The Predatory Wasp
‘Change into One Another’ is a collaborative single by two of my favourite alt-pop artists, Discovery Zone and John Moods. The two share a long creative history, from playing together in the band Fenster to being partners in life. The track was written while they were parting ways, and both the song and its video explore how love changes us, and what follows in its aftermath.
https://mansionsandmillions.bandcamp.com/track/change-into-one-another-2
Saya Gray’s debut album SAYA is out now. It’s a loose, low-key collection that floats between folk, R&B and experimental pop – mostly quiet, often heavy. Written after a breakup and a solo trip through Japan, the record feels personal without over-explaining. Sketchy guitar loops, voice notes, half-sung vocals – it’s all pretty stripped-back and all the better for it with PUDDLE ( OF ME ) a clear standout.
Since their 2019 debut, Glasgow duo Cloth have carved out a space between dream pop and post-rock, with 2023’s Secret Measure one of my favourite LPs of the year . Now the Swinton twins are back with Golden, the first taste of their upcoming album Pink Silence, due in April. Stripped-back yet emotionally loaded, the track leans into the quiet devastation of a breakup – hazy guitars, whispered vocals, and that signature Cloth restraint making every moment feel weightier.
More electronic alt-pop whimsy from Discovery Zone’s forthcoming album Quantum Web, with the hypnotically lo-fi music video directed by Jennifer Juniper Stratford.
Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden’s Lost Girls’ collaboration dates back more than a decade, with Volden playing regularly in Hval’s live band and two previous albums. In 2022, the duo were booked to perform a concert at Les Subsistances in Lyon, and decided to use the opportunity to create all new material, with Volden creating beats and guitar chord progressions and Hval restructuring the parts, creating melodies and adding lyrics. The resulting album, Selvutsletter, explores different territory than their previous work; shorter, more concise and melodic songs that border on alternative pop (kinda), with opener Timed Intervals one of the clear standouts.
The Canadian duo’s Steve Lind on the inspirational merits of an r&b icon
The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!
For more than a decade, Freak Heat Waves have been steadily amassing a cult following and earning acclaim from both critics and underground aficionados alike. Their music is a heady cocktail that defies easy categorization, blending elements of post-punk, psych, dub, ambient, house, and techno. Their eclectic sound has served as the soundtrack to countless DIY punk shows, outsider galleries and sleazy discos, establishing the duo as iconoclasts with a reputation for ignoring expectations and subverting genre conventions.
Their latest album Mondo Tempo exists in a hazy space between all these genres. Lead by Lind’s purringly nonchalant vocals, all the tracks on Mondo Tempo are various shades of “extremely chill”. From the barely-there, Nightmares on Wax-evoking Altered States to the spacious, breezy melodies of Cindy collab In a Moment Divine it’s one to be savoured, preferably while poolside somewhere exotic.
For their One Track Mind selection, Freak Heat Waves Steve Lind has dived back into the movie vaults to the soundtrack of a nearly 80 year old noir classic.
Madeline Kenney isn’t Swedish, or Danish (she is, in fact, “a musician, baker, artist, sucker” who lives in Oakland), but she does very much remind me of some of my favourite bands from those particular countries, namely Wildhart and Lowly, respectively. And yes, I know they’re not the same place, but there is a shared atmosphere when it comes to alt-rock/pop from the region: a glassiness to the vocals; a particularly sharp thread of yearning evoked by the melodies – all of which is very much apparent in much of Kenney’s new album, A New Reality Mind from which HFAM is taken.
https://madelinekenney.bandcamp.com/album/a-new-reality-mind
Lowly are back! The wonderful Danish quintet have announced a new album Keep Up The Good Work will be landing 17 February, with the title track out today. Their last album Hifalutin was massively under appreciated so hopefully this new one will see them finally getting their dues.
ROF is taken from Hyaline, the debut album from Ohio-born, Oakland, CA based artist and songwriter, Maria BC. Described in the accompanying promo copy as “ghost stories, but not as we know them”, the world building throughout the album is really extraordinary, and the uncanny atmosphere is rarely more dense and intimate than on ROF, where a hushed, Grouper-esque guitar and a glacial vocal takes centre stage as eerie field recordings twist and scuttle in the distance.
The Predatory Wasp 