Cloth are twins Rachael & Paul Swinton from Glasgow, Scotland.
Released on Mogwai’s Rock Action Records, we are really delighted to bring you Cloth’s new “Pink Silence” LP and a very handsome Dinked Edition too!. Cloth are a Glaswegian duo composed of twin siblings . They’ve released a few projects over the past few years, including the November 2024 single “Polaroid,” which sounds a bit like if Imogen Heap went rock. That song is going to be on the duo’s newly-announced album “Pink Silence”, out this April, and they’re sharing another song from it today called “Golden.”
There is new a song for you now, and the beginning of a new chapter. It’s called “I’m Not There”. I think that’s all I’ll say. I hope it lives well in your ears. These last few weeks, Nick and I have sung to Glaswegians and Cardiffians (yes that’s what people from Cardiff are called, I googled it). We were accompanied by strings at those shows, same as at the Union Chapel at Christmas, which temporarily elevated us to the status of ‘seated theatre band’. It was classy while it lasted. We played a lot of new songs which felt correct. Back to drums and standing and beer again soon I think.
This song was written under a particularly dense cloud, with a rainy brain. I was draining my subconscious, not present in the slightest and it came out very fast, which doesn’t happen often these days. What may also be interesting to some is that the recording is a fully live performance, we played it once and once only and that’s all the listener hears bar a single piano added later.
Very excited for you all to be hearing this new chapter unfold this year. A huge thank you to everyone involved, please honour the credits below.
Written and Peformed by Flyte Drums – Ethan Johns Produced and mixed by Ethan Johns
The Tubs’ second album, “Cotton Crown“, sees the Celtic Jangle boyband venture into darker, more personal territory while continuing to hone their highly addictive brand of songcraft. It’s a true level up album which sees the band expand their sonic palette to take in a kaleidoscopic range of influences: everything from soulful pub rock “Chain Reaction” to Husker Du aggression “One More Day” to melancholy sophisto-pop “Narcissist” gets a look in. As Pitchfork noted, The Tubs see jangle as a ‘vast world of moods and muses’ and “Cotton Crown” sees them continuing to explore this world and creating a distinctly Tubular sound in the process.
This is in no small part down to Owen ‘O’ Williams’ vocal performance- often compared to a young Richard Thomson- and his frank, bleakly funny lyric writing. “Cotton Crown” sees him delve further into his favourite themes of love-psychosis, unsympathetic mentally ill behaviour, and the humiliations of being a musician in London. This time around, however, there’s a palpable sense of risk in his self assessments / confessions.
The build-up to the Tubs’ new album, “Cotton Crown“, has been incredible so far. “Freak Mode” and “Narcissist” hit all the right levels of amped-up jangle-pop, brightened by bang-on, tempo-shredding guitars. And the sweetness doesn’t rest on “Chain Reaction,” a punk-as-all-get-out track about, as bandleader Owen “O” Williams puts it, “being a scammer/swindler/charlatan/snake oil salesman/trickster/bluffer/con artist/grifter/dodgy dealer/hustler” in the “world of love.”
Caught somewhere between Hüsker Dü and Richard Thompson, the Celtic band risks it all on “Chain Reaction,” dissolving into “the mould on the bathroom wall, the creeping dread [and] the balance limit.” The song is all gas, no brakes. Even in bleakness, the Tubs fill breakneck rock ‘n’ roll with sensational joy.
No more so in the track’s closing track “Strange”– an accounting of the clumsy, intrusive, well-meaning social interactions that took place in the period following the suicide of his mother (the folk singer Charlotte Greig.) As Williams says: “I’d tried a few times to write a song about it. The result had always seemed either mawkish, simplifying or like I was hawking my trauma. But then this one came out, and it felt right because it looked at something smaller: the weird, unsatisfying, strangely funny ways everyone, including myself, acted after the dust settled.” The album artwork features an image of Williams as an infant being breastfed by Greig in a graveyard- a promotional shot taken around the release of her debut album (the re-issue of which was featured in The Guardian in 2023.)
The essential trick Cotton Crown plays is to offset Williams’ lyrical bleakness with joyous, hook-laden blasts of pop perfection. This is largely down to the guitar work of George Nicholls, who, across the album, effortlessly slips between the virtuoso jangle of Marr, the driving folk-rock of Pentangle and the chorus-heavy hi-fi grooves of contemporary bands like Tops or The 1975. Add to that the breakneck rhythm section of Taylor Stewart (Drums) and Max Warren (Bass)- who attack each song with power-pop ferocity, recalling Guided by Voices at their drunken-yet-tight best- and you’ve got yourself a recipe for indie rock greatness.
Features guest vocals from Lan McCardle (Joanna Gruesome/Ex Void).
The London group’s sophomore album, “Cotton Crown”, out March 7th, 2024 via Trouble In Mind Records. For fans of Richard Thompson, The La’s, The Charlatans, Aztec Camera, Superchunk, The Chills, Felt, The Smiths, Pentangle.
This new Robin Kester single is splendid. The Dutch musician is now in an elite class, having recently signed with Memphis Industries, a Brit label with a roster featuring the Go! Team and Field Music. “Departure,” her new collaboration with This Is The Kit’s Rozi Plain, is diaristically influenced and filled with gestures of leaving. “You travel to a sunlit place, but the light there is also strange,” she sings against Ali Chant’s synthesized, orchestral production. The track is dappled in vibrant havoc, hiking upwards in scale as a wall of voices harmonizes behind Kester’s.
There are glimpses of a young Beth Gibbons here, but Robin Kester’s chamber singing bellows like the seams of a moor rupturing into uniqueness. “Departure” is beautiful in all of its zig-zagging, executed as a perfect wash of pop decadence.
On “Mountain,” Cryogeyser teams up with Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman for a sonic sierra that feels, somehow, equal parts crushing and caressing. The LA trio’s latest offering from their upcoming self-titled album feels like watching an ice sculpture melt in reverse: Shawn Marom’s fuzzed-out guitar work creates a wall of sound that’s less Phil Spector and more frozen waterfall, while Hartzman’s soaring harmonies weave through the mix like Northern Lights. When they sing, “I hear one door closing holds another open,” it hits you with the weight of an avalanche in slow motion.
“Mountain” is a meditation on friendship that trades the usual longing for something rarer—the warm glow of actually having what you want.
The track builds like a snowball rolling downhill, gradually gathering mass and momentum until all of a sudden you realize it’s become something altogether massive and mesmerizing
Amy Millan for the last 25 years, she’s been a fixture in the Canadian band Stars, but never the showrunner. But, for as long as she has “been the girl” in Broken Social Scene, And this week’s news, that Millan is returning with “I Went to Find You“, her first solo project in 16 years, comes with a sweet song titled “Wire walks.” And let me tell you, “Wire walks” is already a the song of the month frontrunner for me. It’s got a reference to Stars’ “Ageless Beauty” in it, and it’s this melt of pop jubilee. It’s anti-gauche, but “baroque” doesn’t quite capture the delicacy, as vignettes of synthesizers drip into orchestral rummages and feathered fingerpicking. Millan’s voice, too, has aged each day with love; “Wire walks” is whimsical and vintage, anchored by tattooable lines like “I want to carry the sad out of you” and “You might need to lean into what you’ve always been.”
Amy Millan is a Canadian indie rock singer and guitarist. She records and performs with the bands Stars and Broken Social Scene as well as having a successful solo career. Her new solo album, “I Went To Find You”, is out May 30th, 2025.
Adult Mom’s first release Since their 2022 hibernation, “Door Is Your Hand,” finds Stevie Knipe serving up a deliciously vengeful indie power-pop confection. The track, which gestated for five years before emerging fully formed, crackles with the kind of vintage college radio energy that makes you want to dust off your Dr. Martens and write angry poetry in a thrifted notebook. Knipe’s razor-sharp lyrics dance between murderous fantasy and vulnerable confession, while fuzzy guitars wrap around their voice like a protective older sibling. The song kicks off with a bang: “Picturing that you were dead is / The only way to cope with my head” Knipe sings, somehow making emotional exorcism sound like a lost track from 120 Minutes, feeling equal parts timeless and urgently contemporary.
With help from collaborators Olivia Battell, Allegra Eidinger and Lily Mastrodimos, Adult Mom has crafted something that sounds like therapy session notes set to the soundtrack of your favourite ’90s coming-of-age film—raw, cathartic and unexpectedly triumphant.
Lead Guitars: Allegra Eidinger Rhythm Guitar: Stevie Knipe Percussion and Drums: Olivia Battell Bass: LilyMastrodimos Mandolin: Lily Mastrodimos Lead Vocals: Stevie Knipe Backing Vocals: Stevie Knipe, Allegra Eidinger, Lily Mastrodimos
The Dandy Warhols are a psychedelic/alternative rock band, formed in Portland, Oregon, in 1994 by singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor and guitarist Peter Holmström. They were later joined by keyboardist Zia McCabe and drummer Eric Hedford. Hedford left in 1998 and was replaced by Taylor-Taylor’s cousin Brent DeBoer. The band’s name is a play on the name of American pop artist Andy Warhol.
The band gained recognition after they were signed to Capitol Records and released their major label album debut, …“The Dandy Warhols Come Down”, in 1997. In 2001, the band rose to new levels of fame after their song “Bohemian Like You” enjoyed extensive exposure due to being featured in a Vodafone advertisement. They have released 12 studio albums to date.
Split 7″ vinyl version of The Black Angels ‘Sister Ray’ and The Dandy Warhols ‘Rave On” both recorded Live At The Filmore. Pressed on Red and White Swirl Vinyl in a single pocket sleeve.
Horsegirl the New York-via-Chicago trio of best friends Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece announce their second album, “Phonetics On and On”, out February 14th, and release lead single/video, ‘2468’. Produced by Cate Le Bon and recorded at The Loft in Chicago, the band’s original and sonic home, “Phonetics On and On” is an exploration of the lines between pop, minimalism, and playful experimentation.
Since the release of 2022’s “Versions of Modern Performance”, “compelling from its first note to its very last” (NME), much has changed for Horsegirl. In the fall of that year, they relocated to New York City, where Penelope and Nora were to attend NYU leading to the first time the trio had written music outside of Penelope’s parents’ basement. You can hear the push in a new direction by virtue of their new environment, but through this time of unparalleled change, the band turns inward.
Horsegirl returned to Chicago to record in January 2024, finding focus and intimacy in the studio that can only arise when it’s simply too cold to step outside. Le Bon led them into new, bright, clear, sonic territories highlighting the inventive nature of these songs. New tools help bring this world to life; violins, synths, and gamelan tiles are all woven into the record. The songs are a testament to experimenting with space and texture while maintaining a pop song at the core. All the while, a confident simplicity brings the band’s songwriting ability to the forefront.
Lead single ‘2468’ is one of the shining examples of experimentation on “Phonetics On and On“. Horsegirl explores Raincoats-like violin parts and kinetic percussion, building stealthily towards a head-spinning motorik crescendo. Written almost entirely in the studio, ‘2468’ stands as an achieved byproduct of rewriting and rearranging, adding and subtracting, flash-moments of instability, and embracing the unexpected result. The song’s video, directed by writer and filmmaker Eliza Callahan and choreographed by Alexa West.
It’s hard to imagine any of these songs being written by anyone but Nora, Penelope, and Gigi. Horsegirl write with unanticipated honesty, leading us through scenes of girlhood and youth. These are moments of their lives. The indelible truth is that Horsegirl is a band of best friends; being around them you can see that love in their eyes and it is always a joyous thing to witness. It’s a love that is ever-present in “Phonetics On and On” as tenderness reverberates back and forth across the recording.
“Julie,” taken from ‘Phonetics On and On,’ the new album from Horsegirl out February 14th, 2025 on Matador Records
“Asphodels”, is the seventh studio album from The Veils, recorded live to tape over five days at Roundhead Studios in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Veils debut album “The Runaway Found” turned 20 last year which provided lead singer/songwriter Finn Andrews with a healthy dose of existential dread. “I feel as though this album is the end result of a now disconcertingly long career in music,” he says. “I think after your 7th album, much like turning 40, you should really just stop counting. I’ve learned a lot along the way, which I suppose is the whole point, and I’ve really distilled it all into these 9 songs. As always, I really just write about love and death – it’s a compulsion – and that is once again the case here. But I feel as though I’ve never been able to express this stuff rattling about in my brain quite as directly until now. I have rarely felt proud of anything I’ve made for very long, but this one feels different. It’s built on a strong foundation I think.”
The album takes its name from the Ancient Greek flower of the Underworld, and lyrically, Andrews draws more from the great poets than he does from the well of more traditional rock and roll songwriters. The collaboration between Andrews and string arranger Victoria Kelly is a central aspect of the record, and as with the band’s previous album “And Out Of The Void Came Love”, Kelly plays an integral role in bringing the songs to life. Andrews says “I really wanted the string arrangements to behave like another member of the band. We even fleshed the character out, like an actor playing a role. It’s this collaboration with Vic that is really at the centre of this record I think.”
Since being signed to Rough Trade when singer Finn Andrews was 16 years old, The Veils have released six studio albums and toured consistently throughout their twenty year history and garnered a formidable reputation as one of the world’s greatest live bands. They have also been praised by film directors Paolo Sorrentino, Tim Burton and David Lynch who have all used their music on their soundtracks.
The Fat Angel Sings 