Madeline’s debut single, "Guilty Conscience," brings an empowering fondness and appreciation for a relationship that has come to an end. It’s a song that fits beautifully into, yet sticks out amongst, the current pop landscape, with intimate storytelling draped over relentless production. Madeline manages to perfectly incorporate these colder, almost spacey sounds with a personal and emotional vocal performance. In beautiful, stark contrast to the wobbling synth on the fringes of the verse, Madeline’s voice showcases her power and control. Her confidence comes through in her steady delivery, the vocals staying true even as synths pop in and out across the song, leading us to the chorus. While the verses explore specific and intimate moments, the chorus is a chance to reflect and share wisdom along with a stellar catchy melody. For a song about heartbreak and love lost, it maintains a positivity that you wouldn’t expect, but the chorus’s final line sheds some light, recognizing, “There’s some good in goodbye.” And as a layered guitar solo concludes the journey, we’re thankful we don’t have to say goodbye, with Madeline’s EP slated for an early 2021 release. 

knees hiked to my chest in the corner booth
of some midtown sports bar, I watch it end
with an Old Fashioned clutched close to my body.

I never did get used to the fact that sometimes
you kissed me just because you felt like it
shameless as always.

—

Chicago-based quartet Slow Pulp's “Trade It” sits between slowcore and shoegaze, guitar-driven and melancholic, emo at heart. Hurt is palpable in lead singer Emily Massey’s plaintive “Am I all that you wanted?” A cathartic shift highlights a synth lilt that yearns to trade everything in to start over. “It’s all that I’m asking,” she sings, and it shouldn’t be so much to ask, but is somehow everything. A twisted sense of nostalgia sits deep in my stomach, searching for certain sadness, someone who has long escaped me. I don’t miss them, but this song almost makes me wish I did. The track comes from the band's self-produced debut record, Moveys. In a statement, Slow Pulp describe Moveys as the manifestation of their dealings with “health challenges, personal upheaval and a pandemic, all while learning how to be better songwriters and friends.” Photo by Alec Basse.

I kept thinking I’d buy a weighted blanket,
kept using you for body heat instead, before 
and after the Everlane coat that lives on the floor
and the draft-stopping plastic on my windows

though if ever I asked, I always had you

for the cost of three happy hour drinks,
the cab home and quarters for the dryer 
to wash my sheets after you left.

—

TALIA’s vivid track “colder” lives in perpetual homesickness for a person who might’ve never been real with you to begin. Her first release on Quadio Records strays from her folk, strings-driven single “Shiver,” trading in her acoustic guitar for atmospheric synths and echoes. She crafts a cinematic quality to the otherwise minimalist bedroom pop soundscape we know, the song swelling as though these sounds can take her away, drown out the loneliness. “I get stronger everyday, but I’m still hurting,” she wallows over a weeping piano. Though lofty in its production, “colder” stays grounded in TALIA’s visceral pain; her voice swirls and soars, yearning to be distant but ultimately tied to those memories, wondering but never knowing if one change could have made all the difference. Photo by 70mm_.

Duncan Fellows’ “Swallowing Grains” is just one of many personal musings on their latest album, The Sadlands. In their words, the Austin band documents The Sadlands as “a map of experiences culled from the past few years of our lives where we began to really try to demarcate the moments that had shaped and continue to shape us as people.” Melding sun rays and sweeping vocals, “Swallowing Grains” is a beachside jam conveying the perils of misunderstanding. Lyrical references to choking on air and swallowing sand denote, and fuel, the residual impact of lacking articulation. As frustration and fear accumulate, the guitar rolls in like the tide, stretching wide across shore before slinking back. It eventually eclipses into a breaking wave at the final chorus, plunging forth and encapsulating all within its warm deliverance. This is a tune that you’ll find yourself burying into, just as a clam would.

Duncan Fellows’ album is out everywhere now, along with an accompanying video game available at thesadlands.com.

When I think of David You, I think of morning coffee rituals and subdued light filtering through linen drapes. I think of soft summer evenings and sharing a bottle of wine with friends in the park as the sun sets over the trees. I could describe his voice as gentle or angelic, but really it’s the feeling of safety that his music invokes that I find remarkable. Much like the park, it allows a person to forget the busy rush of city streets just outside its perimeter. “Moon is in Charge” is You’s first single since his springtime EP, Beautiful, Like Pyramids, and after retreating home from a busy day it feels right to let the tender whisper of his voice fill the four walls of my room.

The simple arrangement of acoustic guitar and airy vocals makes for intimate lo-fi without any of the posturing. You sings about the repetition of the ocean waves, crashing over and over, and how he’d rather be “just like a small stream that joins a river's flow / knowing where I’ll go,” which is especially poignant in a time where we’d all like a little less chaos and a little more clarity when it comes to the future. Sweeping textures give substance, and You’s signature harmonies layered with the subtle hint of percussion and a shaker here and there complete the halcyon tableau of his songs. So pour yourself a cup of tea, put on your comfiest and give David You a listen.

I wake up in a cold sweat sometimes
in 2014, your head on my lap as we talk 
about our mothers and decide on Prague 
by 30 and three kids.

comfort was the last page of a book
an IMDb synopsis, you
fighting that which leaves me 
perturbed and unsettled.

today I can be both dollhouses and solar systems
in one, even if my biggest decision is which 
stuffed animal I’m cuddling to sleep.

—

LA-based singer-songwriter Artemis Orion gives us a glimpse of her stream of consciousness on “midnight thoughts,” a lo-fi tune that is a cosmos within itself. Orion’s vocals floating over twinkling production dilute the train of thoughts that overwhelm us when we close our eyes, shaping the unnerving unknown into a whimsical dreamscape. Not having the answers isn’t the worst thing in the world, and Orion reminds us that we have permission to get comfortable in the discomfort. The starry-eyed Orion is what we all are: “Just another pеrson on this planet / Trying to do my best.” 

I love writing about music: the chance to sit and grapple with someone’s art, the chance to share what it means to you. But sometimes it feels intimidating and humbling. Such is the case with Priya Ragu’s "Good Love 2.0," a remarkable song so creative and sure of itself, it feels hard to do it any justice with mere words. Wasting no time, it opens with a Kaytranada-esque funky groove. The bass rings while Ragu dazzles with smooth vocals. After dancing our way through the chorus, the second verse showcases Ragu’s range. She reappears, rapping her way through with confidence and composure. Few can float so effortlessly across styles and genres all in the course of one song. Just shy of the two-minute mark the tune takes a wild new turn, exploring something entirely different. Ragu pulls from South Asian influences, cultivating a moment that demands your attention — a fresh take on a more typical trap structure. The intensity subsides as mesmerizing waves of vocals emerge, at the same time soothing and breathtaking. And although the end of the song is nearly unrecognizable from the start, each moment, each choice, feels purposeful and earned. "Good Love 2.0" is a song that stands on its own and earns your trust along the way, and it's just a taste of Ragu’s promise. 

Creature Comfort’s "Woke Up Drunk" begins as a simple, feel-good indie folk track. Lighthearted, tuneful arpeggiations twinkle like the stars just before dawn. The lyrics balance deliberate rhyme schemes and stream-of-consciousness quips. Strung together, the words tend to wander down unmarked trails as much as they sit ruminating. Harmonies swirl around the central image of the song: taking a hike to process all the thoughts dripping through your brain, slightly hungover and itching to move. They’re not all bad thoughts, but they’re not all good ones. You’re holding love and resentment in your chest and hoping it’s just a matter of sweating it out. It almost is — but then the bridge hints that you end up letting in as many emotions as you release. After a few listens on repeat, you notice the seeds that build to that final climax. Drums that nudge the tempo ever-so-slightly forward. Vocal chorus harmonies that dip into suspended resolutions. The introduction of an electric lead guitar that slowly becomes more distorted, coiling around a violin melody until they become intertwined. It’s a divine texture shift that’s surprising and perfectly foreshadowed.