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5. Sophia Yau-Weeks Hits A New Peak

Sophia Yau-Weeks’ journey with music began when she was just four, in the regimented, high-performance world of classical violin – becoming a means to an end, acceptance into a top university, and a bright future outside of music. It took Sophia a long way, but it also brought a lot of baggage along for the ride. At college, she suffered from burnout and depression, with the added strain brought by an isolating pandemic. This led Sophia to pick up the acoustic guitar, previously used only for learning covers, and to start writing songs, one after another, until her relationship with music shifted and became a way of making sense of the world around her. This shift took her to London, where much of the album was written, before returning to her native California to lay it all to tape. With the album’s release coming quickly on the horizon, this week, Sophia shared the album’s opening and title track, Misty Mountain.

Misty Mountain was written, “about the experience of having anxiety while in a relationship with someone grounding and present“, with the track depicting Sophia being, “guided away from a metaphorical misty mountain, if only for a brief moment in time“. The song opens with field recordings of birdsong, before a cyclical flourish of acoustic guitar and an almost absent-minded hum gradually bring the scene into focus with musical nods to the likes of Big Thief or Nadia Reid. The whole thing has a distinct early-morning feel, like opening the curtains to survey the world in front of you. Often, the lyrics seem to almost drift away, as if Sophia’s mind had wandered elsewhere, only to be pulled back again by the presence of the person who makes it all make sense. The lyrics contrast a tendency to see the worst in things with a desire to live life in the moment, “me, you, us, sat under a crimson sun our world is burning layer by layer, you say let’s go for a swim, just beside this misty mountain”. Finding the sweet spot between wistful drifting and painfully probing, Sophia Yau-Weeks’ Misty Mountain seems to be a record looking to the past to shape a future, which, on this evidence, looks very bright indeed.

Misty Mountain is out April 3rd via Lavasocks Records. For more information on Sophia Yau-Weeks visit https://sophiayauweeks.com/

4. Nixon Boyd Brings His Own Trouble

Although his upcoming record, Every Time We Turn A Corner, is his debut solo album, Nixon Boyd is no stranger to music-making. Back in 2009, he, like so many teenagers before him, formed a band with his childhood friends, the difference being his band, Hollerado, actually got out of their garage. Across fifteen years, the band found plenty of success and a whole load of touring, before calling it a day, except for the odd reunion show that’s too good to turn down. While Nixon’s previous work showcased his ability with a power chord and a sing-along chorus, for his solo work, he’s turned everything down, writing “quiet songs that beg for a close listen”. Ahead of the record’s July arrival on Royal Mountain Records, this week Nixon shared the latest single to be lifted from it, Trouble Of Your Own.

A song Nixon suggests, “took years to write”, Trouble Of Your Own was a song he put off writing, “because it was about a close friend’s suicide attempt and I don’t think I had the faith in myself that I could lyricize the story with enough grace and precision“. The song seems to reflect our blind spots to the people around us when we’re working through our own issues, “I was totally oblivious to the distress my friend was in, and that I was so focused on my own problems that I failed to see that they were having a way bigger problem“. As well as the lyrical content, the music here feels very deliberate, the ups and downs reflecting the two opposing feelings, “one voice that says ‘this is all my fault’, and another that tries to shake off responsibility for what happened”. Musically, the track is a beautiful flourish of pattering percussion and bright guitars nodding to the likes of Whitney or Angelo De Augustine, particularly lovely are the subtle changes of pace and instrumentation as the song flows in and out of the chorus repeated refrain, “you’ve got trouble of your own, trouble of your own, you don’t need no trouble of mine”. His solo career might find Nixon in a different suit than the one he wore in Hollerado, but this cut suits him, a perfect fit for a songwriter stepping into a very bright future.

Every Time We Turn A Corner is out July 3rd via Royal Mountain Records. For more information on Nixon Boyd visit https://nixonboyd.bandcamp.com/.

3. Spencer Krug Is Ready To Blow Up

Experiencing something of an intrigue boom since his music appeared in Netflix’s Heated Rivalry, Spencer Krug is probably still best known as the frontman of Wolf Parade. While the band are still going strong, Spencer remains busy with his many other projects, as well as his own solo material, most of his prolific output appearing on his own Pronounced Kroog label. This week, Spencer announced his fourth solo record, Same Fangs, as well as sharing the first single from it, Timebomb.

Same Fangs is a deliberate departure for Spencer, with almost everything built around the two-card trick of voice and piano, and not a lot else, with Timebomb setting the tone. The track began as an attempt to re-write an old track, but quickly turned into something else, as Spencer explains, “Timebomb is a song about a song about a band on tour, or rather, about the failed revision of that song, upon sadly realizing that its original message no longer rings true. This is me lyrically folding myself into the murky layers of self-made lore”. Despite being just piano and voice, with Spencer’s own vocal joined by guest harmonies from Elbow Kiss, this isn’t a simple piano-man number. Instead, we’re greeted with distortion and clatter, the whole thing feeling claustrophobic, drawing you in as the volume and emotional impact push you away, reminiscent of Alan Sparhawk’s more recent output. Lyrically the song lives up to Spencer’s pronouncement of complex thread weaving, while not the song’s actual opening, it’s origin story begins with the chorus, “I got home and tried to re-write the song that I call Listening To Music In Cars”, his search for meaning in an old song just leading to the disappointing conclusion, “the song’s just what it is”. In between the repeat visits to explore a past that’s no longer there, Spencer seems to stumble through self-admonishing flashbacks, whether he’s lamenting being, “a gambling man in a rock’n’roll band”, or dragging someone down with him into the fuzz, “mirror me, and I will mirror you, what a pair of motherfuckers in a feedback loop”. While it’s a riddle I feel we’ll be unpicking for years to come, Timebomb is a brilliant introduction to where Spencer Krug’s music is going next, the thrilling sound of a veteran musician who shows no signs of taking the easy option.

Same Fangs is out May 15th via Pronounced Kroog. For more information on Spencer Krug visit https://linktr.ee/SpencerKrug.

2. Je Ne Sais Pas Frog Mais Je Sais Grenouille

Frog, the much-lauded project of New Yorker Daniel Bateman, have been going through something of a renaissance in recent years, since a four-year hiatus ended with the addition of Daniel’s brother Steve on drums, and the release of the acclaimed 2023 record, Grog. After releasing two albums last year, 1000 Variations on the Same Theme and The Count, Daniel’s back to the grindstone with this week’s announcement of the band’s eighth album, Frog For Sale, alongside tour dates, including a very rare UK show at Oslo in London, and a brand new single, Je Ne Sais Pas.

Discussing the upcoming album, and its commercial baiting title, Daniel suggests Frog For Sale is a record, “about how money sometimes gets in the way of love“. In typically Frogian style, the lead single seems less about love and more about lust, laid out from the opening a-poetic gambit, “je ne sais pas, I want to fuck”, the song seems to be the frustrated ramblings of someone who can’t quite get what he wants, “Jen I’m appalled that you never called, I was passionate, bald and enthralled”. As the song plays out on bounding pianos and punchy snare drums, Daniel seems to transfer his own struggles onto the object of his lustful affections, “you say you’re saving your eternal soul, but you’re just getting old“. He even takes a brilliantly spiteful dislike to their new haircut, offering the unasked opinion, “now you got your hair like Anna Wintour, except poor”. As ever with Frog, the lines between the character and the creator are wonderfully blurred. Daniel Bateman’s ability to find meaning in society’s ne’er-do-wells and seedy underbellies remains a uniquely brilliant skill, one that suggests if Frog are truly for sale, then the price is going to be out of this world.

Frog For Sale is out April 17th via Audio Antihero / Tapewormies. For more information on Frog visit https://frog.band/

1. Modern Woman Take The Next Step To Dreamworld

Starting life as a vehicle for the songwriting of Sophie Harris, Londoners Modern Woman have slowly evolved to their current four-piece lineup via a process of, “creative refinement”. Having already graced stages at the likes of End Of The Road, Greenman and The Great Escape, the band are set to take a major step forward with the May release of their Joel Burton-produced debut album, Johnny’s Dreamworld. The band say the record, “explores the strange poetry buried within the ordinary”, something they certainly explore on their latest single, Daniel, which the band shared this week.

Poppy recalls Daniel was written, “in North Wales a long time ago“, a location that she hopes finds its way into the song itself, “I hope it captures some sort of spirit-feeling. I was camping near a lake we used to go to all the time as a kid when I wrote it“. The song is one of the gentler moments in Modern Woman’s catalogue, written with a deliberate focus on keeping the song’s raw essence, “I really love David’s violin on this, creating sounds like the tapping of rigging on boats etc. We kept the recording sparse“. The sparser arrangement really allows Poppy’s vocal space to shine, not that a voice this strong needs much assistance. It’s one of those remarkable instruments where, within a couple of bars, you know you’re going to keep listening to this person sing for as long as they keep singing, stopping me in my tracks in the remarkably rare way that Kristine Leschper, Emily Cross or Naima Bock did in the past. Of course, an amazing voice on its own isn’t going to make a great record, but Modern Woman’s songwriting and instrumental choices are almost as spectacular. Here, the song builds around a finger-picked acoustic in the Leonard Cohen-mould, which is latterly joined by the wonderfully textural violin, which moves from an airy sea breeze to a jagged rocky cliff. It’s rare that one track makes a record feel like such a sure thing, but all the elements are here to suggest Johnny’s Dreamworld might just be one of the most exciting albums released all year.

Johnny’s Dreamworld is out May 1st via One Little Independent Records. For more information on Modern Woman visit https://modernwoman.band/.

Header photo is Modern Woman by Sal Redpath