In the interest of time, I’m just going to jump right in. As always, if you like any of this stuff, definitely check out the full releases the songs are from; almost all of the songs are standing in for recommendations of the full album or EP. And maybe also consider supporting the artists in some way; a lot of them are small acts with Bandcamp pages, the platform that already gives the best compensation to artists (and Bandcamp Fridays, days where the site gives their cut to artists as well, will return in 2025 starting in March). Now for the YouTube and Spotify embeds:
(As a reminder, if you'd like to know when a post goes up here, I have an email list! It's only used for new posts, and it is separate from my baseball article mailing list!)
Notes: As usual, not everything is on every list. Alpha’s music isn’t on either platform, but it is on their Soundcloud for those who want a non-Bandcamp option. The Spotify list is also missing iZme’s “Vivid” and the Live Session version of Knower’s “Overtime” (although I did substitute the studio version there). The YouTube list is missing two of the songs from SYM1 and one from The Only Humans, plus the Cheem song was only available as part of the full EP, so I left that one out too.
The Best Stuff:
Jamie Paige: Jamie Paige’s last album ‘Bittersweet’ was one of the earlier things I found when I started regularly browsing Bandcamp a few years ago, and I wound up listening to it a lot, as well as her follow-up singles and backlog. Several years later, and she’s finally released her next full album, ‘Constant Companions’, and it feels like it lived up to expectations. More of what I liked, but also new in ways that differentiate it so it feels fresh. She’s on a bit more of a kick with vocal synths here than on ‘Bittersweet’, but even that feels like a natural evolution, and she does some fun things with them.
There’s something about her songwriting style that just naturally draws me in, bursting with joyful energy and electric hooks, full of layers of synths and instrumentation, with recurring motifs and callbacks that can feel like their own ideas, and lyrics that lean can lean on big feelings but also a sense of humor, plus hint of sci-fi and fantasy ideas that can lend themselves to the idea of a bigger text and differentiate themselves from a lot of other songs, which can draw out emotion in fun, unexpected ways. Even stuff like the opener, "Dyad", about her desire to do both stuff like her last album and playing around with more Vocaloid songs, gets recast in both a more fantastic (a conversation between a person and a digital singer) and mundane (it’s literally recast as separation from someone you love and wanting connect with them), and that sort of layers are fun to think through and make it so easy to relate with.
I guess all of those points can sound like a lot, but: 1) usually, that deeper stuff doesn’t interfere at all with appreciating her skill for just writing an electropop banger that will find a way to draw you in on at least one level, it’s just a frosting on the cake; and 2) she can be pretty open about all of it, like the series of posts she wrote breaking down each song on ‘Constant Companions’, which is cool if you liked it and want to know a little more.
My biggest regret here is on this playlist, specifically that I used “Machine Love” last time on the Summer one, so I couldn’t re-use it here (per my own rules). It really is a perfect closing track for this album, and so good. And yeah, I could just bend the rules and put it here again… but there are also so many good songs here that I would feel bad not spreading the love around a little (I think I literally cycled through every song on the album in trying to pick a set of three for the playlist). My consolation is that I’ll just link the music video for it here, since it’s cute.
(Also, her side group Flavor Foley continues to drop good singles while this is going on; I’m also including their song “炜WARD ROMANCE” here, and I can already guarantee the single they released this January is going on the Start of 2025 playlist.)
Chayla Hope: I found her album 'Damn, Feelings' browsing Bandcamp’s “alt pop” tags, and it was one of my favorite listens over the last few months. Maybe I’m just a mark for this combination, but it’s everything I love in a pop album: a singer-songwriter writing heartful lyrics over big, catchy hooks and slick ‘90s and 2000s pop and R&B production, with a couple of bangers and huge moments of belting emotional catharsis. This album feels like someone processing the highs and lows of a relationship through the huge swings of pop anthems, stuff like “Dancing on My Own” and “Run Away With Me”, and wanting to turn those big feelings into their own personalized take on that.
It’s weird talking about small Bandcamp finds like this, because it can be hard to tell how much is the stuff being right up my alley versus generally crowd pleasing. With bigger stuff like ‘brat’ or ‘Imaginal Disk’, I can get the external validation of seeing it appear on other peoples’ year-end lists, and go “yes, my gut feeling was right, it’s not just me”. Here, it might just be me. I can overlook, for example, that it might be a little cheesy to end the song “Alone” with a light switch sound after the line “Leave me in the dark” because I was so caught up in the emotional rush of Chayla belting out “Don’t ya, don’t ya/Don’t ya leave me now!” on the emotional climax right before it. I am very much a fan of big moments of emotional sincerity like that, no amount of minor goofiness along the way is going to dissuade me. There are just so good many moments like that along the way, in songs like “Love in Lo-Fi” or “Tear My Heart Out” or “Forget Me Not”.
I’m excited to see what she does next; I also looked into some of her new singles, including playlist entry “All Over Now”. Since ‘Damn, Feelings’ originally came out back in 2022 (again, finding small stuff like this can feel very asynchronous at times), maybe there will even be an album soon? (Edit: Literally the weekend before this went up, she announced her next album coming in February.)
Turboslacker: I stumbled upon ‘Pixelated Lithiums’, their debut album, just by chance while browsing Bandcamp and fell in love. It’s just a perfect little slice of dance-y post-punk rock, full of great moments and catchy moments that are great to sing along to, with some great darker textures to really accentuate things. I was really lucky I found this one when I did back in early October, because it was a perfect thing to listen to leading up to Halloween; there’s a lot of the traditional “sad and angry post-punk” lyrics to go with the darker tone that I think they do well (like the defeated “Home is where the car’s parked, for now” from the title track), but they can also get a little campier with touches with horror motifs to in a way that adds some fun character (songs like “The Casket Lounge” or the opening lines of the album in “Sleep Like Hell”). That added bit of synergy might have made it the things I listened to the most over the last few months?
BAD MOVES: I don’t even know what else to say about this one. I found BAD MOVES’ first two albums at the start of last year, and couldn’t say enough good things about them. I got into them just in time to get excited for the announcement of their third album, ‘Wearing Out the Refrain’, and it was everything I hoped it would be: more of their high-energy, punk-ish power pop that still feels fresh, varied, energized, and fun to sing along to. It’s exactly what I wanted and expected going in, yet it still lived up to those expectations. That feels hard to do! My one maybe-gripe is that I think two of the three early singles (“Let the Rats Inherit the Earth” and “Hallelujah”) are some of my favorite tracks on the album, but they were already featured on my past playlists, but I’m fine featuring some of the deeper cuts this time instead.
Scarlet Bandit: I didn’t realize until I was looking back at my picks that I had quite a bit of rock music here, and a wider variety than usual too, it feels like? Maybe that’s a function of there just being more music. Anyway, if you were looking for some big, arena-sized glam rock, I’d definitely recommend Scarlet Bandit’s ‘Lose Your Blues’. It feels like a lot of musicians with backgrounds in stuff like pop-punk and emo deciding to take some of that songwriting style and blow it up with some hair metal theatricality to an even grander scale. There are big guitar solos and soaring choruses and headbanging moments, so many of them that it was difficult to narrow down songs here, and all of it so catchy that you can’t help but get swept along in the excitement. I’m excited to see where this band goes next… which will be as soon as I finish this article and let myself listen to new music again, because they dropped a new EP a week ago!
Charli XCX: I liked ‘brat’ on first listen back when it came out, but kind of just moved on and ignored some of the remixes and new singles as they dropped. It didn’t feel like a big enough part of my life at the time to even bother including it on the Summer Playlist. But as time went on, I kept hearing the songs in the wild and found my appreciation of them was holding steady or even growing, rather than getting sick of them. Then I finally decided to revisit the full album again as “End of Year” lists came out, and that sent me into a full mini-obsession period over it. I realize I’m not saying anything super original here; it’s got a ton of Grammy nominations, and one person on Reddit even tallied up a bunch of different year-end rankings and found ‘brat’ was the highest-ranked album of 2024. I don’t think it’s my personal Album of the Year pick (my gut reaction is that’s still Magdalena Bay’s crown, with ‘Imaginal Disk’, but I haven’t put too much thought into it), but it’s still a reasonable and understandable pick. Songs like “360” are massive bangers, but songs like “Sympathy Is a Knife” and “Girl, So Confusing” can bounce between that and specific anxieties in a way that lingers with you.
Lauren Mayberry: ‘Vicious Creature’, the debut solo record of the CHVRCHES frontwoman, is a good album, and it feels like it’s going to be wildly overlooked due to its unfortunate circumstances, which I kind of alluded to back in my “Building a CHVRCHES Greatest Hits ALBUM” article. Nearly half of its twelve tracks came out early, with over fifteen months between the first lead single and the final release date (shoot, I’ve been able to include three different songs on past playlists, despite them only going up every four months!), and Mayberry was halfway through her supporting tour before it came out; that’s like a large chunk of the purpose to sign with a major label, to avoid this sort of long lead-up, piecemeal release schedule that indie acts often need to do. Also, a release the first week of December is kind of ridiculous; most people are shifting to Christmas music at that point, and it’s generally too late for any sort of Awards consideration or secondary bumps from Year-End reviews (maybe it wouldn’t have gotten much, but it’s not like we’ll know either way now). Adding salt to the wound is that the biggest reason for delays sounds like it was behind-the-scenes industry garbage, like EMI’s parent Universal going through a restructuring and getting into a licensing dispute with TikTok (although the rest of that Dork interview with Lauren is a great read!).
But all of that aside, how is the album itself? Really good! It definitely put to bed any fears I had of this being an end for Chvrches; Mayberry has used her creative control to push in a very different direction here, playing with different sounds (the characteristic electronic sounds of the band are almost entirely absent) and writing extremely personal lyrics. It can kind of feel like a therapy session at times, really; the range of topics here seems to lean towards bitter regrets and righteous fury, which can make things a little tense. There’s never really a moment of catharsis, by design.
But even then, it never drags; even some of the anger gets turned into fun, bouncy pop tracks like “Crocodile Tears” or “Shame”, which is nice in its own way. “Punch Drunk” is probably the closest thing to straight joy, a fun, off-kilter bop that still talks about getting hit with lovesickness like a disease. Meanwhile, the less-upbeat stuff still runs a gamut of emotions, like “Something In The Air” hitting soaring highs, or “Mantra” and its dark, pulsing grooves. I don’t know that a proper release schedule would have set this one up to be a dark horse hit in the way that, say, Caroline Polachek or Charli XCX (just trying to think of other 2010s music press faves who had heralded pop album releases the last few years) saw, but just going off of my personal taste, I feel like it would have been worth a try! Maybe it’ll find that audience in the future through a different pathway, though.
Compass & Cavern: This was kind of an interesting story… I mentioned them last time as one of the new bands I had found on Bandcamp and really enjoyed, a duo that had a sort of prog rock-take on power pop, and I was having fun going back through their stuff. Well, the band themselves ended up reaching out to me and asking if I’d like an early download of their album. I think it’s because I had already gotten several of the singles that would be included on the eventual release? I don’t think these articles get enough reads for it to qualify as a review copy (lol).
And so that’s how Compass & Cavern’s new album ‘Shift’ wound up here, despite technically releasing on January 7th (i.e. after my cut-off). I actually enjoyed it a lot! It does a great job building off of those things I highlighted last time into a full album. This was another case where I was initially worried picking songs would be hard (like I mentioned, a lot of the tracks were pre-release singles, including “I Discovered the Future” and “Adolescent Eyes” from last time), but it wasn’t an issue at all, the catchy chorus and fuzzy guitar riffs and big drums fills spacey-futuristic vibes all kept coming.
As a bonus, I went back and listened to their first album ‘Before It Begins’ too afterwards, as part of my continued dive through their older releases; I would say that they’ve always had an ear for writing catchy pop-rock songs, but they’ve really grown as songwriters and developed a unique voice and sound over the eight years and multiple singles and EPs they’ve cut in the intervening years. It just made me appreciate ‘Shift’ all the more.
Tiny Stills: Their album ‘We Really Felt Something’ is a very good power pop-punk album, with the best kind of problem: the first song, “Downgrade Baby” is too great. It’s perfect and catchy and full of hooks and fun riffs, it conveys a very specific but familiar kind of feeling (a sort of inadequacy in the face of what came before you, in a way that you can’t escape or change) in a vivid and complex way that feels primal and cathartic, and all of that makes it so fun to just throw on and sing along and move around to… I would honestly put it up there with stuff, like, “The Middle” or “Misery Business” or “Stacy’s Mom”. I’ll leave the album on afterwards and enjoy it, and maybe even shock myself with how much of it I remember as it comes on… and then I get to the end and think, “Man, I could go for ‘Downgrade Baby’ again”. It feels like I’m underselling the rest of the album though, there’s a lot of great stuff here in addition to that killer lead track!
Sungazer: The jazz-electronic fusion group followed up their 2021 debut ‘Perihelion’ with the new album ‘Against the Fall of the Night’. I always feel a little out of my depth talking about this kind of stuff, because I really appreciate listening to it but don’t feel like I understand it enough to break down why I like it beyond “they’re doing some wildly complicated rhythms and making it sound approachable, despite going even less pop-y than last time”. It helps that Adam Neely and Shawn Crowder have both made some videos on their YouTube channels explaining some of their ideas here, though; if you want to know more, those will probably help much more than whatever I can say (here’s one fun starting point).
KNOWER: I enjoyed their 2023 album ‘KNOWER FOREVER’, and even included it on one of my playlists, but I honestly didn’t know much about the band or think to go back and check out any of their back catalog or anything. The big switch there was one of Jamie Paige’s behind-the-scenes posts where she mentioned Louis Cole’s drumming as an inspiration on one track and linked to this absolutely fire Knower live session of their song “Overtime”. That inspired me to check out their previous album ‘LIFE’, which is much more jazz and EDM focused than their newer record, and has a lot more in the vein of that live session. The one heads up for people going in here blind is that some of their song lyrics are… pretty goofy and over-the-top. Intentionally so, and I think a lot of them are actually funny as a result, but I can also see some of them wearing on people who are less keen on irony-heavy ridiculousness and mostly there for the intense performances and production.
Long Island: I ended up going pretty big on this English band (yes, I know that name will make other Americans will think of the New York locale first, but they are unmistakably British), checking out both their debut album ‘infatuation’s a nightmare’ from early 2023 and their follow-up from September, ‘the freedom of being young’. I had a weirdly difficult time summarizing why I kept coming back to both of them, but: I think they recaptured the sort of Synthpop/New Wave Revival sound of early The 1975, hitting both a sound and catchiness that no one (even the last few 1975 albums) have matched. But I also find something much more familiar and relatable in their more anxious and introverted lyrics, reflecting on desires like a fear of staying in place but also the fear of moving on, or a sort of desire to capture a happy fleeting moment of youth, or a desire to sort of “power-of-positive-thinking” your way through challenges even while knowing how unlikely it is. I don’t know, it’s a good combo that really works for me.
Charly Bliss: This was another year-end list I checked out, specifically from Bandcamp’s review (I’m not sure I saw anywhere else feature it though?). I had heard of the band in the past, often with some mention of it being a hybrid of bubblegum pop and grunge, which kind of confused me, but I also hadn’t checked them out. And after listening to their new third album ‘Forever’... I kind of get it? I’m not super well-versed on grunge, but they definitely seem like a more power-pop take on ‘90s alternative, and I could feel their hooks and guitar riffs and melodies working their way into my head deeper on every re-listen. I might need to go back and look at their first two albums sometime.
Lava La Rue: ‘STARFACE’ was another pull from Bandcamp’s Best of 2024 lists that I ended up liking a lot. My initial read of “modern alternative-pop-R&B sci-fi concept album” was Janelle Monae (in retrospect, I think mostly since I missed the sci-fi elements in ‘The Age of Pleasure’), but fellow Brit David Bowie ended up being the better comparison. Partly because of the album’s topics, as it’s basically a 2020s take on Ziggy Stardust’s “an alien comes to Earth and falls in love” ideas; but sonically, it also delves more into things like spacy psychedelia and glam. It’s a great record to just throw on and soak up the sounds for a while, and I’m curious to see if La Rue continues with sci-fi stories after this or goes in a totally different direction.
HAARM: This synthpop trio was another nice Bandcamp find. Their self-titled debut grew on me with each re-listen, and they do a great job sliding between dark, smooth grooves and big pop maximalism moments, all while staying catchy the entire time. They can certainly write a tight bass part, and maybe some people will find it more irritating, but I really appreciated their use of string and choir synth sounds to add a flair of melodrama to some of the big numbers.
Orla Gartland: This one actually surprised me quite a bit! I enjoyed her debut album and even said as much here, but it was light and breezy singer-songwriter pop with an almost-theatrical flair. I was not expecting her new record ‘Everybody Needs a Hero’ to deviate much from that, but she switched it up, losing some of the sunshine-brightness and getting more introspective as she tackles things like the anxieties of an established relationship or the subtleties of her self-doubts and her career. It’s probably a little more cohesive as a record, and I felt like I even noticed some strains of 2000s alt-rock in the influences, which surprised me for some reason? Honestly, it also feels like it could pair well with ‘Vicious Creature’ in some of the lyrics and theming; I should try that once I get all my re-listens finished.
Wild Pink: ‘Dulling the Horns’ was another pick from the year-end lists, and it’s probably the one that has the biggest chance to rise in my appreciation? It got a little lost in the holiday shuffle, and when I came back to it while doing my re-listens for the article, I was kind of immediately taken in. There’s a great heartland rock feel to the whole record, which is what drew me in, but I also felt like I hadn’t appreciated the lyricism as much. There’s a great feeling of weariness and wistfulness to it all, getting older but also more mature, but I also feel like there are layers beyond that which I haven’t begun to dig into; that sort of thing often takes me a lot more listens. I’m including it here because I do like it, but it’s also not like these lists are hard cutoffs either. I’ll probably be listening to it a few more times while digging through those best-of lists a little more, at the very least.
Fontaines D.C.: By that aggregation I linked earlier, this was the second-best album of the year. Again, it’s less my personal taste, but I do feel like I get why other people liked it. I was also a little surprised at first because the first three songs I heard were “Starburster”, “Favourite”, and “Here’s the Thing”, all of which were my thing and I loved. I don’t know, it’s kind of basic, but I think I kind of projected an “early Oasis” energy onto my expectations from there (headlines like this might have also played a part too, because the Gallaghers feuding with younger approximations of themselves would be hilariously on-the-nose); but the rest of the album being moodier and downtempo took me some getting used to. Like I said, it’s not as much my wheelhouse as I had hoped, but I get why others like it.
Geese: ‘3D Country’ was technically a 2023-Best-of recommendation that I still had lying around for a while, but I do sometimes get around to those! Anyway, I vibed a lot more with their blues-ier, jam rock feel, and I love how big the songs can feel with their big riffs and solos, but also the fun smaller bits in the arrangements, like the moments of cowbell or back-up gospel singers. Hearing the interplay of the different parts is great, especially singer Cameron Winter, who blends right in by doing a whole bunch of interesting things to change up his pitch and delivery, sometimes mid-phrase, almost like a totally-natural effect pedal (also kudos to the engineering for catching everything so clearly).
Frost Children: They didn’t release an album, but this hyperpop duo did do a number of interesting collaborations. There was the three-song EP ‘VVFROST’ with fellow producer SEBii, which feels more expected. But there was also a five song EP ‘Soul Kiss’ with Japanese singer-songwriter Haru Nemuri, which feels like it bounces around between a variety of styles and ideas; plus the single “Shake It Like A” with rapper Danny Brown, which is just a straight-up banger.
Caroline Kingsbury: Kingsbury’s 2021 (yeah, it’s 2025 now, the atemporality of music discovery still weirds me out sometimes, but I just have to roll with it) album ‘Heaven’s Just a Flight’ was another thing I found from browsing the “alternative pop” tag on Bandcamp, and it’s pretty good! I found it around the same time as Chayla Hope’s album, so it’s hard for me not to compare them… Kingsbury takes a little bit less varied of an approach, drawing much more directly from ‘80s pop in both sound and aesthetic, and while I prefer Hope’s variety and think ‘Heaven’s Just a Flight’ can get a little long in runtime, I do think there is something to the sort of murky, neon-through-a-misty-night vibe that it gives that I like.
However, shortly after finding that album, Kingsbury released a new (not just new-to-me) EP, ‘I Really Don’t Care!’, and I think it’s a level up. The songwriting feels even stronger, sharper, and hooky-er, especially stand-out track “Alabama”, and now I’m really interested in seeing her next full-length album.
SYM1: I kind of feel like a lot of SYM1’s music is an even more extreme, more-hyperpop form of the vision of ‘brat’ (less “directly inspired by”, more “of a similar mindset”), drawing even more explicitly from the electronica and online world of the 2000s, and I dug it a lot. Supercharged pop with that little extra abrasive edge, and her EP ‘ALL THAT U WANT’ was my personal highlight. And even if you usually balk at a lot of hyperpop stuff I recommend, I’d still recommend trying ‘This Week In The News’, which is just a straight-up classic synthpop bop.
Diva Bleach: Fun fact, I found this while jumping between a bunch of Bandcamp windows I had open, and between misreading their name as “Dive Beach” the album cover of their EP ‘No Fun’, I was expecting something more like synthwave or vaporwave? No, it turns out that are some classic, high-energy alt rock/pop-punk, and those opening notes were a quick hit of adrenaline when I realized my mistake. I enjoyed that release a lot, and their follow-up singles have been pretty good too. I’m curious to see where they go from here!
Pale Waves: I really respect their commitment to changing up their sonic approach for each album and letting Heather Baron-Gracie’s voice and songwriting serve as the main connective element between them, although it can make it jarring going into each one relatively blind and having to adjust. Something about the jangly, dream pop style on ‘Smitten’ threw me off for a while, but it’s another one that grew on me after a few re-listens, and at this point, it might be my favorite since their debut?
Megan McDuffee: The recurring Playlist feature released a new album, ‘Crimson Legacy’. It takes the dark synthwave of her last album ‘Inner Demons’ in a harsher, more industrial direction. It’s not that much of a shock though, as her pre-album singles had been trending that way (I’ve included three of them in past playlists, plus there was also “Villain” and “Freak Like Me”, which didn’t even make the final tracklisting). That’s generally less my style, so I’m not sure I’ll revisit it as much as its predecessor, but Megan’s a great artist, so I still found a lot to enjoy here. There’s a dark, pulsing, almost seething energy here in tracks like “Army of Me” or “Your Demise” that sometimes just hits right.
Oceanator: I really don’t know what to think here? I really liked Oceanator’s last album, ‘Nothing’s Ever Fine’ (2023 Summer Playlist), and part of that was that it’s was just a fun, summer-y album full of great singles that I could throw on at any time, and eventually, I realized that I wasn’t just not sick of it yet, I was liking it even more.
In contrast, I tried listening to their new album, ‘Everything is Love and Death’, several times back in the month or two after it was released, and just bounced off of it hard, and it wasn’t until I came back to it on last minute re-listens that I came around. It has a lot of the same garage rock feel as the last album, and lead song “First Time” even feels a lot like that last record. But the rest of the album feels rawer and more melancholic, and I think the gulf between what I expected and what I got threw me off. Going in with more distance from my expectations really made me more appreciative, and I’m curious to see if it continues to grow on me from here.
Upcoming Stuff I’m Excited For:
-The big one here is probably St. Lucia, who has consistently released albums that I’m a fan of; their fifth album, ‘Fata Morgana: Dawn’, is slated for a March release.
-I’ve also included a song from the Wombats’ upcoming sixth album, ‘Oh! The Ocean’; I wasn’t as big on their last release in 2022 as I was their first few, but I’m a big enough fan that I’m curious to see what they do next.
-Edit: Well, I guess the Chayla Hope single I included may also be from the next album, since that’s coming out in February as well. And it looks like Scarlet Bandit and Diva Bleach have also released new music this month already, so I’ll be checking those out soon.
-Japanese Breakfast announced a new album in March, which is cool… but my cutoff was “things I listened to before 2025 started”, so the single that dropped this month wasn’t included. The same reasoning also hit Korine’s new album announcement.
-Gryff has been teasing new stuff, and got picked up by a small Bandcamp label before releasing his new single, ‘Give It All Up’, which is great. I’m hoping this is a good sign for more news.
-Actually, there are a couple other situations like this, where I don’t have any hard news of a release from an artist that I follow, but they did release a new song that might be a random single, but it might also be the sign of an upcoming release. Sometimes, I even learn that I missed a full release when I go around building the final playlists, so who knows. Anyway, this set includes: Genuine Leather, Sub-Radio, Great Good Fine Ok, PRIZM, Fickle Friends, The Midnight, Ripe, Milk Talk, The Aces, The Weeknd, Similar Kind, Terra Nobody, Liquid Mike, Roosevelt, Capital Cities, Snail’s House, and iZme.
Shorter Thoughts:
Oceanus, Sunnexo: I still don’t know what else to say about it, but if you’d like more of the hyperactive electronic/kawaii future bass/chiptune/pico pop/[whatever this genre is called, since I keep racking up descriptors and not really narrowing it down at all] of Snail’s House, Andora, and the rest that keep recommending, my new finds on that front this time were Oceanus and Sunnexo.
Sydney Sprague: ‘Somebody in Hell Loves You’ was one of my favorite finds from scrounging Best of lists last year, and it got a Deluxe Edition that was pretty good! One that actually mixed the new tracks into the original track listing rather than just putting them at the end, which I always find interesting. I’m not sure that any of the new stuff stands out as my favorite things on the album, but it’s all definitely up to the same standard at least. And given that the original record was barely half-an-hour, it's a much-appreciated case of “more of a good thing” that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
While I’m on the topic, I’ll note that the playlist also includes new songs from special edition releases of Chromeo’s ‘Adult Contemporary’ and June Jones’s ‘Proximity EP’, both of which also got call-outs on past playlists, but I liked Sprague’s the most of them.
Indigo de Souza: I’ve mentioned enjoying the indie alt rocker here in the past, but her new EP ‘WHOLESOME EVIL FANTASY’ is an interesting left turn for her, dipping her toes into outright electronic pop and dance. If you also like ‘brat’, consider giving this one a try too.
Wishy: I kind of have a roundabout story with this one. This was another Bandcamp thing I found, as their album ‘Triple Seven’ was pretty high up in the “power pop” tag both before and after when it came out. I gave it a listen and enjoyed it, but it kind of faded from my mind quickly, and I turned to other stuff. I forgot about it until seeing it pop up again on some year-end lists, which kind of surprised me given how it just slipped out of my mind? On a re-listen though, I get it: I found it through the “power pop” tag, but it’s only loosely that? Or at the very least, it’s not generally what I look for in power pop. It is a pretty good ‘90s alt rock/shoegaze record though! That’s not usually as much my wheelhouse, but it’s strong enough that even I can pretty easily appreciate it!
Anna Coddington: I saw a Bandcamp feature highlighting the self-proclaimed “Māori funk” artist’s new album ‘Te Whakamiha’ and was intrigued. It’s some absolutely perfectly produced throwback R&B and disco-type numbers, with a lot of fun melodies that bounce between English and Māori. It really is exactly what the name says, and it’s an incredibly smooth listen.
Taeha: Her ‘City Lights’ release was an enticing mix of synthwave and city pop, and I’m very interested in hearing more. It’s listed as a mini-album rather than a regular EP because there are a lot of remixes here, but I actually minded that less than I usually do… probably because it’s one for each of the four solo songs, which spreads things out, but they also feel different enough to not get old.
Telebasher: Her guitar work has been featured on Jamie Paige’s last two albums (on “Asemic Speech” and “Not Quite There”, both of which are great), so I finally checked out her own release ‘SAVIOR’; it’s a great little jazz-fusion record! I feel kind of silly for not checking it out sooner.
ok seashells: This was a fun find on the electronic side of Bandcamp. Her album ‘𓆩♡𓆪’ is like the frantic, bouncy energy of stuff like vocaloid music or the kawaii future bass of artists like Snail’s House, but blown up to the size and scope of stuff like prog rock or symphonic metal. There’s something especially ethereal and magical about a synthesized voice wailing poetry over frenetic drums-and-bass loops while layers of pianos and guitar and string synths stack underneath it, I find it very easy to get lost in.
Paper Rabbit: Twee, jangle pop stuff is one of those areas where I’ll dip my toes in every so often, and stuff will either stick with me or bounce off. Paper Rabbit’s ‘Havre de Grace’ was one of the stickier ones this time, and I kept putting that album on whenever the mood hit. It’s a pleasant listen!
The Only Humans: Their album ‘It’s a Beautiful Night. I Think I’ll Disappear Forever.’ was another Bandcamp find, a fun listen that’s definitely inspired by the indie folk of acts like the Mountain Goats and the Decemberists. I kind of think the album peaks with the first two (full) songs, “Death Stood in My Living Room” and “Funeral Song”, which have a sort of giddy, frantic energy that the back half of the album could have used a little more of, but it’s not like it ever grinds to a halt either.
Lady Blackbird: I saw her playing at a random live event and found her performance bewitching, so I checked out her 2021 album ‘Black Acid Soul’. I feel so out of my depth talking about classic jazz and blues vocal stuff, but I like it. Maybe I’m just easy to impress as a mostly-pop-and-rock dork, but people in the know seem to give her acclaim too, so maybe it is the strength of her songs coming through. Either way, it’s a good listen for a sort of cloudy or rainy day.
City Mouth: ‘Coping Machine’ is a 2020 pop-rock record (again, there’s some delay here) that sounds like someone who grew up on 2000s pop-punk and emo, and who’s now processing the stresses of daily adult life (again, in 2020, at that) and turning that into a more mature version of the music they grew up with. So yeah, I found a lot to like here! I also learned while writing this that there’s a version of “Sanity for Summer” that features guest appearances by Justin Courtney Pierre (from Motion City Soundtrack) and Sydney Sprague, which is cool, so I’m including that version rather than the album take (but the album is still good).
Pusher: This was a fun little sci-fi synthpop-opera, about a worker of the future traveling to a moon colony and having to fight back against… well, a 22nd-century version of the kind of dangers that you’d expect with the promise of a frontier mining job. I feel like the ending drifts a little bit as the story’s scope widens (like a lot of rock operas, honestly), but it’s a good all-around listen, and the front half is an especially tight set of jams to set the scene.
Mass Minor: I had a good time with this Austin band’s EP ‘Vast Reflections’; it’s some solid new wave/post-punk-y synth rock, with a lead singer who kinda reminded me of Michael Hutchence of INXS a bit.
Trauma Club: I feel like I’ve had some pop-punk on here that I describe as 2000s-ish, but the more emo side of that era here. Trauma Club is here to fix that, with an EP that’s very synth-driven emo-new wave. It can be fun to indulge in that instinct of melodrama sometimes.
Prism Bitch: ‘PERLA’ is a fun indie garage rock record that ends up covering a little bit more ground than a lot of albums like it.
Lucky Iris: Another of those “if you liked ‘brat’, maybe check this out” entries; their two EPs ‘maybe i’m too much’ and ‘something to believe in’ use that similar “electropop with 2000s dance-pop touches”, albeit with slightly less hyperpop influence.
StrateJacket: I heard this up-and-coming group from the Bay Area on my local alternative station, and liked it enough to check out their debut record, which was a solid throwback to 2000s pop-punk.
Neon Trees: I didn’t say a lot about it at the time (partly because I was better at keeping these stupid articles short), but their 2020 album ‘I Can Feel You Forgetting Me’ was really good. As someone who’s been listening to them since their debut, it might be my favorite album of theirs? ‘Sink Your Teeth’ is the first follow-up since then, and… it’s fine, but something about it just isn’t hitting me in the same way, and I haven’t put the effort in to figure out why. They can still write catchy pop-rock songs, they’ve got a decent set here and if you’ve liked them in the past too, check it out. But the peaks feel a little lower than last time, and it feels less cohesive or something? Maybe I just need to give it more time…
SOPHIE: I know posthumous releases can be controversial, but I’m glad Sophie’s family helped finish her final album. She really was visionary, and died too soon. I remembered hearing an early version of “Reason Why” online somewhere years ago but I could never find it again afterward, so hearing it come up on the album was a weird feeling, like suddenly remembering a vivid dream.
Coldplay: I know I saw some people who were sour on their new album ‘Moon Music’ (their tenth album overall), but I liked it enough. There are some good songs there, and it’s a pleasant listen. But also, like… Coldplay was one of the first “real” modern bands I got into years ago, and I’ve followed along and enjoyed basically all of their albums since then… I’m not exactly the highest bar to clear here. Even as someone who defends a lot of their “big pop” albums, I’d still call this a lesser entry. It’s kind of one for bigger fans, I’d definitely tell newcomers to their catalog to start elsewhere.
Bastille: I’m generally a big Bastille fan, but I don’t know what to think of their new record, ‘&’. It’s a largely-acoustic record, featuring only singer and songwriter Dan Smith, with songs pretty directly retelling famous fiction and real-life stories. That’s… a pretty big shift from what I generally want out of their music. But they’re also over a decade and five albums (plus a bunch of mixtapes and other releases) into their career, so… I respect switching it up and trying new things. We’ll see where they go from here, I guess?
Other stuff:
Sorry for this section being shorter, but I’ve already written so much, and I need to get through at least some stuff quickly. Anyway, these are all new releases from artists that I’ve highlighted in past playlist articles; I didn’t have much to say about them that I didn’t already say, but if you liked their stuff in the past, give them a listen too! (I’ll give a kind of quick description as a refresher, though.)
-alpha, ‘kawaii pop assort 3’ EP plus the single “frost” and the EP ‘Florets’ with natsume
-Glitch Cat, ‘EXTASY’ + a few singles
-Andora, “Orakel” and “Echo” (all three fall into that “kawaii future bass/future house/pico pop” grouping I mentioned earlier)
-Protection, ‘SEEDS II-EP’ (the pure-electonica side project of Chvrches’ Iain Cook plus Scott Paterson)
-Plasma Cutter, ‘Wolves And Power Lines And Oranges And Waves And Guitar Fights And Some Songs’ (kind of an expansion that started as a B-side follow up to their last album, ‘III: Swords And Potions And…’; sort of chiptune and pop-punk mix like its predecessor, but more of the latter this time, with more vocal tracks)
-Cheem, ‘Faster Fashion’ EP (a continuation of March’s ‘Fast Fashion’ EP, with their blend of… nu-pop-punk? I have no idea what we’re calling this microgenre)
-Dayglow, ‘Dayglow’ (indie singer-songwriter pop-rock)
-Sacred Skin, ‘Born in Fire’ (post-punk/new wave synthpop)
-Mystery Skulls, ‘Ultra Rare Vol 3’ plus “You’ll Never See Me Again” (alternative electronica indie pop)
-Ura Star, ‘Heartracer’ (synth-y, new wave dance-pop)
-Letting Up Despite Great Faults, ‘Reveries’ (twee, jangly shoegaze)
-Wingtips, ‘On Trial’ (gothy, ‘80s-style synthpop)
-Saya Noé, ‘Venus’ EP (gothic, dark synthpop)
-Good Kid, ‘Acoustic Kid’ EP (indie rock inspired by j-rock, but this is EP is acoustic versions of some of their older stuff)
The Full Playlist (after a brief interruption for the Out of Left Field mailing list):
| Artist | Song | Release |
|---|---|---|
| Jamie Paige | Dyad | Constant Companions |
| Jamie Paige feat. Telebasher | Not Quite There | Constant Companions |
| Jamie Paige | ROT FOR CLOUT | Constant Companions |
| FLAVOR FOLEY | 炜WARD ROMANCE | single |
| Chayla Hope | Love in Lo-Fi | Damn, Feelings |
| Chayla Hope | Alone | Damn, Feelings |
| Chayla Hope | Tear My Heart Out | Damn, Feelings |
| Chayla Hope | All Over Now | single |
| Turboslacker | Shake Your Love | Pixelated Lithiums |
| Turboslacker | Moonwalk Daydreams | Pixelated Lithiums |
| Turboslacker | Pixelated Lithiums | Pixelated Lithiums |
| BAD MOVES | I Know I Know | Wearing Out the Refrain |
| BAD MOVES | New Year's Reprieve | Wearing Out the Refrain |
| Scarlet Bandit | California | Lose Your Blues |
| Scarlet Bandit | Rip Your Heart Out | Lose Your Blues |
| Scarlet Bandit | Oh Haley | Lose Your Blues |
| Charli xcx | 360 | Brat |
| Charli xcx | Sympathy is a knife | Brat |
| Charli xcx & Lorde | Girl, so confusing | Brat |
| Lauren Mayberry | Something In The Air | Vicious Creature |
| Lauren Mayberry | Crocodile Tears | Vicious Creature |
| Lauren Mayberry | Punch Drunk | Vicious Creature |
| Compass & Cavern | This Time | Shift |
| Compass & Cavern | Feral Impala | Shift |
| Compass & Cavern | Same Old House | Before It Begins |
| Tiny Stills | Downgrade Baby | We Really Felt Something |
| Tiny Stills | Space Ex | We Really Felt Something |
| Tiny Stills | Bury the Hatchet | single |
| sungazer ft. Button Masher | Hot Saturn | Against the Fall of the Night |
| sungazer ft. Joshua de la Victoria, Jared Yee | Cool 7 | Against the Fall of the Night |
| KNOWER | Overtime | Live Band Session |
| KNOWER | Hanging On | LIFE |
| KNOWER | The Government Knows | LIFE |
| LONG ISLAND | wild nights | infatuation's a nightmare |
| LONG ISLAND | so good | infatuation's a nightmare |
| LONG ISLAND | it's our time | the freedom of being young |
| LONG ISLAND | daydream | the freedom of being young |
| Charly Bliss | Tragic | FOREVER |
| Charly Bliss | Back There Now | FOREVER |
| Lava La Rue | Push N Shuv | STAR FACE |
| Lava La Rue | LOVEBITES | STAR FACE |
| HAARM | Foxglove | HAARM |
| HAARM | Take Me Away | HAARM |
| Orla Gartland | Little Chaos | Everybody Needs a Hero |
| Orla Gartland feat. Declan McKenna | Late to the Party | Everybody Needs a Hero |
| Wild Pink | Cloud Or Mountain | Dulling the Horns |
| Wild Pink | Sprinter Brain | Dulling the Horns |
| Fontaines D.C. | Starburster | Romance |
| Fontaines D.C. | Favourite | Romance |
| Geese | 2122 | 3D Country |
| Geese | 3D Country | 3D Country |
| Frost Children (feat. Danny Brown) | Shake It Like A | single |
| Frost Children & HARU NEMURI | Burn | Soul Kiss-EP |
| Frost Children & SEBii | Right Back | VVFROST EP |
| Caroline Kingsbury | Fall In Love | Heaven's Just a Flight |
| Caroline Kingsbury | 16 | Heaven's Just a Flight |
| Caroline Kingsbury | Our House | I Really Don't Care! EP |
| Caroline Kingsbury | Alabama | I Really Don't Care! EP |
| SYM1 | This Week In The News | ALL THAT U WANT EP |
| SYM1 | Lonely Nights | ALL THAT U WANT EP |
| SYM1 | No Time For Names | single |
| Diva Bleach | Circles | No Fun-EP |
| Diva Bleach | Eggshells | No Fun-EP |
| Diva Bleach | Temper, Temper | No Fun (Pt. II)-EP |
| Pale Waves | Not A Love Song | Smitten |
| Pale Waves | Perfume | Smitten |
| Megan McDuffee | Army of Me | Crimson Legacy |
| Megan McDuffee & ALEX | Your Demise | Crimson Legacy |
| Oceanator | First Time | Everything Is Love and Death |
| Oceanator | Cut String | Everything Is Love and Death |
| St. Lucia | Falling Asleep | upcoming album |
| The Wombats | Blood On The Hospital Floor | upcoming album |
| Gryff | Give It All Up | single |
| Genuine Leather | Getting Used to the Feel | single |
| Sub-Radio | Pink Lemonade | single |
| Great Good Fine Ok | Better Without You | single |
| PRIZM | Lights Up | single |
| Fury Weekend feat PRIZM | Feel the Beat | single |
| Fickle Friends | Dream | single |
| The Midnight | Chariot | single |
| Ripe | Friend in the Dark | single |
| DE DE MOUSE & Milk Talk | Beautiful Criminal | single |
| Milk Talk | Electric Indigo | single |
| The Aces | The Magic | single |
| the Weeknd | Dancing in the Flames | single |
| Similar Kind | Too Tired | single |
| Terra Nobody | Helix | single |
| Liquid Mike | Crop Circles | single |
| Roosevelt | In the Dark | single |
| Capital Cities feat Alex Rzyan | She Flows Like H20 | single |
| Snail's House | Utakata | single |
| iZme | VIVID | single |
| Oceanus | color hearing | single |
| Oceanus | Colorburst | single |
| Sunnexo & EX-LYD | Hyper Link | single |
| Sydney Sprague feat. Kississippi | tell me | somebody in hell loves you (deluxe edition) |
| Chromeo feat. Cannons | On the Move | Adult Contemporary (Deluxe Edition) |
| June Jones | Me in 3D | Extended Proximity EP |
| Indigo De Souza | WHOLESOME | WHOLESOME EVIL FANTASY EP |
| Wishy | Love on the Outside | Triple Seven |
| Wishy | Just Like Sunday | Triple Seven |
| Anna Coddington | Kātuarehe | Te Whakahmiha |
| Anna Coddington | Call Your Mother | Te Whakahmiha |
| Taeha | City Lights | City Lights EP |
| Taeha | Slow Motion | City Lights EP |
| telebasher | SAVIOR | SAVIOR |
| telebasher | struggle | SAVIOR |
| ok seashells | oh monster of mine | 𓆩♡𓆪 |
| ok seashells | weight lifting | 𓆩♡𓆪 |
| Paper Rabbit | Strangers | Havre de Grace |
| Paper Rabbit | Saints | Havre de Grace |
| The Only Humans | Death Stood In My Living Room | It's a Beautiful Night. I Think I'll Disappear Forever. |
| The Only Humans | Funeral Song | It's a Beautiful Night. I Think I'll Disappear Forever. |
| Lady Blackbird | Collage | Black Acid Soul |
| City Mouth feat. Justin Courtney Pierre and Sydney Sprague | Sanity For Summer | Coping Machine |
| City Mouth | Parking Lot | Coping Machine |
| Pusher | King of the Moon | King of the Moon |
| Pusher | Who Needs Friends (With Products Like These) | King of the Moon |
| Mass Minor | Worthy | Vast Reflection |
| Mass Minor | Empty Hearts | Vast Reflection |
| Trauma Club | Don't (Choke) | Trauma Club EP |
| Trauma Club | Making It Up | single |
| Prism Bitch | In N Out | PERLA |
| Prism Bitch | Lonely Nights | PERLA |
| Lucky Iris | I guess I like you (a lot) | something to believe in EP |
| Lucky Iris | maybe I'm too much | maybe I'm too much EP |
| StrateJacket | Bad Start | Bad Start |
| StrateJacket | Be My Drug | Bad Start |
| SOPHIE, Kim Petras, & BC Kingdom | Reason Why | SOPHIE |
| Neon Trees | Bad Dreams | Sink Your Teeth |
| Neon Trees | Past Life | Sink Your Teeth |
| Coldplay & Arya Starr | GOOD FEELiNGS | Moon Music |
| Bastille | Blue Sky & The Painter | & |
| alpha | Sour Cream | kawaii pop assort 3 EP |
| alpha | frost | single |
| alpha & natsume | find you | Florets EP |
| Glitch Cat | worst pickup line I've ever heard | EXTASY EP |
| Glitch Cat & Mediy0 | Cosmic Café | EXTASY EP |
| Glitch Cat | talk to me pls… | single |
| Andora feat WaMi | Orakel | single |
| Andora feat WaMi | Fragments | single |
| Protection | Thirst Shrine | SEEDS II-EP |
| Plasma Cutter | Resolute | Wolves And Power Lines And Oranges And Waves And Guitar Fights And Some Songs |
| Cheem | Slushee | Faster Fashion EP |
| Dayglow | Every Little Thing I Say I Do | Dayglow |
| Dayglow | Cocoon | Dayglow |
| Sacred Skin | Waiting | Born in Fire |
| Sacred Skin | Surrender | Born in Fire |
| Mystery Skulls | You'll Never See Me Again | single |
| Mystery Skulls | Living for the Music | Ultra Rare Vol 3 |
| Mystery Skulls | Freaking Out | Ultra Rare Vol 1 |
| Ura Star & Fireball Kid |
Back 2 You | Heartracer |
| Ura Star | 2 The Party | Heartracer |
| Letting Up Despite Great Faults | Swirl | Reveries |
| WINGTIPS feat. Tim Capello | The Verdict | On Trial |
| Saya Noe | Megbolondítottál | Venus (EP) |
| Good Kid | Some Time to Explain | Acoustic Kid |
| San Gabriel | Circles | single |
| Wilder. | Never Gonna Change | single |
| Augustin Bousfield | Who Turned The Lights Out | Anymoor |
| Jane Paknia | Orchid Underneath | Orchid Underneath |
| TAAHLIAH | Eylvue | Gramarye |
| Virtual Self | ANGEL VOICES | single |
| Virtual Self | Particle Arts | Virtual Self EP |
| Soft Contact | American Girl Live At The Cow Palace | Extinguisher EP |
| Dirty Nice | When She Starts It Up | single |
| Chime School | Why Don't You Come Out Tonight? | The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel |
| Smallpools | Socio-Empath | Ghost Town Road |
| Madame Reaper & the Gentlemen's Club | Olympia (because) | single |
| South Arcade | 2005 | single |
| Stars | Real Thing | There Is No Love In Fluorescent Lights |
| CATBEAR | Grow Up | single |
| Howless | Gente de Atardecer | single |
| Bara Hari | Tempest | Lesser Gods |
| Father Koi | lovesong | single |
| Yumi Zouma | Barricade (Matter of Fact) | Yoncalla |
| Paperwhite | Unfold | single |
| ElevenWAV | Girl From Another Galaxy | single |
| Good Neighbours | Bloom | Good Neighbours-EP |
| Best Ex | Good At Feeling Bad | Good At Feeling Bad EP |
| adaline | Waist Down | Dear Illusion |
| VELVET DREAMING | Fever | BODYMOVE EP |
| MGNA Crrrta | Contagious | Island Paradise EP |
| ASTROPHYSICS | nothing but evil | The Unending Need for Perpetual Motion |
| able machines | No Rain | single |
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