Tag: New Audio

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Julia Jacklin Teams Up with The Maes on Introspective “I Wish”

Acclaimed Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and musician Julia Jacklin will be releasing her highly-anticipated fourth album, the Robert Muiños and Jacklin co-produced, 10-song album  The Gem through 4AD Records digitally and on CD, cassette and vinyl on September 25, 2026. Exclusive color vinyl editions with retailers will include turquoise, green opal, ruby and rose quartz. Pre-order information can be found here.

When Jacklin first moved to Melbourne from Sydney back in 2017, she discovered a little bar on a back street in Collingwood, a suburb just outside of downtown, where bands pushed dining tables to the side and set up in a corner on the floor. She didn’t know anyone in town, but knew she wanted to make the city home, so she started hanging out there, facing herself out of her comfort zone. That pub was named The Gem. 

Eight years later, Jacklin had released three acclaimed albums, 2016’s Don’t Let The Kids Win, 2019’s Crushing and 2022’s PRE PLEASURE — and was looking to write and record her fourth. Her contract with her previous label had ended. She was searching for a manager. And with time on her hands, she decided that she would make her fourth album in Melbourne, something she’d never done before. 

She called up an old drinking buddy Robert Muiños, owner of Rat Shack Studios, which is just above The Gem and brought in her friends Jacob Diamond (guitar), Mimi Gilbert (bass) and Jess Elwood (drums). Recording happened in close quarter, in converted hotel room accommodation upstairs at the pub. Because The Gem was in a residential neighborhood, they couldn’t record late into the night for fear of bothering neighbors and sound bleed was a glorious constant: foot traffic to the hairdressers and lotto parlor next door and loud music from the bands and the kitchen staff downstairs. But if anyone needed a break during the sessions, they would head downstairs and watch a local band play. Jacklin and her friends even played two unannounced shows there to try out the album’s material before recording them. 

They originally thought they’d be able to finish the album in two weeks, like she’d always done previously, but this time that wasn’t the case. In fact, it took nearly a year of tinkering to arrive at something Jacklin could get behind, “The Gem felt like a metaphor for the whole process, because a lot of it did feel like digging. I felt like I was doing it almost in the dark, just trusting I was going to find something,” Jacklin says. While conjuring images of excavation, of reinvention, of trusting your instincts and surrounding yourself with the people and things that make life worthwhile, the album documents the songwriter’s journey back to herself. 

“I want to love and be loved, but I also want to be free. The tension between those two things has been the central question of my life,” says Jacklin. That theme underpins the album’s material. 

The album will include the previously released “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You)” and the album’s latest single, the album closer “I Wish” feat, Aussie folk sibling duo The Maes. Channeling Crosby, Stills, and Nash, “I Wish” features Jacklin’s gorgeous and expressive vocal and the Elsie and Maggie Rigby’s impeccable harmonies beneath strummed acoustic guitar. The song is an introspective and a bit melancholy note from one’s older, wiser self to their younger self, essentially saying “girl, if you knew then what you know now . . . ” There’s quite a bit of awe, forgiveness and love for the narrator’s younger self, full of the recognition of the things she experienced and survived made her into who she is now.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Valery Trails Shares Hard-Charging and Introspective “Fragment Hanging 2026”

Last year’s Winter Palace saw the Brisbane-based outfit The Valery Trails — currently Andrew Bower (vocals, guitar, keys), Sean Bower (bass), Dan McNaulty (drums, percussion), Screamfeeder’s Tim Steward (guitar) and Skye Staniford (vocals) — continuing their trademark jangle and crunch while exploring some diverse styles and genres, including synth pop-stylings, horn-driven retro flavors and some straightforward rock.

This year has been busy for the Aussie JOVM mainstays: The Valery Trails side project Soviet Dust released their self-titled debut EP earlier this year. And the band will follow up last year’s Winter Palace with the forthcoming Down on Buffalo Speedway EP. Down on Buffalo Speedway sees the Aussie quintet resisting, re-imagining and recording or remixing a selection of tunes from 2014’s Buffalo Speedway. “Buffalo Speedway was an early high-water mark for the band, with a number of songs becoming setlist staples,” The Valery Trails’ Andrew Bower says, “With the current extended lineup including Tim Steward and Skye Staniford, the songs have evolved over the years, so the idea to re-record some tracks with the current lineup and reflecting the band’s current live sound has been in the back of our minds for a while.”

“The new tracks benefited from having creative input from the current extended lineup of the band, and the freedom to experiment that came from working in my own studio,” Bower adds. “We were able to try things without being ‘on the clock.’ I don’t think the remixes would have happened if we were working in a traditional method of booking time in a studio.”

The EP will feature the previously released “Waiting 2026,” which wasn’t originally a single or a focus track on Buffalo Speedway but has been a fixture in the band’s setlist for some years, and “Fragment Hanging 2026.” The Down on Buffalo Speedway EP rendition of “Fragment Hanging” is a hard-charging mix of jangle pop, alt country and rock that channels Wilco, Flying Nun Records and the like, anchored by earnest, lived-in lyricism and loose, live-on-the-floor performances.

The song’s overarching themes are familiar, if you’ve lived a full, messy life — in particular, the sense of regret and shame over a relationship that failed and your part in it, and the lingering desire to have done more or to have done something different. But you live and learn through both heartbreak and disaster.

“This one is a deep cut from the Buffalo Speedway album, and one we’ve never played live,” Bower shares. “”The first verse is literally one of the most autobiographical things I’ve ever written. I’m not exactly sure how this led to the second verse introspective musings about how I messed up a relationship though… there’s something about the oppressive atmosphere of a Brisbane summer night that can prompt such melancholy trains of thought.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Doomed Shares Punchy, 80s-Inspired “Page 1”

The Doomed is a mysterious and emerging post-punk outfit, who released their self-titled debut EP today. The EP’s latest single “Page 1” is a hooky bit of punchy 80s-styled post-punk, anchored around shimmering and angular […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Brooklyn’s Marigny Shares Bruising “The Still”

Brooklyn-based post punk/heavy goth rock outfit Marigny blends coldwave textures, heavy analog distortion and dark atmospheres to craft material that’s simultaneously intimate and volatile. Their sound is intentionally analog and physical — loud, low end, corroded textures, cassette tape-like saturation and tension that feels more like a live room recording than a clean, polished digital mix. Thematically, the band’s work explores grief, obsession, addiction, masculinity and spiritual decay through a modern Afro-gothic lens.

The Brooklyn-based outfit’s debut single “The Still” is a bruising and gritty blend of post-punk, industrial, drakwave, New Wave and goth that showcases their ability to craft a punchy, hook-driven and rousingly anthemic song that’s rooted in raw, soulful emotion.

“My whole life has been defined by the feeling that I’m missing something,” says Marigny. “For nearly a decade, this prevented me from making music that I believed in. But I’ve finally found the language I’ve needed to put that pain into art. ‘The Still’ was the first step, and I’m very excited for the future of this project.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: BelaBela’s Posthumously Released “Virgin Mary” Marks Launch of Bella Angel Fund

Bella Isabella Catherine Jhun was a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, dancer, visual artist and aspiring producer, best known as the creative mastermind behind the shoegaze project BelaBela. Jhun’s work explored themes of vulnerability, spirituality, heartbreak and […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Late Again Shares Breezy and Ironic “Crazy and Stupid”

São Paulo-born, Brooklyn-based artist Rafael Melo has had a multi-hyphenate career spanning award-winning films, bestselling indie video games and his solo recording project Late Again. And with Late Again, Melo expands the boundaries of his music beyond sound, in an effort to tell his stories in whatever medium it requires.

Sonically, Late Again sits at the intersection of North American indie pop, Bossa nova references, a hint of dreamlike film soundscapes and 80s Japanese grooves. Since starting the project in 2024, Melo has received coverage from Billboard, JazzTimes, Galore, Grimy Goods, TrebleZine and a long list of others. He also collaborated with Brazilian jazz maestro Arthur Verocai and experimental visual artist Gabriel Rollim, a.k.a Rollinos.

Building upon a growing profile, the São Paulo-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s third EP, I Dreamt I Was Awake is slated for a September 4, 2026 release. The new EP reportedly showcases a newfound confidence as he double downs on his astutely observational writing style. Over the course of six, intricately structured tracks, the EP’s material thematically explores the gap between the life you imagine, the one you’re actually living, and the strange ways people learn to make peace with that distance. Self-aware, sometimes humorous and always subtly critical, the EP’s songs fluctuate between tenderness and irony, minimalism and chaos, and the hyper-personal and universal.

The EP was recorded at Brooklyn’s Studio G and São Paulo’s Evil Twin Studio and features contributions from Kimbra‘s and Duda Beat’s Thiago Dom (drums), Twin Brother’s and John Roseboro’s John Lisi (bass) and was engineered by Nelson Espinal and mixed by Melo’s long-time Brazilian collaborator Heal Mura.

I Dreamt I Was Awake’s first single “Crazy or Stupid” is a languid, summer daydream of a tune, anchored around the sort of breezy yet hook-driven, dream pop textures that channels JOVM mainstays MUNYA, Kainalu and Tame Impala. But juxtaposed against the dreamy feel good vibes of the song are lyrics that casually reference the anxieties and horrors of our contemporary hellscape — potential deportation by ICE/CBP, AI takeovers and the like — while posting out that it feels like everyone has lot their mind. The result is a song that’s unsettling yet disarmingly catchy, and a clear-eyed, ironic look at our absurd, brutal world.

“It’s ultimately a funny ballad that doesn’t take itself too seriously” shares Late Again.

The song is accompanied by a mind-bending. highly computerized visualizer by Gabriel Rollim, a.k.a Rollinos.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: London’s TheWhatIfMix Shares a Club Banger

TheWhatIfMix is a London-based electronic music artist, producer and mixing engineer, whose work is centered around one core question: What if you achieve your dreams? His sound sees him blend elements of deep house, tech house and atmospheric electronic textures in a way that’s designed to move both body and spirit. Thematically, each track features a much deeper — and much-needed — message of self-belief, transformation and reconnection with the self.

For the London-based artist, TheWhatIfMix as a project is anchored in the concept that music is much more than sound, that it can be a reminder, a release and a push forward.

“La Magia” reached number 1 on aBreakMusic. His recently released five-song EP Higher Self received airplay on FutureHits Radio. Thematically, the EP is a journey through self-awareness, transformation and the belief in infinite possibilities. And building upon a growing profile, the London-based artist’s latest single “WAKE UP” is a high energy, club rocking bit of techno that channels JOVM mainstay LutchamaK, complete with a mantra-like sample.

As TheWhatIfMix explains, “‘WAKE UP’ is about questioning what we are shown, seeing the system more clearly and taking that power back.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Liam Kix Shares Swaggering, Trip Hop-Influenced “Slowmo”

Liam Kix is a mysterious and emerging Israeli musician and artist, who over the course of his career has played in a number of different bands and projects. Kix stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with his full-length debut, 2024’s Heartology.

Over the past year, the Israeli artist has released a handful of singles, including his recent single, the swaggering “Slowmo” manages to channel Bristol trip hop — think Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, et. all — built with dusty boom-bap beats and scorching guitar paired with Kix’s breathy, yearning delivery.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: James Tonic Returns with Atmospheric and Yearning “Who’s Going Down”

James Tonic is a Montréal-born, New York-based dream pop artist, who over the course of seven albums firmly established a sound built on analog synths, live drums and unflinching lyrics. 2024’s Stuck in LA, an album inspired by the West Coast wound up being a breakthrough album for the Canadian-born artist: the album helped hi establish a fanbase, the old-fashioned way while selling out during the tour. 

Last year’s Safety, the first part of a planned dream pop trilogy was a nine-song effort that thematically touched on emotional survival. The second part of the trilogy, Safety II was released earlier this year, and featured a darker, more cinematic take on dream pop paired with sharper, edgier lyricism. Thematically, Safety II covers being wide open, fighting back quietly and spotting clear bits when everything seems hopelessly jumbled. 

Safety II includes “At The Time In New York,” and its latest single “Who’s Going Down.” “Who’s Going Down” is meditative, bit of dream pop that features Tonic’s yearning, achingly tender delivery against an atmospheric and shimmering soundscape that channels Cigarettes After Sex and Thank Your Lucky Stars and Depression Cherry-era Beach House. To me, the song evokes the last hour of party that you don’t want to have end or the waning hours of an amazing trip, full of the bittersweet recognition that you’ll have to return to normal life.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Smirk Shares Bruising, Rousingly Anthemic “Going Off To Die”

Growing up in Portland, OR in the early 2000s Smirk creative mastermind Nick Vicario was engrained in the scene that birthed acts like Poison Idea and Wipers. He started playing in bands at an early age and hob-knobbed with members of Tragedy and Criminal Damage in cover bands and even on the gridiron. When Vicario turned 12, his first band The Diskords were championed by Maximum Rocknroll, which lead to several releases and The Exploding Hearts taking them under their wing.

Playing in hardcore acts like Cower, eventually led him to indie pop act Wild Ones which released two albums over an eight year period, the latter which was released by Topshelf Records. After stints with Public Eye, Cemento, Crisis Man and a handful of others, as well as touring with Surfer Blood and Dreamdecacy, Vicario decided to focus on his solo project Smirk, releasing two albums, 2021’s S/T effort and 2022’s Material.

Vicario’s third Smirk album Speculative Fiction is slated for a July 3, 2026 release through Smoking Room. The album sees the Smirk mastermind restarting personally and musically. The album’s material sees Vicario eschewing the speed and thrash punk of his previously released work and taking a more measured, power pop approach. The result is decidedly more mid-tempo, channeling the likes of Big Star, The Paul Collins Beat, and Stiff’s earliest releases but filtered through the DIY spirit of Guided by Voices.

Thematically, the album sees life imitating art: Vicario slows thin down, retools and gets meticulous, making deliberate decisions with songwriting, creative and sonic approach and collaboration to execute a brand new vision. And fittingly, the album’s material may arguably be the most refined, focused approach to punk — with a pop sensibility. This newfound take on his sound and approach mirrors his lifestyle outside of the fast line and behind a white picket fence.

Written and entirely by Vicario, Speculative Fiction sees him calling upon some old friends to help flesh out the material’s overall sound for the recording sessions — Ceremony‘s Ross Farrarr, RIXE’s Max Smadja and Advertisement‘s Ryan Mangione-Smith. The album was primarily recorded in his home studio, although the Smirk creative mastermind recruited Ian Rose to record a few album tracks at Brooklyn’s The Daisy Chain Studios. Andy Oswald handled mixing for the bulk of the album. Live, Vicario is backed by members of Hotline TNT, Poison Ruin and Pardoner.

Speculative Fiction‘s latest single, “Going Off To Die” is a bruising, nihilistic sigh of defeat and surrender, that seemingly channels Social Distortion while showcasing Vicario’s knack for catchy, rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. Thematically touching upon an age-old theme for punk rock — unrest in the suburbs but with a twist, “Going Off To Die” features a narrator looking back on past indiscretions and their repercussions — but with an exhausted sigh that says “I give up. I might be cooked — for now.” And in that embittering acceptance, there’s a sense of freedom — and a newfound way of moving forward.

“‘Going Off to Die’ is about leaving Los Angeles in a sort of quiet defeat,” says Vicario. “It comes from a place of shame and deals with reckoning with who I was and accepting that leaving was the only way forward.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Uh Huh Her Shares Sultry “Shook”

Acclaimed and influential duo Uh Huh Her — Camilla Grey and Leisha Hailey — were once brought together by a sense of divine providence. Now, more than two decades later, the duo that would help define the indie sleaze era and inspire the likes of Metric, Dum Dum Girls and Magic Wands have returned to beckon a brand new generation of folks to the dance floor with the re-release of their beloved 2011 effort, Nocturnes.

The reissue, Nocturnes:Redux is slated for an August 7, 2026 release through Kill Rock Stars across DSPs and as a limited edition goth confetti vinyl. The reissue features never-before-heard original mixes by acclaimed super producer Tchad Blake, along with two previously unreleased songs — a cover of Sonic Youth‘s classic song “Kool Thing” and a new track “Shook.”

Just like how they came together back in the summer of 2006 through common friends and interests, the duo’s reconnection blossomed serendipitously and quickly. “It feels like it did when we first got together,” says Uh Huh Her’s Leisha Haliey, a songwriter, actor and author, who may now be best known for her starting role on Showtime’s The L Word and its follow-up Generation Q and her 2025 New York Times bestselling memoir, So Gay For You: Friendship, Found Family and the Show That Started It All. “We’re just creative again together, and it’s an interesting place to come back to. And it’s almost like no time has passed, and all of the pressure’s off.”

The original release of Nocturnes was the band’s first independent release. “It meant the world that our fans directly supported the mixing of the album through online eBay auctions of memorabilia, vinyl, art, and even a couple private dinners, because that enabled us to enlist the powers of the incredible Tchad Blake,” Uh Huh Her’s Camilla Grey says. As they contemplated rereleasing Nocturnes with Kill Rock Stars, Grey started digging around to find the album’s original mixes. “I chose Tchad’s first and second mix attempts because I wanted to preserve his first instincts before we gave him a million notes,” she says. This is truly how he heard it on one or two tries. The songs are longer, they’re more rocked out, they’re a little more raucous.” The entirety of those original mixes have never seen the light of day until now.

“Shook,” Nocturnes: Redux‘s first single, and the re-issues only new, original single is a sultry tune that feels and sounds effortlessly crafted yet earnest, deeply universal yet intimate and personal with the song subtly capturing the slow-burn dread and unease of our weird moment. Camila Grey explains that the song is “particularly relevant in a time where everything and everyone feels so unstable. We are living through a profound assault on our central nervous systems by the barrage of media we ingest on a daily basis. While ‘Shook’ is more about a personal situation, the title speaks volumes about what we feel as humans on a daily basis.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jaco Jaco Shares Meditative “Over When It’s Over”

Tulsa-born, Philadelphia-based musician and visual artist Jacob Theriot is a lifelong singer/songwriter and musician, who first picked up bass when he was 12. His musical career began in earnest when he began writing and recording music in grade school with his brother and childhood friend. Those early efforts led to the acclaimed indie project Sports. 

After three albums and several international tours with Sports, Theirot relocated to Philadelphia, where began to explore and refine a sound that blends elements of funk, psych pop and 70s AM rock over a period of a handful of years. Those explorations led to Theirot’s solo recording project Jaco Jaco.

The Tulsa-born, Philadelphia-based artist has released two Jaco Jaco albums, 2024’s debut Splat and last year’s Gremlin, which included three singles I wrote about, the Thundercat and 70s jazz fusion/jazz funk-like “Favorite Kind of People,” the Quiet Storm R&B-meets-Steely Dan-like “Woman” and the Tame Impala meets Bobby Oroza-like “I Won’t Bother.”

Building upon a growing profile, the Philadelphia-based JOVM mainstay’s highly anticipated third album, On the Levee is slated for a July 10, 2026 release. The album will include the previously released “Wager,” and its final single, “Over When It’s Over,” “Over Is When It’s Over” is a melancholy, slow-burning tune that — to my ears, at least — sounds like a blend of Tame Impala, 70s AM rock. But at its core, the song is meditation on accepting constant change, with a bit of a sigh.

“The song is about watching the world fly on by, but finding yourself strangely at peace with it,” Theriot says.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Forest Shares Anthemic “Anchor”

Rising Los Angeles-based artist Forest will be releasing her highly-anticipated full-length debut, Swan Dive through AWAL on September 25, 2026. Swan Dive is reportedly the Los Angeles-based artist’s most fully realized work to date, expanding upon the alt-rock foundation of her earliest releases into something much larger sonically and more fluid. The ten-song album features walls of distorted guitars paired with electronic textures, industrial undercurrents and moments of startling pop clarity. The result is an effort that’s intimate yet overwhelming and sees the rising artist showcasing her capability to shift from whispered confession to emotional free-fall — within the turn of a phrase.

The rising artist’s full-length debut will include the previously released “Prosthetic Stars,” “Whore and Savior,” “Lay With Me” and the album’s latest single, “Anchor.” Featuring fuzzy and chugging power chords paired with thunderous drumming and Forest’s emo and pop-influenced vocal within a classic grunge structure, “Anchor” showcases an artist who can pair earnest, lived-in lyricism with rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses with a seemingly effortless bombast.

“‘Anchor’ delves into the idea of becoming wrapped up in something you can’t get out of,” Forest explains. “It was written in my childhood bedroom on a trip to Chicago, at a time when I had felt the past wrap its arms around me. The thought of being stuck and tied to the past was the driving thought throughout this track.”

Forest has developed a reputation for unforgettable performances, sharing stages with Starcrawler, Chokecherry, Empty Shell Casing and a long list of others. She kicked off the year, playing the sold-out emo revival festival Burndown in Santa Ana, CA. During the spring, she went on an extensive North American tour with Clarion. The rising artist will be embarking on a West Coast tour opening for ivri. Check out the tour dates below.