Further Listening:

5. Hyll Know It’s A Marathon Not A Sprint

Hailing from Cardiff, Hyll have had an intriguing few years trying out a variety of, “musical side quests”, taking in everything from synth-pop to folk. After a series of successful EPs and singles, later this month the band will release their debut album Sŵn o’r Stafell Arall. It is a record that finds Hyll getting back to their musical roots. Ahead of the release, this week Hyll shared the latest taster of the record, Hanner Marathon.

Described by the band as a song about, “the mischiefs of growing up in Cardiff”, Hanner Marathon is a suitably playful affair. The song enters on the bounding angularity of the electric guitar, and the stop-start drive of the drum rhythm, existing somewhere between the everyday honesty of Bill Ryder-Jones and the playful booziness of The Cribs. Lyrically, the track flicks between English and Welsh, as the band compare a long drinking session to a marathon, “putting in the hours down the local and it’s really paying off”. Beneath the youthful hijinks, Hyll can’t help but let a little of their emotional instincts out to view, as they muse on the loneliness of not going all in, “Reckon you can tell two hearts apart? Tell whole-hearted from half-arsed. Get out of your little room, if you want it to start”, before ultimately promising to give it everything, in the gently presented closing line, “and you could have it all, my lover”. While it might initially feel familiar, in Hyll’s honest take on youthful misdemeanour they offer just enough flourish to feel like they’re onto something uniquely and rather wonderfully their own.

Sŵn o’r Stafell Arall is out July 27th via Jigcal. For more information on Hyll visit https://www.instagram.com/hyll/

4. Ratboys Offer A Window To Their Souls

Stars of the thriving Chicago music scene, Ratboys musical career stretches back over a decade and has taken in four acclaimed albums. For their latest offering, the band have recruited two new members, making their new record their first truly collaborative album. It was also the first made outside of Chicago as they travelled to Seattle to work with acclaimed producer, and former Death Cab For Cutie-member, Chris Walla. The result is The Window, out next month via Topshelf Records, and this week Ratboys shared the album’s sparkling title track.

Windows are a theme that songwriter Julia Steiner often leans upon in her work inspired by, “the feeling of being near someone without being fully present”. Here that idea is presented in a particularly poignant way, written in the days following the death of her grandmother, with many of the lyrics quotes from her Grandfather as “he ended up standing outside her room and saying goodbye through an open window”. The sombre, and in their own way rather beautiful, lyrical themes are mirrored in a suitably reflective musical accompaniment, the stripped back intro really lets the classically country strains of Julia’s vocals shine before the track swells into an ambitious slice of emotive indie, rolling bass accompanied by shimmering lead-guitar reminiscent of Torres or early Waxahatchee. Amongst the ebbing backing, the track’s one constant is Julie’s vocal, fighting against the emotion of her words as she sings of a love never-ending, “I wish you were right next to me, instead I’m alone but, I’ll always have the memories of our life together”. Poignant and undeniably sad, the lasting feeling here is however one of sweet togetherness, of connections that outlast all obstacles and that no sheet of glass can obscure.

The Window is out August 25th via Topshelf Records. For more information on Ratboys visit https://www.ratboysband.com/.

3. Green Gardens Keep On Growing

Few bands could claim to be more involved in their local scene than Leeds’ Green Gardens. The four band members perform with the likes of Crake and Far Caspian, pull pints at the Brudenell Social Club, run gigs at local live music institution Oporto and generally keep things collaborative, creative and distinctly DIY. Having caught the ear of many with their brand of art-rock, Green Gardens are set to release their debut album, This Is Not Your Fault, next month, and this week they shared the latest taster from it, Oslow.

Produced, as with all of This Is Not Your Fault, by Mi Mye’s Jamie Lockhart and Carpet’s Rob Slater, Oslow is a song rooted in both connection and fear, inspired as vocalist Chris Aitchinson explains, by a friend opening up to him about their struggles. “We walked for a long time and I told them how much I loved them and that I was there for them. I got home and was flooded by a fear of losing not just them, but anyone. Oslow is a blend of this fear and some recent raw feelings of grief”. Musically, Oslow is an intriguing meeting of musical ideas, the track begins with an almost slacker-country feel, the middle ground of Big Thief and Kurt Vile, before breaking down into the slide-guitar-licked middle section and re-emerging with a jazzy, brassy flourish that even has a touch of Do Make Say Think’s ambitious post-rock. For all their clear musical prowess, Green Gardens seem to remember that music is above all about connection and emotion, about using that talent to make you feel something, and as for their debut album, well, I for one am feeling very good about that.

This Is Not Your Fault is out August 18th via Come Play With Me/EMI North. For more information on Green Gardens visit https://linktr.ee/greengardens.

2. Wetsuit Are Famous In Their Own Neighbourhood

Another week, another new discovery from Brooklyn, this week it comes in the form of Wetsuit, the musical project led by songwriter Allison Becker. The project began in the Spring of 2020, when Allison was stuck in her parents’ midwestern home. As boredom struck she reached for her long-abandoned Squier Strat, arranged some Zoom guitar lessons and got creative. With bandmates acquired and the project expanded to its current four-piece lineup, Wetsuit are ready to share their music with the world, with their debut album Sugar, I’m Tired, out next month via Substitute Scene Records. This week the band shared the first track to be lifted from the record, Local Celebrity.

The song was inspired by what Allison describes as, “one of my most embarrassing moments”, when an unhealthy teenage obsession with a long-distance boyfriend drove her to Craigslist to attempt to source tickets to watch his band support Surfer Blood at a sold out show and, “support my man”. Only for her “local celebrity” and his laughing bandmates to find it and cruelly mock her, leading to Allison starting a thirteen-year boycott of shows at the Mercury Lounge. While it might come from a low point, there’s something almost triumphant about the track Allison wrings out of revisiting that emotion, the drums here bound with an almost military march, as the cascading guitars dance around her remarkable swooping vocal melody. Allison’s voice is a wonderfully unique instrument, there are touch points in Joanna Newsom or Tenci’s Jess Shoman, yet in the way she bends the notes to near breaking point while punching them out with rhythmic swoops it remains entirely her own, as she gets her chance to even the score, turning his laughter back around on him, “you were the star player on my team, turns out you’re just a washed-up local celebrity”. With this remarkably polished and thrilling introduction, Wetsuit already feel like they could be a band well worth keeping an ear on in the months ahead.

Sugar, I’m Tired is out August 17th via Substitute Scene Records. For more information on Wetsuit visit https://linktr.ee/Wetsuitnyc.

1. Mumble Tide Show Their Kind Side

Currently based in Bristol, Mumble Tide are the somewhat nomadic duo of Gina Leonard and Ryan Rogers. Recent years have seen the band release a string of well-received singles and EPs, all while going through a series of uprootings, moving between boats, Airbnbs, spare rooms and warehouses, taking their recording set-up and demo tapes with them as they go searching for fresh inspiration. While a settled life remains a work-in-progress, the band have got new material to show for it, and this week they shared the second of a string of tracks recorded with Voka Gentle’s Ellie Mason after they bonded over a shared favourite Taylor Swift album.

Gina recalls the song’s inspiration was found in, “those shady thoughts you try to lock up inside yourself, about feeling weird and scared and guilty“. Despite that somewhat downbeat inspiration the band note that Kindest is, “potentially our favourite track we’ve ever made together“, courtesy of the new-found sophistication in the arrangements on show. The track skips into life with a combination of nimble guitars, rich ringing piano notes and string swells, before the punchy rhythms threaten to snap the whole thing into focus, and then it drifts again with a Lemon Jelly-like processed beat. The whole track has a delightful push-and-pull quality, as if Gina’s vocals are trying to rush away into the light of positivity, yet always finding themselves pulled back into the fog. The sound of a band growing into themselves, Kindest is a brave new horizon for Mumble Tide, an already thrilling prospect that just seem to get better with every release.

Kindest is out now via Nothing Fancy. For more information on Mumble Tide visit https://linktr.ee/mumbletide.