Air Traffic create brilliant, occasionally brutal, pop music.

Debut album ‘Fractured Life’ earned the band a cult following and critical acclaim from NME, The Fader and The Sunday Times who called it "an often mentioned, rarely sighted thing: an emotional rollercoaster ride, get on it. 5/5".

Closing 2017 with a brand new single, their first in 10 years, and the promise of more material to follow, this Bournemouth UK based four-piece may go on to soundtrack the lives of a whole new generation.

Returning from a self-imposed musical exile following a triumphant run of early releases, haunted Swedish songwriter Alice Boman brings forth new single ‘Dreams’. A bleary-eyed, emotion-packed reflection on the dissolution of hope, it’s a track that’s strengthened by the silence it emerges from. “You need to take a break from it,” says Alice, looking back on her whirlwind early rise. “It really does help. It’s all about listening to your gut.”

Alice Boman’s voice hits with the emotional force and haunting fragility of Nina Simone.

ANAMAI is the experimental folk project of Anna Mayberry (HSY) and David Psutka (Egyptrixx, Hiawatha).

Existing in the unsettled space between ancient past and imagined future, ANAMAI explores the contradictory nature of intimacy by releasing quiet confessions in a vast, amorphous lake of noise. Naked, resonant minimalism; ethereal and liquid. ANAMAI's debut album Sallows is out now on Buzz Records.

The Party is the ANTI- Records debut for this Canadian songwriter, who grew up in small-town Saskatchewan.

Recording began with a band in Germany in early 2014, but Shauf—who is endlessly rewriting lyrics and rearranging songs, building them up and then stripping them back to their basics—decided to start anew back home in Regina. There, he set up shop at Studio One, located in an old CBC building, and was left to his own devices. The Party is not exactly a concept record, but it was a way for the singer-songwriter to get out of his own head. An after-party record, more like it.

Annie Hart is best known as one-third of Au Revoir Simone, the beloved all-female synth trio that counts David Lynch as a superfan. But with the eight tracks on her solo debut, "Impossible Accomplice" (Uninhabitable Mansions, July 28), Annie will emerge as an electrifying artist and producer in her own right.

Thriving on the energy shared with the audience, their shows are an open expression of communal experience and that rarely felt but precious emotion – joy.

Formed in Melbourne in the late 1990's, Architecture in Helsinki have finally arrived at a place that feels like home. A home that’s not a geographical space, but a state of mind.

A sound of innocence and melodies laced with synth folk that wakens your inner child.

Brooklyn indie pop trio Au Revoir Simone consists of Heather D'Angelo (vocals/drum machine/keyboard), Erika Forster (vocals/keyboard), and Annie Hart (vocals/keyboard). Forming in 2003 they took their name from a line in Tim Burton's 'Pee Wee's Adventure' and soon after, embarked on their own casio infused hypno-folk adventure.

BARBAROSSA is the nom de plume of London-based multi-instrumentalist James Mathé.

Mathe’s musical journey started with folk-tinged balladry that saw him become part Fence Collective, and subsequently a band member for the likes of Jose Gonzalez, Johnny Flynn and Junip. With debut album 'Bloodlines', however, Mathé started to infuse his song writing with electronic flourishes, and now with the follow-up 'Imager', he has completed his transformation into a fully fledged electronic soul pioneer.

Roger Sellers is a lot of things. He’s a minimalist composer with a knack for making hypnotic, enveloping songs from a few repeated musical phrases. He’s a gifted musician who is mostly self-taught, having abandoned formal study because it was draining the life from his work. He’s a self-described disciple of Phil Collins. What he is not, however — despite multiple press reports to the contrary — is a DJ.

And it’s a good thing: Primitives, Sellers’ debut as Bayonne, is a rich, complex work, the kind with no clear rock parallel. In its winding, maze-like structures are hints of both Steve Reich and Owen Pallett, each instrument working a single melodic pattern over and over and over, as Sellers threads his soft, reedy voice between them. On songs like “Appeals,” the effect is hypnotic: notes from a piano crash down like spilled marbles from a bucket, as Sellers’ ringing-bell vocals swing back and forth between them. The end result is spellbinding music, meticulously-crafted songs where each tiny piece locks into another, and hundreds of them joined together create a breathtaking whole — like dots in a Seurat, or tiny bones in a dinosaur skeleton.

Hailing from Vancouver/Montreal, The Belle Game weave intricate soundscapes into shadowy, dark-pop rumblings. Their “show-stopping" debut album Ritual Tradition Habit is a journey through 12 beautifully layered tracks; among them the acclaimed spooky ballad, 'River.'

Having been named by Paste Magazine as one of the 10 Great New Bands from CMJ, and played with the likes of Gotye, Karkwa, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Born Ruffians, Bahamas, The Belle Game is currently working on a new LP, set for release in 2016 and produced by Kevin Drew (of Broken Social Scene) and Dave Hamelin.

During the past 2 years, Esben & Pernille have slaved in their Copenhagen-based studio to realize their vision of the sophomore album.

‘Dive’ is the infectious new single from Blondage, the Danish duo consisting of Pernille Smith-Sivertsen and Esben Andersen formerly known as Rangleklods. The track is the first off the debut EP, set to be released later this year via Tambourhinoceros (Palace Winter, Cancer, CTM etc).

Blue Hawaii's Tenderness searches for the meaning of closeness in our highly-connected world. Central to the record is the contradictory power of technology: people are at once alienated and brought together by its use. With immediacy of communication we can feel close without ever having to be truly tender to each other. 

After taking a 4 year break from writing and producing with each other, Ra and Agor rekindled their creative flame in 2016, writing music about an unrequited relationship Ra was experiencing with someone mostly online, constantly battling these contradictory feelings of distance and closeness. As record flows from one song to the next with skits, phone calls, acoustic demos, real life samples and quiet left-turns, she discovers that happiness is derived not from others but from something immaterial within herself. She finds validation without the need for the other—a valuable lesson whether in real or virtual reality.

Ten years ago, on the very first song on their very first album, Born Ruffians revealed their ambitions to start their own country. They didn’t really offer details about how they would go about legally annexing land, drafting a constitution or establishing a native currency, but we did know this much: it had a population of three—singer/guitarist Luke Lalonde, bassist Mitch DeRosier and drummer Steve Hamelin.

What started as an impromptu jam session in Wiesbaden in 2008 has emerged as an entire musical universe within a few years. Brandt Brauer Frick embodies perhaps the most exciting fusion of classical instruments and club music to date. The blurring of boundaries has become their trademark – even if these are self-imposed ones – allowing them to reach a broad range of scenes and audiences worldwide. 

Briana Marela is a vocalist, composer, and sound conjurer from the Pacific Northwest.

Having formative roots in Seattle and Olympia, WA, her aesthetic sensibility derives from many other kindred spirits of the local music scene, but with her own unique vision of the world around her. She weaves together melodies with meaning and lyrics filled with longing, using max/MSP to achieve vocal looping/processing/sampling. She independently released two albums before signing with Jagjaguwar Records, who issued 'All Around Us' in 2015.

Electronic and Hip Hop phenomenon C2C broke into mainstream culture in 2013, bringing turntablism to the masses with their critically acclaimed album Tetra. C2C consists of 20syl and Greem (Hocus Pocus) and Pfel and Atom (BeatTorrent). The four DJs’ dominated the DMC World Championship 2003-2006, and after a decade of teamwork, dropped their debut EP, Down the Road, in 2012, followed by their groundbreaking album Tetra.

On stage, C2C’s impressive scenography expresses the band’s love for graphic design and visual arts. Their epic performances and original sound catapulted the quartet from Europe's biggest stages to Coachella.

Caribou is the one-man project of Dan Snaith. He seamlessly blends electronic production with psychedelic pop pastiche. After the acclaimed grammy-award-winning album "Swim" in 2010, he is now back with "Our Love", released Oct 2014.

Our Love is formed around a mixture of digital pop production, hip hop inspired beats, muted house basslines and a love of shuffling garage that can be traced all the way back to the time of Start Breaking My Heart which are, of course, all filtered through Dan's own unique perspective. The warm analogue sounds of classic soul should not be overlooked either, for they weave themselves most intensely into the records DNA.

Danish indie band Choir Of Young Believers made their debut in 2007, seeing them win a host of awards in their homeland, and memorable performances at Roskilde. Signed to Ghostly Int, they have toured with the likes of Mew, Depeche Mode in recent years, and featured in a host of US TV shows including Beverly Hills 90210 and Numbers. In 2012, after finishing up a highly successful US tour, they released their second album “Rhine Gold”, while the song “Hollow Talk” from their debut album was featured as title track on the very popular TV show “The Bridge”. The new album, inspired by Talk Talk, Enya and Frank Ocean, was released in February 2016.

"With a voice equal parts tender, warm, and haunting, Chris Garneau is like the male version of Regina Spektor (with a bit of Sufjan Stevens thrown in). With each song, you're taken on an emotional rollercoaster, and you enjoy the ride, going from celebration to sadness, nostalgia to hope." - NYLON

Chris Garneau draws influences from the likes of Nina Simone, the otherworldly pop songs of Tori Amos and the alien harmonies of the Cocteau Twins, to the devastating confessionals of Cat Power, Nick Drake and Elliott Smith. Combining emotional vocals and perfectly paced piano led orchestrations, Garneau has found his own voice, which is utterly magical.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s 2005 self-released ground breaking debut album is hailed as one of “The 50 Most Important Recordings Of The Decade” by NPR.
In the ensuing years, Ounsworth has continued pushing himself creatively, releasing 3 additional acclaimed CYHSY full-lengths (for which he again wrote all of the music and lyrics) and issuing two solo projects, and touring all over the Globe. All of these experiences have helped Ounsworth refine his vision for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, as the group heads into its twelfth year and the release of its fifth and perhaps finest album, The Tourist.

Com Truise is one of the many personas of producer and designer Seth Haley, born and raised in upstate New York and operating out of a 12’-overrun apartment in Princeton, New Jersey.

An admitted synth obsessive, Com Truise is the maker of an experimental and bottom heavy style he calls “mid-fi synth-wave, slow-motion funk”.

His newest EP, Silicon Tare, was released April 2016.

Crooks on Tape is John Schmersal (Enon, Brainiac), Rick Lee (Enon, Skeleton Key, Butter 08), and Joey Galvan. The unscripted band was born out of a simple notion: convene, improvise, and record every moment.

In 2010, the Los Angeles trio assembled a rotating fortress of instruments, synthesizers, samplers, and loopers. Crooks recorded hundreds of hours of material, largely instrumental in its original performance. Fingerprint is the first evidence of this undertaking and a window into the band’s sound. The debut record you hear is analogous to tiny snapshots of an altered crime scene.

Never one to rest on his laurels or do what’s expected, Dan Mangan has, yet again, transformed his sound. From the traditional stripped-down acoustic folk of 2010’s Nice Nice Very Nice, to the sweeping orchestration and avant-jazz arrangements of 2012’s Oh Fortune, Dan Mangan works best when he’s moving forward, challenging himself. His latest, Club Meds, released in 2015 by City Slang, is a departure, both sonically and thematically. The music is darker, more complex, but just as affecting as anything he’s ever done, with the richness and honesty of his singular voice ascending over the music.

Since his first release in 2011, Dan Snaith's Daphni alias has become a fixture in the world of underground dance music. 

From his debut album 'Jiaolong' in 2012 to his 2017 release of both a fabriclive mix composed entirely of his own unreleased tracks and edits and his second album 'Joli Mai', via various remixes and edits in between, Daphni tracks have populated the DJ sets of many of dance music's most forward thinking DJs.

DAWN LANDES is a Kentucky born singer-songwriter now living in Brooklyn, NY. Her fourth album “Bluebird” features both Norah Jones and members of Bon Iver. She has toured extensively in the US, Europe and around the world including recently with Ray Lamontagne and Bryan Ferry. Having collaborated with Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Justin Townes Earle, and composer Nico Muhly, her songs have been featured in commercials, popular films and TV shows, including The Good Wife and House. In 2015 she was invited to join Sufjan Stevens in his touring band.

Born in Brazil and based in Berlin, Dominique Dillon de Byington aka Dillon has always had a clear vision of her art. She already has released two studio albums which she regards as one body of work. In 2016, both albums were brought together with the live album Live at Haus der Berliner Festspiele in which Dillon is accompanied by an all Female choir, performing the tracks which she and her collaborator & co-producer Tamer Fahri composed. In November 2017, Dillon carves a new chapter with her third studio album titled Kind on PIAS, which Dillon refers to as an ‘album of love’ and, which this time, is entirely separated from her previous work.

Swedish Diskopunk emerged in early 2016 with the release of their debut single “Antonio America”. With the power of slutty glitter makeup, violent disco dancing and the absolute conviction that every song is a smash-hit this five piece dance/pop group has been making noise within the Swedish live scene through their overcharged live display. Upon releasing their second single “Fire” months later the hit-making-megalomania was backed up as the single proceeded to rack down millions of streams with it’s tight and playful take on disco-pop.

The group describes Its sound as a drug infused ABBA; Grandiose and chord driven pop songs punched up with beat driven post-punk elements like obnoxious cowbells, full on guitar riffs and the extensive use of percussion. Combining glossy disco aesthetics with the dirty raggedy underground-scene puts Diskopunk in the midst of opposing worlds, or in the midst of a perfect one. New music out 2018.

DIVA is Matt Didemus alter ego, one half of Canadian synth-pop duo Junior Boys.

Didemus' aims to "explore the outer reaches of visceral club music, equal parts dancefloor introspection and sonic extrospection," according to a press release. Its first record will be a sampler featuring tracks from Iron Galaxy & Sexlife, together with own DIVA material.

Dr. Dog is a psychedelic rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their sound has been compared to The Beatles, The Band, and The Beach Boys, but are so much more than this set of associations that crop up in nearly every piece about them. The band has released 6 critically acclaimed albums and has built a 'cult like' fan base. Dr. Dog's legendary live performances weave rollicking indie rock with breezy harmonies to create an all together joyous experience. "Their live shows are full of electric enthusiasm and sharp proficiency that illuminates how they became so well-loved." Rolling Stone

So a folk singer and a electro-bassist walked into a bar at a Halifax guitar rock festival, and what happened next? They got drunk, danced, fell in love, formed a band, got married, danced some more, abducted a drummer named Joel, ran away to London, England, and never looked back.

Bodyparts is their third studio album, released on September 22, 2012 by Universal Music Canada. The album was nominated for Dance Recording of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2013.

Full Time Hobby's Dralms is Christopher Smith’s latest project, which, over the past year, released two celebrated EPs; Crushed Pleats and Pillars & Pyre, now unleash their debut Shook in Oct 2015. The sound of Dralms has a gravitational pull much like Vancouver, Canada, where singer Christopher Smith resides. When trying to describe musical similarities, reviewers have looked in the directions of Talk Talk, Radiohead, The Antlers, Pink Floyd and Spiritualized, but those references only hint at Dralms’ indeterminable qualities. Clash described Dralms’ music as “a contagious, thrilling fare with a unique melodic sense.“

Eleanor Friedberger creates love songs. Hellos and goodbyes, infatuation, pre-occupation, loss – but not simply about romantic love.
"They’re also love songs to music: how you feel on stage when you do something spontaneous and it works, how you feel when you hear someone sing a song for the first time, what it's like to watch a friend perform, how you can feel close to someone you barely know because you both happen to love the same record, or playing the same song forty times in a row, not being able to rest until you own every song recorded by your favorite singer, or every version of your favorite song.“

EMA began with the urge to self-exile. After the success of Past Life Martyred Saints and 2014’s prophetic The Future’s Void, EMA retreated to a basement in Portland, Oregon – a generic apartment complex in a non-trendy neighborhood, with beige carpeting and cheap slat blinds.

She returns with a portrait of a world both familiar and alien: The Outer Ring, a pitch-black world of half-empty subdivisions, American flags hung over basement windows, big-box stores and strip malls and rage. In a year dominated by working-class alienation, EMA — a Midwesterner who has never lost her thousand-yard stare — has delivered an album that renders American poverty and resentment with frightening realism and deep empathy.

Erika Spring began writing music as part of a multimedia project in her schooldays. After graduating, she moved to New York and she soon found she was collaborating on songs after work with a couple of similarly synth-minded girlfriends, eventually forming officially as the band, Au Revoir Simone.

Setting out on her own, she has taken elements of her band’s sound and spun them into her own brand of bittersweet, sun-bleached pop. Breathing vocals over mesmerizing keyboard phrases, Erika produces an effect that approaches the supernatural, with tough, spring-loaded beats lending gravity to the otherwise hazy, delirious songs.

Erika Wennerstrom is best known as the lead singer and songwriter of Heartless Bastards. After spending the past decade touring with her band, Heartless Bastards, and pushing their unique brand of rock ‘n’ roll into new shapes over five acclaimed albums Erika is taking some time off to explore new directions and work on her upcoming solo album.

Esther Vallee is a dream wave warrior whose music is laced with pop-consciousness from an unconscious part of this life - meaning all the dark parts and the means to process them. She has created a world for herself where the light better damn well inhabit the dark. She is your angel for backwards-looking escapism, her soundscape of sultry soul banging that collage electro sounds with bounces of dark electropop are just exciting.

Ewert and The Two Dragons are an indie-folk band from Tallinn, Estonia formed in spring of 2009. The line-up consists of vocalist Ewert Sundja, guitarist Erki Pärnoja, drummer Kristjan Kallas and Ivo Etti on bass, guitar and other instruments.

Critics have titled them as "the crown jewel of Estonian music", Finnish music magazine Rumba was stunned by their performance at the biggest Baltic music festival Positivus, calling them "the best band at the entire fest" where they were on the line-up alongside Muse and Scissor Sisters.

Ex Hex is Mary Timony, Laura Harris, and Betsy Wright. They are a power trio hailing from Washington, DC, making the music you’ve been waiting for. Drums, bass, guitar, P90s, searing leads — this is unapologetic rock ’n’ roll spat out in the discipline’s mother tongue.

They’ve already toured the UK twice this year, playing a packed out show at London’s Oslo and Scala, and have bowled over crowds at Field Day, Primavera, End of the Road & other European festivals, alongside continuous US tours & festivals.

Hailing from Ulnes, a village of 500 people in the Nordic mountain valley of Valdres, Farao makes enchanting and adventurous pop music, tinged with celestial electronics and earthen orchestration. The now London-based Farao’s songs bear a vibrant surface beauty while taunting the depths within, reflecting the dramatic yet serene environments of her remote origin.

Jahnsen writes with a nordic forwardness, creating songs of personal retribution with cathartic poise. Her wintry voice cuts through intricate compositions, navigating glacial rhythms and exquisite melodies with strength and vulnerability. Composed entirely by the multi-instrumentalist Jahnsen with unimpeded imagination, Farao’s music ravels and unravels deftly between tension and ease. An array of tools – guitars, synths, organs, glockenspiel, sitar – dance at Jahnsen’s fingertips, interwoven with Farao’s many voices in wall-of-sound unison.

Field Division is the musical project of Evelyn Taylor and Nicholas Frampton. The American duo conjure up a cinematic blend of classic songwriting, inspired by the 1960’s and 70’s folk rock pioneers, and transcendent modern dream pop. After releasing their debut EP, ‘Reverie State’ in 2014, Field Division spent two years living on the road whilst recording their first full-length LP (out in 2018). The new album, co-produced with Mckenzie Smith of Midlake, expands upon the ethereal soundscapes of their music while exploring the darker and more personal sides of their songwriting.

A year ago, Wasner left her native Baltimore and started anew in Durham, North Carolina. She left the place she grew up, her family, and a community - where she started Wye Oak with Andy Stack - that shaped and loved her.

On If You See Me, Say Yes, you can feel the intensity of this moment and it's one we can all relate to - when you're poised on the precipice, diving into the new, while looking back at what you left behind. So many of these new songs are built around these ecstatic moments when it feels like something is spilling open, or breaking through.

Described as Icelands best kept secret they create captivating electro pop that infilrates to the tips of your fingers to your toes. What started out as a studio project in 2005 has blossomed into a screaming monster of a live show that's been dancing through the continent. FM Belfast will leave you sweaty with a smile on your face, as long as you accept to tag a long. Everyone is invited to participate in the party workout.

Originally born of heartbreak and heartache Friska Viljor formed after endings, their journey has now taken them to new beginnings.

Over the past 4 years they have taken leaps through genres, from suffering and sorrow, to hope and happiness, in constant evolution using instrumentation from mandolin, ukelele and glockenspiel to accordion, clarinet and saw. The new direction delves into euphoric choruses as they explore the childhood nostalgia, soul searching and a touch of apathy.

Brighton-based Fujiya & Miyagi have been making expansive, experimental and multifaceted electronic-driven music for over fifteen years now.

As an outfit they have been as successful in their investigations into bleep as they have elongated Krautrock wig outs, and creating breathy electro pop as fiercely as they do post-punk-indebted scratchy dance.

Their latest EP, released in May 2016, feels like an amalgamation of all of these factors, condensed succinctly into four tracks, the first of three planned 12" EPs which will accumulate in a new album in early 2017.

Get Well Soon is the project of classically trained singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Konstantin Gropper from Germany.

Get Well Soon blends music from all over the world, morricone-like soundtracks to tango, classical montages and and haunting panoramic mood mosaics. It has drawn comparison to Beirut, Patrick Wolf & Tom Waits. Get Well Soon on stage is a six piece band with many instruments.

Their fourth full-length studio album entitled 'Love' was released in early 2016.

Girls Names formed in Belfast, but they’ve long considered themselves a European band. The distinction is important – their vision of Europe is one of weird, labyrinthian histories, blackest-ever-black coffee, and long drives to dismal places.

It stands to reason that many vital albums come critically close to never being made. The eight-track upshot of doubt, upheaval and financial strain, 'Stains on Silence' is one such release. Where their previous album 'Arms Around A Vision' proved a brazen statement of intent, 'Stains on Silence' bounds forth as its feature-length comedown. What could have seen the band buckle became an opportunity for approaching things tabula rasa .

I’m drawing on the urgency of the moment,” reflects Grant-Lee Phillips. “The things that eat away in the late hours…” That urgency inspired the headlong rush of Widdershins – available February 2018 – in which Phillips invests the insight, nuance, and wit that has distinguished his songcraft over the past three decades in a riveting dissection of today’s fraught social landscape. With more than two decades' experience first as frontman of the acclaimed Grant Lee Buffalo then and accomplished solo artist, Phillips awakens comfort and hope by shining light into darker corners. “I hope to express my faith in people, my faith in the good ideas we’re capable of, and that regardless of what opposition we face, the fact that we can surmount these things,” he concludes.

Settled in the space between dreamy folk and electronic melancholy – Haux is the smoky-eyed silhouette of Woodson Black.

Growing up in the Berkshires, Woodson found his voice while wandering the quiet woods and rural landscapes. He narrated life through film photographs, developing a pastoral aesthetic that would go on to inspire Haux.

Heartless Bastards have spent the past decade in motion, boldly pushing their unique brand of rock ‘n’ roll into new shapes over four acclaimed albums and nearly non-stop roadwork. Now, with RESTLESS ONES, the band sets out once again, blazing a path to a place of shifting moods, seasoned songcraft, and unbridled spontaneity. Heartless Bastards’ fifth studio recording and follow-up to 2012’s breakthrough ARROW, the album finds singer/songwriter Erika Wennerstrom exploring as-yet-unvisited avenues of sound and sensation, her bravery and ambition readily apparent in the emotional timbre and the sheer physicality of her songs.

Helado Negro is the music and performance alias of Roberto Carlos Lange. A project circling Sun Ra type cosmic poetry, using abstract ideas embedded with political messages to all good humans of the earth. The compositions are made in the contemporary sense with computers, voice and field recordings. Performance wise he acts like a electrified Abner Jay, being a one man band, shouting, moving and setting up his surreal performance with his Tinsel Mammals and slow orbit sways. The music is sung in english and spanish, a product of his upbringing in South Florida and embedded with his parents Ecuadorian culture of boleros, baladas and carribean dance music. The music is the wind down and possibly the wind up, the in between before the realization of what will happen. His album Private Energy 2016, was given an 8.1 on Pitchfork and his song “It’s My Brown Skin” was honored as “best New Track”.

Assuming that a pedigree in such things has any relevance at all, which is certainly unclear, Henry Jamison was perhaps predisposed to songwriting. His great-great-great-great-great-great-great (etc.) grandfather was the 14th century poet John Gower (friend to Chaucer and Richard II) and his great-great-great-great grandfather was George Frederick Root, the most popular songwriter of the Civil War era. Probably more relevant is that his mother is an English professor and his father a classical composer, who gave him a Korg 8-track recorder and his first guitar.

Horse Feathers feels like a secret you don’t really want to share. Over twelve years and five albums, a passionate fan base has experienced this band as a precious commodity that they want to keep close to their hearts. One reason for this can be found in lead singer Justin Ringle’s distinctive voice, at once vulnerable and piercing, and in the quality of the music: gorgeous, lush string arrangements surrounding stark, visceral lyrics whose bite makes a piquant juxtaposition to the surrounding beauty.

How To Dress Well is the stage name of songwriter and producer Tom Krell. Krell’s burgeoning career began in 2009 when, having just moved from Brooklyn to Berlin, his songs began to emerge online via a hugely prolific string of free, digital EPs posted in anonymity on his blog. Combining a gorgeous falsetto with fractured R&B-influenced beats, an instinctive ear for subtly devastating melody and elements of noise, sound collage and avant-garde composition, Krell's debut album Love Remains offered a beautiful window into a startlingly realised artistic imagination.

I Break Horses is the musical project led by Maria Lindén. From her Stockholm base, in 2011 the Swedish artist delivered an extraordinary debut album in the shape of 'Hearts.'

In 2014, the eagerly awaited follow-up album, entitled Chiaroscuro, was released.

ionnalee is the solo project of audiovisual project iamamiwhoami’s creator and front person Jonna Lee.

ionnalee represents both a new beginning and the continuation of a story still unfolding. a decade into her solo career, Swedish pop maverick Jonna Lee steps outside of the pioneering audio/visual world she spearheaded and helped create in the shape of the enigmatic audiovisual project iamamiwhoami, via a rawer, more upfront solo project lead by punchy lead single, SAMARITAN, and a visual alliance with COMME des GARÇONS.

Jacques Greene is the enigmatic, young artist who broke out of a generation of independent electronic labels Uno, 3024, Night Slugs and LuckyMe as a genre-defining producer and DJ (via 2011’s ’Another Girl’ – one of Pitchfork’s Songs of the Decade, 2013 favourite ’On Your Side’ ft. How To Dress Well and 2016’s club anthem ’You Can’t Deny’). Jacques Greene crafted a musical blueprint that inspired a generation who were raised at the intersection of contemporary music in the 90s: hip hop, RnB, house and techno.

For those who think they know Jaga Jazzist, the story of this Norwegian supergroup and Starfire - its fifth full-length studio album, hot on the heels of the acclaimed 20th anniversary vinyl box, '94-'14 - begins with a pop quiz:

Jaga Jazzist is:

(a) A jazz band;

(b) A rock band;

(c) A progressive rock band;

(d) A hip hop group;

(e) A rap group;

(f) A reggae group;

(g) A polka band;

(h) A comedy band;

(i) An electronica group;

(j) A classical ensemble;

(k) A choral ensemble;

(l) All of the above;

(m) None of the above.

The answer is, indeed, both (l) and (m) because across two decades Jaga has been all of these things but, at the end of the day, is really none of them. A point made all the more clear with Starfire - which, in some ways, returns to earlier roots while, at he same time, introducing new elements and, as ever, moving forward...always moving forward.

Jape began in 2003 as a solo project of Dublin musician Richard Egan. Over the years, the band has evolved to become one of Ireland’s most exciting and energetic live acts.

Jape’s music blends meticulously crafted lyrics with upbeat electronic rhythms. Using an innovative mix of live instruments, hardware samplers and sequencers, the band create a sound that encompasses many different styles and spans genres, a sort of gothic pop. They have been covered by The Raconteurs and won the prestigious Choice Music Prize in 2008.

This Chemical Sea is their fifth studio album and was released in January 2015, via Faction Records.

Swedish singer/songwriter Jäje Johanson, who goes by the stage name Jay-Jay Johanson, infuses the measured, slow-burn aesthetics of downbeat and trip-hop with the metallic pulse of electro-pop, resulting in his own signature brand of film noir-imbued electronic melancholy. Born and raised in the city of Trollhättan.

“It’s self-titled.” The three-word answer is all that Jen Cloher requires to describe her recently completed fourth album, a letter in triplicate addressed to themes of Love, Music and Australia (the beautiful and the terrible). Jen likes best to tell the truth.

Jen Cloher is the culmination of a period of artistic and personal growth in which the artist took her rightful place as the punk-rock figurehead of Melbourne’s famous DIY music scene. The NIDA Graduate is an outspoken advocate for artist rights and the co-founder of the incredible Milk! Records label (Courtney Barnett, Loose Tooth, Fraser A. Gorman, Jade Imagine, East Brunswick All Girls Choir). Cloher’s fascinating life-story and compelling political voice is enough justification to pay her attention, but it’s the music that will have you returning again and again.

Jesca Hoop is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist who calls Manchester, UK home. Jesca released her debut record, Kismet (Columbia Records) after catching the attention of KCRW’s Nic Harcourt. Over the course of her career she has become known for her incredible live performances.

Jesca subsequently released four more albums and two eps, including the critically acclaimed Hunting My Dress (Vanguard) and The House That Jack Built (Bella Union). No stranger to the road or collaborations, Jesca has toured and collaborated with the likes of Shearwater, Andrew Bird, Iron and Wine, Elbow, EELS, Sinead O'Connor, Peter Gabriel, Mark Knopfler and many more.

Jessica Pratt is a San Francisco-based singer and musician. Her music is intricate, intimate, and contemporary yet seems as if it’s been cast from an earlier era.

Pratt’s voice rumbles gently, lower, wiser, with patient, compelling and heart-wrenching songs whose hand-crafted lyrics fit near the flesh, as though some sort of celestial, terrestrial, wise elfin whispered them in your ear and then promptly left you to dream, both spooked and charmed. Her ephemeral sound, and wise, humble tones will surely propel her towards a long and sophisticated career.

Jessy Lanza is a producer and singer who comes from Hamilton Ontario, but studied music at Concordia in Montreal. Her debut album which she recorded with partner Jeremy Greenspan from Junior Boys 'Pull My Hair Back', came out in 2013 to almost universal praise.

The first single from her album 'Oh No' - 'It Means I Love You' was released in January 2016 to an excited audience and was immediately picked up for 'Best New Music' at Pitchfork, and was featured on 'New Music Friday' with Apple.

Joan Shelley will release the follow up to her 2015 LP 'Over and Even' this spring. It was recorded at The Loft in Chicago with Jeff Tweedy producing and again features guitarist Nathan Salsburg, this time with Jeff Tweedy, Spencer Tweedy and James Elkington accompanying Shelley on 11 new songs. More details will be announced in the coming weeks.

'Over and Even' was an album of the year at NPR Music and in the Los Angeles Times. Rolling Stone gave it 4 stars, calling it “a masterfully turned set of folk reflections.”

JOHN GRVY (nee J.E.Edward) was born in Lagos, Nigeria and raised and based in Madrid, Spain. His productions move between chillwave and new wave R&B, pop music with a leftfield approach. Think Hudson Mohawke, Frank Ocean, James Blake, but also Prince and Fela Kuti. Championed by The Line Of Best Fit and Remezcla among other international taste-makers, his live show is stunning and full of energy, as proved in stellar appearances at FIB Benicassim, Sónar, Fusion Festival, Vida Festival or Kutxa Kultur.

As vocalist/guitarist John Engelbert somewhat sheepishly admitted in Johnossi's first online bio, "We're not one of those bands that has been struggling in a basement for ten years, dying to catch a break. Things came easily for us." Indeed, after Engelbert and drummer Oskar "Ossi" Bonde formed the pop/rock duo in their native Stockholm, Sweden, in 2004, they played only four gigs before signing with a local label and recording a debut album. Although Engelbert played an acoustic guitar exclusively, his arsenal of effects and overdriven amplifiers put Johnossi in the same stylistic ballpark as other guitar-and-drum duos like the Black Keys, White Stripes, and Mr. Airplane Man.

Acclaimed American singer-songwriter and founding member of The Be Good Tanyas, Jolie Holland, has many strings to her bow. Over the span of her career, Jolie Holland has knotted together a century of American song—jazz, blues, soul, rock and roll—into some stew that is impossible to categorize with any conventional critical terminology. Having been championed by the likes of Tom Waits and Sage Francis, on her latest release, Wine Dark Sea, Holland summons "deep, dark forces” "where great skills and great courage are required to rise to the occasion."

José González has a recognisable trademark sound incorporating delicate, autumnal classical guitar with wistful, melodic vocals.
José González is of Argentinian descent and grew up listening to Latin folk and pop music citing Cuban singer songwriter Silvio Rodriguez as one of his favourite.

José González‘s newest record, Vestiges & Claws is his first in seven years, released in February 2015 and produced by González. It consists of years’ worth of musical sketches that in other hands might naturally sprawl wildly in sound and style, but on Vestiges & Claws González has created a collection of songs that cohere just about perfectly, ensuring his position as one of the most important artists of his generation.

Like a baseball player who quietly hits 30 home runs every year or a golfer who regularly finishes in the Top Ten, Josh Rouse's continued streak of excellence is easy to ignore and maybe even downplay a little” -- Tim Sendra, Allmusic.com. Josh Rouse was born in Nebraska, and eventually landed in Nashville where he recorded his debut Dressed Like Nebraska (1998). His breakthrough album, 1972 (2003) Rouse expanded his palette to the warmer sound of albums back then, as well as the more communal feel of the soul music of the eponymous year. After relocating to Valencia, Spain, Rouse has released a steady stream of high quality songs and albums. Subtitulo (2006) contained the international hit "Quiet Town". On El Turista (2010) he experimented with writing and singing some  songs in Spanish. In  2014, he won a Goya Award (the Spanish equivalent of an Oscar) for best song for "Do You Really Want To Be In Love," from the film 'La Gran Familia Española.

Junior Boys is the duo of Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus.The first release Birthday/Last Exit came in 2003 — a four-track EP with a remix by Fennesz. The High Come Down EP followed in 2004 with a Manitoba (now Caribou) remix and word began to spread. Their debut album, Last Exit, was released in 2004 on KIN Records. A reissue on Domino featured the Manitoba mix of Birthday, a Fennesz mix of the same track, and a new track. After the release of It's All True in 2011, the duo pursued solo and side projects, which included Jeremy Greenspan's working on music by Caribou and Jessy Lanza. In October 2015, the duo announced their fifth studio album and first release in five years, Big Black Coat.

Junip brings you dynamic, melodic and shadowy rock. Like walking through a foggy city finding the sun light little by little.
Swedish band Junip was formed in Gothenburg, Sweden, in the late '90s by Elias Araya (drums), José Gonzalés (guitar, vocals) and Tobias Winterkorn (organ, moog). Junip's sound can be familiar to those who have listened to José Gonzalez’s critically acclaimed records, but added to the mix on top of his nylon stringed guitar and distinctive voice are organs, analog–cut synths and drums.

K-X-P esoteric space rock band from Helsinki, Finland. They mix electronics, kraut, noise, pop melodies and even techno into a hypnotic and minimalistic groove with references to bands like Spacemen 3, Vangelis, Mr. Fingers, This Heat, 23 Skidoo, Suicide and Neu!

K-X-P can be considered as "a perfect synthesis of disco glitterball and skull drinking" (Q Magazine). The music has been described as "incredibly rhythmic, and their grooves - paranoid dark disco and motorik - deep” (Pitchfork)

Kane Strang’s first proper album, Blue Cheese, picks up on the rough disaffection of his earlier demo collection, A Pebble and a Paper Crane, which he recorded in a WWII bomb shelter in Germany.

Back in his hometown of Dunedin, New Zealand, Strang spent two curious months alone, housesitting for his parents. Re-nested, yet still isolated, Strang composed all of Blue Cheese over those quiet days. He has since amassed a band and has started playing his distinct psych-pop live.

Bella Union’s enigmatic vocalist Karl Blau charts a new vision of country music with Introducing Karl Blau. A Northwest indie hero, Blau channels darkness and hope in a cinematic collection of Nashville country hits from the 1960’s and 70’s. Produced by Tucker Martine, the record features performances by Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Laura Veirs, Jon Hyde, Eli Moore (Lake), Steve Moore (Earth, SunnO), among others.

Timo Kaukolampi is the shamanistic leader of space rock outfit K-X-P. In the shadows of his hood and cape he’s been working on his solo material following the trails of cosmic disco, rave, ethnic percussion, ambient and early days of Goa trance when DJ’s spinned obscure proto techno tracks together with Belgian EBM. From the echoes of these influences becomes his original sound that will see the first light of day in 2017.

Timo’s electronic experiments has been praised by DJ’s like Optimo, James Holden, Erol Alkan and John Dickweed with his music and remixes released on labels like Kompakt, Bugged Out, Smalltown Supersound, Tellé, Resist Music, Relish among his own imprint "Öm" on Svart Records.

Operating around 4/4 kick drum his live electronic sets contains analog synthesizers and drum machines forming a spaced out cuckoo’s nest made out of cables pulsating a soundtrack-like, thunderous soundscape ripping PA system apart. Sound is elemental like nature, moving tectonic plates. Destruction of the form followed by re-creation.

Interplanetary energy beams. Deep meditation.

Kitt Philippa writes earnest, searing songs inspired by sound, visuals, words, environment, people, emotions and their combinations in constant flux.

Operating within a genre dubbed ‘Reflectivism’, Philippa is an organ scholar delivering dynamic piano, intense looped ballads and soulful electronica, all of which draw on universal themes with a deep infusion of associations.

Kllo is a collaboration between Melbourne cousins Chloe Kaul and Simon Lam. They first emerged in 2014 with a sound beyond their years; fully formed, fusing elements of R&B, UK garage, and 2-step with modern sensibilities and wide-eyed sincerity.

The duo's first two EPs, Cusp (2014) and Well Worn (2016), have received millions of streams, making them a fixture on festival stages across Australia (Bigsound, Splendour in the Grass) and Europe (Great Escape, Primavera Sound, among others) as well as Artists-to-Watch features, like BBC Radio 1, Spotify, Elle Magazine, and VICE — the latter saying Kllo is poised to "very politely take over the world."

2017 brings Kllo’s full-length debut, Backwater, a refined, coming-of-age account. Songs were written partially on the road and developed back in Melbourne at Lam’s bungalow, a haven that harbors creative spontaneity and catharsis. The album depicts inner adjustment to outer change: being far from home, treading through perpetual uncharted territory while yearning for the comforts of the familiar.

To many, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper (aka Aly Spaltro) is an enigma. Her songs are at once intimate and unbridled - both deeply personal and existentially contemplative. Spaltro is a fearless performer who can command a pitch-black stage with nothing more than her voice.

Yet, when on her newest work, After, Spaltro explores dualities further - giving equal attention to both the internal and external, the before and after. These new works - which found Spaltro co-producing with her Ripely Pine partner Nadim Issa - are sonically vibrant, with an assertive use of grit and brightness.

Oregon singer/songwriter Laura Gibson is a remarkable lyricist with an unforgettable voice, writing about timeless questions of the human condition. In past she has collaborated with Calexico, The Dodos and Colin Meloy (of The Decemberists), and her fourth album will be released in April on City Slang Records. "Gibson's voice is 100 per cent her own." 8/10 - NME

"Curiously beautiful... The songs crackle and sparkle with instrumentation -- including vibes, woodwind, marimbas, pump organ and piano -- with layers of Gibson's distinctive voice, girlish and pretty, but cracked and splintered like glass." **** 4 stars - Mojo

Les Sins is the dance project of Toro Y Moi’s Chaz Bundick.
Inspired by cartoon and movie soundtracks, the largely instrumental project explores classic dance and pop music traditions. Catchy, repetitive vocal hooks gel with beats and synth work influenced by house, techno, French electronic, and ’90s hip-hop production.

LITTLE SCREAM’S music is — like her moniker — full of perfectly satisfying contradictions. It is at once familiar and completely distinct; effortlessly absorbing multiple genres into a sparkly and cohesive landscape.

'Cult Following' - released on Merge Records - is a record that deserves to be listened to from start to finish, with each song having been constructed to meld seamlessly into the next. There may be those who listen only to the record’s obvious catchy hit, but they would be missing out on the depth of stunners like “Wishing Well” and “Someone Will Notice.” Like a classic novella, you must pass through all of the record’s stages to fully experience a triumphant hero’s journey.

Emil Svanängen born 1979 is a Swedish musician and composer working under the pseudonym Loney Dear.

Originating from the dark winters and light summer nights of Scandinavia, his music captures heavy emotions and intense energies of something painfully beautiful. In his thought through albums he explores the concept of music itself – through making, releasing and performing.

Emil’s music consists of perfectly composed layers, recorded (one by one) by himself and often performed like that, just by him, his expressive voice and a bunch of instruments. Casually he engineers an entire concert alone, playing sounds with his feet while juggling a bass drum and still being very much present in that moment. Perfection mixed with vibrating flaws makes his music easy to take in and hard to let go.

A soil-tethered root to the Pacific Northwest is at the forefront of Madeline Kenney’s music. Bare feet, fresh fruit, the brilliant moon. Kenney has lived rather nomadically, transferring between the mountains of British Columbia, the islands of Hawaii, and most recently, Oakland. She moved to the Bay Area to pursue a career in baking but a supportive arts community and a chance encounter with Chaz Bear (Toro Y Moi) led to them recording the Signals EP together, along with Kenney’s brand-new album, Night Night At The First Landing. An accomplished debut with a cohesive sound, Night Night is a record balanced by serene beauty and cathartic breakdowns, showcasing Kenney’s huge voice and unexpected lyrical knots.

Giampaolo Speziale and Federica Caiozzo met in early 2015 in Rome and, in what Federica describes as a "moment of surrender", decided to start making music together on a road trip through Austria, Germany and Poland. The duo gathered thirty improvised musical ideas and spent eight days recording with their friend and drummer Alberto Paone in a Roman studio.

In June of 2015, Giampaolo and Federica decided to break from their previous musical incarnations and moved from Rome to London, taking with them a hard drive of songs, a battered suitcase and vinyl copies of Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left and Stevie Wonder's Hotter Than July.

Man Duo is the second coming of Jaakko Eino Kalevi and Long-Sam: cherished producers and good friends from Helsinki whose 2012 debut Amateurs de Vérité refracted outsider electronics through the prism of psychedelic folk. Now the pair are back with a new name and a new album, Orbit, that takes the exotic pop we’ve come to associate with both artists far beyond the dancefloor and out into the cosmos.

There is an undeniable connection between the South and occurrences of extra-terrestrial form.

A discovery of records long stashed away at various dilapidated thrift stores in Alabama lead the entities of Man or Astro-Man? to the scratched-up sounds of Link Wray, The Ventures, Dick Dale, Duane Eddy, The Marketts, The Safaris, and other instrumental guitar oriented music of the late fifties and early sixties.

Mariam The Believer is the nom de guerre that Mariam Wallentin, the singer from the duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums, has chosen for herself.
In this solo adventure Wallentin leaves the mix of minimalistic blues, pop and rock impro that has been the characteristic of Wildbirds & Peacedrums behind, and steps down into a dark hole filled with vibrant creativity. An oriental ambience fuses with the warm silhouettes of experimental pop and unpolished soul in a way that nourishes both body and mind.

This year marks the release of Mass Gothic, the Massachusetts-bred, New York-based singer/songwriter’s self-titled Sub Pop debut.

Written and recorded at home over four months during the winter of 2014-2015, it's a stunning reminder of not just Heroux's own remarkable talents as a singer and songwriter, but how unbridled creativity can both sound and feel as well.

Matteo Vallicelli is an Italian drummer and composer, best known as the live drummer of The Soft Moon, Death Index, and as a founding member of many renowned Italian punk bands. This winter he debuts his first solo project, 'Primo', on Captured Tracks.

Heavily influenced by the pulsating techno scene of the German capital, Vallicelli began experimenting with synthesizers and drum machines. Recording sounds onto his computer and cassette tapes led him to create a massive collection of loops and samples, sometimes in protracted home sessions where he wouldn’t leave his apartment for days.

Merchandise is a band fighting against the easy categorization reserved for abbreviated biographies.

Formed as a trio in Tampa, Florida in 2008, the band has undergone ceaseless revision and reinvention. The project is equal parts punk misanthropy, maudlin balladeering, fine art, low humor, classical study, psychedelic spacecasing, mad science and pop genius.

Maneuvering between grandiose retro motifs and a surprising sincerity, Michelle Gurevich’s songs are tragicomic, melody-driven, sentimental and suspended in shadowy glamour.

Having released 3 albums under the moniker of Chinawoman, she now continues as Michelle Gurevich with her 4th and latest release – New Decadence. Produced in the same manner as her previous releases, she combines dark realism with humour in smoky and intimate ballads delivered with cutting and fatalistic lyrics.

Mike Krol got his bike stolen and his heart broken. He bailed on graphic-design-as-career. He kept playing drums and guitars, and he kept writing songs about the stuff he hated and the stuff he loved. Leaving Milwaukee for Los Angeles, he took a few years’ worth of wrong turns. But when he showed up at a studio in Sacramento in March 2014, he had his affairs in order. Plug the vocal mic into a guitar amp. Plug the guitar into an overheating box of vacuum tubes. Put the computer in the closet. Roll the tape.

His third album and Merge Records debut 'Turkey' was released late 2015.

Having impressed the online tastemakers with their early releases that continuously entered the top of the Hype Machine chart, Mt. Wolf are set for their debut album release in May 2017. Now grouped as a formidable 3 piece, with singer and guitarist Sebastian Fox, guitarist Stevie McMinn and drummer Alex Mitchell, the band's hallmark splicing of electronic and acoustic elements and layered sounds has not been lost in their new EP recordings, earning them comparisons to the likes of London Grammar, Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky and Sigur Ros.

Ninos Du Brasil is a project whose origins and background have remained shrouded in mystery. Dedicated to a bold and unlikely mixture of noise, batucada, samba and electronic, their sporadic live appearances have already become legendary and mythological.

Be it a punk squat in Belgium or the famous Venice Biennale of Architecture, Ninos Du Brasil, without fail, rally the troops, from every walk of life, and create some of the biggest festival style parties on the dance floor.

The Swedish artist and songwriter is about to follow up her Grammy nominated debut album from 2012. The first single that was released is ”I’m in Love."

She is the sought after chart-topping, award-winning writer for some of the biggest artists in the world, but she also writes her own songs that are closer to her heart. For the first time, she is ready to share those songs with the world.

Emotion vs. technology.

Soul vs. machines.

Beauty vs. dissonance.

Dystopia or paradise?

Love or regret?

Nostalgia vs. right now.

Paranoia.
Acceptance.

These are among the various binary flavors that Jason Chung explores on Parallels, the fourth full album released under Chung’s distinctive moniker, Nosaj Thing. Master-fully dimensional, Parallels represents the acclaimed Los Angeles-based electronic producer/composer/performer’s most diverse, vital work yet. As such, Chung sees Parallels represents a kind of redemptive rebirth. The album’s compellingly elusive, uncategorizable sonics developed out of what he terms a personal & musical “identity crisis.”

Over two critically lauded albums, that uncannily beautiful, acrobatic contralto, wedded to Ólöf’s liquid, finger-picked guitar or South American charango, intermittently ornamented by various degrees of chamber orchestration, has won legions of fans around the globe, abetted by a vigorous, peripatetic touring schedule.

All of which is good going for a singer who started her musical life fighting chronic stage nerves only to deliver her deeply personal songs in that most magical yet, let’s face it, hardly universally accessible mother tongue, Icelandic.

Operators is Dan Boeckner's (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits) brand new analog/electronic/dance project, and we are excited to announce the release of their debut offering, EP1: an upbeat, aggressively melodic collection of synth driven pop songs.

Dan Boeckner has shown his diverse musical taste over the years; consequently, his decision to focus his attention on a new, electronic dance project shouldn't be surprising as it feels like nothing more than a natural progression from the first synth he bought for the debut Wolf Parade EP, to the primarily stark, digital sounds of Handsome Furs, and now the organic, melted, deeply dance driven Operators. 

Peggy Sue are London-via-Brighton indie duo Rosa Slade and Katy Young. Founded in 2007, the band have released three albums on Wichita Recordings, culminating in 2014's critically acclaimed 'Choir Of Echoes', and toured with the likes of Jack White, Local Natives and First Aid Kit. After a three year break - during which Slade and Young have been performing with all-female singing group Deep Throat Choir - new single 'Slow Fade' is an apt comeback – a melancholy celebration of patience. Upcoming fourth album sees the band borrowing from the perfectly-constructed pop songs of the 1960s and the understated, noisey guitar experiments of 90s indie bands such as The Breeders and Blur.

This Swedish trio are masterful in their delivery of pop ditties that get us whistling and nodding our heads. Influenced by 60s baroque pop, power pop and new wave Peter, Bjorn and John have been together for over 10 years and with each album they evolve and morph.

Breakin’ Point, their sixth album and first in five years, attempts to reclaim unpaid dues: written as the trio studied ABBA’s greatest hits, recorded in that band’s old studio, and completed with Paul Epworth, Greg Kurstin, Emile Haynie, and other major producers with considerable résumés. The album was released in June 2016.

Phoria are headed up by the master of electronics and composition Trewin Howard, he is joined by piano/synth player Ed Sanderson who he has known all his life and three others (guitarist/synth player James Cheeseman, drummer Seryn Burden, guitar/bass/synth player Tim Douglas), who he feels he has known forever. Phoria start to make sense with this strong backbone and incredible bond in place. At one point, they stopped trying to be a conventional band and started to be something else; they decided to be applied technicians in a self-created sonic laboratory named Phoria. 

Overseen, produced, and recorded by Caribou’s Brad Weber, Pick a Piper is his collaboration with Angus Fraser, Dan Roberts, and others. Over the course of two EPs and a self-titled album, the project has combined dance-music structures, a palette evocative of the natural world, and an increasingly heavy focus on electronics and production technique to create a sound poised between the organic and the synthetic. Pick a Piper continue to work on their follow-up to their 2013 self-titled album.

Plants and Animals are a Montreal-based trio that began playing together as kids, emerged on the international scene in 2008 and have developed a varied cult following ever since. Emerging on the international scene in 2008, the band have developed a varied cult following ever since, built this on the shoulders of their self-produced records, their intense live show, or both — depending on who you ask. April 2016’s “Waltzed In From the Rumbling” is their first album in nearly four years... It is Plants and Animals' most soulful and inventive collection of music yet. Eleven soundtracks for leaps taken, ships sailed, dark water and pink skies.

Hydrogene-blond mane and squealing synthesizers: RAZOR SHINES sitting in an auditorium to study classical music is a hard thing to imagine now, even for the singer from Toronto herself. Her real strength lies in pop and she realized this sooner than her parents agreed. When they stopped supporting her financially, she started dancing at a strip club. Now, she lets her experiences push her music. The future of pop belongs to women like RAZOR SHINES.

Having toured the world as frontman of Scottish Indie giants, Idlewild, acclaimed songwriter Roddy Woomble recently toured UK in celebration of the 10 year anniversary of this debut solo album, My Secret Is My Silence. Having established himself as a leading voice in the thriving British contemporary indie folk music scene, with his anticipated new album, 2017 will see Roddy take a darker more lo fi direction held together by Woomble’s trademark poetic lyrics, "evocative vocals and consummate gift for a tune."

Since releasing his debut album ‘Little Giant’ in 2014 and sophomore album ‘Paperweights’ in 2016, Panes has racked up an excess of 100 million plays on Spotify and over 6 million total YouTube views. He has been described by Uncut as a ‘Britfolk pin up’ whose music ‘taps a deep well of folk heritage.’ Q Magazine has said Panes finds ‘a positive message in thoughts best left in the dark of night.’ Panes’ music is succinct, honest songwriting, from a place of deep personal expression, resonating with universal truths and values. His is a deep voice, one that sounds aged beyond its years, and yet, it’s telling of timeless stories, endless heartache and forever love. It asks that we all find the right way to see the world around us. 

Scott Fagan’s 1968 debut album South Atlantic Blues reintroduced the world to one of the great lost folk singers of the 1960s, and an extraordinary story to rival that of Rodriguez. Fagan, the father of Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, was mentored by legendary songwriter Doc Pomus, almost signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records and played on the same bill at the Cafe Au Go Go as a pre-fame Jimi Hendrix.

Irish alt-folk and electronica alchemist Seamus Fogarty will release his new album The Curious Hand on October 6th. It is his first for Domino and follows his debut full-length God Damn You Mountain (Fence/Lost Map) and 2015’s EP Ducks and Drakes.

Originally from County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland, Fogarty now resides in London, and the capital provides the canvas for The Curious Hand. Fogarty’s method of lifting sounds wholesale from his environment and tucking them into the folds of his songs like keepsakes, renders himself at once, artist and archivist as well as twisting the notion of the folk singer’s role as collector and custodian of stories, traditions and cultural curio.

The Curious Hand was produced by Seamus and Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, Wild Beasts) who also plays on the album. Other notable players include Emma Smith on a plethora of instruments (violin, clarinet, bass to name a few), Rozi Plain (backing vocals), Aram Zarikian (drums) and Seamus’ brother John Fogarty (accordion).

Formed in Stockholm by childhood friends Adam Olenius (vocals), Ted Malmros (bass), and Carl von Arbin (guitars), Shout Out Louds found an international audience during the early 2000s with their peppy Swedish pop. The lineup began taking shape in 2001, with drummer Eric Edman and keyboardist Bebban Stenborg climbing aboard shortly thereafter. Shout Out Louds wasted little time writing songs, the first three of which formed the basis of their first demo tape. The music caught the ear of Filip Wilén, owner of Sweden's Bud Fox Recordings, and he quickly signed the group to his label.

Sinkane is the project of the Sudanese-born musician Ahmed Gallab. Gallab cut his teeth as a youngster in the punk DIY landscape of middle America, and then found himself touring far and wide as a member of Yeasayer, Caribou, Eleanor Friedberger, Born Ruffians, and Of Montreal.
He has emerged from it all as Sinkane, a project that identifies a renaissance within the space and spirit of the outposts of contemporary music. With an aesthetic range seamlessly shifting from soul to rock, and from jazz to pop, Sinkane's vibe is timeless and the sound is now.

sir Was is the musical journey of Joel Wästberg, documenting a wealth of unique & idiosyncratic influences.

Demonstrating a seemingly effortless marriage of organic instrumentation, synthetic sounds and head-bobbing beats, he shows himself as a master of balance. Perfectly weighted songs merge graceful melody and deep beats with his unique production style. The end result is beautifully emotive, atmospheric tracks eschewing genre classification.

SLUG the nom de plume of North East merrymaker Ian Black, returns with new album HiggledyPiggledy on 13 April 2018 via Memphis Industries.

Whereas previous album RIPE was made in collaboration with Peter and David Brewis of Field Music, HiggledyPiggledy was composed, produced and played entirely by Black enabling him to give free reign to his beguiling brand of Dada-rock.

Son Lux is the grand genre-less dream of Los Angeles composer Ryan Lott brought to roiling, vivid life with the help of two New Yorkers, guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang. Each is a writer, producer, and performer with omnivorous taste and a penchant for wild improvisation—a band whose mix of electronic pop, unusual soul, and outright experimentalism feels more inviting than ever on the project's fifth album, 'Brighter Wounds'.

The songs therein leave behind Son Lux's typically universal themes for deeply personal fare. While making 'Brighter Wounds,' Lott became a father to a baby boy and lost a best friend to cancer. Days of "firsts" were also days of "lasts," and the normal fears that accompany parenthood were compounded by a frightening new reality—Lott's son arrived shortly after Election Day. These songs draw on all of that: warm reflections of a fading past, pain wrenched from a still-present loss, and a mix of anxiety and hope for a future that is promised to no one.

Tanlines - singer/guitarist Eric Emm and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Cohen - will release their eagerly anticipated sophomore album, Highlights, on True Panther Sounds on May 19th, 2015.

Produced by the band and Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, Highlights began in a basement in Pittsburgh and ended in a church in Brooklyn. It trades world music sounds for a more alive, realized approach, the result of Emm and Cohen wanting to break from their ‘two guys, one screen’ writing style.

Taraval is a San Francisco based producer of underground house and techno music. His debut EPs quietly appeared on Four Tet’s iconic TEXT records and were shortly being rinsed out in Panorama Bar, cutting edge US underground parties, BBC1 Radio 1, and festival main stages the world over. Taraval tracks are a colorful, mutated and personal take on dance music that is none the less precisely constructed for maximum dance floor intensity, evidenced by support from mainroom house DJs to aficionados of the experimental operating in strobe lit backrooms. His journey to solo music making has been long gestating in between stints as secret-weapon sideman for a beloved Canadian electronic act but looks set to accelerate as he accepts invitations to play at beloved US underground club nights as well as iconic techno institutions from London to Berlin. His current ‘EP II’ 12’’ is available on TEXT in all good shops and digitally at taraval.bandcamp.com. Catch him in a club near you soon.

Thao & the Get Down Stay Down is an indie pop band led by the distinctive-voiced Thao Nguyen, whose songwriting tends toward the musically playful and lyrically heavy-hearted. Raised in the City of Falls Church, Virginia, Nguyen took up the guitar and songwriting as a pre-teen, and was part of a country-pop duo in high school. In 2005, she released a solo album, Like the Linen, which revealed her somewhat raspy, punky voice and folky indie pop style.

THE ALBUM LEAF has been making its mark as a soft-spoken innovator steadily and surely since 1999. One year after forming the influential San Diego instrumental group Tristeza, songwriter & multi-instrumentalist Jimmy LaValle founded THE ALBUM LEAF, a solo studio project turned full-fledged live band. The diversity of THE ALBUM LEAF’s music is second only to the diversity of the music that has inspired LaValle through the years – the artist has named everything from German Ambient/Pysch bands like Can, Cluster and Harmonia to traditional mariachi music, electronic music and Brian Eno as some of his primary influences – and it’s clear that THE ALBUM LEAF is unafraid of thinking outside the box, both as an individual artist & within the larger scope of modern music.

IN HEAT NOT SORRY is The Altered Hours' first full length album, recorded at the Funkhaus studio in Berlin and released through Art For Blind and Penske Recordings.

Having worked with Fabien Leseure on the Sweet Jelly Roll EP (A Recordings) in 2013, the group returned to Berlin the following year to record their debut album IN HEAT NOT SORRY, with Leseure again at the controls. In many ways the album's sound and atmosphere encapsulates the band's ongoing fascination with testing and sometimes disrupting the balance between tranquility and chaos.

The Besnard Lakes are a Canadian indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Formed in 2003 by the husband and wife team of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, two of their four albums have been nominated for the Polaris Music Prize. Their fifth studio album 'A Coliseum Complex Museum' was released on Jagjaguwar in January 2016.

In their thirteen years of existence, Atlanta’s tireless garage punks The Coathangers have cranked out five full-lengths and well over a dozen singles, splits, and EPs. Considering the band’s initial aspirations to merely hang out and play a few house parties, their relentless touring schedule is perhaps the greatest testament to the lasting power of their scrappy hook-laden records and the infectious energy radiating from their live shows. And while every Coathangers record has captured their buoyant turbulence and jagged euphoria, there is always some degree of magic that inevitably gets lost when bands go into the studio.

The Dears’ songwriting milieu is influenced equally by nineties rock and a broad tableau of gospel, soul, and pop music. Since 1995, they have released 5 full-length albums and 2 EPs and have toured the world over, including performances on Letterman (twofold), Jimmy Kimmel, Jonathan Ross and at Glastonbury, T in the Park, Wireless, Montreal Jazz Fest, Siren Festival, Coachella, Austin City Limits, V Fest (UK & Canada), Les Inrocks (France), Pop Montreal, CMW, CMJ, NXNE and countless appearances at SXSW.

In the way bands such as Deerhoof and Field Music are revered for their unusual sonic approach, The Drink celebrate beauty in oddness through their use of bold syncopated rhythms, strange time signatures and complex structures.

“We don't set out to write odd songs at all. We just write them as we think they sound interesting..."

Their sophomore album titled 'Capital' was released late 2015.

Armed with a sack of harmonicas, a mess of foot percussion and a Telecaster, Shawn “The Harpoonist” Hall and Matthew “The Axe Murderer” Rogers kick out raw and primal blues; continuing in the tradition of a ‘decades - deep blues style', while electrifying the genre a with a lightning bolt of new life. Their sound pays homage to influences ranging from Robert Johnson to Jack White, but its smothered in greasy, gritty soul, and punched with funk. Early on in their career, Hall and Rogers made the choice to limit their sound to whatever they could play between them, using only their mouths, hands and feet, and eventually the sound became larger than the band itself.

The Radio Dept. was formed in 2001 by Johan Duncanson and Martin Carlberg. The name was stolen from an art pop band Johan had had with a couple of highschool friends during the later part of the 90s. (A little later bass player Lisa Carlberg and drummer Per Blomgren joined the band as they started rehearsing in the way bands so often do.) In 2002 Swedish music magazine Sonic drew attention to the band as the song Why Won’t You Talk About It was featured on their accompanying CD-sampler, which was also how Labrador discovered the band. After having released a 7” on their own label Slottet, the debut four track ep “Against The Tide”, they were signed to Labrador.

The Ruby Suns, the band-ish pseudonym of nomadic Californian-New Zealander Ryan McPhun, return after four years with a brilliant and ambitious new record Sprite Fountain.

It began in earnest upon moving to Oslo, Norway from Auckland in 2013's twilight with impending fatherhood tapping him on the shoulder. A slowly ripening thing, it was made amidst child rearing and touring with NZ pals Lawrence Arabia and remixing, recording and touring with Norwegian acts like Snasen, Heyerdahl and Beezewax.

The Soft Moon announces his signing to Sacred Bones and confirms details of his fourth studio album ‘Criminal’, set for release on February 2nd, 2018.

‘Criminal’ is a confessional work. Through the stark lens of shame and guilt that has followed Luis Vasquez since a violent childhood growing up within the humming ambient sprawl of 80s Mojave Desert, here he documents the gut-wrenching sound of going to war with himself. Battling with his own sanity, self-hatred, insecurity, self-entitlement and grappling with the risk of these things transforming him into a person he despises, Vasquez has laid his feelings bare with this: his confession and most self-reflective work to date.

During the summer of 2014 This Is Head decided it was time to record their third album. They wrote, recorded, rewrote, played and recorded some more, early till late, through warm afternoons into cool summer nights.

For them, this record is a document of an intense week of abundant creativity mixed with writer’s block. A week of tired ears on stubborn heads and ultimately the crystallisation of our ideas. That’s how it was for us, for those of you listening perhaps it will be something else.

This Is The Kit is the beloved musical project of one Kate Stables, born in Winchester, England and now at home in Paris, France. Bashed Out, her band's much lauded third album, is the result of an extended period collaboration with the record's producer Aaron Dessner (The National, Sharon Van Etten, Local Natives), won over Elbow frontman Guy Garvey as well as his fellow BBC 6Music & Radio 1 DJs (Lauren Laverne, Marc Riley, Cerys Matthews, Huw Stephens, Phil Taggart).

Mike Lindsay and Sam Genders, Tunng’s founding forefathers, have found the pair re-igniting their spark on new record Throws through a magical Icelandic adventure of man chats, drinks-til-dawn, and a little ‘Northern Falsetto’. The result is a brilliantly varied record that couldn’t be further from the pair’s earlier incarnation, combining the dramatic Icelandic elements, synths, old guitars and an off-key piano to create a sound combing the traditional folk rooting of ‘Silence In Between,' and ‘Knife’s glitchy electronica, which all capture Reykjavik’s movement, energy, and throws of passion.

Born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, Chaz Bundick (aka Toro Y Moi) has been toying with various musical projects since early adolescence.

Having spent his formative years playing in punk and indie rock acts, the protean Toro Y Moi project has been his vessel for further musical exploration since 2001. Chaz Bundick's methods are constantly changing and evolving. His latest album 'What For?' was released on Carpark Records in 2015.

It helps to understand that TOY don’t sleep. They’re indefatigable and this gives them both a searing clarity of vision and a shattered confusion of mind.

Clear Shot (released October 28th on Heavenly Recordings) sounds like a Beefheart corruption but this magnificent third LP represents the band’s fullest interrogation yet of more local, rain drenched and mushroom speckled Anglo-mystic roots… through Radiophonic Workshop, Comus and Fairport, COUM and Acid House all the way back to the druids, dragging stones and chanting under the astronomical symphony of early Time.

Sebastian Murphy, a San Francisco juvenile delinquent with Swedish roots, cuts a deal avoiding three strikes and you're out and gets deported from the US. With no possibility of returning home he suddenly find himself living in the freezing cold streets of Stockholm. Making small change doing street live caricatures of tourists. 

Meanwhile, in the southern part of town two friends with a penchant for staying up late and speaking both rapidly and loud, Benjamin and Henrik are hammering out their next vision; Can a punk band rely solely on repetetive drum patterns and driving bass lines without falling down the rabbit hole that is pretentious post-punk drool? Well, yeah. 

Vive la Void is the new solo project of Sanae Yamada, co-founder and keyboard player of Moon Duo. Yamada wrote and recorded the self-titled debut album over roughly a two-year period, during windows of downtime in Moon Duo's substantial touring and recording schedule. The dense, shape-shifting atmospheres of the seven songs grew out of late-night basement experiments in the layering of synthesizer tracks, a process that also led to meditations on the changeable nature of memory and perception. The result is an undulating blend of ethereal swirl, low end thrumming, and electric crackle, buoyed by Yamada’s understated but captivating vocal melodies and her striking lyrics.

Three alternative rock wiseasses and snack food connoisseurs, the trio—Sonia Sturino [vocals, guitar], Annie Hoffman [bass], and Cam Jones [drums]—first congregated in their adopted hometown during 2014. Sonia had recently relocated from Toronto and holed up in a house with Cam and a bunch of other dudes before witnessing Annie play live and asking her to join the band. As they released two independent EPs, Gloomy Tunes and Crushed, they stirred up a palpable buzz (between consuming sour spaghetti and causing trouble). Gigs followed with everyone from CHVRCHES and Silversun Pickups to Beach Slang and Juliana Hatfield as they made their 2017 debut at SXSW and earned praise from Vanyaland, CBS, If It’s Too Loud, and many more. A wiry, whimsical, and wild fusion of disarmingly pop hooks and fuzzed-out riffery that wouldn’t be out of place on the Reality Bites soundtrack or in a modern Brooklyn bar fueled this quiet rise.

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events.

Turn on your radio and hide.

When Saints Go Machine are a hard band to pin down, four young men doing things with electro pop that no one has done before. The Danish four-piece formed in 2007 and have a complicated mix of influences. There’s dance music in there, for sure, but also post punk, some experimental electronica in the Aphex Twin mould, and, crucially, a healthy dose of pop. You could describe the end result as a heady mix of Caribou, The Knife/Fever Ray and Arthur Russell. But, really, it doesn’t sound like anything else out there.

Whyte Horses are a perfect psychedelic pop group. They shape-shift from Turkish psyche to Brazilian trip music, from acid house to electronica to punk rock to guitar classic in a heartbeat. The best music is made by fanatics. The kind of people who are immersed in its wonder and dream in technicolour and are obsessed by the never ending panoply of electric noise. The band is the brainchild of Dom Thomas, a music chronologist who scours the planet for obscure and rare vinyl genius. This obsession is their musical DNA and Whyte Horses are the sound of people who are on the quest for the perfect record and have decided to make one themselves.

Liberated abandon of their primitive soul strikes an immidiate and invigorating chord hard in the lister.

Mariam Wallentin and Andreas Weliin create their music with constant spontinaiety and exploration into sounds, rythms and instruments as well as a desperation and obsession to create timeless music that addresses the basicalities and essense of life.

Dramatic arrangements, fractured melodies and solemn lyrics give Wolf Parade their distinctive sound.

Made up of Spencer Krug (vocals, keyboards), Dan Boeckner (voals, guitar), Arlen Thompson (drums), Dante DeCaro (guitar, bass, percussion) and Hadj Bakara (sound manipulation, keyboards) the band was formed in 2003 in three weeks. The band have gone on secure a local following word wide.

Wovenhand is a band led by dedicated life-musician and lyricist David Eugene Edwards. Over the last two decades, his prolific work in both Wovenhand and the legendary 16 Horsepower has influenced and inspired a generation of musicians throughout the expansive alternative music world.

Wovenhand cannot be described in traditional terms. Their sound is an organic weavework of neo-folk, post rock, punk, old-time, and alternative sounds, all coming together as a vehicle for David's soulful expression and constant spiritual self exploration. Sometimes sad and sorrowful and at other times uplifting, Wovenhand are always unforgettable in spirit and sound.

Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack have been playing music together and apart in Baltimore for most of their lives. On stage, they perform with raw energy and sophistication, creating a surprising amount of noise for two people. Their music can be classified as 21st-century folk music, imbued with dense shoegaze guitars, nearly melodic rhythms, and impeccable splashes of electronic color.

The winter of 2014/2015 took Young Galaxy from their studio in Montreal to Gothenburg and back. The band’s brilliant new full length Falsework completes the sound they have been mining on their past two albums Shapeshifting (2011) and Ultramarine (2013) with producer Dan Lissvik (Studio, Atelje). The album is undeniably synth pop without the simplicity and was informed and inspired by 80’s electro, acid house and r&b, music that was well ahead of its time. Falsework was made using machines from the past to sound like music from the future.

In a remarkably short period, Yuna has risen from regional D.I.Y. notoriety to full-on international stardom. In the process, the charismatic Malaysian singer-songwriter—who makes her Verve Records debut with Nocturnal — has become the first artist from her homeland to conquer the American market. Creating an organic blend of contemporary pop, acoustic folk and soulful R&B, combining her engaging voice and expressive songcraft with imaginative production to create wholly distinctive music that's won her comparisons with the likes of Feist, Adele and Norah Jones.

What are the dreams of a youth that never makes time to rest? For Yung frontman Mikkel Holm Silkjær, a Danish DIY figurehead who has left a catalogue of cassettes and self-produced songs in his wake, the goal seemed to be recording, and living, as fast as possible. Since he began to record music as a teenager (his father put him behind a drum set when he was 4), slow hasn’t been his preferred speed. Writing and performing songs filled with gritty guitar and driving rhythms that snap like a live wire, he’s been busy channelling the electric drive of youth, creating brief, flashing sonic portraits of his life in Aarhus, the country’s gritty, industrial second city.