Further Listening:

5. J.Mamana Finds Something New In The Whole America Thing

Based out of Providence, Rhode Island, J. Mamana announced himself to the world back in 2019 with his debut album, Nothing New In The West. Now emerging from “a four-year period of turmoil and disillusionment”, J brings a brand new record, For Every Set of Eyes, which lifts its name from Neil Young’s On the Beach. The album swaps the “historical sweep” of his debut for something much more inward-glancing, an autobiographical affair that details the loss of his best friend to a drug overdose and the dissolution of a long-term relationship. With the record out this Friday, this week he shared the latest single from the record, New America.

While musically in keeping with the rest of the record, New America comes from a somewhat different thematic place, written as, “a response to the whole TV thing — the golden age of TV, prestige miniseries, critically-acclaimed sitcoms“. A delightfully complex piece, New America invites us into the world of a producer who wants to create art as his financial backers only want, “the easily salable”. The producer’s lofty aims are mirrored with a suitably dramatic musical flourish, as layers of guitars are adorned with string arrangement Van Dykes Parks would be proud of, and drums that seem to never settle, going from initially jazzy to a straight-marching beat and back again. Recalling the likes of Meilyr Jones or Joanna Newsom, New America is a thrillingly ambitious introduction to the record as a whole. J. Mamana’s music may be unapologetically complex, but it still seems to wrestle with humanity in a way that makes it resonate, it welcomes you in rather than pushing you away, and already For Every Set Of Eyes feels like a record that might just be a slow-burning beauty, even if it is one that arrives in the age of instant gratification.

For Every Set of Eyes is out August 23rd via Holy Family. For more information on J. Mamana visit https://jmamana.net/.

4. The Howl, The Hum & The Echo

The project of Leeds-based songwriter Sam Griffiths, The Howl & The Hum emerged back in 2020 with the at the time inappropriately titled debut, Human Contact. Since then Sam’s faced a lot of very relatable challenges, with the dissolution of the band’s original lineup, living through the Covid-19 pandemic and as he puts it, “wrestling with the uncertainties of a creative future”. From all those questions, comes his upcoming record, Same Mistake Twice, out next month via Miserable Disco, and from which this week Sam lifted his latest single, Echo.

Echo is that most classic of songwriting expressions, a breakup song, yet it’s an intriguing take on one, a backward glance at a formative relationship that has become a distant memory, fading from the mind even as it continues to shape the lives of the players in its ever-dimming scene. Sam describes it as, “a love song to old friends, about watching good people do bad things, and wondering if any of it matters at all“, like an existential crisis and a longing for simple times all rolled into one. Musically the track seems to push Sam’s minimalist country influences into something considerably more expansive, channelling some of The National’s more recent output or Idlewild at their most serene. Lyrically, the song seems to present an entire relationship in a series of snapshots, from its early convenience, “you were a kid, I was a kid with a car”, through to the way relationships still linger long after they’ve faded, “you change the station when our music plays, I don’t know who’s ghosting who these days”. The song’s ultimate sadness perhaps comes at the remote prospect of a reconnection, and the reluctance to even consider it, simply summarised as, “maybe the reason that you never call, is because you think I’ll never listen”. Sometimes songwriters seem afraid of showing themselves in their work, as if they want to hide their flaws from the world, yet with The Howl & The Hum, Sam does the opposite, he lets us see the lows, the weaknesses, the mistakes he’s doomed to repeat, and it makes him all the more believable and vital as a result.

Same Mistake Twice is out September 6th via Miserable Disco. For more information on The Howl & The Hum visit https://www.thehowlandthehum.com/.

3. There’s No Secret About Cassidy’s Rival

It was thirteen years ago that Oxford’s Secret Rivals first appeared with their debut single, Tonight Matthew, which was briefly a Radio One, “Tune Of The Day”, and the scene setter for their well-received 2012 album, Make Do And Mend. The band would part ways in 2013, as songwriter Jay Corcoran began another journey towards facing up to his mental health struggles and addiction issues. The music never left him though, and last year, he decided to get the band back together, or more accurately get a new band together, to record a decade’s worth of living in the shape of their new album, Amor Fati, released in May this year. This week the band shared the first new material since the album’s release, a stand-alone single, Cassidy.

Cassidy could be taken as a song about the resurrection of Secret Rivals, “it’s almost about the idea of playing music again, overcoming anxiety and all that good stuff“, Jay explains, “it’s about putting your best foot forward essentially, even if your toe is hanging off”. Listening to Cassiy, it is clear Secret Rivals are well-versed in their indie-pop history, from the jangling The Wedding Present-like guitars to the yelp along twin vocals, courtesy of Jay and bandmate Aisling Hennessy, sure to appeal to fans of Los Campesinos! Lyrically the track has a delightful push-pull quality, Jay trying not to look back as he pushes forward, but always a moment away from glancing back at his old demons, “I find myself caught in all the same lies I told years ago, this time I’ll try and follow through, my heart and mind belongs to you”. Times and music have moved on, and Secret Rivals’ brand of indie-pop may find itself swimming against the prevailing current of what’s popular, yet here they’ve done something far more important than that, they’ve made a record for themselves, an honest, open-hearted, three-minute pop song, and whatever the era there are always people on the lookout for those.

Cassidy is out now via A Club If You’d Like To Go. For more information on Secret Rivals visit https://www.instagram.com/secretrivals/.

2. Mal Not Bad – Actually Rather Good

Based out of the Melrose District of Los Angeles, Mal Not Bad is the self-deprecatingly named project of Mal Hauser, a musician who has previously collaborated and toured with the likes of Skullcrusher, illuminati hotties and Jay Som. With two previous EPs already under their belt, Mal Not Bad recently shared the debut album, This Is Your New Life, a self-recorded collection that draws influence from everyone from Aphex Twin to Alex G. Around the release Mal shared the record’s excellent opening track, Far Gone.

A scene setter for the album that follows, Far Gone is a winning introduction to a record whose creator envisioned it as, “a blossoming of a new chapter“. Here we seem to find Mal at their lowest ebb, “lying in the gutter, feeling so washed up”. Yet as the track proceeds, there’s a sense of turning, of moving forward whether you want to or not, “you’re mourning a past time, you’re morning a past life, good morning sunshine, good morning sunrise”. This new leaf-turning is mirrored in a track that musically never seems to stand still, it opens with skittering electronics before a swaggering Tame Impala-like guitar comes and goes, and Mal’s vocal comes to the fore atop considerably more intimate guitars that seem to invite you in close to the speaker to pick up every tiny detail. The whole thing has a sense of pushing forward, not so much forgetting where you were but accepting the past is past and pressing on towards a thrilling new future, This Is Your New Life, and thankfully you might just love it.

This Is Your New Life is out now via Same Same. For more information on Mal Not Bad visit https://linktr.ee/malnotbad.

1. You’re Guaranteed To Love Lea Thomas

A songwriter from Hudson Valley, Lea Thomas first appeared back in 2017 with the breezy engagement of her debut album, Want For Nothing. Two further records showcased the versatility of Lea’s creation, drifting in and out of genres with a wonderfully natural flow. For her latest endeavour, comes the upcoming album Cosmos Forever, a record made by, “leaning into the spaciousness of the unknown” and inviting her band to follow their intuition rather than sticking too rigidly to her blueprints. The result is a record of beautiful spaciousness and allowing time to pass, as demonstrated in Lea’s beautiful new single, We Must Be In Love.

Discussing We Must Be In Love, Lea suggests it could be, “a love song for anyone or anything”, however for her, it’s more specific, “it has become a love note to the cosmos, to this earth, to the places that shaped my life, and especially for the island of Maui in Hawai’i, where I grew up”. The song in particular was written following the fires swept through old Lahaina town on the West side of the island, as Lea explains, “as neighbours came together around this disaster, through the shock and grief, I could also feel the love of the land connecting us all. This song is an ode to that kind of love– a love as resilient as the land itself“. Musically, the track leans into Lea’s penchant for all things slow-core, melding the swells and crashes of post-rock with the lush pastoral qualities of folk, channelling the untapped middle ground of Low and Karima Walker. Amid all the spacious musical trappings, Lea offers a delightfully simple lyrical pronouncement, distilling love in all its complexities into something gorgeously elemental, “holding your hand in mine, all that surrounds us becomes love, we must be in love”. Despite being a record that exists at a turning point, a liminal space between what was and what will be, Cosmos Forever is a record in no rush, it knows that the future is coming in whatever form that takes and for now, there’s nothing left to do but wait, and until September 20th and Cosmos Forever’s arrival, that’s all you can do as well.

Cosmos Forever is out September 20th via Triple Dolphin Records. For more information on Lea Thomas visit https://lealealea.com/.

Header photo is Lea Thomas by Wyndham Garrnett