Indie Rock

Sometime in 2006 or 2007, Jason Molina moved from the midwest to London. Separated from his bandmates and friends and never one for idleness, Molina explored his new home with fervor. Sometimes he'd head out on foot, often with no destination in mind. Other times, he'd pick a random tube stop and find his way back home. He'd pick up on arcane trivia about London's rich history, and if the historical factoids weren't available - or weren't quite to his liking - Molina was quite comfortable conjuring his own history. His adoration of The Great American Tall Tales like John Henry and Paul Bunyan's blue ox Babe stretched across the Atlantic, where he created his own personal Tall Tales. And when he learned of the London Wall's seven gates (itself a misconception), Molina went ahead and called it eight, carving out a gate just for himself. The eighth gate was Molina's way into London, a gate only passable in the mind. Fast forward to 2008, Molina set off on an experimental solo tour through Europe. While in Northern Italy, Molina claimed to have been bitten by a rare, poisonous spider. A debilitating bout of illness ensued. "I was in the hospital here in London," Molina wrote in a letter. "Saw six doctors and a Dr. House-type guy. They are all mystified by it, but I am allowed to be at home, where I am taking a dozen scary Hantavirus type pills a day that are all to supposedly help - but they make me feel like shit." There is no record of a single doctor visit, not any prescription record for these medications. It is entirely plausible there was no spider and that whatever was keeping him indoors during this time was entirely self-induced. While at home, he of course wrote songs. Molina also claimed that during this time, he fed several bright green parrots that would gather in his yard. While often associated with a greyscale sensibility, Molina was oft-clad in a Hawaiian shirt and had, at least in part, selected the name Songs: Ohia for his first project as a nod to Hawaii's 'Ohi'a lehua flower. Which is all to say, the tropical element the parakeets brought to those sick days delighted Molina. He made short, crude field recordings of them with his trusty four-track. Only once Molina was officially on the mend and re-exploring the streets of London would he learn that those parrots had their own fabled tale. Back in the 60s, Jimi Hendrix - in a moment of psychedelic clarity - released his pair of lime green ring-necked parakeets from their cage, setting them free into the London sky. Now, their decendents are spotted regularly around certain parts of the city. Or so we're told. Eight Gates is the last collection of solo studio recordings Molina made before he passed from complications related to alcoholism in 2013. Recorded in London around the time of the supposed spider bite and Jimi's supposed parakeets, some of the songs ("Whispered Away," "Thistle Blue") are fully-realized - dark, moody textures that call to mind his earlier work on The Lioness. Knowing what we know about those parakeets and their peppered presence on the recordings, one can't help but think of that colorful tree of birds on Talk Talk's classic Laughing Stock, certainly a spiritual guide for much of the set. Other songs ("She Says," "The Crossroads and The Emptiness") lay in a more unfinished states, acoustic takes that call to mind Molina's Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go, and still tethered to Molina's humorous studio banter. You remember how young Molina was, and how weighty this art was for such a young man. On the closer, "The Crossroads and The Emptiness," Molina snaps at the engineer before tearing into a song in which he sings of his birthday (December 30), a palm reading and the great emptiness with which he always wrestled. It is a perfect closer and, in many ways, the eighth gate incarnate: mythical, passable only in the mind, built for himself and partway imaginary but shared, thankfully, with us

Oakland artist Madeline Kenney bounds toward the unknown on her third album, Sucker’s Lunch, expanding on the idea of what a love song could be – a little more cautious than exuberant, more nuanced than blazing devotion. Sonically, the album expands upon Kenney’s earlier, guitar-driven sound – a definitive step forward from an artist adept at communicating universal sentiments in a voice unmistakably her own. To help realize her vision, Kenney once again enlisted Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack, previous collaborators and friends. Together, the trio carefully constructed the songs in a few compact sessions in Oakland, San Francisco, and Durham. Stack and Wasner’s rhythm section trace circles around Kenney’s off-kilter guitar, with verdant curls of synths, saxophone, and complex harmonies. Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner lends his distinctive tenor to lead single Sucker. The resulting songs are immediate and deeply moving, somehow feeling familiar while they defy expectations at every turn. Thematically, Sucker’s Lunch sees Kenney soberly contrasting the risks and rewards of falling in love, eventually deciding to dive headfirst into her own foolishness and relish in the unknowing. The tracks explore new love from every angle – Picture of You is a soundtrack- worthy lamentation of never truly knowing what someone has been through (“growing up is so hard, I don’t know why”) while tender vulnerability shines on Tell You Everything (“When your eyes say ‘we’ve had a day, love’, I get to fall in”). Kenney audibly loses her mind on Double Hearted, where the playful arrangement and lyrics spark a firestorm of heartache and wild abandon. Cut The Real pairs synth drones with syncopated lyrics to work through a depressive mind state, and the near-devotional White Window Light accepts uncertainty as a beautiful gift

It's hard to speak about unspeakable things - violence, abuse, addiction and abandonment; especially when these things rupture the innocence of childhood. But one of the merits of Luke Jenner's new solo project is that he not only speaks of these things but he does so in a way that wrests them from the dark, small cubicle of shame, placing them firmly in the light so that we, as listeners and fellow survivors, can start to maybe walk with our head high. In this moment of empty pop music séance, the scope and ends of this project - to try and help people - feels almost revelatory. Revelatory is the right word here in that it carries with it, of course, the sense of religious or spiritual insight. As front man for the legendary post-punk NYC band, The Rapture (a band name that already attests to Jenner's abiding faith and interest in the force of spiritual reckoning), Jenner has never shied away from his belief in God, community, family - all as a means of recovering the fractured x of y. How Deep is Your Love, Grace… But while those The Rapture records flirted with these themes, Jenner's album 1 fully embraces them. 1 is commanding yet generous in its vision. It follows Jenner's personal history - from the trauma of child abuse in his family to the happiness he seeks in his own family now and in the community of survivors that sustain him - within the context of rock history and the music that sustained him there as well. All Things Must Pass by George Harrison (also invested in spiritual belonging) comes to mind, as does Daniel Johnston, who literally heard voices which he put to music. Jenner's project too insists on polyvocality, from his own voice that splits between utter pain and despair to almost spiraling, nectarean harmonies, to the community of family, friends and sponsors that Jenner samples and adds to the record like a church choir.

Jaye Jayle was formed by Evan Patterson, founding member of iconic bands Young Widows and Breather Resist. Prisyn features a guest appearance by Emma Ruth Rundle and was created and produced by Ben Chisholm (Chelsea Wolfe, White Horse) and mastered by Dean Hurley (David Lynch, Lykke Li). Evan Patterson has always been a wanderer and an explorer. It's evident in the constant evolution of his music since his earliest days as a guitarist in left-of-center bands, but it's best exemplified by the constant creative shifts within the fever-dream blues of Jaye Jayle. On the newest Jaye Jayle album, "Prisyn" Patterson takes his boldest leap into unknown territories, capturing immediate moments in his ever-shifting surroundings with the most basic tool at his disposal: the GarageBand app on an iPhone. Instead of his usual backing band, he paired up with Ben Chisholm (White Horse, Revelator, Chelsea Wolfe) as collaborator and producer to create an electronic album completely unlike anything else from Jaye Jayle and an ambitious step from 2018's remarkable No Trail and Other Unholy Paths LP. The LP began with a request from couture designer Ashley Rose, when she proposed that Evan Patterson team up with Sargent House label mates Chelsea Wolfe and Ben Chisholm to create a soundtrack for one of her upcoming fashion shows. Patterson was in the early stages of a massive eleven-week stretch of touring and used his downtime in the van to flesh out ideas on his phone. "I sent a track to Ben and he sent it back the next day with additional instrumentation, sounds, and effects," Patterson recalls. "It was wild. He suggested we make a whole record that way." By the end of tour, Patterson and Chisholm had an LP's worth of songs waiting for vocal treatments. "I printed out all these poems, stories, and journal entries I'd made on my phone over the course of the year and went into the studio with my friend Warren (Christopher Gray). We'd find things that rhythmically worked, and that's how all the lyrics and singing happened. It was all gut instinct, improvisational," Patterson recalls. "The vocal approach isn't meant to be full of hooks and melody. The music is framed almost as a film score for my life. Instead of David Attenborough or William S. Burroughs as a narrator, I used this opportunity to narrate visuals from my reality," he continues. The record's title "Prisyn" is a play on the idea of a synthetic prison, and alludes to Patterson's desire for artistic freedom and the album's conflicted use of addictive technologies. But in the time of the pandemic, he also views it as an example of overcoming adversity in desperate times; this is a record that could have been made under the jail-like confines of quarantine, with Patterson and Chisholm having never been in the same room at the same time. Patterson comments, "These songs have a totally different energy, and that's the exciting thing about making art. Things have to progress. I don't want to draw the same picture for the rest of my life. Maybe that keeps you from being a master at it, but being a master isn't the key to art. It's having that constant expression, the constant outlet, the constant change."

Gum Country are a Canadian indie rock band brought to you by vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Courtney Garvin (The Courtneys) and multi-instrumentalist Connor Mayer.

In the wake of Young Marble Giants' breakup, two camps were created, with Stuart Moxham taking the band's minimalist, geometric play to extremes and Alison Statton adding more warmth and feeling to the same basic template and creating something stunning but based in popular forms. Those two opposing - almost knee-jerk - means of forging new paths away from one of music's most astonishingly unique debuts both happened to include Stuart's brother - Alison's former boyfriend - Phil Moxham. In recent years, both artists have almost reversed course, with Stuart proving himself an ace songwriter in classic pop form, and Alison's work again approaching a modern abstraction of quiet folk music - experimental but accessible. But that's another tale. Without a real template to guide him, Stuart's new form of music - as The Gist - was widely regarded as wildly uneven. Stuart admits that he didn't know which way to go, so in perverse style, he decided to take all directions at once. The Gist's original discography stood at a scant 18 songs, but only seven featured Stuart's own voice, often in heavily processed and oddly mixed form. So while The Gist's label, Rough Trade, had the widest array of unique voices in popular music, Stuart buried his own voice. Sales disappointed. The Gist were dropped. A decade later, starting with a critical reevaluation of The Gist's sole album, Embrace The Herd, in an issue of Mojo, the tide begin to turn. Ambience in pop music had enjoyed a cult following from Eno on, but the non-linear structure of many of The Gist's songs had certain parallels with the rise of artists such as Aphex Twin and Seefeel. One song from the era was covered by Etienne Daho in France. Sounding rather advanced for French pop at the time, it ended up selling over a million copies and was later covered by Lush and sampled by DJ Koze with Lambchop singer/songwriter Kurt Wagner. The Gist's story could have been different. Recent discovery of a trove of unreleased songs, versions and demos showed that Stuart had ample material on a par with his YMG work, sometimes in rough demo form, but often in five or six complete, entirely different arrangements. With the 2017 album of unreleased material by The Gist, Holding Pattern, a new audience discovered the band and the release sold out quickly. Interior Windows adds 13 new performances or alternate versions to the band's catalogue, and does the service of finally making both sides of The Gist's first 7" 45 (recorded at the same session as the final YMG single) available again, along with their contribution to the Rough Trade / NME classic compilation C81, and in keeping with The Gist's tradition, at least one song on which Stuart does not appear.

John Foxx And The Maths return with a new line-up on their 5th studio album, Howl. Former Ultravox guitarist Robin Simon joins Foxx, Benge (Ben Edwards) and Hannah Peel after previously guesting with The Maths at their debut Roundhouse show in 2010. 'For years, I'd wanted to work with Robin Simon again,' says Foxx. 'There's something central about what he does - and I always miss it, no matter who I work with. It's what Rob can do with a song, and with the sheer power of sound.' Work on the album began back in April 2019 at Benge's Memetune studios in Cornwall with Rob Simon involved right from the start, his contributions instantly mutating the original ideas into something new. 'Give him a song and he'll give you three takes - all utterly different incarnations,' enthuses Foxx who first worked with Simon on Ultravox's Systems Of Romance album in 1978. 'And it will all be much better. Demolition intercision is what he does and when you get used to the violence he can wreak, it's a true delight.' Foxx and Benge originally got together back in 2010, playing a headline show at the Roundhouse in London as the first ever John Foxx And The Maths show before they'd even finished their debut album, Interplay, which came out a few months later in 2011. Forward-looking, intuitive and risk taking from the start (Critic Mark Fisher summed them up as 'a glimpse into another world in which rock 'n' roll was invented on Moogs') their passion for the strange sounds and atmospheres they seduce and rip from the machines in Benge's studio has inspired a series of fiercely personal electronic records - the Shape Of Things (2012), Evidence (2013) and The Machine (2017), an eerie instrumental score for the theatre production of E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops. Along the way they've collaborated with The Soft Moon, Gazelle Twin, ADULT., Xeno & Oaklander, Gary Numan, Matthew Dear and many more, but at the core of everything is Foxx and the Cornish-based artist/producer. 'Benge is this generation's Conny Plank', grins Foxx. 'Original thinker, open mind, eager conspirator in insanity and the desire to push everything beyond its limits and record it all perfectly - but holding no daft prejudices. In other words, the kind of captain you always want at the helm of the Enterprise.' Hannah Peel joined the line-up on the Interplay tour in 2011 and has played every show since, while also adding violin to Evidence and of course, Howl. 'Hannah did a few star turns on the album,' says Foxx, referring to the vicious noises that she conjured up as textures on a few songs. However on the electro-psychedelic 'Everything Is Happening At The Same Time', the complex interplay of the 'The Dance' and the romantic longing of 'Strange Beauty', Foxx describes her string-led contributions as 'luscious, expansive and eloquent.' The Maths have created an album of dark, writhing glamour. Opener 'My Ghost' sounds like haunted static in a cold wind, the title track is a twisted glam-punk celebration of 'the outsider' who leaves the fringes to make himself visible, while Foxx switches to a sinister Ferry-esque croon on 'Tarzan And Jane Regained'.'New York Times' is a report back from the city of the 1970s, with Foxx's vocals gently coaxing out the vulnerability of its street characters and Factory stars, while 'Last Time I Saw You' revels in an ice-cool narrative illuminated by neon-lit transformations and flickering revelations - this song is built for streets and strobes. The album ends with 'Strange Beauty', where Foxx sounds like an echo from the 1950s - a voice that is still searching across all these years for something just out of reach

Exquisite set of cover songs by Nashville-based Sunshine Pop band, "The Explorers Club". Ten-song-set is chock full of hits, misses and other delights from the 1960s. Album features guest vocals by former Barenaked Ladies front man Steven Page, and Drive-By Truckers member, Jay Gonzalez. Three previous albums: "Freedom Wind" (2008), "Grand Hotel" (2012) and "Together" (2016) and of course their "self-titled" album (2020) which is being released around the same time as "To Sing And Be Born Again". Brainchild of Charleston, SC native Jason Brewer, the only constant "member" of The Explorers Club over the band's lifespan Brewer re-unites with Freedom Wind and Grand Hotel producer, Matt Goldman (Copeland, Underoath, Smalltown Poets, etc). New contributors to this set include Shane Tutmarc (Dolour, Sean Nelson,) Page and Gonzalez, as well as vocals from former Explorers Club member Wally Reddington and past contributor Brian Langan Brewer, Tutmarc, and Goldman recorded most of the album in Nashville, at Columbia's legendary Studio A. Additional work was done at Gem City Studios on the Tennessee/Kentucky border. Songs include huge pop hits originally recorded by The Turtles ("She'd Rather Be With Me,") Manfred Mann, (the Bob Dylan penned "Mighty Quinn," Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart ("I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight") Herb Alpert ("This Guy's In Love With You") and Paul Revere and the Raiders ("Kicks). Rarities and lesser known songs from Three Dog Night's Danny Hutton, New England-based Orpheus, The Zombies, The Lovin' Spoonful and The Walker Brothers round out the set.

The fourth album by Nashville-based Sunshine Pop band. This twelve-song-set is band's boldest work to date, breaking sonic barriers while maintaining lush melodies and artistic influences. Key tracks include: "Ruby," "Look To The Horizon," "One Drop Of Rain," "Somewhere Else". Three previous albums: "Freedom Wind" (2008), "Grand Hotel" (2012) and "Together" (2016). Early critical acclaim led to placements in film, television and advertising, as well as favorable press in both print and online. Musically adjacent to successful pop artists from the 1960s, 70s like The Beach Boys, Turtles, Association, Grass Roots. Brainchild of Charleston, SC native Jason Brewer, the only constant "member" of The Explorers Club over the band's lifespan. Brewer re-unites with Freedom Wind and Grand Hotel producer, Matt Goldman (Copeland, Underoath, Smalltown Poets, etc). New contributors to this incarnation of The Explorers Club include Shane Tutmarc (Dolour, Sean Nelson) and Austin, TX based songwriter, Will Courtney. Songwriting partnership with Emeen Zarookian, Mike Williamson and vocal contributions from former Explorers Club member Wally Reddington return Brewer, Tutmarc, and Goldman recorded most of the album in Nashville, at Columbia's legendary Studio A. Additional work was done at Gem City Studios on the Tennessee/Kentucky border.

“New wave structure meets punk blatancy and 21st-century gender fluency” - New York Times "Not since Yeah Yeah Yeahs burst out of Manhattan in the early 2000s in a blaze of fishnets and glitter has punk rock been as downright fun" – NME "Dream Wife make music that flips a middle finger to convention.” – The FADER "The art-school project that’s evolved into one of indie-rock’s most politically dynamic emerging acts" - Entertainment Weekly "Dream Wife just want to dismantle the patriarchy. The U.K. art punks make music that’s roiling with feminist rage and Spice Girls attitude" – Rolling Stone "The girl gang proving there’s force in femininity. Dream Wife create pop anthems for the Instagram generation" - Dazed

Hull/Leeds based five-piece bdrmm release their much anticipated debut Bedroom on July 3, via Sonic Cathedral. The 10-track album was recorded late last year at The Nave studio in Leeds by Alex Greaves (Working Mens Club, Bo Ningen) and mastered in Brooklyn by Heba Kadry (Slowdive, Beach House). It's a hugely accomplished debut and a real step up both sonically and lyrically from their early singles, which were rounded up on last year's If Not, When? EP. Musically, there are nods to The Cure's Disintegration, Deerhunter and DIIV, while the band reference RIDE and Radiohead. There are also echoes of krautrock and post-punk, from The Chameleons to Protomartyr, plus the proto shoegaze of the Pale Saints' The Comforts Of Madness, not least in the cross fading of some tracks, meaning the album is an almost seamless listen. As a result, Bedroom becomes an unexpected and unintentional concept album, running through the different stages of a break-up set against the backdrop of the ups and downs of your early twenties. "The subject matter spans mental health, alcohol abuse, unplanned pregnancy, drugs_ basically every cliché topic that you could think of," reveals frontman Ryan Smith. "But that doesn't mean they ever stop being relevant. It's a fucker growing up, but I'm lucky enough to have been able to project my feelings in the form of this band, surrounded by four of the best people I've ever met." And that band name, in case it needs explaining, is pronounced the same way as the album title. "I never thought I'd get to the stage where I would have to explain it so much," says Ryan. "We have been pronounced as Boredom, Bdum and my old boss thought we were a ska band called Bad Riddim. We're all sarcastic cunts, so Bedroom spelt correctly seemed like the perfect title." He's right. The perfect title for the perfect debut album.

Eight new songs of sparkling electronics from duo Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride (Martial Canterel) blur the lines between 60's French Pop, 80's wave and contemporary modular synth pop. Romantic and mythic, a dreamlike journey through dense harmonies and complex polyphonic compositions... As a musical act, Xeno & Oaklander conflate a rich love of analog synths, melody, and mythology with eloquent nuance and a nod to the heritage they draw from. While that construct is the duo's immediate kiss and crush, there's a deeper importance to their collaboration which began in 2004. As evidenced in their debut Vigils (2004), McBride and Wendelbo's artistic dynamic is more than just a mutual love for electronics but a contrast between architectural precision and painterly expression. From the film scores to the traditional albums they've recorded in their Brooklyn studio, they've both spurred and fostered the global synth wave revival through a commitment to analog-only production and performance as well as a strident respect for the medium. On their latest album Hypnos and first for the Dais imprint, the duo leveraged the talents of visual artist and live sound engineer Egan Frantz to mix the album. It's a touch that adds both punch and balance, allowing their inherent conceptual voices to converge into a collage with defined edges and warm, synapses of frequency and beat. "Musically, Hypnos is a return to polyphony after several years of using strictly monophonic synthesizers," McBride says about the album's ethos. "This has brought dense harmonies and a more complex counterpoint to the composition. Staying with the same equipment and processes without the inveterate compulsion to update and refashion allows for a clearly perceivable genealogy with our previous work." "I felt the desire to tell mythical stories, I also wanted my voice to sit strongly in the mix," Wendelbo explains. "I channeled the spirits of 60s French Pop chanteuse Françoise Hardy and 80s New Wave New York icon Tina Weymouth." Her intentions are best evidenced on the tracks "Angelique,"and "Insomnia," the former a spry track sung in French, against a springy rhythm. Laden with expanding and contrasting frequency and a penchant for strategic rhythm, Hypnos juxtaposes dance with distance, creating an immersive oeuvre that exudes contrast and control.

Shannon Wright is an utterly distinctive songwriter coated in raw, indelible fury. Wright's songwriting hypnotizes, whether she's igniting her ravenous guitar, or swirling her remarkable trance-inducing piano, Wright's intensity draws you in and refuses to let up, therein lies the real beauty of her music. Wright's voice penetrates to the heart. Its dynamics diffuse into a state close to amazement, leaving you helpless, rinsed and filled. But it's the strength of the great writers that draw you out to make you stronger. All of Wright's albums are different in character with a consistent unflinching honesty, this somber honesty marks her music's timeless quality and her indispensable discography. Brimming with urgency on stage or recording, it is this ecstatic, intricate power that defines Wright's luminous live shows and her incandescent studio albums. Neither to be missed.

Ltd vinyl on black vinyl. Liner notes by Stewart Lee. Here is the follow up to the Untied Kingdom on Optic Nerve and 'The Complete John Peel Sessions' Having now been recording and gigging for longer than their original 1980s incarnation, The Wolfhounds continue to hone the blade of their sound to outclass their whippersnapper competitors on Electric Music. From the desperate narrator of the opening anthem 'Can't See The Light', unable to see an end to his descent into darkness to the sad urban reminiscences of the rural immigrant in 'Song Of The Afghan Shopkeeper' and the unwilling draftee in 'Pointless Killing', to the powerlessness of people tossed around on the waves of history and progress in 'Like Driftwood' - Wolfhounds ask where our emotional and actual lives are heading, as the world seemingly freefalls into barbarism. With the dreaded feeling that 'Lightning's Going To Strike Again', we lack even the appealing soundtrack to the catastrophe of the past described in '_ and Electric Music', and the band ask will 'The Roaches' once more rule the world (if they ever stopped)? Is the solution to 'Stand Apart' from the chaotic crowd or admit, cynically, that 'We Don't Believe Anything' and roll with the movements of the masses? Featuring the glowing sleeve notes of comedian Stewart Lee, and a new expanded line-up including electric violin and bassoon (from Scritti Politti's Rhodri Marsden), and peppered with the barbed lyrics and stinging guitar of David Lance Callahan and the home-made hybrid stringed instruments of guitarist Andy Golding, Wolfhounds have never sounded more alive, energetic and contemporary.

Wolf Parade - Dan Boeckner, Spencer Krug, and Arlen Thompson - will release Thin Mind, the group's fifth album for Sub Pop, on January 24th, 2020. The 10-track record was recorded by John Goodmanson at Risque Disque on Vancouver Island, BC, mixed by

Wire exhibit little inclination to look back - rather they remain resolutely focused on producing music which is smart, vital and defiantly modern. Mind Hive is the group's first newly recorded material since 2017's Silver/Lead. That album garne

Pressed in a limited edition of 1000, the 10th Anniversary Edition of Wild Nothing's seminal release Gemini is pressed on Translucent Sea Blue Vinyl and housed in a silk-screened, hand-stamped LP Jacket that mimics the very first edition of its release. Songwriter Jack Tatum makes music as Wild Nothing and sounds about as removed from his home of Blacksburg, Va., as one could imagine. Like a blend of Cocteau Twins and Atlas Sound, the songs on his breakthrough full-length debut, Gemini, are willowy and ethereal, but tethered to a sturdy and sinewy backbone. "Chinatown" waltzes through a timeless, misty tableaux of wispy vocals and plucky guitars, with a wonderfully faint verse/chorus/verse skeleton, while tracks like the fantastically sticky "Summer Holiday" and "Our Composition Book" have a jangly melancholy the evokes Johnny Marr and The Smiths. Tatum uses his charmingly imperfect falsetto on "Confirmation," darting in and out of hazy keyboards and shyly bubbling guitar and bass lines. His voice takes on a darker, flatter intonation on songs like the murky "Pessimist" and the bittersweet "Live in Dreams." Gemini is a beautiful, aural space that's perfect for getting lost in.

With Plum, the songwriting partnership rooted in the creative rapport between bandleader Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas continues to expand on shared visions, delving deeper into what was always there: dusty guitars, ear-worm melodies, warm expansive arrangements. Each entry to their catalog has marked a subtle reimagining of Widowspeak's sound, though perennial points of reference remain the same: 90's dream pop, 60's psych rock, a certain unshakeable Pacific-Northwestness. Speaking to the timeless feeling of each, the albums continue to be discovered well beyond their respective PR cycles, made beloved by new listeners through word of mouth. The band's fifth album feels comfortable and lived-in: humble in structure, heavy on mood. Perhaps that came taking time off from the touring grind, instead working full-time jobs and settling into the rhythm of daily life in a small upstate New York town. Plum was recorded over a handful of weekends last winter by Sam Evian (Cass McCombs, Kazu Makino, Hannah Cohen) at his Flying Cloud studio in the Catskills, and was mixed by Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, Perfume Genius). In addition to Hamilton (vocals, guitar) and Thomas (guitars, bass, synth), it features instrumental contributions by Andy Weaver (drums), Michael Hess (piano), and Sam himself (bass, synth). Plum nestles into the band's canon like it was always there, but with new textures coming to the fore, like the polyrhythmic pulse of "Amy" and "The Good Ones", or the watery, Terry Riley-influenced track "Jeanie" Plum navigates the spaces between the lesser emotions of modern life. Hamilton's lyrics speak to the unique turmoil of anyone who creates as their work, who must somehow survive off such "fruits of their labor." Yet, Widowspeak have always made a bitter pill much easier to swallow. The majestic "Breadwinner", the luminous "Even True Love" - these songs here were made to be listened to, enjoyed. "Money" is particularly hypnotic, built around a repeating, cyclical motif that serves as both skeleton and body. "Will you get back what you put in?" Hamilton asks over an insistent guitar riff. The line is delivered with a knowingness that transcends its surface critiques of late-stage capitalism, asking both herself and the listener whether this is, in fact, the world we want to live in. Through Plum, Widowspeak have brought something into the world that seems to know its own worth, even as it wonders aloud about what is to come. What value and meaning do we assign ourselves, our time, and how do we spend it?

Limited clear blue vinyl