Further Listening:

5. Teenage Tom Petties New Single Is Hot(mail)

A transatlantic, “slacker jangle-punk band”, Teenage Tom Petties burst onto the DIY scene with 2023’s Hotbox Daydream, which became something of a word-of-mouth success story. For the band’s next move, vocalist/guitarist Tom Brown, also of the excellent Rural France, decided to write a record celebrating what the band represents: “five strangers who somehow came together across the Atlantic”. With the record written, the band descended on Big Nice Studio with Bradford Krieger to blast out the eight tracks that became their new album Rally The Tropes. With the record out at the end of October via Repeating Cloud and Safe Suburban Home, this week the band shared the first single from it, “Hotmail.”

Despite it’s title, Hotmail doesn’t seem to be an ode to the noughties email address de jour, instead it’s a rapid-fire explosion of self-doubt and not feeling like you’re making the most of your opportunities, as Tom repeatedly sings, “only I could screw this up”, with a quiet inevitably that screwing it up is exactly what he’ll do. Musically, it’s a timeless garage-punk blast, all distorted guitar-riffing, drum clattering, and yelped vocals that feels as indebted to Thin Lizzy and Dinosaur Jr as it is to more contemporary acts like The Tubs or Witching Waves. The band have spoken of making this record as a process of, “just playing with joy”, and here you can really hear it, a band making music that’s unpredictable, raw, and very, very exciting. What’s not to like?

Rally The Tropes is out October 24th via Repeating Cloud / Safe Suburban Home. For more information on Teenage Tom Petties visit https://linktr.ee/teenagetompetties.

4. Long Fling Are Effortlessly Cool

Consisting of Personal Trainer’s Willem Smit and Pip Blom, “coupled-up supergroup”, Long Fling only released their debut single in August, and played their debut UK show at End of the Road festival at the start of September. With that said, the pair have spent over a decade as a couple, “gradually learning the intricacies of each other’s creative language”, and shaping what would become their self-titled debut album, out October 10th. Ahead of the release, the duo shared the second taster of it, Cool Bottle Water Park.

Now if you’re wondering what a Cool Bottle Water Park is, or even what the song is about, you might be better off asking someone other than Long Fling, as Willem explains, “the words don’t mean anything to us as of now. I think when we wrote something down, we just shut off the judgmental parts of our brains and tried to come up with enough syllables to go with the melody“. Thankfully, melody is where Cool Bottle Water Park really shines; it’s a song made on shifting sands, overflowing with ideas as it flows from section to section, the whole thing barely holding together courtesy of the omnipresent processed drum beat. What starts as a motorik-strut moves through surfy breakdowns, clattering punky choruses, and a delightfully garagey outro. Throughout their two voices equitably share the same tape while never really threatening to get close to harmony, which somehow really works. In a way, it’s exactly what you’d expect from this collaboration, two songwriters throwing their own great ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. It feels unpolished and raw in a way neither of their day jobs do, and is perhaps even more exciting as a result.

Long Fling is out October 10th. For more information on Long Fling visit https://linkfly.to/longfling.

3. Water Way To Introduce Mildred

Based in Oakland, California, although via time in London, Oregon, Colombia, and a Benedictine Monastery, mildred took a somewhat classic path to forming, moving from friends to roommates to being a band. They’d play around dinner times, blurring the lines between home and practice space, their living room eventually becoming the recording studio for their debut EP mild, released October 3rd via Memorials Of Distinction / Dog Day Records. Off the back of their debut UK tour, and US dates with the label-mates Porridge Radio and Naima Bock, this week mildred shared the first single from mild, Water.

As introductions to a band go, Water is something of a gentle introduction to mildred’s sound, a gentle sub-three-minute ode to the power of friendship and doing your best to be a rock for someone else. What could sound flimsy though is actually rather beautiful, listening to mildred you instantly feel in capable hands, their sound bringing to mind the likes of Great Lake Swimmers or The Acorn. They’re never flashy, instead their gently perfect vocals harmonies, and slowly unfurling instrumentation show the devil’s in the details…and what gorgeous details they are! From the so subtle it’s barely their guitar-break, to the Laurel Canyon-like 1970’s inspired harmonies, they pack an awful lot into a tiny snippet of a song. Perhaps what really excites me about mildred is just how out of step with the prevailing musical winds they sound. The world might be a loud battle to be heard, but mildred aren’t interested in shouting, and by keeping things beautifully simple, they’re a real breath of fresh air.

mild is out October 3rd via Memorials of Distinction / Dog Day Records. For more information on mildred visit https://linktr.ee/mildredband.

2. Dominie Hooper Weaves A Good Yarn

Dominie Hooper was brought up in Dartmoor, the closest Southern England gets to true wilderness. There she ingested a diet of the classics, Patti Smith, David Bowie, Mozart, The Clash, the records of her parents, and a stepdad who taught Dominie her first guitar chords. Dominie bought a cello, moved to Bristol, and became a fixture on the arts scene playing in other people’s bands. After a bad relationship crushed her creative confidence, Dominie shyed away from sharing her own music until lockdown hit, and “I realised how much I had shrunk, and how scared I was to do my own thing“. From that watershed moment came a newfound confidence to explore, and four years later, the results emerge via Dominie’s debut album, In This Body Lives. With the record due at the end of October via Lost Map, this week saw Dominie share the first single from it, Weaver.

Described by Dominie as, “a song about cracking open and blossoming through a queer relationship“, Weaver finds Dominie, “breaking free from the blueprint, and blooming as our full selves in ways that can’t be explained with words”. Produced by the ever-eclectic ear of Ben Hillier, Weaver is a simply gorgeous listen. What starts as a stripped-bare alt-folk number, gradually shifts through the gears, Dominie’s effortless-sounding vocal melodies gradually engulfed by a wall of increasingly fizzing guitars and clattering drums that fans of Big Thief or Crake will fall head-over-heels for. If this is the sound breaking-free, it’s more akin to the sound of societal chains snapping rather than a party of self-expression, it’s the first steps into the real Dominie, “pick up my heart, you gentle weaver, open your throat and howl babe”, and towards the end Dominie does that just that a wordless closing saying as much as any lyric could. Dominie has said of music that it, “intrinsically linked to me uncovering who I am”, and that’s evident throughout Weaver. This feels like a moment in a bigger journey, Dominie Hooper’s eyes peeling open and seeing the world of opportunities in front of her, for this undeniable talent, the world is her oyster.

In This Body Lives is out October 31st via Lost Map. For more information on Dominie Hooper visit https://dominiehooper.com/

1. Revenge Is Sweet (Nobody)

Long Beach indie-poppers Sweet Nobody last appeared on these pages back in 2021, that was around the release of their excellent second album, We’re Trying Our Best. It’s been all quiet on the West Coast since then, until this Summer, when the band shared an EP of Joanna Newsom covers, one of those charming asides you never knew you needed. It marked a re-awakening for the band, and a return to their own material arrived this week with the new single, Revenge, the first taste of their upcoming long-player, Driving off to Nowhere.

A glistening slice of rambunctious indie-pop, Revenge is delightfully carefree, which fits front-woman Joy Devo’s thoughts on the song, “this song is for those without an angle. It’s for those who love the straightforward”. Lyrically, the song seems to relish it’s single-mindedness, “you’ve nearly won, you decimated everyone, the damage is already, you just want revenge”. As the lyrics smile at a world on fire, the music seems just as rampant in its desires; the infatiguable gallop of Brian Dishon’s drum-beat brings to mind the likes of Literature or Lunar Vacation, while Casey Snyder’s tumbling lead guitar is pure Alvvays-like dream-pop perfection. If Sweet Nobody are driving off to nowhere, at least they’ve written the perfect road trip mixtape for the journey, and invited us all along for the ride.

Driving off to Nowhere is out November 7th via Repeating Cloud. For more information on Sweet Nobody visit https://linktr.ee/sweetnobody.

Header photo is Sweet Nobody courtesy of the band