little chief

Here’s the thing about this one: it’s technically about a 19th century photographer, but it doesn’t feel like a history song. Mark Moule wrote the lyrics for a mate’s uni project about Izzy Orlof, the guy who apparently brought the camera to WA. That’s the assignment. What actually comes through on tape is something else. …

The band name sounded like a history podcast and I’m glad it landed on my radar. “The Great Refusal” is the lead single off Motihari Brigade’s upcoming album “Problematic”, and it’s a sharp, riff-heavy track about AI anxiety that somehow doesn’t come off preachy. The guitar work is the star here. There’s a riff early …

Brooklyn R&B artist E.Z.O. dropped a really solid single called “Fiend” back on May 1st and I think it deserves some serious attention. The track heavily channels that smooth energy of early 2000s heavyweights like Donnell Jones and Jagged Edge. The background production comes from Hennen Beats, a producer E.Z.O. discovered while browsing around on …

MASKED EXISTENCE, Vol. 3 has been sitting with me for a bit, and “CLAIM IT ALL” is the one I keep going back to. It’s built around this industrial-leaning modern metal sound that feels genuinely claustrophobic in the best way. The mix is tight and deliberate, like the production itself is part of the point. …

Bury St Edmunds is probably not the first place you’d picture when someone says UK drum and bass. It’s a medieval market town famous mainly for a Bob Marley appearance nobody expected and a Clash gig so chaotic it got live music banned there for twenty years. Consequential is from there. That detail feels right …

Esthy dropped “Bad Habit” on June 6th and wrote, produced, and mixed it herself, which you can actually feel. It doesn’t have that slightly-too-polished quality that happens when too many hands are on a track. The production sits in this late-night, slightly hazy pop space. Not minimal exactly, but nothing’s fighting for attention, and the …

“Wrapped in Warmth” is a beautiful release that you need to hear till the last second. Rebecca Trujillo Vest isn’t trying to knock you sideways. She’s doing something harder: making you actually stop and pay attention to a quiet song. Osmunda Music has been at this a long time, based out of LA but with …

Erik David Hidde has been recording music in his living room in Los Angeles for years. Eleven albums under his old name Prison Escapee, a debut Mohawk Castle record, and now a sophomore album with “In Moonlight” as its closing track. He writes it, records it, mixes it, and masters it. This is impressive. The …

Two hardcore lifers from Houston pick up acoustic guitars and make something genuinely good. That’s the short version. The longer one involves True Detective, Schopenhauer, and a Bandcamp bio that reads “sad music for a$$holes”, which Daniel Austin confirms is funny because it’s true. Austin and Chris have played together since they were teenagers, mostly …

Okay, so I went in knowing basically nothing about Audren, and that’s probably the best way to hear this record. No context, no expectations. Just eleven tracks and a lot of genre-blurring that takes a few songs to get used to. A New Page kicks things off with acoustic guitar and these neoclassical strings that …

Trickshooter Social Club is a Chicago band built around guitarist Larry Liss and singer Steve Simoncic, and this EP sounds like what happens when two guys have been playing together long enough to stop overthinking it. There’s no fussing around with production tricks or fashionable genre tags. They play roots rock, the guitars are loud, …

NYC’s YACOVELLI just dropped their fourth single, Since Emilia, and it’s the kind of track that makes you wish rock radio still existed the way it did in 1994. Alex Yacovelli is a DIY frontman through and through, and that shows up in every production choice here. The song opens with a Baglama, a small …

If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a lutenist from the Elizabethan era stumbles into a flamenco bar, Martin Howard’s new solo guitar piece might give you a pretty good idea, and “Hidden Andalucia” opens in a cool, measured style that owes a clear debt to John Dowland, all careful fingerpicking and that slightly melancholic …

The Buddyrevelles have been making indie rock since 1998, and the new single “Make the Dings Louder” sounds like a band who never lost the thread. It’s the second track off their upcoming EP The Conviction, and it opens with the kind of instrumentation that makes you turn your head. Not loud for the sake …

Edie Yvonne is still a teenager, and she’s already writing songs that make you do a double-take. “Act of Love”, the lead single off her forthcoming EP Look Me in the Eye, the release dropped June 1st, and it’s a sharp left turn from what fans might expect. The song is built almost entirely around …

Art Schop made an album about Ludwig Wittgenstein. Not inspired by him, not loosely themed around him. Actually, about him. The philosopher. And here’s the thing: it works. Art Schop sits somewhere in the same neighborhood as Bill Callahan and Father John Misty, which means his songs have that particular quality of being easy to …

Today I am listening to the latest track from Puerto Rican songwriter Ivelisse Del Carmen, and it has been on repeat all morning. Titled “Before I’m Done,” this new single tackles the heavy feeling of jumping back into your passion after a long break. Ivelisse took some time away from music due to burnout, and …

I came across Victims of the New Math a few weeks ago, and their latest album, The Stories That You Weave, has been glued to my turntable ever since. There is a raw, basement-tape quality to the production that hits right if you miss late-nineties indie rock, and the opening track hooks you immediately with …