Further Listening – HERE

5. Highbush Caribou Matter

Hailing from Prince Rupert on Canada’s western shoreline, Highbush Caribou are a four-piece vehicle for the songwriting duo of Jackie Goetz and Alvin Seymour. Although their Bandcamp suggests they’ve been at this for a couple of years now, their new single, Matter, feels like a statement of just what they’re about, fusing folkish storytelling with surf-tinged rock, if you like your surfing on the gritty, freezing edge. Although details of their debut album are yet to be announced, the telling parenthesis, “album version”, suggests something is most definitely in the works.

Musically, Matter is a distinctly spirited number, as the loose lurch of the rhythmic crunch is interwoven with meandering guitar twang and layered vocals, reminiscent of other purveyors of widescreen vistas like Brown Horse or Crake. Key to the band’s charm is Jackie’s incredible vocals; they seem to be almost deliberately mixed low, drawing the listener in close as she likens her emotions to a computer on the fritz, “if I live in a computer, then why do I feel so much?” Ultimately, the song reaches less of a conclusion and more a shrug of acceptance, the repeated line, “hey, it don’t matter anyway”, growing ever more resigned with each weary repetition. These may be early days for Highbush Caribou, yet they already feel like a band in it for the long run, primed and ready for wherever their expertly matured music might take them.

Matter is out now. For more information on Highbush Caribou visit https://highbushcaribou.bandcamp.com/.

4. Atmos Bloom Mean Everything

One of my, “ones to watch” back in 2023, Atmos Bloom are the London-based duo of Curtis Paterson and Tilda Gratton. Showing my sterling ability to back the wrong horse, since then they’ve released just one single, Sea Legs, before sliding into the background to work on their next chapter. Thankfully, that new era finally arrived this week with news of their upcoming second album Everythingness, out in July via Spirit Goth Records, as well as the release of the near title track, Everything.

A song, “about the impossible task of trying to be everything all at once“, Everything finds Atmos Bloom walking the tightrope of, “young adulthood and figuring out the transition between adolescence and womanhood, working through a mountain of contradictory advice and solutions“. If the lyrics are carefully balanced, the music has a wilder, careering quality, the guitars tumbling by in a flourish of jangling indie-pop, and the drums are propelled by the whip-sharp crack of the snare. While some of the dreamy haze of their earlier material certainly remains, there’s a sense here of a band seeking greater clarity in their sound. Tilda’s vocal is brought further forward, the melodies from both guitar and voice allowed more room to breathe and break out from the fog, bringing to mind the likes of Amber Arcades or Special Friend. All the signs here are hugely promising; Atmos Blood might have kept us waiting, but Everythingness is shaping up to be everything you need.admin

Everythingness is out July 24th via Spirit Goth Records. For more information on Atmos Bloom visit https://linktr.ee/atmosbloom

3. Wild Pink’s Return Is Something To Clap About

Across five albums and three record labels, New Yorkers Wild Pink have been something of a fixture on the alternative scene for a decade and more. Most recently, they shared Dulling The Horns, their 2024 debut for current label Fire Talk, which won acclaim from pretty much everyone who gave it the time of day. Two years on, this week Wild Pink announced their upcoming sixth record, Still Coming Down. The record comes off a life-altering period for band leader John Ross, as he battled and beat cancer and became a father for the first time, both events shaping his outlook, “into a simpler significance”. Ahead of the album’s August release, this week John shared the first single from it, Round Of Applause At The End Of The World.

Round Of Applause At The End Of The World is something of a weary offering, a shrug at, “the whirlpools of conspiracy theories and the cloud of misinformation that can take over entire communities”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when Wednesday producer Alex Farrar was involved, and the recording was done in Asheville, North Carolina, Round Of Applause At The End Of The World seems to lean into sun-scorched Americana, with guitars as wide as canyons and wheezing organ flourishes. Lyrically, it touches on one of America’s richest sources of conspiracy, the Kennedy Assassinations, from Jack Ruby’s, “own moral code” to rumours of hypnosis and brainwashing in the trial of Bobby Kennedy’s killer Sirhan Sirhan. While it focuses in on our ability to get drawn into a cycle of rumours and misinformation, the song’s one moment of personal reflection comes when John allows himself to pull back from the Wikipedia spiral, as he wearily sighs, “I don’t know what my idea of fun is anymore”, begging for the clarity and focus to put the phone down and live an authentic life. Wild Pink have always been a band unafraid of change, of moving their music forward organically, letting the music take them wherever it wants to go, and on this evidence Still Coming Down is going somewhere very special.

Still Coming Down is out August 21st via Fire Talk. For more information on Wild Pink visit https://www.wildpinkmusic.com/.

2. Supermilk Show They’re Still On Top

As the drummer in the much-missed Doe, as well as the bandleader of the excellent Supermilk, Jake Popyura has been something of a fixture on these pages. The follow-up to 2024’s High Precision Ghosts, Supermilk’s latest offering Grief Hospital, lands on the 9th of June, a record somewhat brutally shaped by Jake’s experience with ALS, as he explains, “it’s the first thing we’ve released since ALS robbed me of the ability to play instruments. Half the songs were written and demoed just before I could no longer make chord shapes or hold a pick; the other half were composed entirely with software and SNES-esque MIDI guitars“. Ahead of the release, Supermilk shared the latest taster of it, Muscle Top.

A song, “about exploring sexuality in a time and place where it’s forbidden”, Muscle Top is Supermilk at their gutsy best, borrowing from the great and good of 90s-inspired indie-rock from the grimy sludge of grunge to the melodic alt-howl of bands like Reuben or Hundred Reasons. Lyrically, it seems to sit in the murky shadows of desire and secret keeping, presenting a mask to the world at large and another more truthful face behind closed doors, “I’m concealing the things that I’m feeling from all the ones I love, so when they find me dead they’ll know I did enough”. Towards the song’s close, it’s not clear whether our protagonist has settled for his truth or the acceptance of the wider society, as Jake fades out, repeating, “muscle top, don’t take me for a ride”. It’s impossible to separate Grief Hospital from its origins, yet what’s perhaps most remarkable is just how unmistakably Supermilk it still sounds, and as anyone who has spent time with their music before knows, that’s a truly wonderful thing.

Grief Hospital is out now via Specialist Subject Records. For more information on Supermilk visit https://supermilk.band/

1. Give Anna McClellan Has Us All In A Spin

Back in 2020, Anna McClellan released the brilliant I Saw First Light, a record made in her native Omaha that at the time looked to propel her into the upper echelons of the indie-folk universe. It was, of course, a year that didn’t really let anyone do anything much, and it would be a further four years before Anna returned with the episodic musical boxset that was Electric Bouquet. It’s all been relatively quiet since then, until this week came the very welcome surprise release of a brand new EP, Space, you big cloud, a record made on something of a whim over three days in an Atlanta recording studio on her way home to New York from Forth Worth.

The record is ushered into the world by the excellent lead track, Twirl, which finds Anna reflecting on, “a rare connection suspended in time”. Even if the lyrics didn’t mention, “sipping a glass of wine and country tunes”, the woozy influence of Country is writ large on Twirl, as the twangy flourish of the lead guitar sits atop the propulsive brushed percussion. The whole song has the feel of a half empty bar room, full of juke box classics and alcohol sodden admiration, “lead me out into the middle of the floor, twirl me round like a disco ball, for the rest of the song it’s just you and me”. For all Anna’s desires to make this moment last a lifetime, there’s a certain resignation here too, as she sadly notes, “but all songs end eventually”, before the song drops down to just the meandering bass-line before creeping back in once more. At the song’s close, Anna seems to become just a blur, stuck on a single word, “around, around, around”, lost to the swirl of a moment, the feeling of time standing still, not wanting anything to change. Anna has spoken of Space, you big cloud, as being a record about, “wanting to do something meaningful but not knowing how”, perhaps by staying open, honest and in a deeply human way connected, Anna has done the most meaningful thing of all and thankfully shared that honesty in her remarkable music for us all to fall in love with once again.

Space, You Big Cloud is out now via Father / Daughter Records. For more information on Anna McClellan visit https://linktr.ee/anna_mcclellan

Header photo is Anna McClellan by Pat O’Malley