Tag: New Single

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Avalanches Team Up with Karen O on Dreamy and Forlorn “Blue Shadows”

The Avalanches — Robbie Chater, Tony Di Blasio and Andy Szekeres — are arguably one of the most influential and original acts in the contemporary scene: Their debut album, 2000’s acclaimed Since I Left You laid the groundwork for collaborative sampology in this century.

Since then, the trio have released two more acclaimed albums, 2016’s Wildflowers and 2020’s We Will Always Love You. With over 1 million albums sold and 700 million streams across DSPs, a series of coveted collectibles and legions of fans across the globe, the acclaimed act has firmly cemented their place in popular culture.

Back in 2024, The Avalanches collaborated with Jamie xx on “All You Children,” which appeared on his 2024 effort, In Waves.

The trio recently performed at this year’s Primavera Sound Barcelona and announced a run of London headlining shows as part of Pitchfork Music Fest in November. They’ll be making a run of the international festival circuit with DJ sets at Ireland’s All Together Now, France’s Freakquenices (alongside The Dare), Italy’s Poplar and C2C and Belgium’s Les Nuits Weekender — with more dates to be announced soon. Click here for tickets and more information.

Currently based in Los Angeles, Karen O is a Seoul-born, New Jersey-raised singer/songwriter and iconic front woman of the eight-time Grammy Award-nominated Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a focus on film, she has been instrumental in redefining the possibility of rock performance over the past two decades, influencing a new generation of female artists, including Olivia Rodrigo, Japanese Breakfast, The Linda Lindas and a growing list of others.

With the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Seoul-born, Los Angeles-based artist has released five acclaimed albums, including 2022’s Grammy Award-nominated Cool It Down, the band’s first album after a nine-year recording hiatus.

Outside of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Karen O has built an adventurous multidisciplinary career spanning music, film, visual art and performance: Her solo debut, 2014’s Crush Songs was released to critical acclaim. She wrote and performed music for Spike Jonze’s 2009 film, Where the Wild Things Are and she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original song for “The Moon Song” from Jonze’s 2013 film Her. Her experimental rock opera Stop the Virgens premiered at St. Ann’s Warehouse before touring internationally.

As a solo artist, Karen O has collaborated with an eclectic array of equally acclaimed artists including David Lynch, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and fashion house KENZO. 2019’s collaborative album with Danger Mouse, Lux Prima was released to widespread critical acclaim with album single “Woman” earning a Grammy Award nomination. The album also inspired the immersive multimedia installation An Encounter with Lux Prima, which premiered at Los Angeles’ Marciano Art Foundation.

Karen O and The Avalanches recently teamed up for “Blue Shadows,” the second collaboration between the two artists since “Dial D for Devotion,” which appeared on 2020’s We Will Always Love You. “Blue Shadows” is also the third single of the year from the trio, following “Every Single Weekend” feat. Jamie xx and “Together” feat. Nikki Nair, Jessy Lanza and Prentiss. With “Blue Shadows” Karen O’s achingly forlorn vocal languidly drifts atop twinkling synths, a chugging bass line, shuffling hi-hats and a dreamy vocal sample. The result is a bittersweet, fever dream of heartache, mistakes, lost chances and what-could-have-beens from the perspective of someone who has lived a messy, complicated

“’Blue Shadows’ was an idea of Andy’s that was almost lost to time until Tony stumbled across it in an old folder and began championing it as a potential album song,” says the trio’s Robbie Chater. “It’s since become one of my favourite Avalanches tunes. Many moons later and thanks to the kindness of Claudio Casalini and the estate of Celso Valli, it looked like Tony’s dream for ‘Blue Shadows’ might come true. 

“I included it in a selection of song ideas for Karen, we wanted her to hear it although I never imagined a vocal would be possible; the demo had such a peculiar, singular mood. What she recorded still amazes me after months of listening, it’s so achingly forlorn and somehow sounds as if it always existed as a song. I don’t know how that is possible, or what she was channelling, some people just have access to a higher plane I suppose!”

Karen O adds, “When Robbie sent me ‘Blue Shadows,’ I jumped at the chance to collaborate. The Avalanches last record We Will Always Love You was a gift to humanity in 2020 and I’ll count it as one of my Top 10 forever. The Avalanches frequency is high, I’m so happy to be asked to slide into it.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Gotts Street Park and Celeste Team Up on Soulful Lament “Easy”

Acclaimed Leeds-based trio Gotts Street Park— Josh Crocker (bass, production), Tom Henry (keys) and Joe Harris (guitar) —acclaimed full-length debut, 2023’s On The Inside included “Got To Be Good” feat. Pip Millettt, “Fuego,” “Mountains” feat. ENNY and “Tell Me Why” feat. Olive Jones. And in the subsequent years since its release, the album has amassed over 300 million streams across all DPS with “Got To Be Good” landing in Season Three of BBC’s hit series Boarders and this year’s Finding Emily starring Spike Fearn and Minnie Driver.

Their sophomore album Somewhere Between is slated for an October 16, 2026 release through Play It Again Sam. Somewhere Between is reportedly a departure from the soul, jazz and hip-hop influenced sound of their previously released work, with the album drawing inspiration from Bill Orcutt, Dylan Day, Dick Gaughan, Jessica Pratt, Big Thief and Blaze Foley, as well as the working methods of the house bands at Stax Records and Sun Records. The result is an album that combines the collective’s signature production prowess with an even greater warmth than before, as they also draw on the spirit of the 1970s troubadour singer/songwriter movement with a cast of long-time collaborators that include Celeste, Olive Jones, Pip Millett, Matt Maltese, Sofia and The Antoinettes, anaiis and Rosie Lowe.

In an era increasingly defined by automation and AI, Somewhere Between is threaded throughout with a quiet faith as music as an inherently human act — one shared by intimation, openness and the intangible chemistry of people in a room creating together. “The title only arrived once the album was finished, and it means something slightly different to each of us,” the members of the acclaimed Leeds-based band explain. “For me, it reflects the space that collaboration creates, a place where our individual lives, moods and experiences overlap for a while to make something together. We’re all arriving from different places, but in the studio those separate worlds meet. There’s something about making music that feels like stepping into a space between the tangible and the intangible, where ideas seem to come from somewhere beyond ourselves. In many ways, that’s what this album represents: meeting somewhere between who we are individually and what we can create together.”

The album will include the previously released, acclaimed track “Some Birds Don’t Fly” feat Matt Maltese, and the album’s latest single “Easy” feat. Celeste. The Brit Award and Academy Award-nominated artist Celeste’s achingly soulful and jazzy, AmyWinehouse-meets-classic soul-like delivery strutting over a shimmering, bass-driven Daptone-like arrangement with subtle hip-hop influences.

Thematically, “Easy” examines the push and pull of a romantic relationship that’s way too complicated than what it needs to be. And as a result, the song is centered on the narrator’s bittersweet and lament-fueled realization that it’s time to move on — with the hope that she’ll find the love she deserves.

“‘Easy’ came from one of our very first sessions with Celeste around eight years ago,’ Gotts Street Park explains. “There’s a rawness and spontaneity to it that captures those early days of working together. Nothing felt overthought or overworked, which gave Celeste the space to completely own the song through her performance. We’ve held onto it for a long time, so it’s exciting to finally have the opportunity to share it.” 

The band have begun to support the forthcoming album with their Somewhere Here World Tour, which bean with a set at this year’s Montréal Jazz Festival. The tour includes an appearance at the inaugural London edition of The Roots Picnic and at this year’s Newport Jazz Festival, as well as a July 30, 2026 stop at Le Poisson Rouge. Check out the North American leg dates below.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Hayley Law Shares Self-Assured, Hook-Driven “Circle Back”

Hayley Law is a Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based actor, singer/songwriter and producer, who initially wrote, produced and recorded under the moniker Hayleau. She has since retired the moniker and project, saying “Hayleau was a version of me that I really love. Softer, shyer, and still trying to figure herself out through everyone else’s voices. I think that name became a little too shaped by perception, expectation, and who people thought i should be. Coming back to Hayley Law felt like reclaiming myself and deciding I don’t want anyone else molding who I am anymore.”

Performing under her own name, the Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based artist has crafted a sound and approach that sees her blending pop, R&B and pop rock with diaristic storytelling. Her work lives between vulnerability and control in a way that’s intimate, nostalgic and quietly disarming, pulling listeners into moments that feel as impulsive as they are intentional.

As a completely independent artist, Law has built her career on her own times while amassing over four million streams across the DSPs through purely organic growth and without chasing trends or traditional industry pathways.

Alongside her music career, Law has played roles in globally distributed Netflix projects and studio films, including Riverdale, Altered Carbon and more. She’s set to star in Jackie! Zhou’s FLYOVER.

Building upon a growing profile, the rising artist’s highly-anticipated Law, Jesse Boykins III and Melo-X co-produced Last Summer is slated for an August 14, 2026 release. The album sonically is a blend of sensual alternative R&B-influenced diaristic songwriting and early 2000s pop punk, creating an album of material that’s intimate, emotionally unguarded yet cinematic. Across the album’s run-time, Law effortlessly moves between softness and control, exploring desire, performance, heartbreak, ego, femininity and the versions of ourselves we create to be loved. But the star of the show is Law and her voice: vulnerable without being self-pitying, confident without false armor and deeply self-aware of the contradiction of wanting intimacy while trying to remain in control.

The album will include the previously released album title and opening track “Last Summer” and the album’s second and latest single “Circle Back.” Subtly channeling hook-driven, late 1990s and early 000s R&B — think Brandy, Monica and the like — “Circle Back” is built around an atmospheric production twinkling keys, a soaring string sample, skittering beats and glitchy, DJ scratches beneath Law’s self-assured, self-aware delivery. The song’s narrator spends the song’s runtime recognizing that this love interest is probably just a fling — and that fling needs to back off a bit and just enjoy things for what they are.

“Have you ever had a fling that just moves sooo fast? By the time you come up for air, you realize you’ve spent 3 days with the person and aren’t even sure you see it going anywhere,” the Canadian-born artist explains. “That is ‘Circle Back.’ I wear my heart on my sleeve and fall quickly and this song is my reminder to check in with yourself. Not every fling turns into a relationship. And having two/three weeks of something HOT is awesome.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOHN DORIAN Shares Shimmering “LOVE I REMEMBER”

New Audio: JOHN DORIAN Shares Shimmering “LOVE I REMEMBER”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: belac Shares a Sultry, Club Friendly Banger

belac is a rising, Perth-born and-based producer, who is a product of the Internet Generation: After discovering a Martin Garrix breakdown of his hit song “Animals” when the Aussie producer was 11, he has spent the past decade consuming — and sometimes forming — internet tends and turning them into club bangers. Before music, he was one of the best beach sprinters in Western Australia and a qualified physicist. But as he explains, he went all-in on music, when he heard his own music being blasted by the electronic music club while walking around his university’s open day.

Since then, he has signed with [PIAS] Électronique, who has released recent singles “need it, breathe it” and “be with me 2009,” which manage to be simultaneously nostalgia-inducing and fresh, while giving younger fans a cache to experience an era of EDM that they might not have originally been around for. And interestingly, gamers have claimed that his work is the perfect soundtrack for massive gaming sessions.

Now while there’s a cheekiness to his music and his online presence, the Perth-born and-based producer has an unerring knack for understanding what delights dance music fans and brings them to the dance floor. And as a result, he’s become one of Australia’s most recognized, rising electronic producers, specializing in club friendly bangers with elements of 2010s EDM, Memphis trap, jazz and more.

The Aussie producer’s latest single “late night visions” is a subtly brooding and atmospheric take on tech house with a sultry vocal sample that reminds me of French JOVM mainstay LutchamaK and a lengthy list of others, while showcasing a producer who can craft a euphoric, remarkably catchy hook.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Twin Temple Shares Swooning and Lush “Doomed Lovers”

Formed back in 2017, Twin Temple — married couple Alexandra and Zachary James — are an acclaimed Los Angeles-based duo, who specialize in a new sub-genre and style that they’ve dubbed “Satanic Doo Wop,” which blends their practice of Satanism with a sound that’s influenced by The Platters, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly and the like.

The Los Angeles-based duo have developed for being one of the contemporary scene’s most talked about crossover acts, earning widespread coverage from media outlets like Rolling Stone, NME, Billboard, American Songwriter, Stereogum, Consequence, Revolver, Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Loudwire, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times and a long list of others, and for being one of the most provocative acts out there right now. Their uncompromising artistic vision routinely sparks much larger and more serious conversations about artistic freedom, religious freedom, freedom of expression, censorship, the role of controversy in art, and on a broader sense, the wider role art plays within the cultural landscape.

Some of y’all, will know of the duo after Charley Crockett abruptly dropped the band from his shows this past week — specifically for their usage of Satanic imagery. This lead to Jack White publicly inviting the band to open for him in Hollywood in September. Serendipitously, the duo’s third album, Doomed Lovers is coming red hot off the heels of their latest controversy.

Slated for an October 9, 2026 release through their own Pentagrammation Records, the Shooter Jennings-produced Doomed Lovers was recorded at Hollywood-based Sunset Sound‘s iconic Studio 3 and marks the acclaimed duo’s boldest chapter to date. The album continues the band’s commitment to analog recording while expanding upon their sound with lush orchestral arrangements performed by a 37-member orchestra. Yes, 37!

Born from one of the darkest periods of their personal lives, Doomed Lovers is reportedly their most intimate and emotionally revealing work to date. Expanding upon the cinematic scope of the sound that has won them acclaim while remaining rooted in the timeless sound and traditions of early rock ‘n’ roll, the album is their most ambitious and fully realized artistic statement so far.

“We poured everything into this new record that we made with Shooter,” says the acclaimed and controversial duo. “We wanted to push ourselves creatively and expand the production further than we have before, drawing inspiration from the lush orchestral productions of Roy Orbison, The Ronettes, and The Shangri-Las, and added in some Countrypolitan flair. We brought in some incredible musicians like Matt Chamberlain and Jay Bellerose, and a 37-piece orchestra. We wanted to make something as beautiful as we possibly could – of course with our dark spin on things.”

The truth is, this album was made during one of the darkest periods of our lives. We had been struggling with grief, health issues, addiction, and depression. But day by day, going into Sunset Sound, making music with incredible people who believed in us, and being surrounded by that creativity slowly brought us back to life. We started smiling and laughing again. I was becoming alive again. It connected us to why we fell in love with music in the first place and became our most personal album yet.”

Doomed Lovers‘ latest single, album title track “Doomed Lovers” features a lush, breathtakingly gorgeous, sculpted wall of sound-like production and arrangement beneath Alexandra James’ remarkably Patsy Cline-like croon singing confessional lyrics desiring an a consuming, all or nothing love along the lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and other Romantic-era literature.

The first time I heard the song, the first three or four thoughts that entered my mind were “holy shit, that’s fucking gorgeous!,” followed by “this sounds like it could have been a B-side to Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” and “Back in Baby’s Arms” or Roy Orbison’s “Only The Lonely” and “Crying,” followed by “I’d pay to hear Alexandra James read entries in the phone book.”

“This is the philosophical centerpiece of the album – a theatrical and confessional take on all or nothing love, the dark side of devotion and centuries old mythic literary Romantic themes,” the acclaimed duo explain. “It longs for a love so enduring and eternal that it ultimately consumes, obliterates, and drives one to madness and death. At its core, it asks the question – ‘What happens when your lover dies?’”

But what makes the song unique is that it rejects the conventional and culturally accepted answer… ‘I know I should tell you to find someone new,’ in favor of raw, unfiltered and selfish desire, things that would be shameful to speak in mundane reality.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Ghost Funk Orchestra Shares Sultry and Cinematic “Ocotillo”

JOVM mainstay outfit Ghost Funk Orchestra originally started as a one-man recording project, helmed by its creative mastermind, composer and multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum. Since then, the project has evolved into a full-fledged 10 member, powerhouse band that fleshes out Applebaum’s vision — a sonic kaleidoscope that defies genre specifications, but draws deeply from soul, psych rock, psych soul and more.

“Ocotillo” is Ghost Funk Orchestra’s first bit of new, original since the release of 2024’s A Trip to the Moon. Opening with shimmering and strutting Rhodes, “Ocotillo” continues an incredible run of mind-bending yet cinematic soul with the song evoking sultry and stifling heat, dusty blacktop in front of you and in the rearview, rest stops, highway signs, trees and small towns flash by in a blur of dizzying sameness before finally getting a reprieve — through rain or higher altitude or the like.

“The ocotillo is an imposing figure, tall and reminiscent of a torch. I dedicated this song to the desert dwelling plant after a particularly challenging tour that took our band through the southwest,” Ghost Funk Orchestra’s Seth Applebaum explains. “After days of unbearable heat and humidity, reaching New Mexico surprisingly gave us some reprieve. After landing at the venue in Silver City, I took a walk to clear my head and observe the scenery as the mountain climate provided a more manageable atmosphere to exist and reflect in.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sweeping Promises Returns with Punchy and Defiant “Accent”

Lawrence, KS-based duo and JOVM mainstays Sweeping Promises — Lira Mondal (vocals, bass, production) and Caufield Schnug (guitar, drums, production) — will be releasing their highly anticipated third album, You Say I Romanticize August 14, 2026 through Sub Pop.

Recorded over an 18-month period, You Say I Romanticize is a tribute to the chaos of creation and collaboration under shifting circumstances. Mondal and Schung found and tested themselves in their combination tour house and recording studio annually working on dozens of albums by other bands, hosting tour stops, planning shows and the like. After an immerseive process of traking adn whittling down YSIR demos and carving out an idiosyncratic chamber recording method for the album’s deliberate and international wall-of-sound appraoch, the duo brought in touring drummer Spenser Gralla to play the album’s matreial as the band would on stage. 

The album’s frenzied and passionate sound shines most in Modal’s vocal perforamnce. Where you might have heard a growl here and there on certain previously released Sweeping Promises trcks, the band’s frontwoman shouts, roars, hits tricky notes all over the place and shreds her throat throughout the album’s run time.

YSIR takes the art-by-any-means-necessary ethos that Mondal and Schung have firmly established throughout their careers and turns the prompt upside down, landing on a personality epidemic that manifests across the album’s ten songs.

The JOVM mainstays’ third album will include the previously released “Cocoon,” and its third and latest single “Accent.” Built around an angular and propulsive bass line, rapid-fire four-on-the-floor and slashing guitar attack beneath Mondal’s croon expressing seething frustration, “Accent” is a punchy and defiant tune that to my ears channels a blend of Blondie’s “One Way or Another” and Joy Division while attacking a deeply familiar sentiment for anyone who’s been a dutiful worker bee.

The band describes “Accent” as a “cacophony of routine, the plight of a lowly drone who dreams of breaking out of an instinct-born & increasingly restrictive flight path. It’s got a flapping, insectoid rhythm, which is misery to play. We call it ‘cicadence.’ It’s a succession of bee-sting realizations from an individual dangerously at risk of becoming feral, independent, an outsider.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Nouveau Vague and Flavia Coelho Tackle Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again”

Founded by Marc Collins and the late Olivier Libaux back in 2003, Nouveau Vague was initially conceived as a one-off tribute to post-punk songwriting in a Bossa nova style. 2004’s self-titled debut, which saw them establish their unique fusion of melancholy post-punk, Bossa nova and French re-interpretational approach, unexpectedly achieved global acclaim. Since then, Nouveau Vague has become a global phenomenon.

Their 10th album, A Date with Depeche Mode is slated for an October 30, 2026 release through Kwaidan Records/[PIAS] Recordings. And as you can probably tell, the album sees the French outfit tackling the work of pioneering British electronic outfit Depeche Mode. The album’s second single, “Never Let Me Down Again” feat. Brazilian artist Flavia Coehlo was according to the a conscious risk, because her voice manages to carry the full light of Rio. The original version is a brooding and hypnotic tune built on an intertwined promise and threat.

Coehlo and Nouveau Vague manage to craft a bold and unique interpretation of a beloved song that doesn’t betray the spirit and intention of the original. The summer breeze and sunshine of Nouveau Vague’s rendition is superficial; the song is underpinned by a tense, brooding unease. Goths at the beach, perhaps?

Seriously though, Nouveau Vague’s work points out the melancholy of English New Wave and Brazilian Bossa Nova are practically two sides of the same coin.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sam Palladio Shares Sexy and Hypnotic “Burberry Jacket”

Sam Palladio is a Pembury, Kent, UK-born singer/songwriter and actor, who’s best known for his breakout fan favorite role as Gunnar Scott on ABC’s Nashville during the show’s six-season run. Since then, Palladio has carved out a musical identity that has seen him blend indie pop, Americana and folk influences.

Palladio’s full-length debut, 2024’s The Perfect Summer’s Day, Before We Lost the Light was created alongside New Politics‘ Søren Hansen and multi-Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Sardy. He followed that up with a couple of acclaimed singles, including “Tennessee,” which featured Foo Fighters‘ Chris Shiftett. The British-born singer/songwriter and actor has balanced his music career with roles in Netflix’s The Princess Switch trilogy, AMC’s Humans, Showtime’s Episodes, ABC’s Rebel, the Bob Marley biopic One Love, and the thriller series The Couple Next Door.

Last month, Palladio released “Glitter” to praise from The Tennessean and BBC Radio London. Building upon a growing profile as a solo artist, the British-born singer/songwriter recently released Sam Palladio, Phil Barnes and Kendall Goodman co-written “Burberry Jacket.” “Burberry Jacket” is a hook-driven bit of New Wave-inspired pop that features Palladio’s croon beneath strutting and shimmering guitar paired with a pulsing bass line. Set against the backdrop of London‘s Fleet Street, “Burberry Jacket” makes subtle nods to Sweeney Todd while painting a portrait of mesmerizing and cinematic femme fatale-type, who’s impossible to escape.

“I wanted the song to feel as hypnotic as its main character, with the pulsing bass and rhythm of the drums providing the backbone to build this sonic world,” shares Palladio. “The Dire Straits-inspired riff in the bridge, played by the amazing Joey McClennan, pushes that feeling even further, and I love it.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Everything But The Everything Shares Yearning “Hollow Heart”

Bay Area-based indie rock outfit Everything But The Everything originally started off as a collaborative recording project founded by producer, songwriter and bassist Izzy The Gent, recently expanded into a full-fledged band with the additions of Sophia Prise (vocals), Tobias Hawkins (vocals), Andy Lund (guitar), Ian Dowed (guitar) and Cody Rhodes (drums).

While previous releases features a rotating cast of collaborators, the project’s latest singlem the Rex Shelverton-produced “Hollow Heart” marks a new chapter — a recording project becoming a full-fledged band. Sophia Price and Tobias Hawkins trade achingly yearning vocals beneath a driving bass line, dramatic drumming, and shimmering post punk-meets-New Wave atmospherics. Channeling Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen and the like, “Hollow Heart” features a towering wall of sound-like approach that showcases the simpatico between the members of the lineup.

And at its core, “Hollow Heart” is rooted in earnest performances and even more earnest songwriting. “This feels like the natural evolution of Everything But The Everything,” says Izzy The Gent. “What started as a collaborative project has grown into a real band with a shared creative vision. Sophia and Tobias bring so much personality and emotion to the music, and this song reflects what happens when everyone contributes their voice to the process.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Deep Sea Diver Tackles Massive Attack’s “Teardrop”

Seattle-based JOVM mainstays Deep Sea Diver fourth album, last year’s Billboard Heart, which featured “Shovel,” “Let Me Go” feat. Madison Cunningham and “What Do I Know” was released to critical applause internationally. The JOVM mainstays […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: New Age Healers Share Atmospheric, Politically Charged “Moored”

Seattle-based psych rockers/shoegazers New Age Healers will be releasing their fifth album, Blowing Smoke Through the Choir is slated for an August 19, 2026 release. The album is a reportedly an expansive evolution of the shoegaze-psych hybrid they developed and sharpened on 2024’s The Spin Out that sees the band pushing their sound further sonically and structurally while brining new collaborators into their dense, dreamlike orbit, including Film School’s Greg Bertens and Karate Guns & Training‘s Valerie Green.

For the first time in their history, the new album sees frontman Owen Murphy sharing songwriting duties with guitarist Jeramy Koepping, whose ideas form the backbone of four tracks. The addition of vocalist Elisa Notthingham helps to deepen their already immersive sound while threading new textures through their signature swell of ethereal guitars, luminous synth work and muscular rhythm section. “It was amazing to have someone present ideas and get to sing over them,” Murphy says of co-writing with Koepping. 

While the music opens up, the lyric remain characteristically oblique. “These are political songs hidden within love songs,” Murphy explains. “There’s no possible way someone like me can make a record right now and not, in some way, shape, or form have what’s happening in the world affect it thematically.”

The album also marks the band’s first collaboration with producer and mixer John Goodmason, “It was really interesting working with John, because besides being an outrageously great guy and extraordinarily talented, his resume blasts out of the pages,”says Murphy. “He’s the guy that mixed or recorded the likes of Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Blonde Redhead, and he’s worked with a local band here called Suzzallo that is incredible. So I was just so grateful that we got to work with him, hear his ideas, and have the opportunity to trust him to help us make something great.”

Thematically, Blowing Smoke Through the Choir is about emotional accumulation — how personal and collective anxieties bleeding into one another. Murphy credits his work producing KEXP’s The Morning Show with John Richards as a major influence on the album. “It’s a different kind of radio show in which John, through music, is communicating emotions of all types, and the audience responds to us, often calling to share birthdays or to tell us of loved one’s passing,” Murphy explains. “It’s incredibly powerful. We’ve been doing this five days a week amidst the last ten years of pure chaos, and all of that experience, probably more than anything, is infused into this record.”

Blowing Smoke Through the Choir‘s latest single “Moored” is a shimmering and slow-burning shoegaze track featuring Murphy’s urgent yet melodic croon beneath skittering drums, swirling and atmospheric guitars. shimmering synths and a supple bass line. Seemingly channeling a blend of Luminous-era The Horrors, A Storm in Heaven-era The Verve and others, “Moored” is ethereal yet grounded, suggesting that we remain tethered to something — whether it’s hope, faith or something less easily named and more difficult to describe.

Murphy explains that the central characters of the song are a bit of a reflection of the voting public, and how over the past decade or so, everyone just wants to throw Molotov cocktails into the system, not caring about the results and without any thought towards the future, ““Like the couple in the song, they’re just along for the ride. And so, the next part of the lyric says, “Leave them out in the sun like you want to burn them,” just let everything burn. And we’ll see what happens, for better or worse.”

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.