Brooklyn-based Kirsten Izer’s debut single of 2019, “One Year,” is a raw and evocative exploration of toxic love and lingering loss. The minimal arrangement consists only of a hazy electric guitar and Izer’s cool, smoky vocals, but its intimacy is what makes it powerful. Her sound’s moody, grunge-rock center relies on the emotion in her delivery, and Izer doesn’t disappoint. Dreamy layering effects amplify her impressive vocal range, drifting from dark and angst-ridden to light and ethereal quickly and easily. The lyrics, gripping and relatable, make plain the pain and longing of the instrumentation: “It’s our one year anni / But you don’t love me / You were never one for vulnerability.” The stripped arrangement allows you to focus on the lyrics, honest and heartbreaking, and lose yourself in the song’s lush dreamscape of sounds. “One Year” is hauntingly lovely.

Transparent B*tch, the debut EP from indie-pop project, Reilly & Co., really couldn’t have a better title. On the first track, “Depersonalization,” we find singer/songwriter, Em Noll, telling you exactly how she feels when she’s locked in discomfort. “I struggle with anxiety and a lot of the time, I guess as a coping mechanism, I sort of depersonalize,” Noll said of the song, “It's a difficult feeling to describe.” 

Amidst a keyboard bop, spacey guitars and an array of bright electronics, Noll uses her lilting vocal to chronicle the chaos that subtly arises when she feels threatened. She sings, “I’m trying not to go AWOL in whatever army I've been enlisted/ But who would really notice I’m gone when I've already been gone for so long,” disguising her angst in the melodies of a catchy chorus. Reilly & Co. lives somewhere in-between the indie warmth of Adult Mom and the glittering experimentation of Sylvan Esso, both playful and purposeful. “Depersonalization” lives somewhere in Noll’s psyche and she knows she’s not alone in that.

The most touching moment in Pearla’s breathtaking “Forgive Yourself” comes about halfway through the song, just before the point of no return when the song releases the breaks and builds into a cacophonous finale. Singer Nicole Rodriguez has at this point been asking herself, “Can you forgive yourself?” not just for 90 seconds but likely for her whole life, when an ounce of hope creeps into her voice and she turns the question around. “You can forgive yourself,” she allows, and worlds of possibilities flood through the crack in the sonic doorway. But even in her triumph come tribulations — among the layers and layers piled on over the course of the joyous celebration, discordant drones sounding more like helicopters landing than like anything in a recording studio pull her away from a simple happy ending. But that goes both ways, and in her tribulations, she has found triumph. “Writing it made me feel a thousand times lighter,” she says, and the feeling is mutual.

“Bad Idea,” the second track from Madeline Kenney’s latest release, Perfect Shapes, eases you into a melodic tranquility that is bolstered by Jenn Wasner’s (Wye Oak) sleek production. With sparse drum hits and fragile synth swells, a winding soundscape is planted as the backdrop for Kenney’s ample thoughtfulness. When she sings, “Someone gave up/ I don’t know who it was/ We’re getting bad ideas,” she reflects on the disjunct of relationships. Her vocal echoes the timbres of Half Waif’s, Nandi Rose Plunkett, who also constructs keyboard kingdoms and dreams up poetic lyricism. Kenney shows her allegiance to experimentation on this track, by the end offering pitched down backing vocals, clinking percussion, and a synth that sounds like a theremin.

Lauren Turk's soft croon and song pattern resembles popular artists from past decades such as the great Anita Baker. The Los Angeles singer-songwriter is a multi-instrumentalist, activist, speaker, etc. whose talents and impact extend far outside of music. As a singer-songwriter the themes of heartbreak and its aftermath are common territory, but Turk's insight is rare. "See You Again" is a story of letting go with love. The longer we hold on to things, the heavier they become...so letting go is really a vital act of self-love. Doing so with love not only sets us free, but attracts it back to us," she tells us. It's a powerful sentiment and as Turk sings there's more assurance with every note that one day she'll see this old love again and maybe then it won't hurt the way it use to. Make sure to follow Lauren Turk on social media to hear more of her music and humanitarian efforts.

Oddly enough, searching SoundCloud for “cushy bedroom psychedelic bossanova & dream surf” yielded no results until the release of Getaway Dogs’ “Papersoul II.” This song could have come out of few places but Santa Cruz, a seaside town that prides itself on its Austin-or Portland-like weirdness, close enough to San Francisco to fully feel the force of its 1960’s psychedelia. An expansive track surrounded on either sonic end by a twitchy bassline and echoing guitar twinkles, “Papersoul II” allows the drumbeat to steer the song, ranging in volatility from staring at the ceiling to urgently staring at the ceiling, discovering the symmetry in its hidden patterns..Nearly a cover of their own song, 2016’s “Paper Soul,” the sequel reads almost like a renewal of vows, as singer Kai Killion doubles down on his noncommittal lifestyle, singing “I don’t know but I’ve been told / My soul’s worth paper / If so I’ll sell it later / Not this time.”

The Holydrug Couple latest single "Forever End" is a psychedelic dream machine. Hailing from Santiago, Chile the band formed a decade ago and recently release their fifth full-length album Hyper Super Mega. Bearing comparisons to the music of psychedelic rock master Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, there is a sense of getting lost in this song. The escape is welcomed and as Ives Sepúlveda sings a steady melody the lyrics repeat each other in a circular motion seeming to begin again with the word "forever." As if being hypnotized by the repetition, it's easy to get in lost inside the consistent groove song and find soon enough just how long you've had this song on repeat. Make sure to listen to the rest of Hyper Super Mega out now and catch the boys on tour this fall!

If “Heaven” is your introduction to Charly Bliss, you might have a few misconceptions about the band, none of them particularly harmful. First, you will not know that guitarist Spencer Fox voiced Dash in Pixar’s The Incredibles, and while this fact is not strictly relevant, it is very, very interesting. More importantly, you might think singer Eva Hendricks lives her life in a state of (don’t say “bliss”) constant wonder at all the things going right in her life, and not in a state of self-destruction (“I’m gonna die / In a getaway car”) and self-doubt (“Am I the best / Or just the first person to say yes?”) as she does on the band’s breakthrough debut album Guppy. 

Written as a challenge to write a love song instead of a three-minute coping mechanism, “Heaven” shows off Charly Bliss’ bubblegum-punk style and Hendricks’ characteristic howl in a somewhat sweeter setting, waltzing through the walls of distortion we have come to expect from the band. With “Heaven,” Hendricks sets sights on a bright future for herself and for the band, an assertion that they do not need to fundamentally change to be versatile.

Folk quartet Mona Lisa Tribe are back at it again with their latest single “Safe,” another beautifully orchestrated and blended indie folk track that demands to be listened to. The all-female band have come together to create a song that evokes the listener’s emotions and brings them to a place that feels vulnerable yet safe. With its well-crafted and impressively executed harmonies, combined with a heartwarming mix of gentle piano playing and strings, the track expresses the feelings one feels when in the arms of their love at night in bed together. The well-written lyrics match the feelings expressed in the instrumentation, especially the line “We need each other to get some rest / need your arms around me with my head on your chest / my world is a place / in your arms I feel safe.” (photo by Imani Givertz)

“Saving Face,” the latest single by Brooklyn-based indie-rock band Mustardmind, jumps head first into a rhythmic pattern of guitars and drums, before softening down to a strumming of a guitar. Then enters the raw voice of lead singer, Bobby Lewis, which serenades alongside the purposeful clashing of instruments. Together, they rise and fall throughout the entirety of the song. “Saving Face” moves through moments of quiet, acoustic melancholy, followed by an almost-brash aching and then back again, giving the listener a sense of being in two places at once. Mustardmind will be playing in Brooklyn this month, you can catch their performance at Our Wicked Lady on October 24.

"Slow & Steady" is an emotional piano-led single by Icelandic singer-songwriter Axel Flóvent. The song is his third single off of his upcoming EP Youthful Hearts. When it comes to the meaning behind the song Flóvent says, "Slow & Steady is the healing process on the journey of fear and anxiety. Finding patience and comfort in awareness and clarity. Finding answers within the broken walls. Puzzling the pieces and gluing them back together." Flóvent's vocals are as full of raw emotion as the words he sings. While he's still trying to find the balance in his life, there is a solace found in song, a glowing hope that is almost tangible. Be sure to catch Flóvent's last two singles "Years" and "Close" off of Youthful Hearts out soon.