Tag: Single Review

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Cozy Shares A Catchy and Summery Bop

Cozy is an emerging American-born, world pop artist, whose desire is to make the listener listen to him and view him as a spaceman/explorer type, who goes deep into the unknown and returns with deep truths.

His latest single “Glory” is the second single off his debut EP, Little Star. “Glory” is a summery, lounge and club friendly, Afrobeats-tinged bop featuring bursts of glistening synth arpeggios, skittering trap-inspired triplets paired with remarkably catchy hooks serving as a lush bed for Cozy’s yearning patois.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: ASAMAASAMA Shares Woozy and Fierce “123”

Mount Asama, Japan-based alt-rock/art rock duo ASAMASAMA features two acclaimed Japanese artists — singer/songwriter Rie Fu and producer Hikaru Ishizaki. After stints with anime theme songs and J-pop production, the pair have decided to break the mold and create a rebellious, hybrid sound that crosses musical and geographical boundaries while blending sharp wit, bold satire and a twisted love for Japanese culture.

The Japanese duo’s latest single “123” is a fiercely feminist anthem that features glitchy electronics, boom bap-like beats and bursts of slashing power chord-driven guitars serving as a woozy bed for Fiu’s unhinged delivery, which sees her alternating between spoken word/sing-songy passes and bratty, J-pop-meets-Fever to Tell-era Karen O-like crooning. Interestingly, “123” showcases the duo’s ability to craft a mischievous, forward-thinking sound and approach anchored around remarkably catchy hooks.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Glasgow’s Akkiles82 Shares Cinematic “Streets of Neo-Yokohama”

Nick Thomson is a Glasgow-based electronic music producer and the creative mastermind of the solo recording project Akkiles82. Akkiles82 sees Thompson creating a sound that draws from cyberpunk, retrowave, and his history both playing bands and as an electronic music/dance music producer.

The Scottish-based producer’s Akkiles82 full-length debut, CybernNation will be released in two parts over the course of the next year. The album reportedly will tell a story of desperate survival, after an unknown cataclysm causes destruction in a futuristic cyberpunk-like city. The album’s track range from classic synthwave and EDM through breakbeat — with health doses of 80s cartoon and TV themes influences.

CyberNation‘s second and latest single “Streets of Neo-Yokohama,” is a slickly produced cinematic track that recalls a synthesis of Fragile-era Nine Inch Nails, John Carpenter soundtracks and 80s TV themes, anchored around dense layers of glistening, arpeggiated synths and tweeter and woofer rattling thump. A new Knight Rider, Transformers or Voltron theme perhaps?

“This track was inspired by the towering skyscrapers and street racing scenes of Tokyo and Yokohama, painting a picture of neon and rain soaked streets,” Thompson says.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Slumbering Sun Shares Bruising Dirge “The Tower”

Formed back in 2022, Austin-based outfit Slumbering Sun — Monte Luna‘s James Clarke (vocals), Destroyer of Light‘s Keegan Kjeldsen (guitar) and Kelly “Penny” Turner, Temptress‘ Kelsey Wilson, and Monte Luna’s and Scorpion Child’s Garth Condit (bass) — is a Texas underground metal scene All-Star outfit that specializes in “music for crazy romantics,” as they’ve dubbed it, a melodic doom metal that incorporates elements of Celtic folk, grunge, prog rock and shoegaze. 

The Austin-based quintet’s full-length debut, 2023’s The Ever-Living Fire debuted at #20 on the Doom Charts. The band played their first show at SXSW’s Stoner Jam, then embarked on a series of regional tours before capping off the year with a set at Ripple Fest.

The band spent the bulk of last year, writing and recording their highly-anticipated sophomore effort, Starmony, which is slated for a digital and limited vinyl edition release on May 9, 2025.

Earlier this month, I wrote about “Midsommar Night’s Dream,” a track that begins with a gorgeous, pensive piano and string driven introduction, before quickly morphing into swooningly heartfelt and nostalgia-fueled dirge anchored around the sort of fuzzy pose chords that would bring smiles to the faces of Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Neil Young, all while being arguably the most cinematic song they’ve released to date. 

Starmony‘s latest single “The Tower” begins with a broodingly atmospheric introduction that quickly morphs into slow-burning, power chord-driven dirge with dexterous guitar solos. And much like its immediate predecessor, “The Tower” continues a run of material that’s simultaneously soulful and cinematic, while showcasing a band with a penchant for crafting material that recalls The Sword, Soundgarden and others.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Jahnah Camille Shares Rousingly Anthemic and Cathartic “sit with you (pain)”

Rising, 20 year-old, Birmingham, AL-born and-based singer/songwriter and musician Jahnah Camille (pronounced as “Hannah”) can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: Overhearing her father’s guitar lessons, she first picked up a guitar when she was four, and by the time she turned 10, she was writing her own songs. 

Throughout her life, supportive coincidences have pushed Camille’s creative tenacity. Her mother encouraged an elementary school-aged Jahnah to perform for their apartment’s maintenance man, who then gifted her a red Gibson SG and an amplifier. At a hippie kids camp, she met a mentor, who helped to champion her early crowdfunded recordings. 

“My mom was always having me sing and play guitar for people,” says Jahnah. “I’ve always had people who believed in me, and I feel like I’ve internalized that. That’s been really beautiful.”

Later opportunities to open for acclaimed artists like Clairo and Soccer Mommy led to her burgeoning status as a keenly self-examining indie rock singer/songwriter in a Birmingham scene saturated with punk and hardcore bands — many of which she played with in her earliest DIY shows. 

“The first year after I graduated high school was kind of horrifying,” says Jahnah. “I had just basically broken up with most of my band. I wasn’t going to college. I was seeing how everyone else that I had known growing up, their lives were changing. I knew that whatever happened in my life, it wasn’t going to be that, and there wasn’t really any proof that things were going in a positive direction.”

The rising Birmingham-based artist’s sophomore EP, the Alex Farrar-produced My sunny oath! is slated for a June 13, 2025 release through Winspear. The EP comes on the heels of a run of tour dates with Blondshell and previous shows opening for TOPS,Soccer Mommy and Clairo — and after the success of her debut EP, last year’s i tried to freeze light, but only remember a girl. 

My sunny oath! is set in the pressure cooker of new adulthood and is reportedly features a defiant collection of alt-rock, lo-fi grit and sardonic grunge that channels Jahnah Camille’s influences, including The Sundays, Liz Phair, Minnie Ripperton and Japanese Breakfast among others. 

Last month, I wrote about EP single “what do you do,” a 90/120 Minutes MTV-era indie rock inspired anthem, anchored around a classic grunge rock structure paired with the young artist’s remarkably self-assured vocal turn and uncanny knack for an enormous, well-placed hook. “I wrote this while trying to understand the feeling of losing control,” the rising Birmingham-based artist says, “I was paralyzed by a need to control how other people saw me and needed to write about it.” 

My sunny oath!‘s latest single “sit with you (pain)” begins with a lush and dreamy, singer/songwriter, acoustic guitar section with gently rumbling feedback that slowly builds up into a full-throated, bombastic, feedback and grungy power chord-driven anthem. While continuing to showcase a young songwriter, who can craft a big, rousingly anthemic hook and chorus, the song is anchored in deeply lived-in and earnest hurt.

The song “is about cutting someone out of your life who you still care for deeply,” she explains. “All of your critiques and drawbacks are still secondary for the love that you have. I wanted to make a habit of doing things that were good for me even if they hurt.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Berlin’s Shimizu Teams Up with Giorgia-May on a Euphoric, Feminist Anthem

Brazilian-born, Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Rafa Mura, initially relocated to Berlin when he was 18 years-old to study Computer Science. While in school, he built a home studio in his dorm room. After dropping out of his computer science program, he went on start his own recording project Shimizu. Shimizu sees Mura creating a sound that’s melancholic yet danceable while drawing from R&B, house, breakbeat and neo-soul.

Mura’s latest Shimizu single “BxbyGirl” features Giorgia-May’s self-assured and sultry delivery ethereally floating over a slick and euphoric club and lounge friendly production that draws from Larry Levan-era house and UK garage. Thematically, the song is anthem for female empowerment, touching on themes of feminine energy, women’s rights and bodily autonomy.

“I wanted to write a short R&B song that was to the point and felt somehow empowering,” says Giorgia-May. “As women, we don’t just get to feel safe in our bodies—it’s something we have to constantly learn and practice. We face rules and regulations that restrict us, society pits us against each other, we earn less than men, and we are continuously subjected to harassment and control over our autonomy.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Taxidermy Shares a Bruising and Unsettling Ripper

Copenhagen-based experimental noise/post-punk outfit Taxidermy — Osvald Reinhold (vocals, guitar), Toke Brejning Frederiksen (guitar), Joachim Lorch-Schierning (bass) and Johan Knutz Haavik (drums) — have quickly established a sound that draws from math rock, No Wave, post-hardcore and emo among a list of others. 

Thematically, the Danish quartet’s work sees them exploring the unease and disquiet of contemporary existence through delving into the cryptic and disorientating, the claustrophobic and the surreal. Crafting material anchored around unpredictable arrangements, raw and visceral textures, broad dynamic range and intense emotional delivery, the members of the Copenhagen-based outfit actively challenges the listener to confront the discomfort of the unknown. 

On the heels of last year’s attention grabbing Coin EP, the Danish outfit’s forthcoming follow-up Let Go EP will feature, “Impending,” a single that simultaneously cements their reputation for crafting brooding post-punk while subtly expanding upon their sound with alternating ethereal and atmospheric verses and the scorching, power chord-driven hooks and choruses that would Steve Albini proud. 

Let Go EP‘s latest single, EP title track “Let Go” is a bruising bit of skronky and noisy post-punk/grunge built around a classic grunge song structure with alternating quieter verses with cinematic strings and Reinhold crooning lyrics and explosive choruses and hooks with Reinhold’s urgent shouts. The song captures a heartbroken and desperate narrator, who vacillates between despair, self loathing and hatred — sometimes within the turn of a phrase.

The band’s Reinhold explains that the lyrics capture “a weakened and darkened mind, with a cynical, bleak view of itself and its surroundings.” He goes on to explain that the song was written after the experience of falling out of love. “It’s a deeply personal song for me, as it captures the essence of a weakened and darkened mind, with a cynical, bleak view of itself and its surroundings. It depicts a repeating cycle of actions in an inescapable loop of destructive behavior and presents the troubling notion that we are all self-absorbed individuals who can only briefly be persuaded to believe in unions of any kind, and for a fleeting moment, we may get along. But inevitably, we return to a hostile status quo, distancing ourselves because, ultimately, that’s easier.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: MIIEN Shares Dreamy AND Meditative “Mirror”

MIEN is a psych rock super group that features some of the genre’s biggest and most accomplished artists:

Since the project’s inception, MIEN has been a confluence of diverse musical influences and shared histories: The band’s origins can be traced back to 2004 when Dihr crossed paths with Maas during a serendipitous encounter at SXSW. That meeting sparked a deep friendship and a series of critically applauded collaborations, including famously, The Black Angels’ 2008 effort, Directions to See a Ghost. Around the same time, Dihr met Lapham, whose electronic and production expertise would later become a cornerstone of MIEN’s sound. These connections led to MIEN, a band that sees its members seamlessly blending their varied musical backgrounds into a unique sound. The band’s newest member Kidd joined on in 2018. 

The psych supergroup’s long-awaited sophomore album MIIEN was released earlier this month through Fuzz Club. The sophomore album marks a bold new chapter for a band known for an alchemical approach to their work. Building upon the foundations of their critically applauded self-titled debut, MIIEN finds the band and its members pushing their collaborative and explorative ethos into uncharted territories. 

Recorded in studios between Montréal, Abilene and Austin, the psych supergroup’s sophomore album captures a unique creative process: Most songs began as a simple idea — a loop, a vocal phrase or a groove — passed between members and meticulously layered.

The band’s collaborative workflow saw each individual sketch evolving as each member contributed their distinct sonic palette. “It’s an organic process,” Rishi Dihr says. “A simple idea can become something monumental when we each put our stamp on it.” 

The album’s creative journey was heightened during key in-person sessions, including an intensive recording period in Austin during SXSW. The rare opportunities for the band to work together in the same space added a dynamic immediacy to several album tracks. 

Overall MIIEN represents the strength of the band’s collective vision. Each member brings their unique perspective to the table, creating music that is simultaneously personal and universally resonant. Anchored around richly textured soundscapes and fearless experimentation, the album, purportedly sees the band crafting material that actively bridges the golden age of 60s psychedelia with the cutting edge of modern music. Lapham reflects, “Working with these guys has been one of the most enjoyable experiences in my music career. Our synergy is seamless, and I’m excited to see where this next chapter takes us.”

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I wrote about two of the album’s previously released singles:

  • “Evil People,” a propulsive bit of synth-driven psych rock featuring a relentless motorik-like groove paired with Maas imitable delivery and a rousingly anthemic hook and chorus with expressive bursts of reverb-drenched guitar. “‘Evil People’ has its roots in a 2015 collaboration between Alex and awesome Danish musician Trentemøller,” the band explains. “Fast forward to March 2022, when MIEN reunited in Austin for three intense days of recording during SXSW. Given how rare it is for all of us to be in the same room at the same time, the creative energy was electric—music and ideas flowed effortlessly, and ‘Evil People’ was born.”

  • “Empty Sun” which features Alex Maas’ imitable vocal floating over a menacing and uneasy motorik pulse with bursts of woozy strings and complex rhythmic patterns, including a breakbeat section that The Crystal Method and The Chemical Brothers would swoon over. It’s arguably the trippiest groove the band has written to date. “Like many of our songs, ‘Empty Sun’ began as a series of loops paired with a lyric-less vocal demo from Alex” the band explains. “From there, Alex and Robb laid down the initial ideas before passing it along to the rest of us. The track sat untouched for a while until John Mark revisited it, shaping it into something new with distinct sections, samples, and layers of Solina string machine. To lock in the groove, Robb returned to the studio, recording what felt like countless drum takes to perfect the complex patterns and make them as “mean” (MIEN) as possible. As the track evolved, Rishi teamed up with Elephant Stone guitarist Robbie to layer in massive, warped guitar textures that brought ‘Empty Sun’ roaring to life.”

MIIEN‘s latest single “Mirror” is a dreamy, lullaby-like song centered around a strummed melodic figure, a shuffling rhythmic pattern, quivering synths serving as a lush, meditative bed for an dreamy and plaintive vocal turn from Alex Maas.

“‘Mirror’ is one of only a small handful of songs that started life when we were all together, which always immediately makes a song feel special to us,” the psych rock supergroup explains. “We generally record in our own separate spaces and swap files, but this one came to life while we were rehearsing for our first tour back in 2018. ‘Mirror’ is the sound of a band coming together and working intuitively rather than logically, and for that it stands out as one of our strongest achievements.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Milena Casado Shares Meditative “SELF LOVE”

Milena Casado is a rising Spanish-born composer, producer, trumpeter and flugelhorn player, who has generated incredible buzz over the past years through her work with Terri Lyne Carrington, Vijay Iyer, Aaron Parks, Kris Davis and others, which has led to performances at some of the world’s most renowned venues and festivals, including Carnegie Hall, Village Vanguard, The Kennedy Center, North Sea Jazz Festival, Montréal Jazz Festival and Monterrey Jazz Festival.

During that same period, Casado has also developed a reputation as a notable bandleader in her own right, leading a working quintet with sets at North Sea Jazz Festival, Montréal Jazz Festival, NYC Winter Jazzfest and a list of others. Adding to a breakthrough year, the rising Spanish artist will be releasing her full-length debut, Reflection of Another Self on May 16, 2025 through Candid Records.

Reflection of Another Self is reportedly a sonically adventurous and deeply personal exploration of her identity that tackles overcoming personal trauma, including experiencing racism in Spain, grappling with her dual heritage and more.

The album’s latest single, “SELF LOVE” is a meditative neo-soul/smooth jazz-like number that features Casado’s ethereal cooing, floating over glistening synths played by Casado and Morgan Guerin, Casado’s soulful and punchily swaggering trumpet lines, a supple and soulful bass line from the legendary Meshell Ndegeocello, shimmering keys, synths and Rhodes from Mike King and expressive yet minimalist drumming from Jongkuk Kim. While subtly recalling Dave Guy‘s long-awaited full-length debut, last year’s Ruby and Robert Glasper, “SELF LOVE” expresses a contented sigh of hard-earned yet empowering self-acceptance.

“Loving yourself is one of the hardest things to do,” Casado explains. “With ‘SELF LOVE,’ I wanted to capture that journey, what it feels like to reach a place of acceptance and understanding. For me, self-love is still a work in progress, but maybe . . . this is how it sounds.”

Along with the new single, Casado announced an album release show on May 10, 2025 at Public Records. The show will feature guest spots from Morgan Guerin, David Virelles, Maasai, Zacchae’us Paul and more.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: GR1FYN Shares Euphoric and Summery “Retro Future”

GR1FN is an emerging and mysterious American-born electronic music producer, who was extremely busy last year, releasing a batch of attention grabbing singles, including two I wrote about on this site:

  • “Underneath the Sun,” a Larry Levan-meets-French touch-like banger featuring dense layers of twinkling keys, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling beats and oscillating synths pared with euphoria-inducing hooks and a chopped up, soulful, mantra-like vocal sample. It’s the sort of summery anthem that you’d fully expect to hear rocking clubs from New York to Miami and from Ibiza to London and everywhere else in between.

  • “Nervous,” a flirty and summery house music track featuring glistening synth arpeggios, skittering, tweeter and woofer railing beats, a sultry and yearning vocal sample paired with some remarkably catchy hooks. It shouldn’t be surprising that this one has been receiving love in local clubs, because it’s an infectiously fun banger.

Released at the first session of this year’s Coachella, GR1FN’s latest single “Retro Future” is a swaggering tech house banger, featuring a soulful, old school house vocal sample, glistening synth arpeggios and the rising producer’s unerring knack for euphoria-inducing hooks. It’s a summery. dance floor filler, just as the weather starts to get a bit warmer.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Los Angeles’ Faetooth Shares a Slow-Burning and Grungy Ripper

Led by Jenna Garcia (vocals, bass), Los Angeles-based outfit Faetooth specializes in a sound that they’ve dubbed “fairy-doom:” a unique and eclectic amalgamation of doom metal paired with vocals that alternate between spellbinding melodies to guttural shrieks and howls.

The Los Angeles-based outfit’s latest single “Death of Day” is a slow-burning and forceful dirge anchored around a classic grunge structure – quiet verses featuring swirling shoegazer guitar textures and thunderous drumming and loud choruses and hooks featuring enormous power chords and banshee-like wailing serving as a brooding bed for Garcia’s sonorous croon. While channeling the likes of Tool, JOVM mainstays Slumbering Sun and others, “Death of Day” the song as the band’s Jenna Garcia explains “came to be after reading into the deity, Lilith. I was initially transfixed to the myth of her spawning from the ‘dregs,’ or lowest realm of evil. I perceived that as her coming from the dirt, the earth, and having to confront a life where her very existence is viewed as malevolence, as ugliness. She is cast out into isolation from the moment she came into being. I began to view that as a strong parallel to the existence of queer and trans people in a world that is constantly trying to exterminate and diminish them.”

Faetooth’s frontperson adds that the song’s lyrics “are written as a bit of ode to the Lilith archetype, and simultaneously celebrating and lamenting her forced seclusion from society. The first verse is about her coming into being, how she can only come out at night, and then the second verse is like, yeah, you all hate me, I’m gonna bring all my friends that you also deem as a scourge on society, f*** you.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Us and I Share Shimmering and Melancholy “Crushed”

Formed back in 2018 in  Bangalore and currently based in Düsseldorf, the emerging synth pop duo Us and I — Bidisha Kesh (vocals) and Guarav Govilkar (production) — features members who come from very different backgrounds and who bonded over having similar musical sensibilities: When the pair started to work together, they quickly realized that they shared a unique way of crafting songs with deeply personal lyrics paired with the melancholia of the orange and yellow colors leaking from their synthesizers.

The duo then spent the next two years developing and honing a sound they felt acted as a bridge between the synth-driven work of Chromatics and the slow-burning, dream pop of Beach House — with subtle nods to darkwave and post-punk. Thematically, the duo’s material generally draws from everyday life and the relationships around them. 

The duo’s debut EP, 2021’s Loveless thematically focused on a deeply universal subject, love — in particular, a past love, and how the nostalgia and grief of that past love can hit us like a wave hitting the shore. Since the release of Loveless EP, the duo relocated to Düsseldorf — for work and for potentially better opportunities for their music.

Their latest single, the bittersweet and hook-driven “Crushed” features Kesh’s achingly expressive delivery ethereally floating over shimmering synth arpeggios and stomping beats. Interestingly, “Crushed” strikes me as a subtle refinement of their sound that still sees them channeling Beach House and Still Corners — but with a decidedly 80s tinge.

“‘Crushed’ thrusts you in a crystal capsule where the lull of a bittersweet spell and the deluge of impeccable love caresses your every bone,” the Düsseldorf-based duo say. “And yet when the virulent pain of this beautiful guise emerges again, you seek to escape this perfect dream, lest you’re crushed to death.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The KVB’s Coldwave Remix of A Place to Bury Strangers’ “Bad Idea”

New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — released their seventh album Synthesizer last year.

While Synthesizer is the album’s title, it’s also a physical entity, a synthesizer specifically made for the album — and a synthesizer that you too, can own (in part), if you buy the record on vinyl. The album’s cover art doubles as a circuit board and functional synth for curious and enterprising fans. “It’s pretty messed up, chaotic. But it feels really human,” the band’s Oliver Ackermann says. 

In an era of making music where so little is DIY and so much is left up to AI, never setting foot in a practice room or a home studio, making something that feels deliberately chaotic, messy, and human, is entirely the point. The album celebrates sounds that are spontaneous and natural, the kind of music that can only come from collaboration and community. 

The writing sessions for Synthesizer started in the band’s Queens studio, shortly after the release of 2022’s See Through You. The band’s new lineup which features Ackermann and his friends John and Sandra Fedowitz was especially inspiring for Ackermann. “It felt like a fresh new thing,” he says. “I wanted to write songs everyone was excited about playing.” 

The album captures the band at a place of reinvention, where they take a carefully honed sound and approach and crack it wide open to gut its then reimagine it. And of course, to ever so slightly reinvent one’s sound, one must also built a new instrument — the synthesizer at the core of the album’s overall sound. 

Synthesizer is arguably one of the band’s most live-sounding albums to date, accurately capturing the rawness and explosiveness of the band in a live setting, which is a fitting for a band that is best in a live setting, where the material takes on a new energy in the presence of a crowd. “We’re artists,” Ackermann says, “Going to shows and bringing that imperfect and beautiful DIY ethos is important.” 

Album single “Bad Idea” is anchored around a simple yet hypnotically looping drum beat, woozily oscillating feedback-driven guitar lines. John Fedowitz’s plaintive yet punchy delivery weaves in and out of the stormy and soundscape, which helps to evoke the vacillating, almost nauseating unease of self-doubt. 

“Bad Idea” showcases the raw creativity of the band’s bassist John Fedowitz. “He came to the studio with a simple looping drum beat, thinking he didn’t have any good ideas — thus, this song was his ‘bad idea,’” the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann says. “We each penned some lines on paper, and he sang the ones that resonated. After a few instrumental passes, the recording was complete. The result is an innovative track born from spontaneous collaboration and a touch of self-doubt, turned into something uniquely captivating.” 

Manchester, UK-based JOVM mainstays The KVB gave “Bad Idea” the remix treatment, turning the woozy chaos of the original into a brooding and hypnotic bit of coldwave that channels Depeche Mode, John Carpenter soundtracks and the like while being simultaneously headphone and dance floor friendly.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Slow Fiction Shares a Furious, Breakneck Ripper

Rising New York-based quintet Slow Fiction — Julia Vassallo (vocals), Paul Knepple (guitar), Joe Skimmons (guitar), Ryan Duffin (bass) and Akiva Henig (drums) — have received attention for a sound that inspired by Sonic Youth and The Jesus Chain and Mary Chain with elements of naughties-era guitar rock paired with contemporary angst.

Their latest single “When” is part of Speedy Wunderground‘s Speedy Singles series. It’s available on all DSPs right now — and will be available on 7″ vinyl with a dub remix B side by the label’s Dan Carey titled “Who Is the Dub.” You’ll be able to purchase the new single and the rest of the singles in the series here.

As for the new single “When” is an urgent, breakneck ripper that’s one-part Walkmen one-part The Jesus and Mary Chain while arguably being one of those most defiant and confrontational songs of their growing catalog while evoking desperate unease.

“I think everyone has had a moment where their expectation of the world, a relationship, the audience they are performing for falls short, and it sends you into a wild spiral downwards,” Slow Fiction’s Julia Vassallo explains. “Losing faith feels so desperate, like falling into a pit of snakes. And the snakes all have faces that seem familiar, and they’re talking, but the words are all garbled. I guess this was trying to get to the bottom of that pit of disillusionment, or maybe get out of it altogether.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Agora Sci-Fi Shares a “120 Minutes” MTV-Inspired Lament on Capitalism

Nathania Rubin is an Illinois-based singer/songwriter, visual artist and animator, who most recently designed the music video for Advance Base’s “The Tooth Fairy.” Her work has been featured in both museums and film festivals both nationally and internationally, including Seattle International Film Festival, DOK Leipzig, Cannes Video Art Festival AVIFF, Boston Underground, Brooklyn Film Festival, Oxford Film Festival, Fest Ança, Animaze, Animafest Zagreb and many others.

Rubin is also the creative mastermind and frontperson behind the lo-fi pop project Agora Sci-Fi. Agora Sci-Fi conceptually is centered around a fictional character, simply named Z.

As the story goes, Z was recently released from prison for unclear crimes against society. Her wealthy family poisons her with memory-obliterating treats that block out crucial events and plot points of her own life and history. For fun, Z swims in the East River at night. (As a native New Yorker, I’d just have to say — “whatever floats your boat, kid.”)

Sonically Agora Sci-Fi draws from lo-fi, indie rock and pop in the vein of Rilo Kiley, Stef Chura and others.

Agora Sci-Fi’s debut EP, Finding It Hard to Explain Something So Obvious is slated for a June 6, 2025 release. The EP’s second single “sloppy” is a 120 Minutes-era MTV bit of indie rock anchored around rousingly anthemic hooks and Rubin’s dreamy delivery. But at its core, are deeply relatable lyrics for all of us, who have to maneuver capitalism, jobs we find unsatisfying, dull, underpaid or just under appreciated. Throughout, the song’s narrator expresses the slow-burn doldrums of working life — and the desire to never have to do that again. We all sell our time for money because — well, everyone wants money.

“Weaving in the fictional narrative in ‘sloppy’ allowed me to really ramp up the stakes of the song,” Rubin explains. “I was picturing a singular sane person, in a world with completely maddening and inhumane mandates. I imagined it as two separate songs in one, two personalities of the same person too, that kind of smash into each other at the end. Like many songs on the EP, it speaks to a desire to escape social confines, and the fracturing of self that happens when playing different roles in various areas of your life. The person who doesn’t conform, gets gaslit from inside and out, and labeled something like sloppy.”