The Predatory Wasp
It’s taken me three months to listen to POLIÇA’s new album Dreams Go, but I’m glad I eventually got round to it because I completely love this song. Dreamy and somewhat morose with a fair few subtle electronic flourishes, it’s the kind of indie pop I can’t get enough of.
This is the first single from A Place In My Memory Is All I Have To Claim, the new album by Australian atmospheric pop trio Hydroplane. On it, their first music after two decades plus of radio silence, Andrew Withycombe, Kerrie Bolton and Bart Cummings return to the gentle, close-quarters musical world they shared around the turn of the century.
https://hydroplaneband.bandcamp.com/album/a-place-in-my-memory-is-all-i-have-to-claim
Nilüfer Yanya returns with her new EP Dancing Shoes, out now on Ninja Tune. Dancing Shoes was written alongside a collection of tracks that Nilüfer re-approached with her creative partner Wilma Archer when she returned from touring her latest, insanely brilliant LP My Method Actor aka the best album of 2024. The project includes Nilüfer’s latest singles “Where To Look” and “Cold Heart”, as well as this previously unreleased beauty.
Not new, but good. Taken from her 2024 album Someday, Now and on my radar as she’s on the Glastonbury line-up. Strong Fleetwood Mac vibes in the melodies.
The opening track from Oklou’s new album choke enough is pitch-perfect: icy, sparse beats, billowing melodies and her hushed, gently autotuned vocal. It will have a hard job to surpass her exceptional debut Galore, but signs are good so far.
It’s another new Lowly single! To be honest, part of me is annoyed that I will have heard quite a large chunk of their new album before it comes out next month, but I also can’t help listening to everything. Seasons is great, obviously, with a big, rubbery synth providing an unusually sturdy electronic backbone for the rest of their characteristic ethereal epicness.
I’m a busy little boy today and am still somehow hungover from a Sunday that got out of hand, so you’re not getting much out of me except to say that this is great and you should listen to it.
I shared a track from Don Lifted earlier this month which I really liked, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how much I would enjoy his album, 325i, which landed last week. Releases like this are pretty much the entire reason I started this blog – to support music from insanely talented artists that might otherwise go unnoticed. Don Lifted definitely falls into that category – aside from a very positive Fader feature I’ve seen very little promo for the album, but it’s fucking brilliant – a hazy, understated, atmospheric delight that incorporates elements of soul, hip-hop, indie rock and plenty more besides. Light Figure stands out for me due its heavy melancholic, yearning vibe, but it’s absolutely worth giving the entire album your attention.
Jenn Wasner’s voice is just completely enthralling. Not to do any disservice to Andy Stack alongside whom she records at Wye Oak, but its the irresistible radiance of her vocal that elevates Its Way With Me from perfectly lovely indie-pop jangler to hit-me-in-the-feels-so-hard-it-hurts anthem. This is the second single of the year following last month’s TNT, and while there’s no official news of a new album yet, fingers crossed.
The fact that Wildhart are back putting out new music makes me so happy, especially when it’s this good and ticking all my personal favourite boxes. Breathy vocal? Check. Headily nostalgic atmosphere? Yep. Lovely floating melodies that creep up on you and infect your brain without feeling like they’re trying too hard. Sure! And like some of my favourite Wildhart tracks, they save some of the best moments of Better Bby until the end when there a few chord changes that make me happy-sad in the best possible way.
The Predatory Wasp 