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Every Song on the Phoenix Foundation's 'Friend Ship' Is a Stand-Out

Friend Ship is the Phoenix Foundation's most personal work and also their most engaging since their 2010 classic, Buffalo.
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Music

Jonnine's 'Blue Hills' Is an Intimate Collection of Half-Awake Pop Songs

What sets experimental pop's Jonnine apart on Blue Hills is her attention to detail, her poetic lyricism, and the indelibly personal touch her sound bears.

Music

PM Picks Playlist 2: Bamboo Smoke, LIA ICES, SOUNDQ

PopMatters Picks Playlist features the electropop of Bamboo Smoke, LIA ICES' stunning dream folk, Polish producer SOUNDQ, the indie pop of Pylon Heights, a timely message from Exit Kid, and Natalie McCool's latest alt-pop banger.

Music

Tim Bowness of No-Man Discusses Thematic Ambition Amongst Social Division

With the release of his seventh solo album, Late Night Laments, Tim Bowness explores global tensions and considers how musicians can best foster mutual understanding in times of social unrest.

Music

Dream Folk's Wolf & Moon Awaken the Senses with "Eyes Closed" (premiere)

Berlin's Wolf & Moon are an indie folk duo with a dream pop streak. "Eyes Closed" highlights this aspect as the act create a deep sense of atmosphere and mood with the most minimal of tools.

Music

Lars and the Magic Mountain's "Invincible" Is a Shoegazey, Dreamy Delight (premiere)

Dutch space pop/psychedelic band Lars and the Magic Mountain share the dreamy and gorgeous "Invincible".

Music

Vancouver's Yukon Blonde Drift Into Dreamy Neo-Psych on "You Were Mine" (premiere)

Vancouver's Yukon Blonde embrace psychedelia and blissed-out grooves on their latest single, "You Were Mine". The band continue to innovate their sound with upcoming LP, Vindicator.

Music

Morning Arcade's "Cold Shoulders" Is an Atmospheric, Dreamy Debut

Morning Arcade are a new indie rock band out of Cardiff, Wales that create atmospheric, even pastoral, soundscapes on "Cold Shoulders".

Music

St. South Processes Romantic Trauma Through Electrosoul on 'Get Well Soon'

St. South has released a debut album full of raw emotions and intimate bedroom pop. Get Well Soon is a loose concept record about a breakup and the variety of responses it produces.

Music

GADADU's "dosaardvark" is a Dense, Psychedelic, Jazz-Leaning Gem (premiere)

Eclectic Brooklyn sextet GADADU revisit a track originally recorded in 2015 that takes on new meaning in the age of COVID-19 and racial unrest.

Music

Mt. Wolf's "Anna Maria" Is Gorgeous Post-Rock Influenced Dream Pop

Mt. Wolf specialize in a mesmerizing form of atmospheric indie-folk that blends delicate electronic elements with gossamer vocals. Hear their latest single "Anna Maria".

Music

Chillwave's Psychobuildings Get Psychological With "Mlia" (premiere)

Inspired by the writings of Vaslav Nijinsky, Psychobuildings' "Mlia" takes us into a dream state that's both calming and disquieting.

Music

Washed Out's 'Purple Noon' Supplies Reassurance and Comfort

Washed Out's Purple Noon makes an argument against cynicism simply by existing and sounding as good as it does.

Music

Dizzy's Katie Munshaw Keeps Home Fires Burning with 'The Sun and Her Scorch'

In a world turned upside down, it might be the perfect time to take a new album spin with Canadian dream-pop band Dizzy and lead singer-songwriter Katie Munshaw, who supplies enough emotional electricity to jump-start a broken heart.

Music

Wye Oak Look Out at 'No Horizon'

Wye Oak's songs are haunted by the familiar as bits of old melodies, percussive beats, stray conversations, street sounds, and the natural world seem to float in and out of their compositions.

Music

My Bloody Valentine's 'Loveless' and the Un-Invention of Cock Rock

My Bloody Valentine's Loveless stands as an album of (at least) equal importance to Nirvana's Nevermind. A great deal of its importance is how it offers a gender-bending sonic style that severed the entrenched connections between the electric guitar and masculine phallic power.

Music

The Durutti Column's 'Vini Reilly' Is the Post-Punk's Band's Definitive Statement

Mancunian guitarist/texturalist Vini Reilly parlayed the momentum from his famous Morrissey collaboration into an essential, definitive statement for the Durutti Column.

Music

All Things Blue Say Goodbye to "Chad" (premiere)

Los Angeles dream poppers All Things Blue get off emotional see-saw and into full action with their new single, "Chad".

Reviews

Dream Pop's Hazel English Urges Us to 'Wake UP!'

On her Polyvinyl debut Wake Up! Hazel English works through thorny relationships with a collection of breezy, dreamy indie rock tunes with touches of a little bit of everything from country and contemporary pop to psychedelia and Motown.

Music

'WOMB' Reclaims Purity Ring's Distinctive Electropop

Although Purity Ring's WOMB never stops sounding good, the bops came easier in 2012. WOMB is an effortful return to form for the electropop duo.

Reviews

Dream Pop's Ellis Wants to be 'Born Again'

Ellis' unhappiness serves as armor to protect her from despair on Born Again. It's better to be dejected than psychotic.

Music

Jennah Barry Offers Up a Warm, Sublime Collection of Memorable Tunes on 'Holiday'

Canadian indie folkster Jennah Barry returns with her long-awaited sophomore album, Holiday, which takes on a looser, more relaxed approach.

Music

Yumi Zouma's 'Truth or Consequences' Is Social Distancing Set to Music

Yumi Zouma, a once-New Zealand-based band whose members scattered to four different cities around the world, return with a sparkling new pop album about distance, Truth or Consequences.

Music

Grimes - "Idoru" (Singles Going Steady)

Creative, existential bondage for the sleep-deprived, Grimes' "Idoru" is better than any hallucination Titanic Sinclair could dream up for Poppy this week.

Music

Islet Strike a Balance on 'Eyelet'

Welsh trio Islet's third album Eyelet is, for the most part, an engaging and contemplative journey through ethereal psychedelic pop.

Music

The Saxophones Take Us to 'Eternity Bay' (album stream) (premiere)

The Saxophones seamlessly blend surf pop, exotica, and West Coast jazz on their smart and sensitive new LP, Eternity Bay.

Jedd Beaudoin
Music

Esmé Patterson Goes Dream Pop on 'There Will Come Soft Rains'

Working with indie pop's Tennis, There Will Come Soft Rains moves Esmé Patterson away from her folk music proclivities towards a more dream-pop vibe, and uses the album to musically capture the emotionally unspeakable.

Music

Debut Record of the Year? Squirrel Flower Is in the Running With 'I Was Born Swimming'

Tougher than you think, Squirrel Flower's first album, I Was Born Swimming, combines Joni Mitchell with dream pop, but with an indie rock bite.

Music

Electropop's Caribou Offers Joy Through Unpredictability on 'Suddenly'

Suddenly is Caribou's most willfully experimental album to date, his soft, distinctive vocals flow through every track, binding the whole thing together.

Music

Revisiting Dream Pop Past with Pale Saints on 'The Comforts of Madness'

Straining to be heard over the noise of a 1,000 over-effected electric guitars, are Pale Saints the lost champions of shoegaze?

Music

Grimes' 'Miss Anthropocene' Watches the World Go Out With a Whimper

Ironically, you may wind up wishing that Grimes' vision of a scorched Earth was a bit more fun.

Music

Rebecca Foon Gets Honest and Raw with the Gorgeous 'Waxing Moon'

Canadian cellist and activist Rebecca Foon channels her emotions into music that honors a planet in peril on Waxing Moon.

Music

EDEN Creates an Achingly Beautiful Modern Pop Album with 'No Future'

No Future finds Dublin's EDEN furthering his distinctive vision as he expands his sonic palette and broadens his perspective on an achingly beautiful modern pop album.

Music

Indie Pop's Tennis Are Increasingly Sophisticated on 'Swimmer'

Tennis' Swimmer is a distillation of everything they do so well, and it further establishes them as a dynamic, sophisticated pop act worthy of even bigger stages.

Music

Twin Limb's 'In the Warm Light, As a Ghost' Is a Shimmering Slice of Modern Dream Pop

Louisville's Twin Limb emerge from hiatus with an ethereal, intoxicating blend of styles both retro-leaning and futuristic on In the Warm Light, As a Ghost.

Music

Lady Lazarus' "I Recall July" Is a Bittersweet Look Back on Love (premiere)

Conceptualized, edited, and directed by Lady Lazarus herself, the dream pop artist's new music video for "I Recall July" is a longing reflection on a romance come and gone.


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