Category: New Video

New Video: London’s deary Shares Lush, Shimmering “Alma”

Rising London-based shoegazers deary — Rebecca “Dottie” Cockram (guitar, vocals), Ben Easton (guitar) and Harry Catchpole (drums) — formed back in 2020 over their shared love of Cocteau Twins, Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine.

The band’s debut single, 2023’s “Fairground” landed at #1 on the UK Vinyl Singles Chart and led to opening slots with Slowdive and Cranes, as well as collaborations with Saint Etienne, The Murder Capital and Lush‘s Emma Anderson. Building upon a growing profile in the UK, the London-based trio’s highly-anticipated, self-produced full-length debut, Birding is slated for an April 3, 2026 release through Bella Union.

Birding reportedly sees the band proudly wearing their long-held influences on their collective sleeve, pairing dreamy shoegaze beauty with trip-hop influenced beats, incorporating their unique, modern touch to make something completely their own.

Thematically, the album aims to draw attention to the direct impact that we humans have on the world around us, whether that’s nature or just ourselves. The album also touches upon the importance of protecting the inner child or someone more vulnerable, holding hands and learning from past mistakes. “I was writing the record in one of the worst periods of my life,” deary’s Ben Easton explains. “I was not in a good space at all. Our last EP, Aurelia, was about transition, and how it’s cool to change. And Birding is, ‘Oh no, I‘ve made some really disruptive life decisions.’ The album came from an isolated, almost hopeless space, and you can hear that in parts of the record. But there are also moments that are very self-loving and meditative, and a bit more uplifting.”

Birding will include the previously released, critically applauded tracks “Seabird” and “Alfie,” as well as the album’s latest single, “Alma.” Deriving its title for the Spanish word for “soul” and the Latin word associated with kindness and nourishment, Birding‘s third single is a blend of The Sundays-era dream pop with Slowdive and Cocteau Twins-inspired shoegaze: swirling and shimmering guitars serve as a lush bed for Cockram’s ethereal cooing and some remarkably catchy, well-placed hooks.

“I see ‘Alma’ as an embodiment of our band,” deary’s Dottie Cockram explains. “It has been with us for a long time and changed with us along the way. In the past 4 years, we have grown into ourselves and have a much clearer idea of what deary is. In this song, I am talking to my younger self who made the decision to look after us and become a better person.”

Directed by Limb, the accompanying video features twin siblings Robin and Charly Faye. Appearing as though it was a meeting of past and future selves, the siblings — one initially blindfolded until it’s removed — meet each other with deeply knowing love and kindness.

New Video: Atsuko Chiba Shares Hypnotic “Torn”

With the release of 2013’s Jinn, 2019’s Trace and 2023’s Water, It Feels Like It’s Growing, 2016’s Figure and Ground EP and The Memory Empire EP, as well as a handful of singles, all which were self-produced and recorded at their Room 11 Studio, Montréal-based outfit Atsuko Chiba — Karim Lakhdar (vocals, guitar, synths), Kevin McDonald (synths, guitar), Eric Schafhauser (guitar, synths), David Palumbo (bass, bass VI, vocals) and Anthony Piazza (drums, electronic drums, percussion) — have firmly established a sound that’s a cohesive and hypnotic blend of post-rock, prog and krautock paired with offbeat songwriting.

The Montréal-based quintet’s self-titled fourth album is slated for an April 24, 2026 release through Mothland. The album reportedly sees the band rethinking their sound and approach, drawing inspiration from the likes of Mark LaneganBeak>Talk TalkCan and Portishead, all while retaining elements of their long-established post-punk fueled psychedelia.

Though the band has been introducing more vocals and lyrics with every subsequent release, their fourth album sees the band further wielding vocals and lyrics as a well to delve deeper into their intrinsic meta. The result is an album that’s one-part gritty post-rock and one-part intimate hymn to self-reflection with its moodiness amplifying a communal desire to eschew recurrent patterns for the sake of comfort, approval and longevity. 

The band decided upon a freeform creative process, which could only be achieved by pursuing a hands-on approach, and with each member sharing the roles of engineer and producer, 

“Overall, Atsuko Chiba is an exercise in patience and restraint. The mood of the album is melancholic, at times feeling optimistic, while other times feeling almost hopeless—there’s a sense of loss and disconnect, but also a glimmer of hope,” the band explains. “It is the most vulnerable and stripped down music we have ever made. It is a departure from the aggressive and distorted guitar sound we’ve relied on over the years. We also chose to make it a self-titled record which is something we battled with. We went with Atsuko Chiba because its overarching themes relate to us in a deep way. The material on this album presents itself as a mosaic of our interests and experiences as a band. We let the music guide us every step of the way, never forcing our will upon it, instead paying attention to what it was telling us and what we could do to further support it.

At first, we would come into the studio without a plan, just playing and recording the entire time, with no pressure as to a specific outcome: free jams during which we were just generating grooves, parts, and moments that felt good to us. We also put limitations, cutting out certain instruments from session to session, opening us to new options and pathways, generating new sound palettes. A lot of attention was put into creating space and holding back from always going for big epic moments. We focussed on keeping things simple and using dynamics to create exciting moments instead of relying on loud guitars to get us there. This album features a lot of auxiliary percussion, synthesizers, and keyboards, and places a strong emphasis on vocals. We explored acoustic guitars and created many custom percussive sounds by layering two or three sources together, also programming rhythms using samplers and drum machines.”

Atsuko Chiba will include the previously released, album opening track “Retention” and the album’s second and latest single “Torn.” “Torn” is a hypnotic, brooding tune anchored around a looping synth and guitar melody paired with reverb-drenched vocals. The song manages to be expansive yet introspective, while conveying a sense of unease and distrust.

“‘Torn’ explores the struggle with anxiety through the lens of overconfidence, transforming imposter syndrome from a state of paralysis into propulsion. By constructing a false reality, the protagonist earns the trust of those around him through promises he can not keep,” the band explains. “He embarks on a quest to control the world around him, while gradually losing himself in the deception of others—and his own. Eventually, he stares into the mirror and no longer recognizes the person looking back. Over time, he becomes a composite of the characters and narratives he has invented, dissolving into his own fiction. The game becomes indistinguishable from reality, breeding a deep and growing unease. Panic attacks and episodes of depersonalization follow, each one pushing him further, eroding sleep, stretching time, tightening the tension in his chest. At the edge of a cliff—unsure how long he has been awake—he searches for release as the pressure becomes unbearable. This release is marked by the shift at the end of the song. What happens next remains unresolved: does he jump, or does an old photograph—himself beside his father—surface from his wallet, pulling him back toward the memory of who he once was? We don’t know. . . “

The visualizer for “Torn” features footage of the band shot by the band and edited by the band’s Anthony Piazza that captures the band in the studio, working on the new album and traveling snow-covered roads.

New Video: A Place to Bury Strangers Returns with Broodingly Atmospheric “Where Are We Now”

New York-based JOVM mainstays  A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — will be releasing a rarities album, Rare and Deadly through Dedstrange on April 3, 2026. 

Following 2024’s SynthesizerRare and Deadly sees the band cracking open a decade-long vault of raw nerve and sonic chaos. Spanning 2015-2025, this collection of demos, B-sides, abandoned experiments and forgotten fragments reveals the band at their most unfiltered, frequently caught between breakthrough ideas and beautiful mistakes. 

Pulled from Oliver Ackermann’s personal archive of late-night recordings, blown-out tapes and half-finished sessions, the collection’s tracks pulse with the unruly energy that ATPBS has long been known for, but more dangerous with more jagged edges — on purpose. 

Countless bands have opened up their vaults to fans and others, but Rare and Deadly is truly unprecedented: Every format is different — and as a result, tells a different story. The CD, cassette, vinyl and digital editions each feature their own unique track listing. No single version features the “complete” album. Instead, each format is its own window into Ackermann’s archive, revealing alternate paths, missing links and parallel “what if” versions of the band’s inner life. It’s deliberately unstable with the album shifting depending on how you choose to hear it, mirroring the chaos of its creation. 

Across the collection’s tracks, you can hear the evolution of Ackermann’s restlessly creative mind. Some pieces feel like prototypes for future chaos, seeds that later bloomed on studio albums. Others are dead ends — ideas too volatile, too strange or too personal to ever fit the frame of a proper release. The tracks feature riffs mutated by malfunctioning pedals, songs born from gear pushed past its limits, or delicate melodies overwhelmed by towering walls of feedback. 

Rare and Deadly will include the previously released, tense and menacing “Everyone’s The Same,” “Acid Rain” and the album’s third and latest single “Where Are We Now.” “Where Are We Now” features Ackermann’s reverb-drenched vocal paired with broodingly atmospheric, throbbing motorik pulse. But more than any other previously released APTBS track, “Where Are We Now” conveys an uneasy sense of what if-fueled regret.

Ackermann says that the song is about “looking back at friends you lost touch with. Wondering where they ended up. Remembering when everything felt possible.”

The accompanying video features footage Ackermann edited from footage from the Library of Congress National Archives. Ackermann says he made the video because “I think we need to look at people more and see the value and wonder of life so we can be compassionate towards others.”

New Video: POND Shares Rousingly Anthemic Yet Existential “Terrestrials”

Today, Perth-based JOVM mainstays POND — currently, Nicholas Allbrook (lead vocals, guitar, keys, bass, flute, slide guitar and drums); singer/songwriter and producer Jay Watson (vocals, guitar, keys, drums, synths and bass), who’s also the creative mastermind of acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit GUM and a touring member of acclaimed, Grammy Award-nominated JOVM mainstays Tame Impala; Joe Ryan (vocals, guitar, bass, 12 string guitar, slide guitar); Jamie Terry (keys, bass, synths, organs, guitar); and Jamie Ireland (drums, keys) — have shared a new single, “Terrestrials,” the first bit o new material from the Aussie outfit since 2024’s Stung!

“Terrestrials” begins with a meditative and slow-burning intro, before quickly morphing into a bombastic rocker, anchored around fuzz and phased out guitars, glistening synths that showcases the band’s unerring knack for incredibly catchy hooks and rousingly anthemic choruses. Thematically, the song is a meditation on the great mystery and contradiction of humanity, a species capable of great love and great cruelty — often simultaneously.

“Gum wrote the music for this one and we recorded this in Mullumbimby with Julian Abbott at Nowave studio,” POND’s Nicholas Allbrook explains. “This song is about the weirdest of all the terrestrials, people. Hellbent on flying away from or killing our home soil, with a big appetite for destruction, guns, roses. We can love and connect and nurture and inflict unbearable cruelty. You all know this but, yeah, it’s kind of a great mystery isn’t it? It’s almost more supernatural than extraterrestrials. Which is probably why we wrote this song. There aren’t many of us who can forget for even a second about the unborn tomorrows and dead yesterdays but among them are, apparently, kids and people in love. My cousin Iz helped write this with our chats.” 

Directed by Jesse Taylor Smith, the accompanying video is a mix of live performance footage and trippy animation.

Along with the new single and video, POND announced that they will be opening for Djo — the musical project of producer, singer/songwriter, musician and actor, Joe Kerry, best known for his roles in Stranger Things and Fargo for a handful of East Coast dates, including a July 17, 2026 stop at Forest Hills Stadium. Tour dates are below. Tickets will go on sale Friday, March 20, 2026 at 10:00am local time.

New Video: Love Ghost Shares Bruising and Anthemic “Revolution Evolution”

Tim Skold is a singer/songwriter, musician and producer, best known for his work producing and playing with Marilyn Manson. Skold is also the creative mastermind behind the industrial/electro rock recording project Love Ghost.

Skold has one proper Love Ghost studio album under his belt, last year’s Gas Mask Wedding. And adding to a busy year, he collaborated with The Skinner Brothers on last year’s Soul Boy V. His sophomore album, Anarchy and Ashes is slated for a March 27, 2026 release and will include the previously released “Rock Me Amadeus,” an industrial cover of Falco‘s 1985 smash hit, “Vengeance,” and the album’s third and latest single “Revolution Evolution.”

“Revolution Evolution” is an urgent, industrial rock ripper that showcases Skold’s ability to pair arena rock bombastic riffs and thunderous beats with rousingly anthemic and enormous hooks and choruses. But under the arena rock bombast is a rebellious spirit that channels rage and frustration into a much needed roar with a community of like-minded folks. It may seem overwhelming to the individual but man, together, we can start to bring about a brand new world.

The accompanying video by King Zabb sees Skold in military fatigues creating violent war-like cartoons. But eventually, the cartoons realize, who their real enemy is.

New Video: Tinariwen Shares Urgent “Erghad Afewo”

Pioneering Grammy Award-winning, Tuareg musical pioneers and JOVM mainstays Tinariwen released their tenth studio album Hoggar last week through their own label, Wedge. The album derives its name from the Hoggar mountains, a defiant marker of presence visible for miles and a symbol of a homeland for their displaced people. 

Long known for being fierce advocates for their people’s nomadic culture that exists in the desert borderlands between Mail and Algeria, the acclaimed JOVM mainstays bluesy, guitar-driven music has found global acclaim for its blend of dexterous, Western rock-styled guitar work, Tamasheq language-driven political bent, syncopated rhythms and soaring melodies. 

More than 45 years into their lengthy and storied career, Hoggar reportedly sees the acclaimed masters of the desert blues returning to the foundations of their sound with the band returning to their early years of songwriting with acoustic guitars and communal singing around the desert campfire. The album also sees the band staking their claim as elders of the Tuareg musical tradition while also proudly passing the torch onto a younger generation of featured musicians, who can continue to keep their culture’s flame of rebellion and defiance alive. 

Legendarily known for recording amid the windswept expanse of the Central Saharan desert, the acclaimed JOVM mainstays have long drawn inspiration from the rhythms of nature. With political unrest in Mali prompting the band to seek new spaces, the founding members, who are now based in Algeria recorded the album in studio set up by young Tuareg band and mentees Imarhan in Tamanrasset, which continues their legacy of innovation and collaboration. 

While previously released albums like 2023’s Amatssou saw Tinariwen collaborating with acclaimed producer Daniel Lanois, on Hoggar the band looked closer to home. Gathering with the local Tuareg musical community for a month, founding members Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni and Touhami Ag Alhassane began writing songs fueled by political unrest alongside young artists like Imarhan’s Iyad Moussa Ben Abderrahmane, Hicham Bouhasse  and Haiballah Akhamouk. The band also collaborated with Terekaft‘s Sanou Ag Hamed and Tinariwen co-founder Liya ag Abill, a.k.a. Diarra for the first time in 25 years. 

The album also marks some other firsts: The band’s lead vocalist Ibrahim and Abdallah sing together for the first time in over 30 years, breaking their long-held tradition of each songwriting performing only their own compositions. And there’s a guest spot from acclaimed longtime fan José González. 

Lyrically, Hoggar explores urgent and timely themes, addressing the social and political challenges facing the Tuareg people and northern Mali. The band continues their long tradition of bearing witness through their work, balancing the joy of their celebrated lie shows with reflections on community struggles, resilience and the need for cultural preservation. 

The album will include the previously released “Sagherat Assan,” “Imidiwan Takyadam” featuring acclaimed singer/songwriter and longtime fan Jose Gonzalez, “Amidinim Ehaf Solan,” and the album’s fourth and latest single, “Erghad Afewo.”

Anchored around the collective’s gorgeous, effortlessly bluesy guitar work and call and response-driven melodicism, “Erghad Afewo” is an urgent song calling out those who have sold out their people to fill their empty bellies and a little bit of cash and/or provisions while accurately describing an increasingly impending hellscape.

Continuing an ongoing collaboration with director and animator Axel Digoix, the accompanying video is a gorgeously animated visual that captures the pride, defiance and joy of the Tamashek that includes a fearsome night-time chase through the desert.

New Video: Total Fucking Darkness Shares Deceptively Upbeat “Beaten to Write”

Electronic music outfit and JOVM mainstays Total Fucking Darkness features: 

Over the past year or so, the trio have released a handful of standalone singles, including four that I’ve written about, “Desolation Boys,” “Take It Easy,” “Give Me Everything You Own” and “Horizontal Rain.”  

The trio’s latest single, “Beaten to Write” is a world weary tune paired with a deceptively bright, playful and hook-driven production that seemingly channels mid 80s New Order. Anchored around a relentless motorik pulse, the song is perfectly designed for getting your energy up for another day of drudgery at a soul-sucking day job. And its core, the song seems to suggest that as adults, we have to find ways to accept and deal with drudgery and bullshit, and then push past it — as much as possible.

Continuing the visual approach of its immediate predecessor, the accompanying visualizer/video for “Beaten to Write” features a masked man in a hoodie dancing and shadow boxing an abandoned factory space, with glitchy imagery projected around him.

New Video: EYRE LLEW Shares Painterly “Miningsby”

Initially conceived as a studio project back in 2014, Nottingham, UK-based trio EYRE LLEW — Sam Heaton (vocals, guitar), Jack Clark (drums, piano) and Jack Bennett (guitar, piano) — have developed and honed a sound that meshes elements of shoegaze, post rock and dream pop and channels influences like Sigur Rós, Frightened Rabbit, Bon Iver and The National into cinematic, emotionally overwhelming soundscapes.

2017’s debut album, Atelo was released to widespread critical acclaim with the album landing at #25 on Drowned in Sound‘s Top 100 Albums List of 2017.

And during that same period, the Nottingham-based trio have also established themselves as a compelling live act, playing over 300 independently booked shows across 23 countries, including sold-out shows across the UK, Europe, The Baltics (Latvia and Lithuania) and the Far East. The trio have also made the rounds of both the national and international festival circuit, playing sets at Glastonbury‘s John Peel Stage, The Great Escape, Dot to Dot, FOCUS Wales, Y Not Festival, Ritual Union, Rockaway Beach, Alternative Escape, Handmade, Glastonbury’s Shagrai La, Icebreaker, Perth Music Expo, 110 Above, Beat The Streets, Splendour, Riverside, On The Waterfront, Farm Fest, A Carefully Planned, Hockley Hustle, and others. Internationally, they’ve played sets at Singapore’s Music Matters, Taiwan’s Beastie Rock, South Korea’s Zandari Festa, Germany’s Umsonst Und Dresden, France’s FIMU, Belgium’s Fifty Lab, Sweden’s Future Echoes, Lithuania’s Zagare Fringe Festival and What’s Next In Music, Hungary’s HOTS Outbreakers Lab, Latvia’s Riga Music Week, Estonia’s POFF Shorts, Poland’s Seazone Music Festival and Conference and SpaceFest.

Building upon a growing profile, EYRE LLEW’s highly anticipated sophomore album Bloom is deeply informed and influenced by pandemic-enforced lockdowns. For the bulk of their history, the band defined themselves by seemingly constant motion: Cities blurred into one another. Border crossings were routine. Their lives revolved around airports, late night drives, ferry ports, backstage rooms, festival fields, hotel corridors and long-distance journeys.

As a touring band, success, such as it existed, was often measured in miles traveled, crowd size and momentum developed and sustained. The band kept moving because that’s just how it always was. Slowing down would mean — on some level, at least — slowed momentum. Stopping would mean accepting failure, when “making it” was just a little bit out of reach.

Like countless touring acts, the pandemic managed to dismantle their trajectory. That relentless forward motion that shaped their identity for the better part of a decade just suddenly stopped. Tours vanished. Plans dissolved. The result was an uneasy silence. Understandably, for the trio, it all felt devastating.

But in the stillness, something else emerged for the band — space: The space to rest, reflect, recover, feel and importantly, to make different choices. The band made a quieter, more human recalibration, shifting away from survival to towards sustainability. Rather than constantly feeling that they had to prove something, they moved towards building something — and choosing meaning over the endless chase of momentum.

The result was Bloom. Written during lockdown and the subsequent years, the album is about several things simultaneously: presence, the love that feels like home, stillness as strength, devotion without spectacle, grief without melodrama, healing without performative optimism, growth that happens slowly, privately and honestly.

Wher eas previously released material was frequently defined by scale and endurance, Bloom‘s material is defined by intimacy and grounding. Its songs are built from small moments rather than big, grand statements. It’s about choosing to stay. Not just in relationships but in places, in moments, in emotions and in identity.

The shift in the band’s approach, fittingly lead to a shift in their sound. While the album’s material continues to carry the vastness they’re known for, it lives alongside of a sense fragility and restraint. Instead of actively attempting to overwhelm the listener, the band is trying to meet the listener where they are right now.

The album’s first single “Miningsby” is a slow-burning and atmospheric tune that’s simultaneously cinematic and intimate, while evoking a loving, patient calmness. The track is about something that’s somehow both difficult and easy — being present when your loved one is struggling with anxiety, depression or something else.

“Rather than trying to dramatise that experience, ‘Miningsby’ is about something quieter and harder: staying, listening, and offering warmth,” the band explains. “It’s a love letter to emotional endurance, grounded in small moments and the hope of better days ahead.”

The song’s title came from a bit of serendipitous happenstance. When the original demo files were saved in an old, rural Lincolnshire studio, they were geolocated to Miningsby, a tiny nearby village. For the band, the title — and in turn, the town’s name — became an unintended marker for a place and time that no longer exists, but continues to resonate through the music, much like the fleeting yet beautiful moments the song memorializes.

The song’s origins manage to mirror its themes. The song was recorded on a baby grand piano that the band no longer owns, in a studio they’ve since left behind. The song captures something gone yet the feeling of being held through it all.

The song sees the band framing love through tangible, physical moments and sensations — breath, warm, light. But along with that, there’s a sense of calm, loving patience and the belief that things can get better with love and through time.

The accompanying video, shot in black and white features the band performing the song in studio.

New Video: Kim Gordon Shares Jazzy “PLAY ME”

The legendary Kim Gordon will be releasing her third solo album, the Justin Raisen-produced PLAY ME on Friday through Matador RecordsPLAY ME is reportedly distilled and immediate, and sees Gordon expanding on her sonic palette to include more melodic beats and the motorik drive of krautock. 

“We wanted the songs to be short,” Gordon says of her continued collaboration with acclaimed, Los Angeles-based producer Justin Raisen. “We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident. I always kind of work off of rhythms, and I knew I wanted it to be even more beat-oriented than the last one. Justin really gets my voice and my lyrics and he understands how I work—that came forth even more on this record.” 

PLAY ME is the follow-up to 2024’s critically applauded sophomore album The Collective, which featured the two-time Grammy-nominated single “BYE BYE.”  PLAY ME sees Gordon processing in her imitable way, the collateral damage of the billionaire class: the demolition of democracy, technocratic end-times-like fascism, the A.I.-fueled chill vibes flattering of culture — where dark humor voices the absurdity of our moment. But despite its frequent outward gave, the album is essentially an interior effort, one in which heightened emotionality pulses through physical jams, while rejecting definitive statements in favor of an inquisitiveness and curiosity that keeps Gordon searching — and ever in process. 

Amid PLAY ME’s rabbit-hole reality bricolage, pitch-shifted vocals and shadowy layers of dissonance, the album’s material are clear-eyed about the attention they pay to a world that would rather you be distracted and rage-baited into oblivion. “I have to say, the thing that influenced me most was the news. We are in some kind of ‘post empire’ now, where people just disappear,” Gordon says, echoing the title of one of PLAY ME’s tracks.

PLAY ME will feature the previously released “NOT TODAY,” and “DIRTY TECH,” as well as the album’s third single, album title track “PLAY ME.” “PLAY ME” may arguably be the most hip-hop influenced track of the entire album with the song anchored around a swaggering DJ Premier-like production tweeter and woofer rattling beats paired with a meditative, modal jazz trumpet line. Gordon’s imitable croon takes on a subtle staccato, hipKhop like flow to match.

Directed by Barney Clay, the accompanying video for “PLAY ME” is grainy, security camera-like footage that follows a stylish Gordon in a mall. It’s a forceful and uneasy bit of commentary on our Big Brother-esque surveillance world.

New Video: GUM Returns with Meditative “In Life”

Over the course of his career, JOVM mainstay and acclaimed Aussie singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jay Watson has developed a reputation as one of his homeland’s most prolific and exploratory artists, and as arguably one of the country’s busiest musicians: He currently splits his time between JOVM mainstay acts, Tame ImpalaPOND and his own project GUM

Watson recently signed to King Gizz‘s p(doom) records, who will be releasing his self-produced seventh album Blue Gum Way. The album’s title reference Australia’s blue gum eucalyptus trees, while subtly nodding to melancholy, place and atmosphere. 

The album, which dropped today follows his 2023 GUM effort Saturnia and his 2024 collaboration with King Gizz’s and The Murlocs‘ Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Ill Times

The JOVM mainstay’s seventh album marks a deliberate shift in approach. While his previous releases embraced restless experimentation and stylistic left turns, Blue Gum Way finds Watson focusing on a singular mood and sonic identity, allowing atmosphere, emotion and restraint to take center stage. 

The nine-song album inhabits a widescreen, jazz-influenced psychedelic soundscape, drawing from Talk Talk, John Martyn and Radiohead. Elegant, patient and quietly melancholy, the album showcases an artist comfortable with vulnerability and clarity of expression, unburdened by the desire to prove anything. Interestingly, the album emerged in complete contrast to his concurrent work with POND and his collaboration with Kenny-Smith, and sees him favoring harmonic density and unhurried ambience over immediacy or roots-driven simplicity. 

Written largely in insolation, the album allowed Watson to lean into deeply personal thoughts and emotions. Lyrics, which were one secondary in his creative process, now play a much more central role, exploring anxiety, adaptation and life’s pivotal moments with an impressionistic touch. 

Blue Gum Way includes the previously released “Expanding Blue” “Celluloid” and the album’s latest single “In Life.” “In Life” is a meditative tune featuring atmospheric synths, a supple bass line and arguably some of the most gorgeous and expressive guitar work Watson has recorded to date. And while mediative, it’s not sad. But it does carry a wizened sense of “well, what if x instead of y. Where would I be? Who would I be?”

“This song is about a fork in the road, a sliding doors moment where your life could have been completely different based on one decision,” Watson says.

Directed by Sam Eastcott, the accompanying idle for “In Life” features Watson as a stranded man, akin to Castaway in the brush. Desperately trying to survive and to keep himself entertained, he sets up a place to play music. Because I mean, of course.

New Video: Weird Nightmare Shares Punchy “Pay No Mind”

Almost every band that’s worth a damn has had a member, who at some point worked in a record store. With JOVM mainstay acts METZ and Weird Nightmare, it was frontman and creative mastermind Alex Edkins. Slinging indie rock and hardcore records at his hometown record store while attending university, Edkins became an ardent student of rock ‘n’ roll from the psychedelic 1960s to the DIY 1990s and beyond. 

Hoopla, Edkins’ sophomore Weird Nightmare album, which is slated for a May 1, 2026 release through Sub Pop globally and Dine Alone Records in Canada, reportedly sees the JOVM mainstay mixing and matching these wide-ranging influences in fun, exhilarating combinations, showcasing his sophisticated musical mind, while continuing to showcase his unerring knack for ridiculously catchy and rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses.

Co-produced by Edkins and Spoon‘s Jim Eno at Providence‘s world famous Machines With MagnetsHoopla also sees the acclaimed Canadian artist expanding upon Weird Nightmare’s musical palette with the addition of piano, bells and castanets, which give his long-held straightforward songwriting a shiny luster. 

The album will feature the previously released “Forever Elsewhere,” and the Cheap Trick-like “Might See You There.”

Hoopla‘s third and latest single “Pay No Mind” is a punchy, downright punk rock-like take on power pop, anchored around Edkins’ unerring knack for ridiculously catchy hooks and big riffs paired with what may arguably be his most socially aware, thoughtful lyrics of his growing catalog.

“We had a blast making this video with director Ryan Faist,” the Weird Nightmare creative mastermind says,. “It was a nod to the Elvis Costello and the Attractions Pump it Up‘ video and some early footage of the Buzzcocks on cable access TV. 
 
“The lyric was lifted from an Atlantic City tourism t-shirt. ‘I’m so broke, I can’t even pay attention‘ struck me as a particularly accurate comment on modern life. Obviously, the shirt is meant to be funny, but it felt quite dark to me. Due to the overwhelming onslaught of information and emotional baggage that comes with it, I think there is a tendency for people’s lives to become quite myopic. As a coping mechanism, we become more and more insular, ignoring the world around us.”

New Video: A Place to Bury Strangers Returns with Pulsing “Acid Rain”

New York-based JOVM mainstays  A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — will be releasing a rarities album, Rare and Deadly through Dedstrange on April 3, 2026. 

Following 2024’s SynthesizerRare and Deadly sees the band cracking open a decade-long vault of raw nerve and sonic chaos. Spanning 2015-2025, this collection of demos, B-sides, abandoned experiments and forgotten fragments reveals the band at their most unfiltered, frequently caught between breakthrough ideas and beautiful mistakes. 

Pulled from Oliver Ackermann’s personal archive of late-night recordings, blown-out tapes and half-finished sessions, the collection’s tracks pulse with the unruly energy that ATPBS has long been known for, but more dangerous with more jagged edges — on purpose. 

Countless bands have opened up their vaults to fans and others, but Rare and Deadly is truly unprecedented: Every format is different — and as a result, tells a different story. The CD, cassette, vinyl and digital editions each feature their own unique track listing. No single version features the “complete” album. Instead, each format is its own window into Ackermann’s archive, revealing alternate paths, missing links and parallel “what if” versions of the band’s inner life. It’s deliberately unstable with the album shifting depending on how you choose to hear it, mirroring the chaos of its creation. 

Across the collection’s tracks, you can hear the evolution of Ackermann’s restlessly creative mind. Some pieces feel like prototypes for future chaos, seeds that later bloomed on studio albums. Others are dead ends — ideas too volatile, too strange or too personal to ever fit the frame of a proper release. The tracks feature riffs mutated by malfunctioning pedals, songs born from gear pushed past its limits, or delicate melodies overwhelmed by towering walls of feedback. 

Rare and Deadly will include the previously released, tense and menacing “Everyone’s The Same,” and the album’s second and latest single, “Acid Rain.” “Acid Rain” is a frustrated howl of a song, anchored around a relentlessly breakneck, motorik pulse, buzzing guitars, wild bursts of scorching feedback paired with Ackermann’s vocals, which are also fed through effects pedals.

“Acid Rain” was informed by the first Trump presidency. “Cruelty felt not just normalized, but weaponized. Watching people in power openly coerce others into silence, compliance, and violence was horrifying, and still is,” APTBS’ Oliver Ackermann explains. “What shook me most was how casual it all felt, how easily people turned their heads while others were being crushed.”

“The chanting at the beginning was recorded during the George Floyd protests in Manhattan and Brooklyn, real voices, real streets, real fear mixed with hope,” Ackermann adds. “For a moment, it felt like maybe people would finally wake up and refuse this racist machinery. But here we are, still watching detention centers, modern slavery, and countless other atrocities continue under different names. ‘Acid Rain’ is rage, grief, and disbelief all colliding at once, the sound of watching history repeat itself while knowing exactly how wrong it is.”

Directed by Gerson Vargas, the accompanying video was shot on January 16, 2026. The video follows the band as they get on the last car of a Manhattan-bound M train at Marcy Avenue, turning the subway car into a moving stage for a raucous live rendition of “Acid Rain” during the length of the Williamsburg Bridge into the Lower East Side. The guerilla-styled footage wasn’t scripted. There’s no script. And as a result, it perfectly captures the relentless pulse of the song and the city.

New Video: Hush Returns with Shimmering and Woozy “Phasing”

Montréal-based trio Hush — Paige Barlow (vocals) and multi-instrumentalists Miles Dupire-Gagnon and Gabriel Lambert — are part of a new wave of Montréal-based acts actively reshaping psych pop. And each member is an accomplished member of the local scene, with the band featuring members of Hippie Houraah, Elephant Stone, Anemone, and The Besnard Lakes.

Citing an eclectic array of influences that includes BroadcastThe Velvet UndergroundMelody’s Echo ChamberSteve LacyCocteau Twins and Ariel Pink, the Montréal-based psych pop trio create a sound that’s simultaneously nostalgic and forward-looking. Their music lives in the blurred light of perception — half memory, half hallucination — and is an invitation to lose yourself inside of their hall of mirrors-like dream world. 

Late last year, I wrote about the Canadian trio’s debut single, the Bibi Club-like “The Mirrors Were Right,” which also serves as the first single from their full-length debut, slated for a 2026 release through Simone Records. Their debut album’s second and latest single, album opener “Phasing” is a shimmering and ethereal blend of 60s psych pop, trip-hop and dream pop with Barlow’s radiant delivery darting and dancing around the dreamy accompanying arrangement and production.

The song thematically explores the uneasy ebb, shift and flow of feeling and perception, at points questioning the reciprocity and durability of our relationships with a seemingly lived-in quality.

Conceived by the band’s Paige Barlow and Aabid Youssef further emphasizes the song’s woozy and mind-bending blur: We see blurry images of local scenes projected both behind and in front of the band. The band also blurs in and out throughout.

New Video: TOMORA Shares Euphoric “SOMEWHERE ELSE”

TOMORA is a new collaborative project featuring:

  • The Chemical Brothers‘ Tom Rowlands: As one-half of The Chemical Brothers, Rowlands has produced and recorded six widely acclaimed UK #1 albums and won six Grammy Awards.
  • Norwegian artist AURORA: AURORA has released four studio albums and has quickly become one of Norway’s most influential and globally recognized contemporary artists. Her single “Runaway” has amassed over one-billion Spotify streams to date.

TOMORA builds upon a creative relationship that can be traced to the recording sessions for The Chemical Brothers’ 2019 album No Geography. AURORA contributed vocals to three tracks, including “Eve of Destruction.” Rowlands then went on to contribute to AURORA’s 2024 effort, What Happened to the Heart?, which landed on the UK Top 10.

Initially, speculation was rife as to who — or what — the then-mysterious TOMORA was or could be, after the name appeared on Coachella’s 2026 Festival lineup post without any additional information last year. Last December, the duo released their debut single “Ring The Alarm,” which received praise from SpinBrooklynVeganStereogum and DJ Mag. “Ring The Alarm” also received DJ support from Erol Alkan¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U and a long list of others.

The duo’s TOMORA debut single was then released on a very limited and collectible white label vinyl, alongside B-side “The Thing,” which showcase a glimpse of the tender and hauntingly beautiful downtempo tracks that will appear on the duo’s full-length debut, COME CLOSER.

Slated for an April 17, 2026 release through Capitol RecordsCOME CLOSER was written and produced jointly by Rowlands and AURORA. The 12-song album sees the duo pairing the Norwegian artist’s distinctive vocal with the acclaimed British producer’s unparalleled studio expertise. While the album sees the duo creating their own unique space, somewhere they can produce the kind of magic that comes from flicking through a perfect record collection, flowing from wigged-out 1960s psychedelia to the hyper-futurism of sounds imagined for the 2060s. 

Ultimately though, the album is less about two separate and distinct artists finding a fertile middle ground and more the sound of two tenacious individuals connecting in the studio and hitting massive creative peaks together. 

“This is our album COME CLOSER, it is everything we dreamt of. We made it without obligation or expectation, just a joy in creation,” the duo says. “It’s the sound where we meet, the landing zone of our musical escape pods. It is a special place to us. We hope you dig it as much as we do.”

Last month, I wrote about album the hauntingly mesmerizing album title track “COME CLOSER.” Building upon the attention and momentum of the album’s previously released singles, COME CLOSER‘s latest single begins with AURORA’s otherworldly and ethereal melody and pairs it with a blissed out, relentlessly driving, hyper-futuristic production. The result is a song that sounds as though it could have been beamed from a futuristic interplanetary civilization in the year 4239 while simultaneously intimate, yearning and rousingly anthemic.

SOMEWHERE ELSE’ is one of the first songs we ever wrote, as TOMORA. And it opened up a big door for us, into our world,” AURORA says. Tom Rowland adds, “Ever since AURORA sang that melody to me it’s been running around my head brightening my day. We played an early version of the song at Glastonbury Festival and it felt like magic. Now we get to share it, it’s a total joy.”

Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Adam Smith and S T A R T !, the accompanying video for “SOMEWHERE ELSE” begins with AURORA waking up under the pier of a beach, not quite sure how she got there with one shoe missing. The rest of the video we see the Norwegian artist on an afternoon at the amusement park, wandering through a town and other adventures, potentially tripping and/or appearing like a humanoid alien trying to figure out human life.

New Video: BRDN Shares Woozy and Brooding “Unparalleled”

German electronic outfit BRDN (pronounced as “burden”) has quickly established a sound that sees them pair powerful synth structures with smooth vocal sequences and driving rhythms. Their work takes listeners to the more brooding side of introspection with his work thematically touching upon self-doubt and the desperate search for purpose. The result is a fever dream, ripe for interpretation and analysis.

The German outfit’s sophomore EP Maybe in another life is slated for release in June. The EP’s first single, “Unparalleled” is an eerily minimalist tune, featuring glistening synths and skittering beats serving as an uneasy and brooding bed for BRDN’s yearning delivery. Sonically, recalling The Ways We Separate and Escapements-era Beacon, “Unparalleled,” conveys a woozy sense of regret-fueled self-doubt.

Shot at dusk and at night, the accompanying video follows two lonely souls, full of brooding self-doubt and regret.