The Fat Angel Sings

Joy Oladokun has signed to Concord Records and shared her first new music of 2026. “I wrote ‘Nothing Comes Easy’ about how getting hurt can happen quickly but healing takes time,” she says. “This past year, I dealt with a lot of change in my personal life and career and for a moment it felt like nothing good would ever come again. In my backyard, there is a planter filled with the most resilient sunflowers I’ve ever seen. I wrote this song about watching them find life over and over again and how they taught me to celebrate good things because oftentimes they have fought hard to be good.

Olubukola Joy Oladokun, born on April 1992, is an American singer-songwriter. With her soulful voice and heartfelt lyrics, she captivates audiences around the world. Joy’s music combines elements of folk, pop, and R&B to create a unique sound that resonates with listeners of all ages. Her powerful storytelling ability shines through in every song she writes. Whether performing solo or collaborating with other artists, Joy’s passion for music is evident in every note she sings.

Oladokun has released a handful of singles since 2024’s great album “Observations From A Crowded Room”, but “Nothing Comes Easy” is her first new music of 2026.

She shared some insight about the new song: I wrote “Nothing Comes Easy” about how getting hurt can happen quickly but healing takes time. This past year, I dealt with a lot of change in my personal life and career and for a moment it felt like nothing good would ever come again. In my backyard, there is a planter filled with the most resilient sunflowers I’ve ever seen. I wrote this song about watching them find life over and over again and how they taught me to celebrate good things because oftentimes they have fought hard to be good.

concord records

Lande Hekt has shared the title track to her upcoming album Lucky Now. “Although I list some pretty specific things in this song, it is aimed to be a broad song about personal freedom and moving onto better things,” Lande says. “The specific landmarks I have listed refer to getting a touring visa denied right before a big tour, changing the direction of my then band’s career, a fire that burned down our local venue that I worked at and near enough lived at leading to a drinking problem and then getting sober!”

Lande Hekt has quietly become one of the UK’s best underground songwriters. On her 2021 debut full-length “Going To Hell” and 2022’s “House Without a View“, she explored her queer identity, sobriety, and childhood trauma through the lens of heartfelt, conversational indie-pop, which led to spots opening for the likes of Alvvays, Throwing Muses and The Beths.

“Lucky Now” is the second single and the title track from the album “Lucky Now“, out 30th January 2026 on Tapete Records.

Winged Wheel is a band that includes Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Circuit des Yeux), Cory Plump (Spray Paint), Matthew J. Rolin (Powers/Rolin Duo), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Lonnie Slack, and Fred Thomas (Idle Ray, Tyvek). You could practically them a supergroup. The patient, exploratory “Desert So Green” is their third album, following 2024’s “Big Hotel”. Working out of a studio on the outskirts of Chicago, the band embraced a more cohesive approach, foregoing some of the jammy tendencies of their previous records for deeper experimentation.

“So, how did this band even happen?” That’s the question most often asked of “Winged Wheel”, a creatively and geographically scattered collective who have somehow congregated to make a noise that’s unexpected but undeniable. With each player living in a different city and bringing their own unique element to the group’s chain reactions. Early long distance file-trading between a few members yielded 2022’s “No Island”, a debut album that was accidentally really good.

Good enough for the band to expand their membership and meet in person for the sessions that became 2024’s “Big Hotel”, a surgically-assembled murk of high energy kosmische rock with jammed-out tendencies. Fast forward just a little and all of a sudden the band that started out as a passing idea has completed multiple tours, become a taper’s dream with sets that drift through structure and improvisation, and ridden the momentum to places unforeseen on their third album, “Desert So Green”.

released January 9th, 2026

Winged Wheel :
Whitney Johnson
Cory Plump
Matthew J Rolin
Steve Shelley
Lonnie “Palmtree” Slack
Fred Thomas

Meek “specialises in a philosophical strain of song writing,” which is evident across “The Mirror.” There’s a tender power, countered by immutable vulnerability. With an uncanny curiosity, he reveals the uniqueness in the mundane. “The Mirror” searches for new meaning and the familiar is reframed through Meek’s singular voice.

On “The Mirror”, love, as an idea, is always close – but in its reflection comes an afterimage of the way things could be and how they’ve been before. Meek holds the absurdity of devotion, the choice to love – with equal parts ache and grin, as on today’s single, ‘Gasoline’. He sings, “Making words up while we made love / one month and she’s in my blood.”

Emerging from a decade of work together in Big Thief, the partnership of Meek and producer James Krivchenia arrived from the idea to combine the band’s live, kinetic energy with an oblique electronic world. From production projects including Big Thief’s “Dragon New Warm Mountain” “I Believe In You” and his recent solo record, , Krivchenia’s work is enlivened through electronic elements, always seeking to deepen sound. The concept for “The Mirror” welcomed a collective atmosphere in which simultaneous experiment could occur – the musicians responded to each other in real time, while their instruments triggered modular synthesizers.

For The Mirror, Meek and Krivchenia welcomed in friends, family, and longtime collaborators including Adrianne Lenker, who contributed vocals, Adam Brisbin on guitar, and Ken Woodward on bass. New creative partners and longtime friends like composer and ambient musician Alex Somers joined in on synthesizer, toy microphone, an old piano, and Mary Lattimore brought in the sounds of her prismatic harp. A rotating cast of four drummers: Jesse Quebbeman-Turley, Jonathan Wilson, Kyle Crane, and Krivchenia provide a wide dynamic arc of grooves. Germaine Dunes, Staci Foster, Jolie Holland, and Lenker sing as a choir on many songs. Meek’s brother, Dylan Meek contributed piano, keys, and vocals. Adrian Olsen created a wide range of sounds and melodies with modular synths.

With his songwriting acting as a compass to the recording process, Meek invited interaction, instead of limiting the tracks to something controllable. The album was recorded in Meek and Dunes’ Los Angeles log cabin studio, Ringo Bingo. Meek recorded vocals outdoors on the front porch, looking through the living room window where the band played inside.

Just months after Big Thief had released one of top favourite albums of 2025 with “Double Infinity”, Big Thief guitarist Buck Meek announced his next solo album, “The Mirror”, due late February via 4AD Records. It was made with his Big Thief bandmate James Krivchenia and Big Thief vocalist Adrianne Lenker contributes to it too, so it shouldn’t be a big surprise that you can hear a lot of Big Thief’s magic coming through on lead single “Gasoline.”

It’s the kind of strummy folk rock that Buck Meek does so well, but it’s also got some of those art rock tendencies that came through on “Double Infinity“, making it just a little more far-out than what we usually get from Buck’s solo career.

Buck Meek’s new album, “The Mirror”, is out 27th February on 4AD.

Snail Mail, the project of Baltimore singer-songwriter Lindsey Jordan, has announced her third studio album, “Ricochet”, her first in nearly five years. It’s due out March 27th via Matador Records.

With the announcement comes lead single “Dead End”, a taste into the 90s alt rock direction of the record. “Dead End” mourns the simplicity of a suburban adolescence. Of the music video she co-directed with Elsie Richter, Jordan shares, “We shot the video for ‘Dead End’ in random places all around rural North Carolina between the hours of 5pm and 4am on one of the coldest nights of my life. The goal was to be inconspicuous with the fireworks, but someone called the cops on us.”

While Snail Mail’s earlier albums focused primarily on the trials and tribulations of young love, “Ricochet” further explores Jordan’s philosophies on mortality and identity. This record also marks Jordan’s first full release following her vocal polyps recovery.

“Ricochet” is out March 27th.

The Philadelphia shoegaze revival band They Are Gutting a Body of Water (TAGABOW) shared their live recording session for NTS Radio. Recorded in a junkyard just outside the city, they performed three tracks off their last record “Lotto”.

TAGABOW also announced that they’d be extending their “LOTTO” promotional tour, adding dates for cities across the US. After stopping by the UK and Europe next February, 

The Cult Philadelphia shoegaze band TAGABOW bring their crushing, maximalist sound to the chaos of the junkyard on their NTS Session.

Setlist 00:00 “the chase” 03:55 “rl stine” 06:30 “trainers”

Courtney Barnett is back with a brand new record. “Creature of Habit”, out March via Mom+Pop Music, is the follow-up to 2021’s “Things Take Time, Take Time“. With the news comes brand new single, “Site Unseen”, featuring Waxahatchee. It’s set to a Juliana and Nicola Giraffe-directed visualizer. 

“Creature of Habit” marks a decisive new chapter in Courtney Barnett’s musical evolution. It’s a bold, emotionally resonant record that explores the central question: how to get out of your own way so you can truly feel your life. Written in the wake of a relocation from Australia to Los Angeles and the closure of her long-running label Milk! Records, Barnett was grappling with changes that put the future of both her life and career in question. Rather than internalising those feelings, she decided to bring all this swirling confusion directly into the recording process.

Courtney Barnett’s Creature of Habit marks a clear turning point in her songwriting and approach. Known for transforming the details of everyday life into sharp, affecting songs, Barnett uses this album to look inward, asking how to break patterns, quiet self-doubt and stay present inside your own life.

“I tried 3 separate times over 2 years to track this song, and each time it either wasn’t finished or didn’t sound right and each time we had to start again. I kept hearing this really high harmony in my head, so for the fourth and final version, I asked Katie if she’d be into singing it with me. I’m a big Waxahatchee fan. I really love Katie’s songwriting and her voice, so it was an honour to have her sing on ‘Site Unseen’.”

The album also features previously-shared single “Stay in Your Lane”.

Written during a period of major personal and professional change, “Creature of Habit” brings uncertainty directly into the creative process. Rather than smoothing over disruption, Barnett lets it shape the music, resulting in a record that feels deliberate, reflective and quietly assured. The familiar observational wit remains, but it’s paired with a deeper focus on emotional habits, routines and the effort it takes to move beyond them.

Across her career, Barnett has steadily expanded her sound and perspective, from early breakthroughs that established her distinctive voice to later records that leaned into broader emotional and political territory. “Creature of Habit” builds on that trajectory, stripping things back while pushing forward, and capturing an artist taking stock without losing momentum.

It’s a confident, considered statement that finds clarity in change and strength in self-examination.

“In The Big Room” captures Peter Gabriel and his band recorded live in the Big Room at Real World Studios on 23rd November, 2003.

This intimate concert was for members of Peter Gabriel’s Full Moon Club and took place during a short run of live shows in November 2003 that also included a performance for the UK’s Children in Need charity at Cyfarthfa Castle in Merthyr Tydfil, a show at the Brighton Centre and the Nelson Mandela 46664 Concert in Cape Town.

The 14-song set draws on material from both the “Growing Up Live” tour of 2002/2003 – Gabriel’s first in 10 years that accompanied the release of his album UP – and the subsequent “Still Growing Up Live” tour that ran through much of 2004. Notable additions to the Growing Up Live set include “Burn You Up, Burn You Down”, “Games Without Frontiers” and “The Tower That Ate People”.

For the performance Peter is joined by his touring band from this period of Tony Levin (bass), David Rhodes (guitar), Ged Lynch (drums), Richard Evans (guitar, whistle, mandolin), Rachel Z (keyboard and backing vox) and Melanie Gabriel (backing vox).

Mixed by Ben Findlay. Engineered by Ben Findlay, assisted by Claire Lewis and Thea Cochrane.
Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios.

Cut Worms, the project of Max Clarke, announces his fourth full-length record, “Transmitter“, due for release in March via Jagjaguwar. Produced by Jeff Tweedy at Wilco’s Loft studio, “Transmitter” marks a deepening of Clarke’s abilities and the convergence of two artists whose work searches for grace amid dislocation. Together, they conjure the ecstatic spirits of power pop and alt rock, expanding Cut Worms’ vintage palette while reaffirming his gift for timeless songwriting. These are songs shaped by the myth of self-reliance, where people sold the idea of connection through technology have been reduced to quiet transmitters—data points bought and sold, manipulated and measured, their lives distorted through the very networks meant to unite them.

Clarke says of the album, “The stories in these songs are equal parts innocence and experience—dealing with the ecstatic moments of being freshly enamored with the world as well as the isolation and seclusion that can come after. On view are the unseen inner sanctums of quiet daily life—the private worlds that people inhabit, where they don’t or can’t let anyone else in. It is not a uniquely American phenomenon, but it does seem prevalent here, rooted in the mythos of rugged individualism and the idea that each person must be strong enough to make it on their own or die.”

Today also sees the release of the finely-crafted “Windows on the World,” featuring Tweedy on electric guitars and bass and Glenn Kotche on percussion. The song wrestles with American disillusionment, its melancholy drifting somewhere between Elliott Smith and Miracle Legion, and arrives alongside a video shot on the streets of New York and directed by Caroline Gohlke.

Cut Worms will be embarking on a U.S. tour this spring

Courtney Marie Andrews’ has a new album “Valentine” is out next month, and she’s given us another preview with “Little Picture of a Butterfly.” “After being stood up, this song fell out of me in a fit of heartbreak,” she says. “Musically, I wanted the beginning of the song to sound like the whimsical, dreamy, and helplessly meek feeling of limerence, and feeling like you need a response in order to be kicked into action. Once it’s stated that limerence can create illusions of fantasy or ‘make believe,’ we’re kicked into action, kicked into waking up, kicked into our power. The band kicks in, and I’m empowered.”

“Cons And Clowns’ is an ode to all the artists, outsiders, and shy loved ones you want to see shine!,” says Andrews. “In this world of growing sameness I wanted to write a love letter of encouragement to anyone who was afraid to be their wildest and weirdest self, especially amid the dark landscape of now. With a desire to embody the unencumbered playfulness of youth, I played the flute on this track, an instrument I haven’t played since my childhood.”

Andrews is joined by drummer Grizzly Bear‘s Chris Bear, with producer Jerry Benhardt adding bass, high strung guitar, piano, juno, farfisa and mellotron.

In the three years since “Loose Future“, Andrews also published her second collection of poetry – Love Is a Dog That Bites When It’s Scared, via Simon & Schuster – and has exhibited her artwork in US galleries.

“Cons And Clowns” coincides with a run of UK and EU shows for Andrews: distributed by Thirty Tigers Released on: 2025-09-17