Audio

New Audio: Crá Croí Returns with Brooding and Anthemic “Feeding The Fear”

Deriving their name from the Gaelic word for “heartache,” “vexation of spirit,” County Cork-based duo Crá Croí — RG (songwriting, production, mixing and mastering) and CD (vocals and visuals) — have employed a fiercely DIY ethos while establishing a sound that meshes elements of 1980s New Wave, post-punk and goth, featuring melancholic synths, dark melodies, angular guitars and sharp, hook-driven vocals. 

The Irish duo’s work explores themes of nihilism, love and destruction, dystopian collapsed and nuclear annihilation, often wrapped in irony and paired with post-apocalyptic metaphors. 

The Cork-based duo’s self-produced, 12-song, full-length debut, Tá brón ormis slated for release during the second half of 2026. Deriving its title from the Irish phrase for “sadness” or “sorrow is on me,” the duo’s debut effort will feature the previously released “Radiation Romance,” and “Fires At Dawn,” as well as their third and latest single, “Feeding The Fear.”

Sonically seeming to channel a synthesis of Chain of Flowers and Interpol, “Feeding The Fear,” showcases the Irish duo’s knack for crafting broodingly cinematic, hook-driven material. The duo explain “Feeding The Fear” explores themes of fear, endurance and rising through uncertainty, which seems remarkably prescient and fitting for our current moment.

New Audio: Club 8 Shares Lush and Dreamy “Echoes Of Our Time”

Since the release of 2024’s A Year With Club 8, Stockholm-based JOVM mainstays Club 8 — Karolina Komstedt (vocals) and electronic music producer, artist and Labrador Records founder and label boss Johan Angergård — the duo spent last year releasing a single a month over the course of last year, including tunes like “ooo,” “None Of This Will Matter When You’re Dead,” “Staying Alive,” “Born The Wrong Time,” “Sneaky Feelings” and “Daydreams.” 

The duo begin 2026 with “Echoes Of Our Time,” a nostalgia-inducing bop that channels classic New Order and shimmering, 80s pop while showcasing the duo’s unerring knack for catchy hooks and rousingly anthemic choruses. The song touches upon some familiar and deeply universal themes — the heartache, despair and longing for a loved one, who you’re no longer involved with, the dreaminess of northern hemisphere winter and the longing to spend a wintry day in bed not doing much.

New Audio: Silverdeer Shares Lush and Yearning “Open Mouth”

Los Angeles-based duo Silverdeer — longtime friends Halsey Bousquet (vocals) and Nika Fazeli — have been centered by a long-held warm, flirty and playful kinetic energy that they first established with their first project saturn 17.

Formed back in 2019, saturn 17 quickly gained attention with their breakout single “could this be love,” which amassed over 10 million streams. But by 2024, the duo found themselves facing unexacting challenges. Bouts of writer’s block and an overwhelming urge to explore new sounds and genres led to a creative hiatus.

Both Fazeli and Bosquet recognized that they were undergoing a personal and artistic metamorphosis that ultimately required a new name for their project that matched it. Over the past couple of years as Silverdeer, the duo have established a sound that melds the spirit of 90s alternative rock with lush, dream pop textures.

The duo’s latest effort, the Casey Lagos-produced House of Devotion is slated for a March 20, 2026 release. The forthcoming EP will feature the previously released “Montauk” and “Drift.

“Meeting Casey was like finding the missing puzzle piece,” the Los Angeles duo say. “We had been trying for so long to explain our vision to people, and it was so refreshing to find someone who immediately understood it and had the tools and the creativity to push us where we wanted to go. He is such a supportive and sweet person too, we feel so safe being vulnerable and creative with him.” 

House of Devotion is inspired by the beach house in Eternal Sunshine — a place meant to feel safe and intimate, but one that starts collapsing the moment you step inside,” the duo explain. “It’s built from memories, desire, and the fragile structures two people create together, and it begins to fall apart under the emotional weight of devotion.” And fittingly, the EP’s material explores themes of love, connection, nostalgia and longing. “House of Devotion invites you to reflect on connection — how we relate to people who have entered and exited our lives.”

The EP’s third and latest single, “Open Mouth” is a dreamy mix of dream pop, shoegaze and trip hop, anchored around the duo’s penchant for remarkably catchy, razor sharp hooks — and a palpable sense of yearning and barely controlled desire that feels youthful and explosive.

“‘Open Mouth’ is our most addicting song on the EP,” the duo shares. “It exists as a celebration of sexuality, a snapshot of desire and almost-caught moments.”

New Audio: SPDS Returns with Trance-inducing Banger “Like A Word I Never Knew”

With the release of 2024’s full-length debut, SDPSCopenhagen-based acoustic techno/jazz punks Smag På Dig Selv (SPDS) — Oliver Lauridsen (tenor sax), Thorbjørn Øllgaard (baritone sax, bass sax, vocals) and Albert Holberg (drums) — firmly cemented their reputation as one of most boundary pushing groups in the contemporary Danish scene. With a sound that’s an explosive, party starting mixture of acoustic techno, punk energy, jazz and 90s EDM, the Danish trio have begun to make the round of the international festival and touring circuit, playing sets at Roskilde FestivalSXSWThe Great EscapeEurosonicWinter Jazzfest NYC and Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage

SPDS’s highly-anticipated sophomore album This Is Why We Lost is slated for a March 2026 through Stunt Records. The album will feature the previously released, TMI Tammi-produced “Let’s Go!,” “Vik’s Rawcore,” which sees the trio collaborating with vibraphonist Viktoria Søndergaard, and the album’s fourth and final, pre-release single “Like A Word I Never Knew.”

Arguably one of the darker songs on the album, “Like A Word I Never Knew,” is a trance-inducing and forcefully propulsive club banger paired with a modal-era Miles Davis-like introspective lyricism. Recorded during the final phase of album sessions, “Like A Word I Never Knew,” captures a moment of transition. As summer inevitably faded into yet another autumn and the band wrapped up their final shows of the season, they entered the studio with a noticeably calmer, more introspective energy. And the result is a track driven by focus, restraint and deep emotional weight.

For the band, the song reflects the core ambition behind the forthcoming album: to create music that can exist within a trance or club-orientated setting while still carrying a strong melodic and narrative arc.

New Audio: Dublin’s Martina and the Moons Share Broodingly Cinematic “Higher Than A Hawk”

Led by Spanish-Scottish frontperson Martina Moon, Dublin-based indie outfit Martina and the Moons can trace their origins back to when Moon relocated to Dublin to study at BIMM University, where she met and quickly connected with her then-future bandmates Ruby Levins (bass), Zahira Ellis (drums) and Sarah Morgan (guitar). 

The Dublin-based quartet quickly established a sound that blended elements of post-punk, indie rock, 90s Brit Pop and the 60s and 70s Laurel Canyon sound while featuring gorgeous melodies and a youthful aggression and angst. In fact, Moon, who cites Paul SimonLady GagaCatatonia, Radiohead, Bruno Mars and an eclectic list of others as influences, writes lyrics that frequently touch on themes of alienation, being misunderstood, being an outsider, and yearning with a deeply lived-in sensibility and earnestness. 

In a short period of time, the band has played opening slots for Porridge Radio and Thumper. They’ve played Whelan’s Main Stage at Ones to Watch. And adding to a growing regional profile, they played 2025’s The Great Escape Festival, receiving mentions from BBC Introducing and praise from Golden Plec and from Hotpress, who named them one of their Hot for ’25 acts. 

Last year, the band signed to Dublin-based artist development label Rubarb Music, who released recently released their Ruadhrí Cushnan-produced EP Starfish Social Club, which features the previously released “Baby Turtle” and “Laundry Mat.”  

Starfish Social Club EP‘s third and latest single “Higher Than A Hawk” showcases a more shoegazer and post punk-tinged take on their Brit Pop-inspired sound. Featuring swirling and shimmering guitars, an angular and propulsive bass line, forceful drumming paired with Moon’s bold, almost in-your-face delivery, “Higher Than A Hawk” may arguably be the most brooding and cinematic song on the EP, seemingly channeling the likes of A Storm in Heaven-era The Verve, Slowdive, The Church and others, all while anchored around Moon’s earnest lyricism.

New Audio: Us and I Share Melancholy “What’s There to Dream”

Formed back in 2018 in  Bangalore and currently based in Düsseldorf, 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. As the story goes, when teh pair started to work together, they quickly realized that they shared a unique way of crafting songs: deeply personal lyrics paired with the melancholia of the orange and yellow colors leaking from their synthesizers.

Th duo then spent the next two years developing a sound that they believed 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. 

The Düsseldorf-based duo begins 2026 with their latest single, “What’s There To Dream,” a slow-burning and melancholy song that continues a run of material that to my ears sounds like a synthesis of Still Corners and Beach House — but while evoking a mix of nostalgia, reverie and creeping doubt.

“We all have days when we question the meaning of this quiet banality of life. Moments where everything feels soft, heavy and strangely beautiful at once,” the duo explain. “This song is an invitation to sit with those thoughts. To dive into existentialism in colour. . . “

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays Lucid Express Return with Lush, Brooding “Faux Sweetness”

Hong Kong-based shoegazers and JOVM mainstays Lucid Express will be releasing their long-awaited and highly-anticipated sophomore album Instant Comfort on February 20, 2026 through Kanine Records

Mixed by Kurt Feldman during marathon overnight, transpacific sessions on Discord, Instant Comfort reportedly captures the unsettling stillness of the nighttime hours. The album’s material sonically sees the Hong Kong-based JOVM mainstays pairing ethereal melodies with towering walls of jangling guitars and hazy, swirling feedback while being more clear-eyed, complex and layered than anything they’ve released to date. 

The album will feature the previously released “Something Blue,” a woozy and uneasy tune, anchored around a classic grunge and shoegaze structure, and the album’s second and latest single “Faux Sweetness.” Arguably one of the more Cocteau Twins-like tunes they’ve written and released to date, “Faux Sweetness” opens with a droning theremin passage before bursting into a densely layered, subtly brooding soundscape in which each instrument is seamlessly interwoven into a lush and dreamy bed for Kim Ho’s ethereal cooing.

Lucid Express’ Kim Ho says, “onFaux Sweetness’ we return to some of our earliest indie pop influences while also mixing in some of the darker sounds we’ve picked up over years of experimenting in our studio space. It kind of led us to make something that is both heavier and more delicate than anything we’d written up to that point.”

New Audio: Low Blows Shares Brooding and Forceful “Vacio”

Barcelona-based trio Low Blows — Carlos Vergara (vocals, bass), Andrés Silgado (guitar) and Rubén Carballo (drums) — quickly established a sound that draws from post-punk, industrial, New Wave and darkwave with electric elements and a hint of shoegaze with their full-length debut, 2020’s Cruel.

The Spanish post-punk outfit followed Cruel’s release with a handful of singles, including last year’s Matteo Vallicelli-produced “Go!” The trio also played at OMBRA Festival.

Building upon a growing profile, the trio just released their sophomore, self-titled studio album. The album showcases a new creative phase by the Spanish trio, marked by greater restraint, sonic clarity and artistic cohesion with material that sees the band effortlessly blending post punk and darkwave paired with introspective lyrics. And it’s all anchored by a tension between rawness and sensitivity.

The band says that their sophomore album was conceived as an exercise in reaffirming identity and a point of synthesis between their previous path and a more defined, conscious vision of their artistic present.

The sophomore album’s lead single “Vacio” is a brooding and forceful bit of post-punk featuring an insistent rhythmic pulse and fuzzy guitars paired with an angular, New Order-like bass line, bursts of shimmering synths. While sounding as though it could be a part of the Dedstrange Records catalog — and as though it could have been released during 4AD Records heyday.

“Vacio,” as the band explains works as a statement of intent. “The song explores feelings of absence, disconnection and emotional exhaustion through a direct, no-frills approach. Musically, it leans into a cleaner, more minimalist production with an insistent rhythmic pulse and an enveloping atmosphere that carries the track’s emotional weight,” the band says.

New Audio: Parlor Greens Share Strutting “Eat Your Greens”

Organ trio Parlor Greens features a collection of grizzled veterans and incredibly accomplished musicians: 

The trio’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Emeralds is slated a March 27, 2026 release through Colemine Records. Emeralds reportedly sees the acclaimed trio upping the ante while capturing the band in top form: tour tight and more confident than ever in who they are and where they’re going. And while the results are stronger than ever, the overall mood of the recording sessions was much different.

The first time the trio met in Colemine’s Loveland, OH-based Portage Lounge Studio, the meeting was marked by a certain sense of freshness: It was the first time they had all played together. Understandably, it was exciting and unknown territory. But the sessions were underlined by the heaviness each of the individual members were going through at the time. With each member dealing with personal tragedies in their individual lives, the sessions serves as a genuine moment of joy. Just three talented musicians, writing and playing music, now as friends, in a familiar environment.

Emeralds‘ second and latest single, album opener “Eat Your Greens” is a a strutting and rollicking tune, that showcases the trio’s unerring knack for tight, crafted, old-school-inspired hooks and grooves, all while being roomy enough for some impressively dexterous solos from James and Scone. Fittingly, the track captures the talent and simpatico of three old pros, who can effortlessly balance songcraft with road-tested improvisation.

New Audio: Anchorage’s dreamcat Shares Breezy “Heaven”

Anchorage-based indie electro pop duo dreamcat — couple Em Glaves and Colton Ciufo — can trace a portion of their origins back to when they were children: Glaves and Ciufo grew up in the same small town, and for them music has always been their escape.

The Alaskan duo specialize in homemade, heartfelt, positive indie synth pop that draws from M83, Chromeo and others. Last year, the pair gained recognition regionally by playing at two of Alaska’s biggest music festivals — Sundown Festival and Girdwood Forest Fair.

Over the past 12-18 months, the duo have built upon a growing profile across Alaska, with at the release of a handful of standalone singles and their debut EP joie de vivre earlier this year.

Glaves and Ciufro close out 2025 with “Heaven,” a breezy bit of synth pop that seemingly channels BRIJEAN, M83 and Oracular Spectacular-era MGMT while showcasing the duo’s ability to craft a remarkably catchy hook. But underneath the track’s breezy hookiness, the song, as the duo explain is about addiction.

New Audio: Sunset Images Shares Sprawling and Brooding “El Tiempo Oscila y Muere al Incio (Tommy)”

With the release of their debut album, 2021’s Traumatismo Nacional and 2024’s NADA/CERO/INFINITO EP, Sunset Images, led by Mexico City-based singer/songwriter, musician and creative mastermind Samuel Osorio has firmly established a layered soundscape of dissonance, cathartic release and emotional depth that draws from krautrock, shoegaze and punk. Thematically Traumatismo Nacional was a scathing indictment on violence, racism and misogyny while NADA/CERO/INFINITO explored loneliness, anger and desperation, laying bare the emotional devastation of modern life.

The project has built a reputation for intense live performances while sharing stages with the likes of Mogwai, Godflesh, Boris, The Raveonettes, Acid Mothers Temple, Gnod, HIDE, RAKTA, Vinnum Sabbathi and more.

Eventually, they caught the attention of Dedstrange Records, who signed the Mexican project and will be releasing their highly anticipated sophomore album Oscilador on January 23, 2026. Reportedly, the album sonically is a reflection of the perpetual cycles that rules our world — birth, decay, chaos and resolution, fueled by the collision of fractured synths, pulsating vocals, primitive drum beats and feedback-drenched guitars. The result is a soundscape that’s hypnotic, disorientating and irresistible.

Oscilador‘s second and latest single “El Tiempo Oscila y Muere Al Incio (Tommy)” is a sprawling motorik dirge with a cinematic quality that’s one-part krautrock, one-part shoegaze, one-part noise featuring a throbbing, distortion pedaled bass line, bursts of swirling feedback-drenched guitar guitars, a relentless backbeat paired with Osorio’s hauntingly spectral vocal. The result is a song that’s intense yet with an almost fanatical attention to precision.

Sonically reminding me a bit of the likes of Yoo Doo Right JJUUJJUU and others, the song as Osorio explains explores “humanity’s self-destruction,” “conjuring visions of a world ravaged by toxic masculinity and patriarchy. This is a song about the abyss that awaits, how we cannot escape the passage of time & how it will ultimately consume us.”

New Audio: Club 8 Returns with Nostalgia-Inducing “Daydreams”

Last year, Stockholm-based JOVM mainstays Club 8 — Karolina Komstedt (vocals) and electronic music producer, artist and Labrador Records founder and label boss Johan Angergård — released their 11th album, A Year With Club 8. Since then, the the duo have been busy, releasing a single or so a month over the course of the year, including the previously released “ooo,” “None Of This Will Matter When You’re Dead,” “Staying Alive,” “Born The Wrong Time,” and “Sneaky Feelings.”  

The Swedish JOVM mainstays’ latest single “Daydreams” continues a remarkable run of breezy, hook-driven and nostalgia-inducing material anchored around Komstedt’s ethereal and yearning vocal, expressive and shimmering bursts of guitars and a motorik groove. The song evokes a pleasant reverie — but with the bittersweet realization that it like all things won’t last forever.

New Audio: Tinlicker Shares Driving, Club Banging “Reborn”

Acclaimed Utrecht-based electronic music outfit Tinlicker — founding member Micha Heyboer, Jordi van Achthoven and their newest memberHero Baldwin — can trace their origins back to 2012, when the project was founded as a solo project of its founder. As a solo project, Heyboer released Tinlicker’s debut EP, 2012’s My First Time Here and the 2012’s Remember The Future demo compilation through his own label, Zero Three Zero

Jordi van Achthoven was introduced to Heyboer through a mutual contact in 2014. The pair bonded over their mutual inspirations of Paul KalkbrennerTrentemøller and Moderat, and at that point, Tinlicker expanded to a duo, releasing three EPs through Feed Me‘s Sotto Voce, 2014’s Like No Other, 2015’s Into The Open and The Space In Between, which featured “Oudegracht,” a track that amassed significant attention online. 

2017 saw the duo releasing material through AnjunadepArmada Music and deadmau5′mau5trap before singing a record deal with Anjunadeep, who released their breakthrough full-length debut, 2019’s This Is Not Our Universe, which featured contributions from alt-JRun RiversThomas Oliver and Belle Doron. The album reached #1 on the dance charts in the US, Australia, India, Canada and Finland and #2 in the UK, The Netherlands and Poland. 

The duo’s sophomore album In Another Life was released in February 2022. But by November 2023, the duo announced that the third album, last year’s Cold Enough for Snow would be released through [PIAS] Électronique. The ealbum featured collaborations with Brian MolkoEditors‘ Tom Smith and Circa Waves. The Dutch duo supported the album with sets at Pinkpop FestivalCRSSD FestivalCrystal Palace BowlCoachella and Sziget Festival

Back in 2020, as the Dutch duo were achieving commercial and critical success, they had started a successful collaboration with London-based signer/songwriter and producer Hero Baldwin that has continued through a series of singles including their most recent single “I Started A Fire,” which was released earlier this year. Heyboer and van Achthoven recently invited Baldwin to be a full-time member of the band. “Jordi and Micha seem to pull something out of me that resonates with my emotional landscape every time we make a song,” the London-based singer/songwriter and producer says. “I think it’s so important to feel creatively and emotionally secure, and Jordi and Micha always afford me that privilege.”

The act’s Melkweg Amsterdam show was their official debut as a trio. She also joined the duo for their biggest live show to date, Tinlicker In The Park at Crystal Palace Bowl. 

Tinlicker’s highly-anticipated fourth album — and first as a trio — is slated for an early 2026 release. The album will feature the previously released “I Want My Freedom,” which begins with a slow-burning piano intro that nods at Radiohead‘s “Everything In Its Right Place,” before morphing into a festival and club banger with a euphoric bridge and hook paired with Baldwin’s defiant and resolute vocal.

The forthcoming album’s third and latest single “Reborn,” is an expansive, almost cinematic, deep house banger, anchored around glistening and arpeggiated synth oscillations, a motorik groove paired with the act’s unerring knack for crafting enormous hooks and drops. Sonically speaking, “Reborn” seemingly channels 90s-00s house, making the song a high-energy homage to the sounds of their teens.

“Music can be a reflection of the era you grow up in. You fall in love with the soundscape of your teens and drag that feeling with you, because during this period you experience so many new adventures,” the members of Tinlicker explain. “‘Reborn’ is an homage to the early sounds that shaped us as teenagers, as it is an era in music we hold close to our hearts.”

New Audio: Trentemøller’s Atmospheric Take on “Silent Night”

Copenhagen-based producer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, electronic music artist and Trentemøller creative mastermind Anders Trentemøller has a long-held reputation for creating extraordinarily memorable melodies paired with brooding and dark soundscapes. Throughout his career, the Danish artist’s work has frequently explored contrasts, paradoxes, reminiscence and remembrance — but while eschewing overt nostalgia.

Trentemøller’s sixth album, last year’s 10-song Dreamweaver saw the acclaimed Dane meshing elements of shoegaze, darkwave, komische musik and noise rock with somber, introspective takes on dream pop — but in a decidedly immersive and psychedelic fashion that’s perfect for repeated listens on headphones. Icelandic vocalist DiSA contributes vocals on nine of the album’s 10 tracks.

His first single since the release of Dreamweaver sees the Copenhagen-based tackling the classic and beloved Christmas carol, “Silent Night.” The Trentemøller rendition of “Silent Night” features his girlfriend Lisbet Fritze, whose ethereal delivery sings the song’s beloved melody paired with a wintry arrangement of churning guitar, twinkling bells, drum machine-driven beats and atmospheric synths. The song evokes both Christmas time generally and what Christmastime would look like and feel in his native Denmark — cold winters, fireplaces, ice skating, carolers, Christmas markets and the like, but with mix of gentle, sepia-toned nostalgia and a modern sensibility.

The cover is extremely fitting. The acclaimed Danish artist has always loved Christmas. Since childhood. the season has held a special place for him, and for years he wanted to record his own version of one of the great Christmas songs. He chose Silent Night for his timeless melody, which for him captures the essence of Christmas.

Originally written as a lullaby, the song took on new meaning after Trentemøller became a father. Lisbet Fritze’s vocals and the single’s cover art, a Christmastime photo of a young Anders Trentemøller with his mother give the single a deeply personal yet universal touch. After all, with the coming of a new year, many of us look simultaneously back into the past remembering moments with loved ones no longer with us and into the future, hoping for long-lasting peace, love and understanding for all.

New Audio: Ruthven Shares Dance floor Friendly “Kiss Goodnight”

Throughout his nearly decade-long career, South London-based producer, singer/songwriter and musician Sean Nelson, best known as Ruthven, emerged in 2017 as a co-founding member of The Paul Institute with A.K.Paul and Jai Paul, while Nelson was simultaneously as a firefighter with the London Fire Brigade.

Between emergency calls and equipment checks, the South London-based artist meticulously shaped the songs that would eventually comprise last year’s Rough & Ready, which was released to widespread praise across the UK and elsewhere. The response to the album lead to collaborations and opening slots with Sampha, Berwyn and Overmono, helping to further cement Nelson’s growing reputation as one of the UK’s most compelling, emerging voices.

Ruthven closes out 2025 with the recently released Precognition EP, an exploratory three-track EP that marks the beginning of a bold new chapter for the South London-based artist. Where Rough & Ready introduced an artist with a meticulous production style and a fiercely individual voice, Precognition EP captures Nelson writing much more instinctively, leaning deeply into the warmth and dynamism of live instrumentation, inspired by his recent live shows. “This small body of work feels like a good segue into the next era for me” Ruthven says. “I’m using a lot more live instrumentation and programming a little bit less.  Playing more guitar, more acoustic drums – all of which have formed a new sound for me. The fundamental DNA of my music is there, but there’s a new evolution. This is the first of it.” 

The EP sees Nelson moving freely between funk, disco and classic songwriting. And as you’ll hear on the hook-driven, disco funk-tinged “Kiss Goodnight,” Nelson has an unerring knack for crafting a catchy, dance floor friendly groove anchored around glistening synth arpeggios and a supple bass line paired with Nelson’s effortless yet heartfelt croon. If you’re a fellow old, this one will likely bring memories of Prince, Morris Day and The Time, Cherrelle and several others.