we felt we would want to explore later.”
The waves of build ups and dissipations captures the title of the new single perfectly, and the inspiration for their newly infused electronic elements can be traced back to the influence of claire rousay and the cover they first experimented with.
The video, directed by Injury Reserve’s Parker Corey, displays a longing for disconnection and rural life, lamenting the slog and stress of living in urban settings.
“Eventually it became one of many things that we’ve happened upon that felt good to play for 20 mins straight,” says the group. “This one felt especially good as it was very consistently ‘loud’ and full on which was maybe a bit unusual for us at the time, and also everyone was playing these three different rhythms simultaneously which made it feel endlessly cyclical. Jasper then took the main chords and wrote a load of really nice top line stuff for singing, then we put together all the other parts with the rest of the band and finalised a structure. We realized the golden potential of how good it sounded with Jasper and Magda singing in unison also as a style, and they wrote some extra vocals and harmonies together.”
Caroline’s founding members—Casper Hughes, Jasper Llewellyn, and Mike O’Malley—began playing together in 2017 after meeting at university in Manchester. The band continued to expand, eventually becoming an eight-piece completed by trumpeter and bassist Freddy Wordsworth, violinists Magdalena McLean and Oliver Hamilton, percussionist Hugh Aynsley, and flute, clarinet, and saxophone player Alex McKenzie.
Caroline are embarking on an eight date UK tour beginning April 6th at Rewire Festival and continuing in early June. ByIssa Nasatir
2. Japanese Breakfast: “Honey Water”
Japanese Breakfast (aka Michelle Zauner) released a new album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), today via Dead Oceans. Today she also shared a new video for the album’s “Picture Window” and while we like that song, our favorite track from the album not yet released as a single is “Honey Water.”
Stream the new album here. Read our rave review of the LP, which we posted yesterday, here.
Zauner had this to say about For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) in a press release: “Over the course of promoting this new album I’ve often been asked to clarify the difference between melancholy and sadness. I think of melancholy as a kind of anticipatory grief, one that comes from an acknowledgment of the passage of time, from the recognition of mortality and finitude. In some way, too, I think it marks the artist’s condition, constantly observing through that lens. ‘Nothing thicker than a knife’s blade separates happiness from melancholy,’ Virginia Woolfe writes. I wanted this album to capture the moments where that knife slips. When people want too much, when they cede to temptation, when they are seduced and punished.”
For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is the follow-up to Jubilee, which was our #1 album of 2021 and landed Japanese Breakfast on the cover of our print magazine (buy a copy directly from us here or read our cover story interview here). In 2021 Zauner also put out her acclaimed debut memoir, Crying In H Mart, on Knopf. The book debuted at #2 on The New York Times’ Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers List.
Speaking of all the success she had with her last album and memoir and how it impacted the new album, Zauner says in a press release: “I felt seduced by getting what I always wanted. I was flying too close to the sun, and I realized if I kept going I was going to die.”
Blake Mills produced For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), which was recorded at Sound City in Los Angeles, where classic albums such as After the Gold Rush, Fleetwood Mac, and Nevermind were also made. One song on the album features legendary actor/musician Jeff Bridges.
Sparhawk and Trampled By Turtles are both from Minnesota and had discussed working together for several years, but finally the timing worked out. “When the opportunity seems right,” Sparhawk says in a press release, “you jump.”
The album was recorded at the end of 2023 at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Trampled By Turtles were already recording there and Sparhawk came in towards the end of their session there, armed with songs looking for a home (including some that hadn’t seemed right for Low).
Pick up last print issue (Issue 73) to read our in-depth interview with Sparhawk on White Roses, My God. By Mark Redfern
4. Deradoorian: “Any Other World”
Deradoorian (full name Angel Deradoorian) is releasing a new album, Ready for Heaven, on May 9 via Fire. This week she released its third single, “Any Other World,” via a music video. James Thomas Marsh directed the video.
“This album is partly about watching humanity erode,” Deradoorian says in a press release. “It’s about mental struggle, and it’s avowedly anti-capitalist. I mean; would we have all these identity labels we have to live by, if we didn’t live in a capitalist world?”
In regards to her process, she adds: “I love the production more than the songwriting…. In fact, I don’t even feel like a songwriter at times, I feel like someone who is just inspired by so much music. And I want to try it all out! Like Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Mingus, or ESG and Silver Apples, or making weird Krautrock and industrial music. I love dub, and Sly and Robbie. I love the productions of those records and the collective energies released by their creators in the studio. It’s just a weird thing to do it by yourself!”
This is Deradoorian’s first album for Fire, but the British label is already home to Decisive Pink, Deradoorian’s project with Russian musician Kate Shilonosova (aka Kate NV). They released their debut album together, Ticket to Fame, in 2023 via Fire. The album’s single, “Dopamine,” which satirizes consumerism and online shopping addiction, was #1 on our Songs of the Week list.
In 2020, Deradoorian released the album Find the Sun via ANTI-. She was formerly the bassist/vocalist for Dirty Projectors.
A press release describes the song as such: “Mostly is about being annoyed by other people, and then at some point realizing that everyone else is as equally annoyed by you, then meeting in the middle and sharing a profound and unified sense of enjoyment at a world’s impending doom.”
Ill at Ease is the band’s fifth album and the follow-up to 2022’s Arrangements and 2018’s amusingly titled New Material.
Preoccupations is Matt Flegel (vocals, bass), Scott Munro (guitar, synth), Daniel Christiansen (guitar), and Mike Wallace (drums).
Flegel had this to say about the new album in a previous press release: “The well of dark things to write about seemingly has not dried up, and lyrically, it’s where I still tend to draw from. Draining all my anxieties into a song is often the only way I can get through a day. Some songs exist in a world with barren plains of burnt earth, covered in a dust of shame, dread, death, where all the things I love are things that kill me. Some come from the perspective of another distant world, looking skyward into a science fiction ocean of space, solitude, slight hope. Sometimes I’m looking around at the world that we live in now with incredulity, hilariously dissatisfied with how it’s all turned out, and assuming that it can’t be long before it’s all over. Some songs are just a reflection of me looking down at my feet while I trudge along wondering what I’m doing with myself, and if the ground is going to fall out from underneath me at any given moment.”
