It doesn’t seem that long since I was first discovering the sonic attack of thistle. I had heard them via a pal over on the ‘gram, clicked through to it’s nice to see you, stranger, and very quickly ended up in that glorious mess of fuzz, grunge scuff and heavy gaze weight. Now they return with Backflip and it feels like the next page of the same slightly battered notebook.
If thistle is a new name to you, let me get you caught up. The band are Cameron Godfrey, Carey Judwyn Rushton and Lewis O’Grady. Based in Northampton they met in school and have been getting their sound out there via home recording, full time work, life stuff, and that very particular young band madness. Their sound has drawn comparisons with shoegaze, indie rock, hardcore, Pavement, Polachek, Ovlov, DIIV and a whole load of noise loving oddness. Backflip sounds like a band still moving and finding their sound among the noise.
Let’s drop the needle and explore this new EP.
‘pieces’ opens the EP with impact. The guitars arrive with grit under the fingernails, all rough edges and pressure, while the rhythm section gives the whole thing a restless forward shove. They utilise the loud quite loud dynamic really well here. With acoustic guitar deployed on verses to give that contrast. It’s a hooky number for sure but is still off kilter enough to keep you paying attention. You can check this track out on my June DKFM Shoegaze Radio Show.
‘pylon’ tightens the frame and lets the band’s angular side come forward. You can hear the live band brain at work here, with the parts locking together in a way that suggests they have recorded this one live in one take. The vocal tone carries that familiar mix of bruised melody and deadpan nerve, while the drums keep the track snapping at your heels. It feels compact, wired, and full of little jolts.
The tiny title piece ‘backflip in slow motion’ sits right in the middle of the EP like a strange little memory fragment. It could’ve been a throwaway in less interesting hands, but not these guys. These wee nuggets I love.
Previous single ‘tied’ comes in with the feeling of a song that has been wound up too tightly and released at exactly the right moment. The frantic clarity is refreshing, with guitars pushing against the vocal line and the drums driving the whole thing on relentlessly. I’ve loved this one since I was lucky enough to grab a copy on seven-inch. It’s the perfect punk gaze single and will have you coming back for repeated listens.
‘mean eye’ delves into their Sonic Youth influence and kit fair suits them. The guitars feel more needling here, less like a wall of sound and more like something picking away at the edge of your attention. The rhythm section gives it a wiry bounce, which brings that Pavement leaning indie thread closer to the front without sanding down the heavier instinct’s underneath. It’s the slacker vocal approach that really pays dividends. This is a band happy to experiment.
By the time ‘city, name’ arrives, Backflip has already shown you a lot of different angles, and the closing track pulls those angles into something that feels more reflective. This is a fun new direction for them. The almost dreampop verses soon evolve from the punctuating bass and guitar harmonics into the sonic sweep of wild guitars and doomy bass. The length and breadth of this band’s creativity is amazing.
Backflip feels like another step forward from a band who sounded ready to grow the last time I wrote about them. It keeps the heavy gaze weight, the low fidelity grit, the hardcore aftertaste and the indie rock wonk, then folds them into a shorter, stranger, more concentrated set of songs. What I like most is that thistle. still sound like three friends who are totally on the same page as each other. You can hear the scrapes, the odd turns, the sudden flashes of melody, and the refusal to make everything too neat. For a band this young, they already understand that the rough parts can carry just as much feeling as the pretty parts. Backflip lands with both feet on the floor, then immediately looks tempted to try the move again.
When I first wrote about Slift, I was still trying to make sense of how three people could make that insane sound. A friend had pointed me towards their KEXP session from Trans Musicales in Rennes, and from there I fell headlong into their back catalogue. By the time Ilion arrived, I was already waiting to see how far Jean Fossat, Rémi Fossat and Canek Flores could stretch their heavy psych universe. That record felt enormous. It asked for time, patience and a decent set of speakers. It was Slift operating at full mythic scale, with riffs, saxophone, electronics, doom weight and space rock excess all pulling together until you felt slightly rearranged by the end of it. Now comes Fantasia, the band’s new album, and it feels like a fascinating next move. Slift have kept the force, the imagination and the sense of cosmic threat, but this time the songs are leaner, sharper and more direct in their intent.
That change in shape makes sense when you look at where the band are standing in 2026. Jean and Rémi Fossat are brothers, while Canek Flores has been with them since their school days, making this a trio with ten years of shared instinct behind them. You can hear that history in the way they move as one unit. Fantasia was built differently from the long form sprawl of Ilion, with Jean bringing clearer song ideas into the rehearsal room before the band took them into the studio to record. There is still plenty here for those of us who want Slift to open a hole in the ceiling, but the playing now feels clipped, driven and aimed at something real. The record is also shaped by Jorge Luis Borges, political unease, false idols, xenophobia, corruption and the belief that people can still rise against the systems pressing down on them. Jean Fossat gives that belief its clearest spark on the opening track when he sings of finding “a fire for your soul.” That line feels like the key to the whole album.
‘Fantasia’ opens the record with Slift doing what Slift do best, making the first few seconds feel like the beginning of a transmission from somewhere beyond the edge of the map. A low throb starts to gather, the synths flicker around the edges, then the band begin to build with patience and bite. Jeans vocal still has that edge and his guitar has that familiar scorched quality, Rémi’s bass is thick and restless, and Flores keeps the whole thing moving with a sense of control that keeps the heavier passages from spilling everywhere. This sounds like the theme song for a dystopian sci fi movie and it carries a clear message. The world is burning; people are frightened and Slift are asking what kind of force we can still summon together. What an opener.
‘Corrupted Sky’ tightens the grip almost immediately. The rhythm section comes in with a hard, almost post punk pulse, while the synths bring a colder colour to the track. There is a sense of movement here that feels very different from the longer waves of Ilion. This one drives through the streets of the imagined town at speed, past figures of power and suspicion, past people who have learned to look at strangers as threats. Rémi’s bass gives the track its engine, growling with enough grit to keep the guitars from lifting too far away from the ground. Jean’s guitar solo then tears through the middle with a real chase scene quality. It swerves, climbs, burns and keeps moving forward. Slift still sound like a band with space rock in their bloodstream, but ‘Corrupted Sky’ proves they can compress that scale into something more urgent without losing their identity.
The album’s uneasy atmosphere deepens next with ‘The Village’. This is where Fantasia starts to feel like a place with rules, rituals and people watching from behind closed doors. The immigrant is treated as a threat, and the music mirrors that suspicion beautifully. The guitars have a clenched feel, the drums keep circling the track’s nervous energy, and the vocal sits inside the noise like someone trying to push back against a crowd that has already made up its mind. There are still flashes of prog complexity in the way the parts interlock, but the song never feels showy. Slift use those twists to create unease rather than to prove how many ideas they can fit into one track. By the closing stretch, the whole thing feels like a warning shouted across a town square as the sky starts to darken.
There is a swagger to ‘A Storm of Wings’ that makes it one of the album’s most immediate moments. The riff has a physical snap to it, almost like a heavy festival chant dragged through fuzz and smoke. Then the band start adding layers of weight until the track becomes a full body surge. Flores is brilliant here, giving the song both swing and force, while Rémi’s bass keeps leaning into the groove with real bite. Jean’s vocal feels more defiant than desperate. The references sitting behind the song may reach toward jazz and literature, but what comes through in the speakers is the sense of a crowd beginning to move together. After the fear and suspicion of ‘The Village’, this feels like the first sign that something larger is coming. You can almost hear doors opening.
‘Orbis Tertius’ sends the album into stranger territory. The title reaches back to Borges, and the music carries that sense of a reality being rewritten by the people who control the story. The drums begin with a ritual feel, the bass sits low and tense, and the guitars rise in sheets of heat. Slift have always understood repetition as a living thing. They can sit inside a pattern and keep making it change through pressure, tone and attack. That is exactly what happens here. The track seems to keep turning the same object over in its hands, finding a different surface each time. The people inside Fantasia are beginning to see that the version of the world they have been given is built on fear, habit and obedience.
Then ‘Waiting Man’ arrives and gives the record its most vulnerable turn. After all that force, it is striking to hear Slift leave more room around the voice. The song has the weight of a psychedelic ballad, with a slow burn feel that lets the emotional centre come forward. Jean sings, “I waited for love, waited my time,” and the line lands with a plain sadness that feels new for this band. His voice sounds worn, human and close to breaking in places. The guitars still glow at the edges, and the low end still has that Sabbath rooted heaviness, but the track is built around a realisation. It is the point where the narrator understands that the world he trusted has failed him. On an album full of scale and political charge, this is the moment that feels most intimate.
‘The Day of Execution’ pulls the record back into motion with a heavier charge. If ‘Waiting Man’ is the breath before the decision, this track is the decision itself. The guitars coil and lash out, the drums push forward with real force, and Rémi’s bass sounds like it is dragging sparks from the floor. The difference is in the shape. The song keeps its focus. It does not wander off into the far distance. It keeps returning to the core feeling of confrontation, as though the whole album has been moving towards a point where fear gives way to action.
‘Secret Mirror’ closes Fantasia with a wide, reflective sweep. The synths open the space beautifully, creating a sense of standing in the aftermath of something heavy and looking around at what has changed. Slift allow this track to build with patience, letting the atmosphere gather before the heavier passages arrive. Jean’s guitar feels less like a weapon here and more like a searching light. Flores keeps the movement steady, while Rémi adds low end weight without crowding the arrangement. It is a brilliant closer because it avoids easy comfort. The album has spent its time asking how people respond to corruption, fear, control and cruelty, and ‘Secret Mirror’ leaves the question facing back at you. What do you see when the noise settles? What have you accepted? What are you ready to resist?
Fantasia is a thrilling continuation of the Slift story because it answers Ilion without trying to repeat it. The last record opened up vast mythic spaces and asked you to give yourself over to the trip. This one brings the danger closer to home. It still has the riffs, the synth glow, the thunderous rhythm section and the sense that Slift are capable of making a room feel too small for the sound inside it. It also has a clearer human pulse. These songs are about people trapped inside broken systems, people remembering their own strength, and people finding the courage to push back together. Slift remain sonic explorers, but on Fantasia they have aimed the telescope back at the world we are living in, and the view is fierce, strange and worth facing. Will you stand?
Fantasia is out June 5th via Sub Pop. You can check it out over on the Slift Bandcamp page.
When Alessio Ferrari first turned up on these pages through 2024’s Mount Elephant, delivered courtesy of one of those much-appreciated Fuzz Club parcels, his Upupayāma project felt like journey into another world. The Italian multi-instrumentalist had built six tracks from percussion, sitar, flute and guitars, with every part feeding music full of colour, movement and curiosity. I ended that review happily under its spell. Two years later, album number four comes back through the same trusted label with its feet somehow moving faster and its gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the path ahead. Honesty Flowers extends across eleven tracks and roughly seventy minutes, giving Ferrari enough room to build a whole new world for us to lose ourselves in.
Ferrari wrote, played and recorded the record in his barn studio in a small mountain village overlooking Parma. On stage, Upupayāma expands into a six-piece band, with the songs morphing through performance and improvisation. Here the starting point is one man surrounded by his instruments listening closely to where a repeated figure might take him. Honesty Flowers follows the handmade warmth of Ferrari’s earlier work while bringing its rhythmic instincts right to the front.
Ferrari describes the origins of the album in very physical terms.
“Honesty Flowers was born from listening to lots of funk music from all over the world, lots and lots of African music, and from listening to myself as I spent whole nights playing all kinds of percussion instruments. I would fall into a sort of trance and play the same rhythm for hours on congas or on a djembe. It’s an album that was born above all from the beauty of being able to narrate the unknown and recognise yourself in it, which could translate into telling stories and bringing them to life.”
That sense of travel shapes everything that follows. You enter through the beat, and through the music you are sent on your way.
The album begins by establishing its pulse. ‘Fliiim / Laliīmph’ feels like Ferrari opening every door at once, allowing percussion, fuzz and repeated guitar figures to set the room in motion. He describes ‘Fliiim’ as though Can had chosen to write a funk song, and that thought fits the track’s earthy forward movement. The first part keeps the body alert, circling a groove with increasing heat, while ‘Laliīmph’ carries that energy towards broad open ground, a crossing powered by rhythm and the promise of an unknown destination. It makes for a generous beginning, one that tells you straight away that this album wants your feet involved as much as your imagination.
After that long departure, ‘Gilded Meditations’ draws you into a closer circle. Ferrari pictured the opening as entering the hollow of a tree and finding a ritual already underway inside, and the track carries that enclosed, communal quality. The percussion feels close enough to touch, with each beat guiding the surrounding textures into place. The insistent flute and rhythmic wah’d guitars keep your feet moving as Ferrari sings the meditation. Even the bass takes its turn at carrying the melody in this uplifting hallucination of a track.
‘Mystic Chords of Memory’ keeps funk close to its centre, though its guitar voice has a sharper temper. The title offers the suggestion of remembrance, while the playing refuses to settle into anything soft or sleepy. Rhythm presses onwards, strings bite at its edges, and the track begins to show how Ferrari’s vocal delivery remains meditative in the spaces between the powerful guitar riffs that growl angrily one minute then become exultant the next. I need to keep reminding myself this is one guy making this wall of sound.
With ‘Oyob’, percussion and rock and roll guitar speak with the same urgency. Ferrari sees the song as sitting somewhere between a pagan ritual and a classic rock track, and that pairing gives it its character. There is ceremony in the repetition and swagger in the guitar, a satisfying sense of gathering around an idea and pushing it until it sparks. The drums carve out a tribal rhythm that transport you to a temple somewhere in the Amazon rainforest. What makes this one stand out is the space everything gets. Drums are the constant but vocal, guitar and bass all get their moment to shine.
The record takes a longer breath on ‘In The Solstice Sun’. Built around gentle drone music before turning towards a freer release, it opens a wider emotional space in the album. Ferrari links the song to the corruptibility of human beings and to the unruly thought of everyone abandoning restraint for a day. The opening section allows that idea to develop slowly before contemplation gives way to a grin, and the track finds pleasure in letting the rules loosen for a little while. This becomes one funky number and will have you moving!
‘Sound Mirrors’ works from a beautifully simple premise, two sounds reflecting one another so that echoes from earlier and later moments appear together. Coming after the release of ‘In The Solstice Sun’, it feels like a point of recalibration. The song lets repetition turn reflective, drawing your attention to how a sound changes when it returns in a different setting. Past and future seem to share the same room for six minutes, while Ferrari keeps the rhythm present enough to hold the album’s sense of movement.
A lovely thread of continuity runs through ‘Mokushō’. Its earliest ideas date back to material Ferrari noted down around the first Upupayāma album, before returning to those fragments for Honesty Flowers. The song arrives with the calm assurance of something that has waited for its proper moment. Ferrari associates it with waking in rural Japan, and its eight minutes possess the measured patience of a morning beginning slowly, with light entering a familiar room and a new day coming into focus.
Another piece with roots in an earlier period, ‘Old Sky, Wandering Clouds’ reaches back to the time between Ferrari’s first and second records. His image for the track is night rain followed by trees dripping in the early morning, with happiness quietly settling in. That feeling suits its place late in the album. After so much motion, the song allows space for contentment, carrying the pleasure of standing still after travelling far enough to feel the distance in your bones.
My album highlight comes next ‘Yuya’ condenses the rhythmic spirit of Honesty Flowers into one direct, dancing piece. Ferrari conceives it as a ritual dance, and it arrives with the sense of a circle widening as new feet join in. There is undiluted joy here, expressed through repetition and motion, with the guitars repeated circular riff playing nicely with the syncopated drumming. I love how the song dips in and out but it’s when it comes back that you are lifted and can’t help but dance! By this stage the record has made a communal place of its rhythms, and ‘Yuya’ brings you into the middle of it.
‘Baobab’ is bursting with character. Ferrari has explained that the song began on acoustic guitar, before a sitar line suggested “a group of misfits on an old caravan” That image gives the song a playful, rough-hewn gait, as a travelling party of wanderers bumps along with little need to arrive anywhere quickly. Electric guitar adds another voice to the tale, and its brief running time makes the whole thing feel like a joyful scene glimpsed from the roadside, loud with friendship and the happiness of carrying on. This one is a lot of fun.
The closing ‘Morning Temple’ arrives as the album’s first clear light after the nighttime rituals, rain and roaming paths that have preceded it. Ferrari frames the song as the feeling of waking with the knowledge that something wonderful is going to happen, and it provides a fitting goodbye. The record has spent its time following rhythm into unfamiliar forests, wooded paths and travelling celebrations. Here it opens the door onto a beautiful morning leaving you refreshed, curious and ready to start again.
By the time Honesty Flowers finishes, the strongest impression is of Ferrari allowing rhythm to write across every instrument he touches. Guitars, sitar, flute, keys and percussion become part of the same restless language, carrying one musician’s nighttime experiments into scenes that feel shared and alive. When I first met Upupayāma through Mount Elephant, I found a record that took me far from home. This fourth album stays with you for longer and asks more of your body, your patience and your willingness to follow an idea without demanding a fixed destination. This record has brought me so many happy moments these last few weeks. Ferrari has planted honesty in the rhythm, and these flowers keep opening wherever your feet decide to go.
A new F.O. Machete single is here and I’m buzzing. My own route into the Glasgow duo opened with Mother of a Thousand, their 2025 return after a lengthy time apart, and I was more than happy to follow them into ‘I’m Fine, Are You?’ when that next single appeared. That song suggested Natasha Noramly and Paul Mellon had returned with a fine album under their arms and a freshly sharpened appetite to keep moving. ‘Sleeper Cell’ only confirms my suspicions. This is a band enjoying its new chapter, and you can hear the pleasure in every turn.
For those just jumping into F.O. Machete, they have quite the back story. Noramly and Mellon formed the band in Glasgow in April 2003, releasing My First Machete before following it with Blaze of Flashes. A run of releases, headline shows and support slots with Dinosaur Jr. and TV On The Radio established them as a distinctive presence in UK indie music before the band paused in 2011. Noramly headed to Los Angeles and joined Bedtime for Toys, with Mellon going on to tour with Red Light Company and work with Human Don’t Be Angry and Bdy_Prts. Their reunion in 2023 led to Mother of a Thousand, and for those of us who entered the story at that point, it felt like finding a band fully alert to the joy of making a racket together again.
From its first moments, ‘Sleeper Cell’ is driven by Paul Mellon’s guitar, a riff with enough grit to catch on your sleeve and enough swing to set your shoulders moving. There is a gallus strut in the way the song holds itself, alongside the worn in looseness that has always made this pair so appealing. It feels lean and immediate, with the guitar doing exactly what a great single needs it to do! Natasha Noramly gives the track its cool centre. Her vocal delivery carries the tune with a calm sense of command, allowing the strange tale at its heart to appear almost reasonable for a moment. That takes real skill when the opening image involves a woman dreaming that her teeth have fallen out, before waking into the role of an agent under questioning with a drawer holding a supply of plastic lemons. Yes, it’s gloriously daft, and the song is even better for it! After two decades, a long pause and a joyous return, F.O. Machete sound completely at ease with their own sense of mischief.
What I love most about ‘Sleeper Cell’ is the slacker riffage. It leaves you eager for the album, eager for the next part of the tale, and delighted that F.O. Machete remain so willing to make their pop songs this playful and this strange. Whatever code this ‘Sleeper Cell’ has been programmed to deliver, it is already working on me.
I’ve been a long-time follower of Fuzzed Up & Astromoon Records. They’ve been releasing a steady stream of lathe cut seven-inch singles that have introduced me to so many amazing bands. I’ve always loved the single as a format. Here’s two songs to introduce you to what a band are capable of. On a side note, not all lathe cuts singles are of the best quality. Not so with FU&AM Records. Every one is cut beautifully with zero surface noise and a real dynamism in the sound reproduction. Shout out to 3.45 RPM Vinyl Lathe Cutting for their amazing work.
Vinyl geekery aside every single is a must buy for me. This week the label are about to release a single from Ghost Patterns, a London psychedelic shoegaze band whose new single ‘Silhouette’ / ‘Cirrus’ places distance, separation and the wish to return home at the centre of its world. If your introduction to their music comes through these two tracks, then it’s an introduction with plenty of weight behind it. Let’s get you caught up.
Ghost Patterns formed in 2019, with a history that already reaches across a strong run of recordings and live shows. Their debut EP Oracle and album Infinite both arrived in 2021, followed by a succession of singles between 2022 and 2025. On stage they have shared bills with Helicon, Cult Of Dom Keller, Daiistar and New Candys, before more recent UK dates supporting Ceremony East Coast, Tremours and The Dharma Chain. That places them firmly among the psyche and shoegaze bands who understand the pleasure of volume, repetition and songs that slowly reveal their inner colours.
Across this new single, Ghost Patterns look at a world that has slipped off course from a distant viewpoint, carrying a deep wish for connection and a route back to somewhere familiar. It is a big emotional idea for two songs to hold, and the physical single gives it an appealing shape: one side for the outline below, one side for the cloud high above it.
Side A gives us ‘Silhouette’, a title that suggests a figure viewed at distance, familiar in shape while its details remain out of reach. Heavy repeating fuzz supplies the foundation, with distorted guitars gathering in broad layers and Walker’s drums lending the mass a firm pulse. Hale allows density to feel inviting, building a guitar sound with real heft and a melodic current moving through its centre. Pedal shaped tones and analogue synth colours sit around those guitars. The song’s emotional charge comes from that separation. ‘Silhouette’ keeps home present as an outline, close enough to recognise and far enough away to ache for.
Once the record turns, ‘Cirrus’ lifts the viewpoint higher. The dreamier reach of the Ghost Patterns sound is given space here, with modulated shoegaze washes and keyboard tones spreading around the layered guitars. Its title is beautifully chosen. Cirrus suggests thin clouds hanging far above the ground, and that image fits a song concerned with removal and return. Walker’s percussion provides a human motion inside the haze, while the melodic shapes point towards warmth beneath all of that altered guitar colour. ‘Cirrus’ feels like the point where longing begins to find direction, looking down through the cloud and searching for the place it still calls home.
‘Silhouette’ / ‘Cirrus’ gives you a clear sense of why their music has found a home within current psychedelic and shoegaze circles. They build songs that can carry thick guitar noise and a very human desire for belonging in the same breath. This single leaves you looking through its haze with a quiet hope that distance can be crossed and familiar ground can be reached again. From its first shadow to its last high cloud, Ghost Patterns leave an outline clear enough to follow home.
I have always loved the feeling of stumbling into a band at precisely the right moment. You press play with very little idea of what lies ahead, then half an hour later you are wondering how all of this music has managed to pass you by. That was my experience with Hammock. The Second Coming Was a Moonrise is my first encounter with Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson, and what an extraordinary place to start. Within its opening minutes, I felt as though I had discovered a world filled with history, grief, wonder and enormous guitars, all of it waiting patiently for me.
Hammock have been making music together for more than twenty years. Byrd and Thompson are primarily guitarists, though across fourteen albums their work has absorbed strings, synths, voices and percussion into a sound often linked to ambient music, shoegaze, neoclassical music and post rock. Arriving here as a complete newcomer means I have no old favourite to compare it with and no personal timeline of their records behind me. I only have this album, released through their own Hammock Music label, and the immediate impression of two musicians who know exactly how to make music feel vast while keeping the human story at its centre.
That story begins with the album title. When Byrd was younger, he and a friend took LSD and watched a light growing behind hills in Arkansas. Both had been raised within fundamentalist Christianity and both carried the fear that the Rapture could happen at any moment. For a few frightening minutes, they believed the second coming had arrived. The light turned out to be the moon. For someone discovering Hammock through this record, it is a startling first piece of context, because it explains so much about the music that follows. These songs continually look towards the sky, towards loss and towards the beliefs that shape how we understand what is happening around us. Byrd puts that thought into words beautifully:
“If anyone grew up a fundamentalist, maybe this album can be a soundtrack for letting go of toxic shame and bad religion, while holding onto what is good, beautiful and true. Seeing and experiencing a moonrise is a miracle in itself. How many times do we miss what’s there or what’s being said by someone because we assume or believe something else is happening or being said?”
‘Inbreaking’ provided my first few minutes inside Hammock’s music, and it feels almost designed for that purpose. The track does not rush to reveal its full size. It begins carefully, giving the guitars and atmosphere time to gather before the drums arrive and place a firmer heartbeat beneath it. I came to this song without knowing what a Hammock opener usually does, so every increase in volume felt like a first clue. Their music values patience, allowing a feeling to form gradually until you realise it has taken over your mind. This is a stunning piece of post rock with grand ambition.
‘We Close Our Eyes So We Can See’ brings words into the album, and those words gave me the first clear sense of the emotional language Byrd and Thompson work in. “Maybe tonight. Maybe we will see the light” is sung with hope still carrying a little uncertainty in it. Knowing the story behind the album title gives that line an added ache. Light once meant fear for Byrd, then became the moon, then became a memory worth returning to in music. Hearing Hammock for the first time through a song this open and searching made me realise quickly that their scale is very much grounded in feeling
Three tracks into this first introduction, ‘The Unsetting Sun’ showed me how far Hammock are willing to let a song expand. The piece rises with great patience, holding your attention through the gradual movement of tone and texture. The closing section brings distorted drums and synths into a huge final passage, though the band allow every stage of that rise the time it needs. I began the album expecting something contemplative from the names attached to their sound. Here, Hammock showed me the physical force inside their music as well. Headphones suddenly felt far too small for it.
‘Like Sinking Stars’ was the track that got my attention leading to it featuring on my DKFM Shoegaze Radio show in May. Hearing it within the album gives it far greater weight. The song grew from a tornado striking Thompson’s home and studio during a devastating period that also included the death of his uncle from Covid and his wife losing her job. Its more direct vocal presence and dreampop colouring make it feel ethereal, like the album suddenly brings the distant sky crashing down into someone’s home. The melody is beautiful, yet the story behind it leaves that beauty shaken.
The simple title of ‘Sadness’ feels deeply effective after the upheaval of the previous track. Hammock give the word substance, allowing the feeling to sit without dressing it up or trying to solve it. By this stage of my first listen, I found myself paying attention to how much the duo trust space and repetition. They let a note hang for longer than you expect. They allow sadness to exist without forcing it towards a tidy conclusion. For someone arriving at their music for the first time, that restraint says a great deal about the care behind these songs.
Then comes the title track, and this is where my first listen became something much stronger than simple admiration. ‘The Second Coming Was a Moonrise’ begins gently, its guitar tones opening a wide view before strings and percussion gradually increase the scale. Once the song reaches its great central rise, the music seems to hold the entire origin story inside it: the teenage fear, the mistaken reading of the sky, the adult understanding and the beauty of the moon that was present all along. Its closing minutes settle into a quieter reflection, and I found myself thinking about how strange it is that a first meeting with a band can feel so personal. This is simply beautiful music.
‘Chemicals Make You Small’ brings Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips into the record, adding vocals and keyboards to a song Byrd wrote about lives diminished by drug abuse in small town surroundings. Coming to Hammock without prior knowledge, the guest appearance initially caught my attention as I love the Lips stuff, though the song soon established its own gravity. Byrd has described it as one of his favourite lyrics he has written, and you can understand why. The song returns to altered perception from a darker angle. Earlier in the album, drugs contribute to a moment of mistaken wonder and fear. Here, they are tied to people becoming smaller versions of themselves. Coyne and Drozd provide a unique performance that stands alone from their own work which gives the piece a vulnerable warmth that suits its subject perfectly.
The title ‘Everything You Love Is Buried in the Ground or Scattered into Space’ stopped me before the track had even begun. By this point, Hammock had already taken me through religious fear, natural disaster, grief and addiction, so the words arrive with an enormous emotional charge. The piece makes the album feel even wider, placing individual loss against distances that are almost impossible to measure. Discovering a band through an album like this can be overwhelming in the best sense. You begin by admiring the sound, then gradually realise you are being asked to think about what you carry, who you have lost and which parts of your life still remain visible when everything else changes.
‘Deconstructing’ follows as one of the album’s shortest pieces, though its title opens another important part of Hammock’s world to a first-time listener. Byrd intended the word to speak directly to people who have left evangelical or fundamentalist backgrounds behind. He talks about moving beyond what was harmful while preserving whatever was good, true and beautiful. That thought seems to sit inside the track’s position on the album. After songs filled with damage and distance, ‘Deconstructing’ suggests the slow work of examining what remains and deciding what can still belong to you. It’s a small piece with a very large question inside it.
Closing track ‘All the Pain You Can’t Explain’ leaves no room for a false resolution. It gathers the themes of the album into one final expansion, allowing the music to grow until it feels almost too large to contain. As my first Hammock record approached its end, I felt grateful that Byrd and Thompson leave some things unanswered. Life rarely provides clean explanations for grief, belief, addiction or disaster. This music gives those experiences a shape, a place to exist and a little light around their edges. When the final notes fade, you are left with the feeling that you have been welcomed into something intimate without ever being told what you should take from it.
Coming to Hammock at album number fourteen feels like arriving late to a party and immediately realising you want to hear everything that happened before you made your entrance. The Second Coming Was a Moonrise introduced me to a band capable of making enormous music from painfully human experiences, music that can fill the sky while remaining close enough to speak directly to you. I started this record knowing almost nothing about Hammock. I finished it with the slightly ridiculous feeling of having missed out on a band I should have found years ago. Then again, perhaps this was the right album and the right night for the light to finally appear above the hills.
The Second Coming Was a Moonrise is out now on vinyl and CD via Hammock Music. You can check it out over on the Hammock Bandcamp page.
Rosenthal came to me through one song. ‘A Dream’ arrived in the Static Sounds Clubhouse with its glowing guitars. I loved it immediately and had to play it on my DKFM Radio Show, and once a song makes its way onto the show, it tends to stay in my head for a while. Hearing the full debut album Luna now feels like being invited to walk further into a place that first caught my attention through one beautifully judged glimpse.
Behind Rosenthal is Danish songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jeppe Kiel Revsbech, joined here by Ask Kjaergaard on guitar and Asker Bjork on drums. Jeppe’s route to this album reaches back through a childhood surrounded by hymns, a teenage fascination with the melancholier side of pop music and years spent playing drums in bands before stepping forward with songs of his own. Those threads sit close to the surface of Luna. The name Rosenthal translates as rose valley, and it suits music that holds beauty and hurt so closely together. Luna moves through dream pop, electronic rhythm, shoegaze guitar colour and the kind of yearning pop language that links Jeppe back to discovering The Cure, Cocteau Twins and New Order late at night through MTV. Yet this album has a personality of its own from the opening seconds. These songs are intimate and generous, built around fear, reassurance, longing, loss and the little flashes of light that help you find your feet again.
Jeppe has spoken about his wish for Rosenthal to reach people, saying,
“I hope people will find it soothing. My father was a minister and when he was preaching in church, he was kind of comforting people, trying to bring some uplifting thoughts about how the word is, and I think that in a way that’s what I’m doing. While it’s not a religious message I’m putting out, hopefully I’m putting across that life is really complex and that’s the same for all people, but there are some things you can cling on to.”
Having already fallen for ‘A Dream’, I came to the full record hoping that feeling would be waiting elsewhere inside it. Let’s see where it takes us.
There is a quiet confidence to the way ‘Heart’ opens the album. The bass picking out the melody reminding me of The Cure or New Order. Then sparkling guitar lines flicker above the beats while the bass keeps everything grounded, allowing Jeppe’s voice to enter with a softness that immediately draws you close. It’s a song reaching towards someone whose thoughts have grown heavy, offering brightness through sound rather than grand gestures. As my first experience of the album proper, it’s the point where I realised the single had led me somewhere worth staying. The warmth I had heard in that first song was already here, right at the entrance to the record.
The support offered in ‘Heart’ becomes more personal on ‘Afraid of Stairs’. Jeppe wrote the song with his nephew in mind, seeing in him some of the sensitivity he recognised from his own childhood. That background gives the track a lovely tenderness, as though its melody has been built to reassure rather than overwhelm. The electronic details and flowing rhythm keep it light on its feet, while its emotional purpose gives it depth. For a song dealing with fear, it has a striking gentleness about it. Rosenthal understands that courage can begin with someone beside you saying that the next step is possible.
The title track, ‘Luna’, opens another aspect of the record. The arrangement feels more delicate here, as the album turns its attention towards renewal and the comfort of looking upwards after a difficult spell. Its organic feel brings you closer to Jeppe’s voice and the feeling behind it. This was the point where Luna began to feel like a complete world rather than a collection built around the song I already knew. Although the arrangement is sparse the melody is full of hope and belonging.
Then comes ‘A Dream’, the song that brought me here in the first place. Hearing it inside the album gives me a new appreciation for it. On the show it worked instantly, a song with enough melodic lift to catch your ear with that pulsing dream pop opening. Within Luna, it arrives after the gentle reassurance of the opening tracks and feels like an emotional release. The guitars open out; the bass gives the song a lovely weight and Jeppe’s vocal carries the feeling of finding shelter with another person while the weather closes in outside. Playing this on DKFM felt like sharing a song I had just found and already trusted. Hearing it now among the rest of the album confirms why it made such an impression in the first place.
‘Intermezzo’ gives the record a short clearing after that high point. It serves as a small change of pace, a space where the first half of the album can settle before Rosenthal moves into heavier feeling. There is a real understanding of album sequencing here. A song such as ‘A Dream’ has a glow that needs a little room around it, and this brief piece provides exactly that. It also marks the point where my own relationship with the record changes. The song that introduced me to Rosenthal has passed, and the second half now has to carry me somewhere new.
It does so immediately with ‘Lashes’. The synths turn colder, the bass becomes more pronounced and the mood closes around a song shaped by unreturned desire. Here you hear more of the darker pop inheritance that sits within Rosenthal’s music, with echoes of the bands Jeppe encountered during those late-night music television discoveries of his youth. The voice remains close and human throughout, which stops the song becoming distant or decorative. ‘Lashes’ is written from the part of longing that refuses to disappear simply because you know it will remain unanswered.
Up next ‘Void’ is given room to sit with loss and the questions that follow it. The album seems to widen around this song, with the instrumentation creating distance and wonder while Jeppe’s singing keeps the feeling personal. Coming to Rosenthal as a new listener, I found this one particularly revealing. ‘A Dream’ had introduced a songwriter capable of beauty and melodic warmth, while ‘Void’ shows his willingness to leave difficult emotions open and unsettled. It is a patient piece of writing, allowing its sense of absence to fill the space at its own pace.
Reversed synth pads lead us into ‘The Home Stretch’, and their unsteady arrival feels like a welcome opening in the air after the searching weight of the previous track. The final song turns towards release and freedom, gathering the record’s concerns without forcing them into a tidy answer. That feels right for an album concerned with the complexities Jeppe has spoken about throughout his writing. You do not finish Luna feeling that every fear has disappeared or every loss has found an explanation. You finish with the sense of having moved through them alongside someone who understands the value of a hopeful melody.
My route into Rosenthal began with a track that caught my ear strongly enough to earn its place on the DKFM show. That alone would have been a lovely discovery. Luna makes it feel like the beginning of a much more rewarding connection. Jeppe Kiel Revsbech has made a debut album that knows how to be accessible while carrying questions about fragility, affection, loneliness and the ways we steady one another. First impressions can lead you to some wonderful places. ‘A Dream’ opened the door for me, while Luna gave me every reason to remain inside Rosenthal’s music. This is an album I can imagine returning to on quiet evenings, on radio playlists and in those moments when a song offering comfort feels especially welcome. Jeppe set out to make music people could connect with. From my first play of ‘A Dream’ to the closing notes of this debut album, Rosenthal has made that connection feel entirely natural. Luna shines most brightly when you allow its songs to keep you company after dark.
Luna is out now via AfterImages. You can check it out on all your usual streaming services.
It’s been a wee while since I wrote about the music of Carla J Easton. Happy to put that right as she’s back with her new album, I Think That I Might Love You. I think the last time I touched base with her music was way back on her Weirdo album
Which made synth pop feel huge, generous and full of personality. That album felt like a vivid statement of self from a Glasgow pop writer who had already given us Teen Canteen, Poster Paints and a run of solo songs with hooks for days. Since then, her story has widened again. She has been part of The Vaselines live setup, co-directed and narrated Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands, helped build the Hen Hoose community, and continued to be one of those people who keeps opening doors for women in music and younger artists looking for a way in.
This album began with a flight to Nashville, a cracked heart, a reunion with her soul brother, voice notes, notebooks, borrowed instruments and the kind of friendship that can steady you when life has left you spinning. It also comes after years of Easton standing shoulder to shoulder beside other artists, amplifying other voices and making space for stories that deserve to be heard. The lovely twist here is that the community she has created now seems to pour back into her own music. There’s a list of contributors as long as your arm on this one which is real testament to Easton’s ability to build friendships that last. That in itself is core to what this album is all about. Easton explains.
“We started writing about this idea of the red thread, the red string of fate. It’s the idea that you have more than one soulmate, platonic as well as romantic. You’re usually only going to meet people in your postcode, but with billions of people on the planet you’ve probably got soulmates all over the world. So, if you find any kind of thread, that’s something really important and you should pick it up and follow it.”
Let’s pick the thread up and see where it takes us.
From the first few seconds of ‘Oh Yeah’, Easton lets you know this record has arrived with a grin, a guitar and very little patience for hanging about. It comes flying out in under two minutes, which is exactly the right amount of time for a pop song that feels this eager to get moving. The guitars have a bright snap to them; the rhythm section keeps everything skipping forward and the vocal sits right in the middle with that unmistakable mix of sweetness and steel. Backing vocals lift the chorus, synths add colour without taking over and the whole thing feels like the first burst of energy you get after deciding you are going to be alright.
‘Red Kites In The Sun’ gives the album its first real chance to look up. The pace eases, the guitars jangle with that unmistakable Scottish pop glow, and the melody opens with the kind of directness Easton has always done so well. When she reaches the album title in the chorus, it feels like a small confession said out loud before you have time to overthink it. The strings bring romance into the room, while the harmonica adds a lovely human ache around the edges. This album is only two songs in and I think that I might love it!
Up next, ‘Never Really Wanted To Stay’ moves with sharper elbows. It has that classic indie pop trick of sounding breezy while the lyric does something more bruised underneath. The chorus opens out in a way that makes the song feel heartfelt. I love how confidently it uses space. Nothing feels overstuffed. The guitars chime, the backing vocals step in at the right moments and the whole song keeps that forward motion without losing its emotional focus. Yeah, this is a goodbye song but there’s an acceptance in there too.
The first proper emotional wallop arrives with ‘Pillars Crash Down’, it brings together the record’s bright pop heart and its cracked open sadness. Easton sings with real force here, and the arrangement seems to rise around her with every line. The organ gives the song a warm old soul, the guitars push the chorus up and the backing vocals make the whole thing feel communal rather than solitary. That feels important for a breakup song. Pain shared in a room sounds different from pain sung alone into the dark. Easton has always known how to place heavy feelings inside songs that still sparkle, and here she makes regret feel enormous without letting it flatten the tune. It is one of the album’s great big heart moments.
Then comes ‘Let’s Make Plans For The Weekend’, and my goodness, what a pop song. I know there are a lot of guitar driven moments on this album, but this one is pure pop. Taylor Swift could spend a very serious writing retreat trying to write a chorus this tasty. The bass has a strut, the guitars flick at the rhythm, and those little synth details flash through the mix like lights from an arcade machine. Easton’s vocal is bright, playful and completely in control. The chorus snaps into place so quickly that you almost feel daft for smiling, then you play it again and realise resistance is a waste of good energy.
‘You Might Be The Sun’ brings the temperature down but lets the heartbreak glow. Easton’s vocal sits closer to the front here, and you can hear that glow in the way she shapes the lines around the melody. The imagery has a tender quality, and the arrangement is warm. Acoustic guitars shimmer around the edges, the band against those backing vocals add depth, and by the time the plain ache of “I really miss you” appears, the song just rips its heart off its sleeve and hands it directly to you. Easton can do clever, witty, bright and playful with ease, but she is just as strong when she lets a simple sentence carry the whole weight of the song.
A title with four Really’s deserves commitment, and ‘Really, Really, Really, Really Sad’ absolutely commits. It brings a different flavour to the album, leaning into a 60s girl group pop shape with little melodic turns that feel both theatrical and tender. The arrangement has a lovely swing to it. You get those sweet backing vocals, bright sci-fi keyboard touches and a rhythm that keeps the song moving with a tiny grin at the corner of its mouth. Easton’s vocal plays with the title beautifully. She lets the sadness come wrapped in charm. We all know that mood where you are half laughing at yourself and half staring out the window wondering how you got there.
‘Lift Your Head Up Kid’ feels like a hand on the shoulder. The title alone carries extra weight when you think about how much Easton has done to support younger artists and help women in music find confidence, community and space. The percussion has a clacking, toy box charm, the organ adds warmth and the vocal lands with the kindness of someone who has had to give herself the same advice before passing it on. It would have been easy to make this kind of song syrupy. Easton keeps it bright and grounded. The melody has lift, the backing vocals feel like friends gathering around, and the whole track becomes a small act of encouragement. It fits the record’s wider story beautifully. These are songs about friendship, love and loss, but also about the people who help you stand upright again.
‘Start It Again’ arrives with a big open heart. There is a 90s pop brightness in the rhythm, with acoustic guitar flashes, rattling percussion and brass-coloured details. Easton layers her voice into a stack of hooks, and the advice in the lyric feels generous rather than preachy. I keep thinking about how well she understands dynamics on this record. Some songs rush forward, some sway, some glow from the inside, and this one moves like somebody deciding to rejoin society after a difficult spell. It has one of those choruses that sneaks up on you. The first time, you enjoy it. The second time, you get it.
Theres a lovely folk pop tint to ‘Moth To A Flame’. The strings have a rawer edge here, which suits a song that seems to know how attraction and pain can sit dangerously close together. When Easton sings the idea of moths seeking out pain, it feels like one of those lines that arrives with a nod of recognition. The acoustic guitar gives the song its shape, the bass keeps it steady, and the accordion steps forward with a characterful little turn that gives the track a different colour from anything else on the album. I like when Easton lets a song lean into odd details like that.
The closing track, ‘If You Found A Thread’, brings the album back to the image that started it all. The red thread, the red string of fate, the idea that the people meant for you may be scattered far beyond your postcode. It sways with acoustic guitar, bass and voices that feel gathered together rather than arranged in neat rows. When the lyric reaches for loyalty, connection and finding each other in this lifetime, it gives the album a closing embrace that feels earned. After all the breakups, repairs, plans, memories and open-hearted pop rushes, Easton leaves you with friendship as the thing that carries everyone home.
The loveliest thing about I Think That I Might Love You is how certain it feels. Easton has kept the colour, humour, synth glow and chorus instinct that have always made her songs so easy to love, then run a guitar cable straight through the middle of it all. The album has the communal joy of people playing together in a room, the ache of friendships changing shape, and the confidence of an artist who knows exactly what she brings to a song. It’s guitar driven pop with a massive heart, and it has one pure pop firework in ‘Let’s Make Plans For The Weekend’ that deserves to be bothering radios everywhere. For me, this feels like Easton’s strongest solo record so far, and it also feels like a reward for all the care she has poured into other people’s stories. By the time it ends, the album title has changed from a thought into an answer: I think I love this album.
I’m lucky enough to have some very good pals over at Fuzz Club, purveyors of the finest psychedelic fuzzy bliss going. A parcel from them landing on the doorstep is always cause for celebration in the Static Sounds Clubhouse. That is exactly how Unholy Drum, the new album from Cult Of Dom Keller, arrived for me. A band that are brand new to these ears but certainly not a new band by a long chalk. I couldn’t wait to get it on the turntable and by the end of that first play, I was fully in.
The Nottingham trio of Neil Marsden, Ryan DelGaudio and Alistair Burns make music that creeps, grinds and mutates. This sixth album may come with a long history behind it, but for me it felt like discovering a hidden level in a game I thought I knew. Unholy Drum arrives after five years away from making records, and you can hear that time inside the record’s bones.
The key figure in this re-emergence is Angus Andrew of LIARS, who joins the band on production duties. His presence feels significant from the first listen, because Unholy Drum takes the Cult Of Dom Keller sound and bends it toward something more fractured, more art damaged and more willing to let odd shapes sit at the centre of the music. The band describe the process with him like this:
“Working with Angus brought a different angle of experimentation to the way we worked. Together, everything was dismantled and pushed further into the dark. Sound was dissected until it sprouted limbs. We went so deep inside the tracks that eventually it felt like the songs were waiting for us to catch up”
“… And yet, there was liberation. A freedom in abandoning defined roles. In serving the song rather than the structure. In hearing an idea suddenly explode into life through, say, the force of a full orchestra. It felt like any sound in our heads was now possible, and we continued to craft and shape the songs.”
That tells you plenty about the album before a note has even played. This is an epic listen. Let’s drop the needle and dive in.
‘Live Without Life’ opens the record with a title that already sounds half cursed. The track does a smart job of easing you back into the Cult without giving everything away too quickly. The opening bars sound like Dracula playing his organ but then the pulse begins and the song just stops. Then. It just opens up and soars. There’s a real Beta Band vibe to this one which I love. The chorus though, just wow! This is how you open an album folks.
‘Let Me Go, Satan’ brings the ritual element closer to the surface. The title has a lovely sense of melodrama, but the song itself feels grimy and physical rather than theatrical. The guitars move with a scorched thickness, the synths bleed into the gaps and the vocal delivery feels caught somewhere between confession and command. There is a real bodily weight to the track. You can feel the bass in your chest just dragging the whole thing forward, while the surrounding noise keeps folding in on itself. This track has a groove to kill for.
Up next ‘Disappear’ is a dynamic track that comes and goes, but mostly blows your mind. It has it all, psychedelic spaced out sections where the vocals seem like they’re being sung from a black hole. Then you have these eruptions where your speakers scream for mercy. Guitars and bass turning the fuzz up to eleven with an orchestral sweep behind it all. This is powerful stuff.
‘B(o)ing’ is such a strange song title, and thankfully the music lives up to that other worldliness. My immediate thought on hearing this was, this would make a killer Bond theme. It’s bold, and brash when it needs to be but has that cinematic flair at the same time. The orchestral flourishes on this one only add to that widescreen sound.
‘Leaders With Hooves’ turns the album’s political sickness into something blunt and physical. The band describe it as being about “the confession of the cruelty woven into power itself,” and that idea drives straight through the track. The drums feel like a march across broken ground, the guitars detonate and grind with a thick low menace and the vocals sound buried inside the machinery of authority. There is a crushing inevitability to the way the song moves. It does not need to explain its target at length, because the sound already tells you what kind of power is being examined. The hooves are right there in the rhythm. They hit hard, they keep coming, and they leave very little standing behind them.
An oddly pitched vocal is our entry point to ‘Void Horizon’ next. It soon opens into stoned wobble that Beck would kill for. It’s the drums that really grab my attention here in this opening stretch. Pounding when required and sitting out to add impact. There’s an almost Beach Boys like harmony sting in the middle that then leads us n to the second half. A choral backdrop now in place the song really fills out. Glitchy, jittery synth wails joining the fray. This is my kinda jam.
After that dynamic wobblefest, ‘Shoot My Mind’ feels sharper and more agitated. The track moves with nervous energy, and the guitars have a bite that suits the title. The band sound tightly wound, as though every part of the song is being held in place by the sheer force of their combined anxiety. The vocals cut through with a fevered quality, while the synths add heat behind the guitars. I like how lean it feels. It gives the album a needed jolt at this point, pulling you out of the spacious shadow of ‘Void Horizon’ and placing you back inside something immediate, wired and restless.
‘They Cut The Heart From Out Of The Sky’ might be the finest title on the record, and the song carries that sense of damaged grandeur beautifully. It has a bruised, weight, with the band leaning into that filmic scale while keeping the texture rough and human. The guitars feel scraped and weathered, the drums hold the song with a slow force, and the vocals bring a strange sadness to the middle of it all. You can feel the album’s apocalyptic streak here. It sounds like aftermath. It sounds like people standing under a blackened sky, trying to work out what has been taken from them. The band give us enough context to fill out that image to feel huge, yet they keep it grounded in sound. No mean feat.
‘Galaxies SOS’ closes the album with the feeling of a final message being sent through damaged equipment. It gives the record a fitting exit point, with guitars, synths and vocals all pushing toward the edge of the signal. It feels cosmic in the grubbiest possible way. No clean stars, no shining escape route, just a battered transmission trying to make it across the distance. As a final track, it works because it gathers the album’s main instincts into one last intergalactic flare of sound. It leaves you with ringing ears and a sense that you’re probably going to need to repair your speakers.
By the time the last battered signal of ‘Galaxies SOS’ fades, my first meeting with Cult Of Dom Keller has turned into a proper obsession. Unholy Drum is exactly the kind of record that rewards being heard on vinyl, with the needle tracing every warped synth turn, every scorched guitar line, every bass thud that makes the room feel smaller and stranger. For a band arriving fresh to my ears, this was one hell of an introduction. It has the weight of a group with a long past behind them, yet it also has the thrill of a band willing to pull their own sound into odd new shapes just to see what crawls out. From the organ lit weirdness of ‘Live Without Life’ to the speaker wrecking final stretch of ‘Galaxies SOS’, this album feels restless, fevered, weird in all the right crooked places, and packed with moments that make you stop what you are doing and stare at the turntable. Fuzz Club knew exactly what they were doing sending this one to the Static Sounds Clubhouse. One spin was enough to get me hooked, and now I can hear that Unholy Drum beating away long after the record has stopped.
I have started to measure the start of spring proper by the release of a new Fir Cone Children album. That sounds faintly weird until you think about how long Alexander Donat has been working on this project and letting us hear his daughters growing up in real time. I was chatting to Alex the other day about this and I think I first came to this Berlin based rush of dream pop, punk, fuzz and family life through Fog Surrounds Us and first reviewed Waterslide at 7am, then found myself premiering ‘Soaking In’ at a time when Static Sounds Club itself was still finding new ways to connect with artists I loved. Since then, Fir Cone Children has become an annual appointment for me.
Thinking back over the last few albums, The Urge To Overtake Time showed the first deeper shadows of growing up, Jig of Glee threw open the attic office, toy elections, Christmas trees and bedroom rock bands, and last year’s Gearshifting moved the family story into a place where memory, pride and change began to press on every hook. So, when a new Fir Cone Children album arrives, I clear space for it. I listen with a big daft grin and a slightly braced heart. This one needed both.
vs The Real World is the twelfth album from Donat under the Fir Cone Children name and it feels like a record standing at the front door with its shoes on, ready for whatever comes next. The girls are older now. That simple fact changes everything. It creates this new awareness that childhood has a calendar of its own. One daughter is moving into adolescence, school pressure, phone pressure and the sharp edge of wanting space. The other still builds her own systems of play with that fearless spark only children seem to have. Donat has always written with the ears of a father and the heart of a fan. That hasn’t changed. Here’s what he has to say about this new chapter.
“After puberty arrived on the previous album, gradually bringing with it a certain seriousness, I felt the urge to give adult life a kick in the pants and place a greater focus on speed and punk rock in the FCC songs. So, at least musically, a dose of my own protest is mixed into this new phase of life.“
“The feelings and themes of my daughters that shape the album are sometimes quite contrasting: the childlike, playful, and genuinely innocent nature of my younger daughter versus the ongoing separation process of my teenage daughter, including the search for her own identity. These days, more and more, I wonder how my sound will change, and how my own identity formation will progress.“
Sounds like we’re in for an exciting listen let’s hit play and see what the Donat girls have been up to this year.
‘St. Vincent’ opens the album with one of the most moving turns in the whole Fir Cone Children story. Laila Liisu, who has inspired so many of these songs, steps into the song herself. Her first rock show becomes more than a night out with her dad. It becomes first contact with a bigger self. Musically, it has that Fir Cone Children energy, guitars bright and breathless, drums pushing everything along. However, the sweetness comes from the shared smile inside the song. A father and daughter are looking at the same stage, and for a few minutes the whole room seems to belong to them.
‘Madhu’ brings us back to a weekly ritual for Team Donat. A trip to an Indian restaurant. A Saturday night drive. A Skoda. A receipt. Then the Fir Cone Children spell takes over and suddenly we have salad bowls, party hats, colanders, funnels, rubber snakes and the Indian takeout team in full flight. This is the younger of the two girls turn in the spotlight and the song explains how a private joke can become a family tradition. The pace feels quick on its feet, all grin and elbows, with the rhythm carrying the pair through the shortcut and into the warm exchange at the restaurant counter. “Here’s candy for you and for your sister” is such a tiny detail and such a lovely one. You can feel the kindness in the melody.
‘Enhype!’ is all movement, screen light and self-belief. Laila enters the world of K pop dance and finds confidence through repetition, copying and rehearsing. The song has a sugar rush feel, with phrases snapping into place and the vocal delivery leaning into the joy of performance. Donat has always been good at writing songs about children discovering parts of themselves, and here the discovery feels physical. The punk rock energy is turned up to eleven, as are the bpm. Guitars and bass thrash as the drums race along. Man, just listening to this has me out of breath.
Halloween arrives with ‘Vampire Queen’, and the mood changes in a way that sneaks up on you. Mari has the teeth, the makeup and the courage. She is going out as the vampire queen. Around that fun sits the ache of an older sister starting to step away from the rituals they used to share. Laila visits a friend instead, then returns feeling she probably would have enjoyed going out with her sister, but says nothing. That is the kind of detail that parents notice in silence. The song has a playful bite, chugging along in the opening section before soaring ahead in the chorus section. Honestly that’s a stadium sized singalong waiting to happen.
‘Skurugata’ sits in the track list like a doorway into a different piece of family geography. The title of this short tone poem points towards a Swedish nature reserve but the sounds are grungy and dark.
Then comes ‘Severe Weather Warning’, one of the album’s big emotional pivots. School years are slipping away, storm clouds gather, the sky hangs low, and the gap between the sisters is slowly widening. There is a lovely and painful split inside the song. One daughter senses the adult flame coming closer, while the younger sister can still run around in the rain and simply be soaked, laughing and free. The arrangement feels heavier in spirit, with an almost Japanese sound to the arrangement. Guitars sound like an orchestral string section in places and Donat is at his most reflective lyrically. “Everything is constantly happening at once” really captures that teenage overwhelm.
‘The Mind (Level 12)’ might be one of the clearest pictures of love on the album. The card game itself depends on shared timing, trust and an almost invisible rhythm between players. Donat and Mari reaching the final level becomes a perfect Fir Cone Children subject, because the achievement sits in the connection between father and daughter rather than the score. Again, there’s a equally fun melody driving this one. The repeated line about your mind and my mind has a simplicity that works beautifully. There is no grand statement needed here. You hear a father realising that some bonds speak louder than any words.
‘Cobra Scam’ is classic Fir Cone Children comedy with a little life lesson folded inside the packet. Every parent knows this moment. The toy, the advert, the shiny picture, the hope then the crushing reality. Mari is excited at the prospect of a deadly Indian cobra toy glued to a magazine. The advertising does its work. Her imagination supplies the rest. When the bag opens and the cobra it’s an absolute dud. I laughed out loud at “It looks like poo”, partly because it is very funny and partly because I know exactly what it’s like. The pulsing bass on this one has post punk energy and is the guiding star for the track.
‘Hang In There (My Moon)’ is the one that really got me. Laila is changing, pulling away, feeling the heat of peer judgement, finding ordinary family presence suddenly embarrassing. Donat writes from the parent’s side of that moment and keeps the feeling tender, even when it hurts. “If I’m okay with this behaviour, why does it hurt?” is such an honest line, and any parent who has watched a child need distance will empathise. The music is so intricate and that chorus, is exquisite. It has a melody Beck would kill for. Lyrically the choice of the phrase “My moon” is perfect. A moon moves through phases. A moon disappears and returns. A moon belongs to the sky and still changes the tide at home. This song knows that loving a teenager means standing close enough to be found and far enough to let them fly free.
Next up, Laila wants WhatsApp and Snapchat because new school, new mates and new self all come with new rules. ‘Time To Ask’ brings the negotiation years to the album. The music has the quick breath of someone presenting a case they have rehearsed in their head. “What can I do to be part of this century?” becomes the teenage treaty proposal. For Laila, connection now lives partly inside apps, group chats and phone permissions. This is a really dynamic track with the external dialogue fast and frantic and the internal monologue slow and thoughtful. I’ve been challenged to guess the song she had to learn on her ukulele. This one had me stumped but I think I made out Für Elise. Hope I’m right.
‘Beating The Real World’ gives the album its title and lets it’s Mari in the spotlight as she creates a whole new operation. A cardboard ATM sits in the living room with real money. There’s a mail order business in the bedroom making wondrous things. Golden forks, rugs, books, vinyl records and same day delivery. The joy here comes from how complete her invented system feels. Children do this better than anyone. They look at adult life, copy the parts they like, improve the parts they find boring, then add their own spin for good measure. The song has that giddy Fir Cone Children abandon, the kind that makes life feel larger than it is. You can hear Donat’s relief that this kind of play still exists in the house. Against all the pressure of growing up, Mari builds a better economy out of cardboard, objects and belief. Wonderous things indeed.
‘Forever’ closes the album with grief spoken plainly to a mostly acoustic backing. Mari writes a letter to her late Uncle, and Donat directly translates it without dressing it up. That lone choice gives this song such power. “I know you’ll never read this, but still, I want to write this letter” is devastating because children just speak what their hearts feel. I wasn’t emotionally ready for this song first time around and it had me in bits. After an album full of costumes, dances, games, phones and cardboard cash machines, ending here feels like another milestone, a hard one. The real world enters the room in its hardest form, and a child answers with a beautifully written, heartfelt letter. I had to sit with that for a minute.
By the time vs The Real World ends, you feel the full weight of what Donat has been building across all these Fir Cone Children records. This project began as a way to honour the bright rush of childhood, and it has grown into a family archive with amps, fuzz pedals, jokes, pets, holidays, school gates, tears and pride pressed into every corner. This new album has plenty of speed and sparkle, with punk edges cutting through the shoegaze haze and indie pop warmth keeping the melodies bouncing along. The deeper feeling comes from the knowledge that time is moving through the house. Laila is stepping towards a wider life. Mari still builds whole systems from cardboard and nerve. Donat stands in the middle, listening, loving, learning, and turning the whole thing into songs that make you want to phone your kids, hug your parents, or sit quietly with a memory you had packed away. The real world wins plenty of battles, but Fir Cone Children have made an album that kicks its ass.
Static Sounds Club 