Further Listening:

5. Share Will Keep On Surfing Right To The End

Hailing from California, Share are something of a low-key supergroup, between them concocting a back catalogue that includes everything from noisy post-hardcore to country-tinged rock and scuzzy garage, with the band playing together in each other’s projects for the best part of a decade before they decided to officially form a band. Share started like so many bands out of a desire to have fun, to not worry about career paths and to take everything fairly casually, but don’t mistake that for lack of musical ambition, as they’re set to show next week with their debut album Have One. The album was created over several years, recorded both together in one room and by stitching together parts recorded remotely. Ahead of its release via Forget Artifacts this week Share released the latest track from it, (Surfing To) My End.

(Surfing To) My End showcases a different side to Share compared to previous singles, It Spins and County Lines, while those tracks showcased their penchant for noisy angularity, here Share lean into something a touch more atmospheric but no less compelling. The track opens with an assault of guitars, both the driving Pavement-like chug of the rhythm and the country-tinged twang of slide, before a dip in the intensity is met with fuzzy layered vocals and the steady, grooving tick of the drums. The more contemplative feel of the music is mirrored in Jeff Day’s questioning lyrics, that shift from early boredom, into an existential crisis, “lately I wish that I had something worth giving because I’m not sure that I was meant for this life that I’m living”. While Share might never get the adulation their music deserves, they have clearly loved every moment of making it, and that alone is perhaps its own reward, making music with your friends, well sometimes there are few things more important than that.

Have One is out August 9th via Forged Artifacts. For more information on Share visit https://linktr.ee/shareband.ca.

4. Lael Neale Goes Electric

Having created one of my favourite albums of 2023, Star Eaters Delight, Lael Neale’s next move was always going to be an intriguing one. That record saw an expansion of Lael’s sound, moving away from the eerie omnichord intricacies of her debut album and into something more expansive, a love letter to connectivity written at the height of isolation with producer and accompanist Guy Blakeslee. This week saw Lael share her first new material since that album, in the shape of her new single, Electricity.

Although released in the heart, and heat, of the Northern Hemisphere summer, Electricity was written, “during an ice storm a couple of winters ago that caused a 5-day power outage while I was living on my family’s farm in Virginia”. It was a striking experience for Lael, removed from, “all these things we’ve come to depend on so heavily in our modern life – like lighting, heat, refrigeration, and entertainment”. It led to a mix of strong emotions, “from utter emptiness to complete liberation. I realized we’re essentially electrified beings now, but through unplugging entirely we have a chance to gain a new perspective and reset ourselves”. Musically, it seems to pick up where Star Eaters Delight left off, as wavering electronic tones, meet swooping vocals and Wall-of-sound style percussive avalanches, like the middle ground of Beach House and The Velvet Underground. So now everyone quickly unplug all your computers, turn off your phone and enjoy living like you’re in an icy power outage, although I’d of course rather you read the rest of this article first!

Electricity is out now via Sub Pop. For more information on Lael Neale visit https://linktr.ee/laelneale.

3. File Porridge Radio Under Anything But Blues

I still tend to think of Porridge Radio as quite a new band, even though songwriter Dana Mangolin formed the band the best part of a decade ago, and it’s been four years since the release of their breakout, Mercury-nominated album, Every Bad. After returning with their chart-bothering third album, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky, Dana made the decision that for her next move she was going to do something different. The result is the upcoming album Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me, set for release this October, and previewed this week by their new single, Sick Of The Blues.

For Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me, Dana started almost all of the songs as poems, based on a desire to, “challenge myself”, to step away from the temptation of burying yourself in music and the pull of repetition and to give herself nowhere to hide. As with all of the record, Sick Of The Blues was recorded in the Somerset countryside with Big Thief and Laura Marling engineer Dom Monks and finds the band in chameleonic form, the song opening with gentle contemplation, before shifting into a Pixies-like howl for positivity and ending with a gentle jazzy breakdown. Lyrically, the track seems to be a kiss-off to malaise and indifference, a conscious decision to tune out the dark stuff and enjoy life while Dana’s living it, “I’m sick of the blues, I’m in love with my life again, I’m sick of the blues, I’m in love”. Throughout there’s the sense that this positivity might actually be beyond Dana, that she might slip back into old habits but for now, for this moment, the blues be gone there’s a life to be lived.

Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me is out October 18th via Secretly Canadian. For more information on Porridge Radio visit https://porridgeradio.com/.

2. Sleeper’s Bell Hit The Road

Hailing from Chicago, Sleeper’s Bell are the duo of Blaine Teppema and Evan Green. Back at the start of the year, the band teamed up with Angel Tapes for the tape re-issue of their 2021 debut EP, Umarell, which also featured their first new material in three years, in the shape of their single, Corner. The band continued their slow drip-feed of a return this week, as they shared their musically fleshed-out new single, Road Song.

Road Song is the actualisation of Blaine’s dreams for Sleeper’s Bell, a full-band setup bringing their skills as a songwriter to the fore. Discussing the inspiration behind the track, Blaine suggests it is about the sunk cost fallacy, the idea that, “you put so much time and energy into something that you forget you’re allowed to try something new”. Road Song revels in this pivot in creative direction, and memories of childhood drives with their father listening to Townes Van Zandt. So much so she half borrows a line, (“being born is going blind and we’re looking for the words to find the way it felt when we were young”) from Townes himself as she explains, “Nothin’ was one of the first songs that ever made me feel sad. So I ripped that line from him and made it about me”. Musically, the progression from Umarell is instantly clear, while that record presented Blaine in a raw bedroom-folk setting reminiscent of Nadia Reid or Tiny Ruins, here Sleeper’s Bell shine in layers of musical finery, with shuffling drums, wiry entwined guitar lines and latterly Wurlitzer and wheezing, smoky layers of saxophone. This feels like a new era for Sleeper’s Bell, keeping all the intimate beauty of their early material while metamorphosing into something more intriguing than ever.

Road Song is out now via Angel Tapes / Fire Talk. For more information on Sleeper’s Bell visit https://linktr.ee/sleepersbell.

1. Haley Heynderickx Sews The Seeds Of New Music

Rewind just over six years to March 2018, and Haley Heynderickx was the name on everyone’s tongue. That was when she released her debut album, I Need to Start a Garden, a sleeper hit that based on end-of-year lists alone, seemed to leave a lasting impression on everyone who heard it. So what do you do when you’re riding a wave of excitement – take six years to produce a follow-up. Not that the six years have been wasted, Haley has toured almost constantly, hitting the road with the likes of Belle & Sebastian, Lucy Dacus and Andy Shauf, to name but a few. Thankfully for us all, this week, for the first time since I Need To Start A Garden, Haley has something new to share, in the shape of her stunning new single, Seed Of A Seed.

A song, “about searching for peace in a world that tells you peace is unattainable”, Seed Of A Seed is a track that’s been with Haley for a few years, Haley recalled how she sent a demo to Tré Burt, who kept hassling her to know if she’d, “finished the “better better” song”. It wasn’t a track Haley was initially enamoured with, “it felt like a throwaway song to me, at first. It’s so simple, but I didn’t realize how much angst I’d woven into it: a desire for simplicity, and how far away that felt“. Musically, the track is a delightfully simple affair, a sub-three-minute shuffle of acoustic guitars, flourishes of strings and Haley’s joy-bringing vocal, which still possesses the ability to stop the world and demand your attention. Lyrically the track seems to walk the line between simple desires and the sense they’re never guaranteed, “if I’m lucky, maybe a glass of wine, and if I’m lucky, maybe a hand next to mine”. These are seemingly simple wants presented with a sense of importance, the sign of someone who understands where contentment lies, but can’t always reach it. Welcome back Haley, you truly have been missed.

Seed Of A Seed is out now via Mama Bird Recording Co. For more information on Haley Heynderickx visit https://www.haley-heynderickx.com/.

Header photo is Haley Heynderickx by Evan Benally Atwood