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5. Charlie Kaplan’s New Single Is Nothing To Be Scared Of

As featured on these pages back in August, Brooklyn-based artist Charlie Kaplan is today releasing his excellent new album, A Hat Upon The Bed. The fourth solo record from the Office Culture bassist and Glamour Gowns label founder, A Hat Upon The Bed is Charlie’s most ambitious and daring effort to date. Prior to the album’s release, Charlie shared one last offering from the record, in the shape of a new single, Fear Of Choking.

Described by Charlie as, “my tribute to intrusive thoughts”, Fear Of Choking is deceptively upbeat-sounding as he explains, “I thought it would be funny to write a bouncy, fun song about the myriad ways my imagination proposed I be grievously injured or killed”. The result is a song with a touch of Andy Shauff or Lionlimb, artists who know that music doesn’t need to be sparse to be emotional. This is a decadent slice of full fat creativity, resplendent with tumbling piano flourishes, prominent strutting bass-lines and textural percussive hits, giving it a certain retro shimmer, like Elliott Smith had been hanging about with the Motown House Band. Even Charlie’s vocal sound surprisingly sunny, if you find a way to ignore the words. Take the chorus, “it sneaks up on me when I’m sleeping, sit right up I’m having trouble breathing fear of choking, falling from a ledge I didn’t know that I had come upon”, might be a panic attack written down, but delivered it feels bouyant, as if Charlie’s leaping from the ledge and floating in the clouds. Ambitious, intriguing and unflinchingly honest, A Hat Upon The Bed is the sound of Charlie Kaplan really finding himself, and it’s thrilling.

A Hat Upon The Bed is out now via Glamour Gowns. For more information on Charlie Kaplan visit https://linktr.ee/ciwk

4. h. Pruz’s Message Is Krista Clear

The first half of a Mtn Laurel Recording Co. double bill, h. Pruz, the project of Queens-based songwriter Hannah Pruzinsky, is something of a regular feature on these pages. It was only last year they shared the lauded debut album, No Glory, yet Hannah is set to return in November with both the follow up album, Red Sky At Morning, and its choose your own adventure-esque literary companion piece, A Sailor’s Warning. Ahead of those releases, this week h. Pruz shared their latest single, Krista.

A song about, “disturbances in perception“, Krista finds Hannah, “following some of those disturbances, in my relationships or exterior observations, to completion“. Musically, the track, which was co-produced by Florist-member Felix Walworth, might just be the most rounded h. Pruz has ever sounded. It takes all the natural, fragile beauty of Hannah’s vocal, but rather than leaving it a skeletal sketch, every element is pushed, a sort of cacophony of contrasts. The drums rattle by juxtaposed with the swooping, glacial buzz of the distorted lead-guitar, the vibrato that comes with the subtle pushing and holding of the sang sections refreshed by the low-mixed, almost unintelligible spoken-word sections. The variety gives the whole thing a certain playfulness, matched in the descriptive lyrics that seem to be pushing at the edges of reality, best surmised in the closing line, “I think it was something I wasn’t supposed to know about“. At a time when human creativity is feeling the squeeze of a world that undervalues it, there’s something reassuringly considered about h. Pruz’s music. It feels rooted in the history of folk and storytelling, and also possesses that unerring, deeply human creativity that you just can’t fake.

Red Sky At Morning is out November 7th via Mtn Laurel Recording Co. For more information on h. Pruz visit https://linktr.ee/h.pruz.

3. Even When It’s Cold The Mountain Goats Rock Out With Their Pockets Out

It’s says a lot that a band who’ve written albums about everything from professional wrestling to dungeon and dragons describe their new record as their, “most conceptually detailed and musically elaborate project” so far. That record, Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan, is essentially a full-blown musical, telling the tales of, “a small crew shipwrecked on a desert island, where three surviving members – an unnamed narrator, Captain Peter Balkan, and Adam – are plagued by diminishing resources and apocalyptic visions”. With the record floating up rapidly on the horizon, this week they shared not one, but two new singles, Cold As Night and Rocks In My Pocket.

The lead track, if the production of a video is anything to go by, Cold As Night, is the song of the shipwreck and the immediate aftermath. It features some impressively eclectic guests with The Replacement bassist Tommy Stinson, guitars courtesy of Bonny Light Horseman (and sometimes Taylor Swift) guitarist, Josh Kaufman, and backing vocals from that little-known theatre up-and-comer, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Despite the lofty guests on the former, my favourite of the two, though, is Rocks In My Pockets, “a soliloquy from Adam”, which features, well, just The Mountain Goats. It’s a song that seems to slide easily into the band’s canon, from the gently percussive guitar strums to John Darnielle’s inimitable vocal style; it feels like classic The Mountain Goats. The whole thing was recorded live, bar some minimal percussion and harp overdubs, and finds the band musing on how little we all leave behind, “just a few days above surface, a lifetime below, rocks in my pockets when I go”. Perhaps The Mountain Goats’ greatest skill remains infusing everything with their own essence, whatever wild concept they might begin with always comes back to humanity, vulnerability and the good sense to laugh in the face of wherever you find yourself, a band who’ve already taken us on so many adventures, are setting sail once more, and you’re not going to want to miss the boat.

Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan is out November 7th via Cadmean Dawn Records. For more information on The Mountain Goats visit https://www.mountain-goats.com/.

2. Of Course Adeline Hotel Offers Swimming Facilities

The ever-prolific project of New York’s Dan Knishkowy, Adeline Hotel have treated us to a vast array of ideas over the last few years, sharing everything from solo-guitar instrumentals to piano-balladeering and fizzy Southern Rock. After the breakout moment that was the stripped-back monochrome of 2024’s Whodunnit, this month Dan returns with his latest offering, Watch The Sunflowers. It’s a record that sets out to explore, “the subtle differences between embracing a situation and acquiescing to it“, and sets it to his most colourful and inventive musical backing to date. Ahead of the album’s release, Dan shared the latest single from it, Swimming.

Described by Dan as being, “at its core a love song”, Swimming is one that arrives with optimism and leaves with a distinct feeling of unease and impending endings. As Dan sings from the shallows, “you were swimming, I was wading my feet”, the ever-increasing gap between these two connected beings is literally growing in front of the listener’s eyes. The track’s beachy themes are mirrored in the songs, easy tropical flourish, you can picture Dan in dark glasses and a linen shirt, cocktail in hand, staring out on the fading sun. The untroubled flutter of the acoustic guitars is layered with wistful strings, propulsive bass and the barely their tick of the percussion, it’s distinctly cinematic, just not in the grandiose melodramatic way the word is generally interpreted. Dan has spoken off Watch The Sunflowers as a record that exists in an, “in-between state”, the whole thing writ large with a sort of blurred perspective that only slow comes together to reveal the whole picture, give this record your time and it really does bloom.

Watch The Sunflowers is out October 24th via Ruination Record Co. For more information on Adeline Hotel visit https://adelinehotel.bandcamp.com/.

1. Marem Ladson’s Music Defies Cavity

Continuing this very New York-heavy round-up, that’s also the current home of Marem Ladson. Though in Ryder Cup parlance, we can at least score this one a half-point for Europe, as Maren was born and raised in the rugged climes of Galicia in the Northwest of Spain. It was in her bedroom, among the area’s foggy landscapes that Marem turned to music, teaching herself to play guitar and writing songs, “in search of belonging, understanding and connection”. Having toured with the likes of Nick Hakim and Squirrel Flower, Marem has now found herself working with Mtn Laurel Recording Co, who this week shared her latest single, Cavity.

Discussing Cavity, Marem suggests it finds her, “letting go and saying out loud what had been kept quiet for too long”, as she reclaims her own story, “choosing not to carry the silence, the shame, the weight that was never mine to hold”. Musically, Marem seems to inhabit a similar space to the previously mentioned Squirrel Flower, from the deceptive power in the vocal delivery through to the clattering percussive choices and multi-layered swampy guitar wrangling. The whole thing possesses a distinct catharsis, Marem seems to be laying it all out, exposing that for all the power someone had over her, that is gone with the realisation that she isn’t bound by someone else’s actions, especially someone who never really gave you the space to be the real you anyway. The song ends with first a crossing of paths, and then a sense of freedom in not knowing, “did you ever leave? Were you here all along? Maybe I’ll never know”. The not knowing becomes a mantra, Marem repeating the words as if finding joy in the uncertainty that is no longer controlling her, facing up to her past and finding a new future as a result.

Cavity is out now via Mtn Laurel Recording Co. For more information on Marem Ladson visit https://www.maremladson.com/.

Header photo is Marem Ladson by Tosin Popoola

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