The X-Flowers are a mysterious and emerging punk outfit, who, released their debut EP, the three-song First Bloom last year.
The punk outfit begin the new year with “Tilted,” a rousing, mosh pit friendly ripper that seemingly channels a synthesis of Joan Jett, 90s grunge and riot grrl-era punk.
Seoul-based producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Amohouse blends lo-fi textures with driving house rhythms. The result is music that features a chill yet energetic vibe. The South Korean artist describes his music as “the perfect soundtrack for your daily life,” adding that “whether you’re studying, driving or just relaxing,” that he’ll give you the beats you need.
Amohouse’s latest single “Lofi House” features a woozy and looping production that brings Kainalu and MUNYA to mind: skittering and dusty beats, twinkling, reverb-drizzled synths and a chopped up, sultry vocal, paired with the Seoul-based artist’s ability to craft a razor sharp, catchy hook.
Augu is a mysterious and emerging Lithuanian electronic music producer, who has released a series of attention grabbing singles including:
The Lithuanian electronic music producer closes out 2025 with “Industrial” another thumping banger that showcases his unique, hook-driven blend of industrial, techno, house and sci-fi soundtracks. But unlike the previously released material, “Industrial” seems to subtly nod at the work of Blanck Mass, as the track is bruising but simultaneously deeply sensitive.
Dam CPH is a Copenhagen-based producer and songwriter, who crafts emotional, melody-driven music ranging from intimate, cinematic pieces to neon-lit 80s-styled synth pop.
The Danish artist released their full-length debut, Roots and Wings earlier this year. Roots and Wings saw Dam CPH exploring organic, orchestral arrangements. His sophomore effort, the recently released Whisper Desire sees him diving into sensual, dance synth pop featuring both male and female vocalists. With both albums, the common thread is his knack for catchy hooks, a blend of Nordic melancholy and hope and storytelling as song-driven lyrics.
Whisper Desire‘s latest single, album title track “Whisper Desire” is slow-burning and cinematic, 80s-styled synth pop ballad featuring a sultry and yearning vocal over glistening and oscillating synths and big, rousing hook and chorus. Seemingly channelling acts like ACES and others, “Whisper Desire” is the sort of song you want to slow dance with that love interest or situationship that you want more from.
Anchorage-based indie electro pop duo dreamcat — couple Em Glaves and Colton Ciufo — can trace a portion of their origins back to when they were children: Glaves and Ciufo grew up in the same small town, and for them music has always been their escape.
The Alaskan duo specialize in homemade, heartfelt, positive indie synth pop that draws from M83, Chromeo and others. Last year, the pair gained recognition regionally by playing at two of Alaska’s biggest music festivals — Sundown Festival and Girdwood Forest Fair.
Over the past 12-18 months, the duo have built upon a growing profile across Alaska, with at the release of a handful of standalone singles and their debut EP joie de vivre earlier this year.
Glaves and Ciufro close out 2025 with “Heaven,” a breezy bit of synth pop that seemingly channels BRIJEAN, M83 and Oracular Spectacular-era MGMT while showcasing the duo’s ability to craft a remarkably catchy hook. But underneath the track’s breezy hookiness, the song, as the duo explain is about addiction.
With the release of their debut album, 2021’s Traumatismo Nacional and 2024’s NADA/CERO/INFINITO EP, Sunset Images, led by Mexico City-based singer/songwriter, musician and creative mastermind Samuel Osorio has firmly established a layered soundscape of dissonance, cathartic release and emotional depth that draws from krautrock, shoegaze and punk. Thematically Traumatismo Nacional was a scathing indictment on violence, racism and misogyny while NADA/CERO/INFINITO explored loneliness, anger and desperation, laying bare the emotional devastation of modern life.
The project has built a reputation for intense live performances while sharing stages with the likes of Mogwai, Godflesh, Boris, The Raveonettes, Acid Mothers Temple, Gnod, HIDE, RAKTA, Vinnum Sabbathi and more.
Eventually, they caught the attention of Dedstrange Records, who signed the Mexican project and will be releasing their highly anticipated sophomore album Oscilador on January 23, 2026. Reportedly, the album sonically is a reflection of the perpetual cycles that rules our world — birth, decay, chaos and resolution, fueled by the collision of fractured synths, pulsating vocals, primitive drum beats and feedback-drenched guitars. The result is a soundscape that’s hypnotic, disorientating and irresistible.
Oscilador‘s second and latest single “El Tiempo Oscila y Muere Al Incio (Tommy)” is a sprawling motorik dirge with a cinematic quality that’s one-part krautrock, one-part shoegaze, one-part noise featuring a throbbing, distortion pedaled bass line, bursts of swirling feedback-drenched guitar guitars, a relentless backbeat paired with Osorio’s hauntingly spectral vocal. The result is a song that’s intense yet with an almost fanatical attention to precision.
Sonically reminding me a bit of the likes of Yoo Doo Right JJUUJJUU and others, the song as Osorio explains explores “humanity’s self-destruction,” “conjuring visions of a world ravaged by toxic masculinity and patriarchy. This is a song about the abyss that awaits, how we cannot escape the passage of time & how it will ultimately consume us.”
Last year, Stockholm-based JOVM mainstays Club 8 — Karolina Komstedt (vocals) and electronic music producer, artist and Labrador Records founder and label boss Johan Angergård — released their 11th album, A Year With Club 8. Since then, the the duo have been busy, releasing a single or so a month over the course of the year, including the previously released “ooo,” “None Of This Will Matter When You’re Dead,” “Staying Alive,” “Born The Wrong Time,” and “Sneaky Feelings.”
The Swedish JOVM mainstays’ latest single “Daydreams” continues a remarkable run of breezy, hook-driven and nostalgia-inducing material anchored around Komstedt’s ethereal and yearning vocal, expressive and shimmering bursts of guitars and a motorik groove. The song evokes a pleasant reverie — but with the bittersweet realization that it like all things won’t last forever.
Coldtrace is a mysterious and emerging Italian post punk band, who released their debut EP, Shadows last month.
Shadows EP‘s latest single “Reasons 1” is a brooding bit of post punk, featuring angular and propulsive bass line, relentless four-on-the-floor, shimmering, bursts of reverb-soaked guitars paired with a dramatic baritone vocal. While showcasing the band’s ability to pair chilly atmospherics with razor sharp hooks, “Reasons 1” seemingly channels the likes of Cocteau Twins, Molchat Doma and others.
Acclaimed San Francisco-based singer/songwriter, musician, producer and Monophonics frontman Kelly Finnigan has proven himself to be rather prolific over the past couple of years. Last year, Finnigan released his sophomore solo album, A Lover Was Born, which featured album singles “Be Your Own Shelter,” and “Love (Your Pain Goes Deep).”
This year, Finnigan followed up with two standalone singles:
Finnigan closes out the year with two new, self-penned Christmas tunes —
“I Can’t Wait (For Christmas Time)”/”Snowy Night In Ohio.”
“I Can’t Wait (For Christmas Time)” is a straightforward pop/soul arrangement that features labelmate Kendra Morris and her band on backing vocals. “I the Can’t Wait (For Christmas Time)” channels some of Finnigan’s previously released work, while reminding the listener that the holidays are about the excitement, anticipation and longing for reunions with loved ones.
“Snowy Night In Ohio” is a meditative tune that sounds as though it could have been previously unreleased track from the A Joyful Sound sessions that evokes the nostalgia and comfort of being with your dearest ones and looking out the window to see the snow gently fall outside.
“I Can’t Wait (For Christmas Time)”/”Snowy Night In Ohio” are out now as 7″ 45RPM single and on digital platforms through Colemine Records.
Organ trio Parlor Greens features a collection of grizzled veterans and incredibly accomplished musicians: The trio close out 2025 and celebrate the holiday season with the recently released “Auld Lang Syne”/”Every Day Will Be Like […]
Acclaimed Utrecht-based electronic music outfit Tinlicker — founding member Micha Heyboer, Jordi van Achthoven and their newest memberHero Baldwin — can trace their origins back to 2012, when the project was founded as a solo project of its founder. As a solo project, Heyboer released Tinlicker’s debut EP, 2012’s My First Time Here and the 2012’s Remember The Future demo compilation through his own label, Zero Three Zero.
Jordi van Achthoven was introduced to Heyboer through a mutual contact in 2014. The pair bonded over their mutual inspirations of Paul Kalkbrenner, Trentemøller and Moderat, and at that point, Tinlicker expanded to a duo, releasing three EPs through Feed Me‘s Sotto Voce, 2014’s Like No Other, 2015’s Into The Open and The Space In Between, which featured “Oudegracht,” a track that amassed significant attention online.
2017 saw the duo releasing material through Anjunadep, Armada Music and deadmau5′s mau5trap before singing a record deal with Anjunadeep, who released their breakthrough full-length debut, 2019’s This Is Not Our Universe, which featured contributions from alt-J, Run Rivers, Thomas Oliver and Belle Doron. The album reached #1 on the dance charts in the US, Australia, India, Canada and Finland and #2 in the UK, The Netherlands and Poland.
The duo’s sophomore album In Another Life was released in February 2022. But by November 2023, the duo announced that the third album, last year’s Cold Enough for Snow would be released through [PIAS] Électronique. The ealbum featured collaborations with Brian Molko, Editors‘ Tom Smith and Circa Waves. The Dutch duo supported the album with sets at Pinkpop Festival, CRSSD Festival, Crystal Palace Bowl, Coachella and Sziget Festival.
Back in 2020, as the Dutch duo were achieving commercial and critical success, they had started a successful collaboration with London-based signer/songwriter and producer Hero Baldwin that has continued through a series of singles including their most recent single “I Started A Fire,” which was released earlier this year. Heyboer and van Achthoven recently invited Baldwin to be a full-time member of the band. “Jordi and Micha seem to pull something out of me that resonates with my emotional landscape every time we make a song,” the London-based singer/songwriter and producer says. “I think it’s so important to feel creatively and emotionally secure, and Jordi and Micha always afford me that privilege.”
The act’s Melkweg Amsterdam show was their official debut as a trio. She also joined the duo for their biggest live show to date, Tinlicker In The Park at Crystal Palace Bowl.
Tinlicker’s highly-anticipated fourth album — and first as a trio — is slated for an early 2026 release. The album will feature the previously released “I Want My Freedom,” which begins with a slow-burning piano intro that nods at Radiohead‘s “Everything In Its Right Place,” before morphing into a festival and club banger with a euphoric bridge and hook paired with Baldwin’s defiant and resolute vocal.
The forthcoming album’s third and latest single “Reborn,” is an expansive, almost cinematic, deep house banger, anchored around glistening and arpeggiated synth oscillations, a motorik groove paired with the act’s unerring knack for crafting enormous hooks and drops. Sonically speaking, “Reborn” seemingly channels 90s-00s house, making the song a high-energy homage to the sounds of their teens.
“Music can be a reflection of the era you grow up in. You fall in love with the soundscape of your teens and drag that feeling with you, because during this period you experience so many new adventures,” the members of Tinlicker explain. “‘Reborn’ is an homage to the early sounds that shaped us as teenagers, as it is an era in music we hold close to our hearts.”
Ellecielles is the DIY, bedroom noise project of a mysterious and enigmatic Italian producer and multi-instrumentalist. His latest single “Living Twice” is a slick and seamless mesh of New Order-meets-The Cure-like New Wave/post punk/goth and classic shoegaze guitar textures serving as an uneasy, fever dream-like bed for goth-inspired vocals.
At its core, the song evokes a seemingly endless push and pull between one’s best and worst inclinations. The Italian artist explains the song is “about the burden of carrying two versions of yourself, or perhaps even experiencing moments is intense that they feel like a second life.”
“Lyrically, I delved into the struggle of contradictions: the urge of feeling something even if it has a high emotional price, the moments you feel like ‘Mr. Charisma’ are equally backed up by moments when failure eats you up from the inside,” he adds. “It’s about the moments where you question everything, feeling both completely lost and strangely found. . . . “I hope listeners find a place of their own duality within these lines, known that they’re not alone in navigating those complex emotional landscapes.”
Copenhagen-based producer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, electronic music artist and Trentemøller creative mastermind Anders Trentemøller has a long-held reputation for creating extraordinarily memorable melodies paired with brooding and dark soundscapes. Throughout his career, the Danish artist’s work has frequently explored contrasts, paradoxes, reminiscence and remembrance — but while eschewing overt nostalgia.
Trentemøller’s sixth album, last year’s 10-song Dreamweaver saw the acclaimed Dane meshing elements of shoegaze, darkwave, komische musik and noise rock with somber, introspective takes on dream pop — but in a decidedly immersive and psychedelic fashion that’s perfect for repeated listens on headphones. Icelandic vocalist DiSA contributes vocals on nine of the album’s 10 tracks.
His first single since the release of Dreamweaver sees the Copenhagen-based tackling the classic and beloved Christmas carol, “Silent Night.” The Trentemøller rendition of “Silent Night” features his girlfriend Lisbet Fritze, whose ethereal delivery sings the song’s beloved melody paired with a wintry arrangement of churning guitar, twinkling bells, drum machine-driven beats and atmospheric synths. The song evokes both Christmas time generally and what Christmastime would look like and feel in his native Denmark — cold winters, fireplaces, ice skating, carolers, Christmas markets and the like, but with mix of gentle, sepia-toned nostalgia and a modern sensibility.
The cover is extremely fitting. The acclaimed Danish artist has always loved Christmas. Since childhood. the season has held a special place for him, and for years he wanted to record his own version of one of the great Christmas songs. He chose Silent Night for his timeless melody, which for him captures the essence of Christmas.
Originally written as a lullaby, the song took on new meaning after Trentemøller became a father. Lisbet Fritze’s vocals and the single’s cover art, a Christmastime photo of a young Anders Trentemøller with his mother give the single a deeply personal yet universal touch. After all, with the coming of a new year, many of us look simultaneously back into the past remembering moments with loved ones no longer with us and into the future, hoping for long-lasting peace, love and understanding for all.
Los Angeles-based multifaceted producer, singer/songwriter, bassist, performer, restless performer and JOVM mainstay Sylvia Black has had a long-held reputation for being difficult to pin down. Since her first job singing and entertaining at a resort hotel in Northern Japan as teen, music has been her lifeline.
Throughout her career, Black has steadily gained momentum as a writer and producer, consistently creating music on her own terms, simultaneously cementing her place in the post-punk and goth-romantic renaissance, while being restlessly creative. Her lengthy credits reflect her eclectic tastes and wide-ranging abilities. She was the frontperson of the New York-based trio KUDU with Deantoni Parks (drums, production) and Nicci Kasper (keys, production) in the early 00s. Black also has writing and recording credits with Grammy Award-winning pop act Black Eyed Peas, Daphne Guinness and more. Her lengthy and impressive resume includes collaborations with legends like Tony Visconti, Lydia Lunch and Moby, as well as The Knocks, Armand Van Helden and French electro pop duo Telepopmusik. And last, but definitely not lease, her sultry rendition of ‘I Put A Spell On You” appeared on the hit Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
As a bassist, Black has played with The Brand New Heavies‘ N’Dea Davenport, Living Colour‘s Muzz Skillings and with Maya Rudolph’s Prince cover band Princess.
The JOVM mainstay’s long-awaited new album, the 11-song Shadowtime is slated for a January 16, 2026 release. The album rsees Black continuing her long-held approach of songwriting from the bottom up. “I find a beat that I’m in love with and go forward,” Black says. “The bass provides the floor, but as a singer, I’m also coming in with the roof. If you can write a beautiful song with just those two elements, bass notes and the voice, that’s a job well done.”
Written, produced and performed primarily by the JOVM mainstay, the album was crafted with support from longtime mix engineer and creative foil Ruddy Lee Cullers. The album’s material will reportedly be a haunting exploration of nostalgia and futurism, that sees Black pushing her sound in new directions by weaving hypnotic rhythms, cinematic layers and raw, visceral emotion, while moving effortlessly from dance floor anthems to atmospheric meditations on love, loss and transcendence. “This album is about finding beauty in ruins,” Black says. “About letting the shadows speak through me. Returning to California brought out the memory and soul of my goth days gone by.”
Shadowtime will feature the previously released “Talking in Tongues,” a brooding blend of goth, New Wave and shoegaze that seemed to nod at Suicide, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees and others, while being the perfect, atmospheric bed for Black’s sultry delivery. The album will also feature, its second and latest single, “Long Gone Gardens.”
Anchored around a forceful and commanding bass line and bursts of shimmering, reverb-soaked guitars and twinkling keys, “Lone Gone Gardens” seemingly nods at Siouxsie and the Banshees — for example, think of “Hong Kong Garden,” and “Happy House” — while channeling Black’s childhood bond with the natural world, amidst the fruits and flora grown by her grandmother. But the song also subtly evokes the Biblical garden of Eden: You can almost picture Adam and Eve at the tree of knowledge, and what happens right as they eat the fruit . . .
“The track is a reflection about a choice that seemingly lets you lose everything but puts you on a new path to find salvation again in another form,” the JOVM mainstay explains.
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JOVM mainstays The Afghan Whigs — currently Greg Dulli (vocals, guitar), John Curley (bass), Patrick Keeler (drums), multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson and the band’s newest member, Blind Melon’s Christopher Thorn (guitar) — released their ninth album, 2022’s How Do You Burn? to widespread critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Los Angeles Times, Spin, Stereogum, Billboard and others.
The acclaimed JOVM mainstays first bit of new material since How Do You Burn sees the band tackling two songs — Poliça‘s “Fake Like” and Still Corners “Downtown” — that seem tailor-made for the Whigs treatment. “Poliça’s “Fake Lake” strikes me as being a breezy synthesis of synth pop, Laurel Canyon and blue-eyed soul, featuring twinkling keys and a broodingly cinematic string arrangement serving as a lush bed for Channy Leaneagh’s yearning delivery. The Afghan Whigs pull out the blue-eyed soul-inspired element of the original and give it a swaggering and anthemic rock ballad vibe, while retaining the cinematic string section. The result is a song that emphasizes the smoldering lust and aching need at the heart of the song.
Now, as you may recall, the London-based duo Still Corners are among one of this site’s oldest mainstay acts. “Downtown,” which appears on 2016’s Dead Blue is an brooding and icy track, featuring shimmering, motiorik pulse and a gorgeous Greg Hughes Country/Western-meets-Johnny Marr styled guitar solo serving as a lush soundscape for Tessa Murray’s yearning vocal. The Afghan Whigs take turns the song into a brooding, piano-driven tune that’s a steady in tension and delayed release that would have fit perfectly on 2017’s In Spades.
“Both of these songs were born out of soundcheck jams. Each song holds a particular resonance for me and I really felt the lyrics, so they both flowed freely and felt good to sing,” the band’s Greg Dulli explains.
Both songs are available on all major DSP. And a limited 45 RPM single has been created and will be sold by Cincinnati’s Shake It Records.
