I, Doris - HRT

Formed out of the Loud Women DIY empire, the tabard sporting I, Doris - official membership: Doris, Doris, Doris, Doris, Doris and Doris - play what they term "mummycore riotpop kitchenpunx", playful while cutting feminism-driven lyrical concerns like some kind of indiepop Jenny Eclair routine. Having been at Bearded Theory and being on their way in August to Rebellion and Brighton Pride, their new single's poppy keytar hook and instant hit chorus with handclaps brings the lighter side out of the struggle for accessing gynaecological healthcare; the end of the video features two members being thrown out of a TK Maxx, which is about as good an analogy for the band as you could find.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Muriel - Body Of Light

Your Heart Breaks feat. Kimya Dawson & David Christian - These Old Haunts

Your Heart Breaks, the project of Seattle-based renowned animator Clyde Petersen, has been operating since 1998 with more records than you'll ever get to catch up on - The Wrack Line, out on 7th July, is at least their twelfth album - and a fluid line-up and sense of collaboration that has seen Petersen work with Kelley Deal, Death Cab For Cutie's Chris Walla, Nirvana's cellist Lori Goldston, K Records country rocker Karl Blau and members of drone greats Earth. Another regular contributor has been Kimya Dawson, who featured on the previous track, college rock rave-up Wesley Crusher, and duets after a fashion here with Comet Gain's cussed sole survivor David Christian - throw in that Katherine Paul, AKA Black Belt Eagle Scout, also contibutes musically and that's one hell of a fever dream combination. The track is a typically literate summery shuffle inspired by touring life travelogues, the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland and, er, "the perfect place to take a poo".





ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Son Lux, Anna B Savage & DM Stith - Pyre (Alarm Bells)
Echo Ladies - Awake
Aderyn - I Wish I Had A Dog
sister - Guts
Celestial North - Otherworld

Lande Hekt - Pottery Class

Currently trailing The Beths round Europe having been doing likewise in the UK, Hekt is building quite the catalogue of deep introspection negotiating the idea of self-acceptance over two albums and now a new 7", of which this A-side attempts to be upbeat musically but finds her in a slough of isolated despond brought on by an extended period of separation amid the housing crisis.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Saloon Dion - Happiness
cumgirl8 - gothgirl1
Dream Wife - Social Lubrication
John Monroe & Field Music - Driving
Laundromat Chicks - Florida Dream
Sofie Royer - Mio

Grain Mother - 3am

This is technically the Nottingham band's debut single but there's a possibility you came across them when they were the full band of Alice Robbins, whose 2019 EP earned Joni and Daughter comparisons. This new formation has already supported The WAEVE and Trust Fund, and if you're round about Metronome on Wednesday night you could see them supporting Rozi Plain; their strong single a spacious, pristine lament with Americana airs and jazzy inflections, lyrically astute - including a surprising namecheck for a popular home video-based TV show - in its outwardly strong, inward cracked melancholia.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Trust Fund - London
CMAT - Have Fun!
Mt. Yonder - Ones & Zeros
Grian Chatten - Last Time Every Time Forever
The Popguns - Caesar

Angelo De Augustine - The Ballad Of Betty And Barney Hill

It's probable you'll best know De Augustine from A Beginner's Mind, the film inspired album he made with Sufjan Stevens in 2021. Despite the Californian having made three previous albums of his own it's therefore understandable that you might reach for Sufjan comparisons when discussing the latest track from Toil And Trouble, out 30th June on Asthmatic Kitty, and its hushed dreamstate acoustic storytelling based on historical backwater events and turning bad memories into sweeping, ultimately warm despite the unnerving lushness, decorated around the edges by warped found sounds and multitracked backing harmonies. Notably De Augustine refers to "an ephemeral but nightmarish period of otherworldly sensations and supernatural visions" during recording, which figures.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Forum Friends - Amateur Dentistry
Corvair - Shady Town
Tapir! - On A Grassy Knoll (We'll Bow Together)
Motorbike - Throttle

CHROMA - Woman To Woman

Two from two in terms of featured tracks from CHROMA's debut album. This, we promise, is not directly connected to the press release calling us grassroots tastemakers - it's been a long time, let us savour it - though it does have to be added that literally all that's been made public about the album at the moment is "there's going to be an album and Alcopop! are releasing it". If you've seen CHROMA live in the last year or so, and if not why not, this is the song they've been ending sets with, a heavy coiled spring of rage at feminist backbiting and the necessity of minority allyship and solidarity which in some ways is a companion to the likewise spectacular first thing we heard from them Girls Talk and similarly allows Katie Hall's not inconsiderable howl to really take off on the thunderbolt chorus. (Hey, is that Mythsntits artwork in the video? Well, yes it is, they're credited, but worth pointing out)



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Trips And Falls - It's Not Broken...

Forum Friends - New Boy

Forum Friends are based in Sheffield, formed via Reddit, supported Fresh recently and that's about the size of what we can find out about them. They've been pigeonholed, not least by themselves, as an emo band and the vocals are heading in that direction but there's much more of the charging, awkward power-pop that puts them much more snugly in the lane of a ME REX or Fortitude Valley. They actually have a third track coming out on Friday but nobody ever said timing was our strong point.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Tonguetied - Losing My Mind
Self-Immolation Music - Kaleidoscope
Melenas - Bang

Meursault - Laugh Track

Oh, they're all coming back now, aren't they. Meursault, the Edinburgh-based heartfelt lamentations of big voiced heart-on-sleeve dweller Neil Pennycook, is preparing a sixth full band album, due on 7th July. It's self-titled, which is ominous, but to go some way towards explaining the blurb describes the album as "a study of his relationship with what Meursault means to him, with each song representing a different stage in the evolution of the project. In short, it’s an album about creative endeavours and how they help shape not only the artists view of the world, but also the worlds view of the artist." As with a few songs on the record Laugh Track is a newly minted version of a song previously briefly available on one of three likewise named EPs in 2020, reworked from those electronic home recorded versions into the musically detailed widescreen folk that complements the uncomfortable introspection of Pennycook's common approach.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Blur - The Narcissist (which is worthy of the actual post but come on, they're Blur, they don't need this blog's help)
Storm Franklin - Hush Now
HMS Morris - House

Laurence-Anne - Politesse

We'd heard her last single Polymorphe so it wouldn't class as a discovery, but getting to see Laurence-Anne Gagné twice as one of Focus Wales' usual batallion of inventive Canadian visitors was a quiet joy of that wondrous Wrexham (sort-of-)weekend. If you want a one line description, try "Quebecois answer to Gwenno via 2010 Beach House but also Alison Goldfrapp", using varying timbral synths and co-operational effects landing on the gauge off-kilter retro synthpop or haunted textural dreampop. Politesse, from third album Oniromancie due on 8th September, is a dreamscape built from loops and layers, finding a glorious chorus melody never quite letting go into a groove and throwing itself out with parts echoing out and barging in, not least a free jazz sax interjection and an ending that seems to detach itself from the rhythm and float off into space. No more UK dates at the moment, sadly.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
ANOHNI and the Johnsons - It Must Change
Mandy, Indiana - Drag (Crashed)
MADMADMAD - Krautjerk
Obongjayar - Just Cool

Grove - BIG BOOTS

Superbly, the first vocal is a delightful "yoo-hoooo!" The rest... is not. If you hadn't already come across the Bristol producer/toaster/MC/rouser from their string of warping sweaty underground club joints you may have done from conquering a succession of sometimes unlikely festivals last summer - Green Man, much as we love it, is not a natural home for dark d'n'b, jungle, UKG and dancehall, especially in a mid-afternoon slot, yet they could do this to/with an End Of The Road crowd with their Nicola-endorsed bashment cover of Sound Of The Underground. In a couple of weeks' time they'll be trying the same trick at Bearded Theory and then later in the summer at Deer Shed; in the meantime their militantly political stance gets a thorough runout on what it has to be said is a slightly late release for an acidly anti-royalist message, the titular boots all the better for stamping and dancing on heads and graves over similarly uncompromising breakbeats, messy breakdowns and generally heavy bass from regular associate EJ​:​AKIN, who is also responsible for bringing things almost back to earth in the last minute with raga-esque counterpoint vocals that in context (and definitely not shared message) are in a similar ballpark to Shahin Badar's Sheila Chandra-inspired vocals at the end of Smack My Bitch Up. Suffice to say, Kelly Jones could never.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
yeule - sulky baby
Arlo Parks - Pegasus (officially "ft. Phoebe Bridgers", but just like Lorde ft. Phoebe Bridgers, The National ft. Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift ft. Phoebe Bridgers we only have their word to go on for that)
Kelli Blanchett - Stay (meanwhile this has Kelli's employer Self Esteem on BVs, it's clearly Rebecca's voice and she isn't co-credited. A lesson there.)

Muriel - Seaside Painter

We've just spent three excellent, fun, slighly wearying but ultimately rewarding days in Wrexham for our sixth full year at Focus Wales, a kind of Great Escape without the suffering hype, stupid queues or A&Rs but with lots of Welsh and international, largely Canadian in our experience, acts of excellence - hey, you can do so too next year - so we've come home to a new Welsh artist. One, admittedly, that didn't play, because they've only just played their second gig supporting Jeffrey Lewis, although they're already confirmed for Swn, which we're similarly planning to make our annual pilgrimage to. Muriel is the project of one Zak Thomas, whose debut single, it turns out after we'd selected it to feature, honest, features extra production by by Tom Bromley/Campesinos! Signed to Venn Records -unlikely on the surface given it's also been home to Gallows, Bob Vylan and Hi Vis - for an as yet unannounced album, the debut single in its slowly unfolding, pastorally pretty feel recalls the countrified/West Coast influenced introspective explorations and acoustic sharp-to-touch vulnerability of influence Mark Linkous. This is about as subtly impressive a start as can be.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Grimelda ft. Telgate - Freedom
HMS Morris - Family Souls
Laundromat Chicks - Let's Do This
Decisive Pink - Dopamine
Special Friend - Selkie

The Wind-up Birds - Margarine

Leeds' The Wind-up Birds were doing sociopolitical talk-singing over expressive post-punk before you were, and we know that not just over the course of four albums since 2010 but more directly because we've put them on twice, once at the 2014 Leicester Indiepop Alldayer, and again later that year supporting their friends Post War Glamour Girls, whose singer James Smith later formed Yard Act. Indeed the press release for their first single in three years has Smith declaring "Kroyd is light years ahead as a political lyricist in modern music. He changed my life and influenced me so much." From an EP, Pop​.​Thinking, due on 1st July, Margarine is an enervating, angrily poetic organ-driven thrusting two and a half minute blast at Tories, privilege, professional scapegoaters, Making Britain Great Again by proxy, the usual.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Panic Pocket - GET ME
Grian Chatten - Fairlies

Modern Woman - Achtung

You know sometimes even within the metropolitan centre of everything London there's the odd band who are much more interesting in noise and scope than many of their much more feted peers but because they don't have the same connective tissues as others (and we don't mean that in a Last Dinner Party way) they go under the radar? Modern Woman are a prime example, pulling apart and fiddling around with the edges of post-punk darkness and Sophie Harris' lyrics and delivery having the primal unfiltered poetic urgency of early PJ Harvey. Following the Dogs Fighting In My Dream EP of 2021 and still aligned with End Of The Road Records, the label arm of the exceptional peacock-strewn festival, Achtung is all bass-driven tension and noisy release as Harris streams of consciousness about adolescent observation and innocence, crushing and the undercurrents of levels of violence.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Neev - Will I Change You
Former Champ - Beginner's Luck
The Hannah Barberas - Party From Hell

Private Party - Could've Asked Sooner

It's Focus Wales, the actual most important thing in Wrexham, next week, we're making our now annual visit and one of the highlights as far as we're concerned will be (hopefully) getting to catch Private Party, a prenaturally young quintet from Swansea whose half-dreamy, emotionally conflicted chiming Artifical Feelings EP from last July was one of our favourite discoveries of this year, and not just ours as Welsh radio's finest Adam Walton called them "the sound of the future". Their new single is more direct, as songs that last 2:17 tend to be, but no less involving, harnessing a classy, some might say summery timeless janglepop melody to their own ends. Plus, and let's not overlook this as an attraction, their singer is called Violet Sourbutts.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
John Monroe & Field Music - Sleeping On The Floor
LYR - Presidentially Yours

Broken Records - You Won't Be There

Now, that's a name we haven't heard in a long time. Broken Records burst out of Edinburgh in 2007, a multi-handed folk-pop collective of mini-orchestral chorality and tunnel vision intensity who collected Bright Eyes/Arcade Fire/Beirut press comparisons as if it were a game of modern Americana I-Spy, the excitement getting them signed to 4AD for their first two albums. They inevitably drifted off the radar but they're back, back, back, with a fifth album (first in five years too) later in the year that approaches the grandiosity of The National while keeping itself grounded in that particular Scottish turf of ambitious folk-indie and, having left its raucous past behind it for now, finds itself awake late into the night contemplating, Jamie Sutherland citing an influence from 90s REM (well, maybe not Monster or Up)

Broken Records Band · You Won't Be There

ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Only Fools And Corpses - GREENHOUSE
Single Mothers - Sad Dumb Game
Slate - Tabernacl
Tugboat Captain - Like Caroline

cumgirl8 - Cicciolina

Yep. There is, of course, a certain knowing artiness to a New York female band with that name, not one you choose just to fit in but also signalling a smuggling of gender, sexual and feminist theory under the guise of boho electro-post-punk, it being entirely unsurprising to find they're playing some summer US dates with the reactivated Le Tigre. After a couple of releases last year they've wormed their way into the 4AD fold with a single that while not the first track to be named after and written in honour of the once much publicised porn star/politician feels like the one closest to her spirit (if not her actual music), grotty disco-punk laced with fucked up synth washes, ESG basslines, threatening stage whispers and CSS-esque gang sign post-electroclash all-out indie disco destroying brio.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Dream Wife - Orbit
bar italia - punkt
The Last Dinner Party - Nothing Matters

Lambrini Girls - Lads Lads Lads

Brighton's Lambrini Girls are the visceral distorted riff juggernaut you've wanted all along, enough a part of the punk lineage to be opening for Iggy Pop, Blondie, Buzzcocks and Generation Sex (Billy Idol, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Generation X/Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Tony James) at Crystal Palace Park soon but for the dominant part a gleefully undisguised Kathleen Hanna-influenced fearless fury a la M(h)aol, a more sarcasm wielding Dream Nails or, oh go on then, a sociopolitical Amyl & the Sniffers, that by all accounts and 100% believably goes even harder live. Taken from upcoming debut EP You're Welcome, out 19th May on the estimable Big Scary Monsters, the toxic token title is in context very self-explanatory.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Shangri-Lass - Father's Daughter

Snailosaur - Fake Cobblestone Alleys

Snailosaur, a pair of brothers from Brooklyn with this one EP out, clearly owe a debt to Dinosaur Jr in both the vocal approximation of classic J Mascis and the tone of the solos that blazes through parts of the song, but the rest owes more to the kind of unsteady slacker-core that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1993 by way of an acoustic undertow that wrongfoots any attempt to place them as just revivalists.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
two white cranes - it's on me
HOURGLVSS - Calling
The Dirt - Power Junkie
Minor Conflict - White Ring Binder
Oslo Twins - Breath

Say She She - Reeling

REPORTS: Disco "doesn't suck". Say She She are a Brooklyn trio styled after a Chic Organisation graduate right down to the band name (c'est chi-chi), all over the classic 70s soul group harmonies and groove without sounding much like a Seventies Night events band. Following last September's debut album Prism comes a song they say was "written as an incantation from Mother Earth to the masses to join the rising against the calamitous forces of unfettered capitalism that has left our seas and skies grappling", their callouts subtly cut with electronics underpinning the funk and more than a hint of Tom Tom Club-adjacent post-disco. They do sound like they'd be a night's entertainment and a half, which for UK readers is unfortunat as they've just finished going round the country, but are due back over at the end of summer for the pure starlight disco dolly exuberances of *checks dates* Green Man, Manchester Psych Fest and End Of The Road.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Dexys - I'm Going To Get Free
Cheekface - Popular 2
Laurence-Anne - Polymorphe

Neev - The House

There's if anything too many intimate singer-songwriters these days but Glasgow-raised Neev feels like she has something a cut above the majority. Taken from debut album Katherine, out on April 28th, The House is a plaintive self-investigation of domesticity, breaking relationships and thwarted dreams coloured by circling strings and her own longing phrasing.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
LUNGE - This Idle Motion
Special Friend - Bête
Dragnet - Strike
System Exclusive - Part Time Pierre