Best new indie rock songs, indie news, best bands, reviews
It’s probably not a big surprise that the top indie/alt track for March 2019 is The Black Keys’ smoking “Hi/Lo,” followed at a close No. 2 by Tame Impala’s dreamy psych-pop single, “Patience” and The National’s “You Had Your Soul With You” to round out the top three.
Enjoy the rest of the Top Ten Songs which you can also listen to on IRC’s Spotify space (provided all artists are on it).
The following indie rock artists are five indie bands to watch in 2019 (Vol. I) from around the globe (no overly produced, ‘top 40’ radio-sounding, auto-tune shit):
Luxury Mane – St. Petersburg, Florida
Moonroof – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Exiled – Bristol/Sheffield, England
Buttness – Shymet, Kazakhstan
The Beths – Auckland, New Zealand
NOTE: To stream all of the tracks uninterrupted in this post – a total of 10 – there is a full playlist at the end of this post.
The Floridian DIY band Luxury Mane claim to be “the godfathers of St. Petersburg, Florida indie rock,” and from the sounds of a string of recent singles, they may not be posing.
The impressive track, “Rushed,” is just one of the latest standout tracks from their new album, Domestic Bliss.
At a time when people don’t listen to a lot of albums, this is one to dive into. LM weaves garage, psych, pop and new wave sounds with a variety of guitar textures – crunchy, woozy, reverb-heavy and fuzzy.
Then there is the infectious title track from the new EP – “Domestic Bliss” which is another terrific high energy indie pop rock song perfect for a sunny spring day.
Thanks to their engaging sound, the band has built a solid following in the Tampa Bay area club scene in recent years, opening for artists like the late Jay Reatard, Of Montreal, Natural Child, Monotonix and the Lemonheads.
The band is fronted by guitarist and vocalist Billy Summer, who grew up the son of two classical music performers. In the Tampa Bay Area, the band’s 2014 album, Natural Beauty, was played repeatedly on popular radio shows like WMNF’s rock programs. The band was also voted the ‘best rock band’ of 2014 by readers.
Formed in 2012, the trio features former members of the multi-award-winning alt-rock outfit, The Semis, and takes a straight-ahead approach to rock arrangements in the vein of The Smiths, Television Personalities, and Joy Division.
The group Moonroof is a Philadelphia-based indie band that knocks out catchy, upbeat indie pop/indie rock with a definite a reggae influence with obvious influences that include Last Dinosaurs, The 1975, The Strokes, and Vampire Weekend.
The band’s latest single, “Be Somebody,” fits exactly those elements and is one of the most memorable of 2019 as well. Another recent track, “Honey Honey,” is even more evidence of why the band is featured in this series.
The guys met at Bloomsburg University and began playing acoustically at open mics for a few years before graduating to bars and clubs. Back then they were called The Big Picture.
“Each of us brings a different background of musical interests and influences, culminating in the sound you hear from us today,” bassist Kevin Randolph says. “To keep things simple, we call it our own brand of indie pop.”
Moonroof has opened for The Association, Rome Hero Foxes, YJY, Cold Wrecks, Hang Tight. The other band members are Dave Kim (vocals); Nick Cellucci (guitar, vocals); and Dan Rendine (drums).
The recently dropped track, “Luna,” comes from the UK-based indie rock band Exiled, comprised of four students from the Bristol-Sheffield area.
In the past year or so, the boys have picked up a local following, which is no small thing in this musically historic, and competitive, area of England.
The band, which has been praised on BBC Introducing, describes its sound as “the love child of a steamy one night stand between The Wombats & Catfish and The Bottlemen.”
Exiled’s guitar-led sound makes for “good times, rough nights and growing up” the trio, with Bristol and Brummie roots, exclaims. Another great track for the band is the upbeat “Block 2,” which dropped at the beginning of the new year and should be a mini indie hit somewhere.
The band members are Max Clutterbuck (lead vocals/guitar); Henry Robinson (bass/vocals/keys), and Ethan Reeves (drums/vocals).
The guys have opened for artists like Plastic House and Catfish and The Bottlemen; musical influences include Panic at the Disco, Good Charlotte, Green Day, and Muse.
In addition, a collective love for indie pop and surf rock laid the foundations for the band’s sound; with further influences from Circa Waves, Hockey Dad and The Night Cafe.
In 2018, we featured the indie band (with a funny name) The Buttness from the city of Shymkent in Kazakhstan.
The band’s new 2019 single, “Cyro Mind”, has won favor among indie fans in their country and here in the cafe. It’s just one of a number of terrific tracks on the band’s third album, Under Fret.
The duo behind the music consists of founder, vocalist and bassist Yerlan Akhmetov, both big fans of Radiohead and The Cure, which is evident on the superb, under-the-radar debut album released last summer.
Another standout track on the album, among others, is “Under Fret,” complete with its quirky and nearly strained singing of Zarpullayev , and yet somehow it’s alluring. It’s not screeching. He sings like this – almost silly – on a number of tracks. It’s weird. We like weird. We like different.
Buttness debut album, All Holes Are Black, dropped in 2016 – when they first caught our attention.
The duo has released an album each year from 2016 through 2018 and cites musical influences like Charlatans UK, Dinosaur Jr., The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Cure, and Blur.
In May 2018, the Kazakhstan government blocked Soundcloud and two dozen other sites for being “extremist”.
Zarpullayev wrote in protest: “I have no possibility to contact you via Soundcloud. Anyway if you have happiness to listen outside Kazakhstan I [will] try to load new music there!”
Hailing from New Zealand, and newbies at SXSW 2019, the punk-pop band The Beths serve up impulsive, hook-driven, melodic tracks with fast, grungy guitar riffs.
The new single, “Uptown Girl,” from their debut album, is a perfect example. The band has been creating a buzz almost everywhere they go in recent years and were among the top “bands to see” at SXSW 2019.
Another terrific track from the band that will give listeners a broader spectrum of their subject matter and sound is the undeniably, and perhaps ironically, upbeat, “You Wouldn’t Like Me.”
Fronted by vocalist and guitarist Elizabeth Stokes and guitarist Johnathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclar and drummer Luketinia Johnston were added while at the University of Auckland.
After making waves across New Zealand and Australia, Carpark Records took note and signed them.
Song descriptions are key to connecting with listeners and getting featured in blogs and the press.
A song description by the artist is not meant to be a review of the song, nor a rehash of the lyrics, nor what the listener can hear for herself.
Instead, the purpose is to tell the story behind (the scenes) the song that the listener cannot possibly know: how it came about; what is the tale of the song; instruments, equipment and software used, and in any interesting or different ways or experimentation; technical methods, effects, and techniques used; how the melody, rhythm, and other parts came about and where put together; what equipment was used; what the instrumental goals were; any difficulties with the song; did it end up different than it started out? How?
That’s a great start to write a solid song description that is aimed to be consumed mosty by the press and other such interests like booking agents and venue managers; licensing agents; festival organizers; and so on.
Also, include who worked on the recording. Also, if the song is autobiographical, please briefly tell the listener the various things going on that they can’t decipher by themselves to provide a window.
Song descriptions should also be succinct and rich in detail. These are the things that can make the difference between being featured in a blog, on a radio program or in a playlist, or not.
For example: A young new musician and studying doctor from Ohio wrote a terrific song with a sweet melody during a trip to India where he was volunteering and researching health care access in remote villages. While staying in one of the villages, he was even able to record, and later mix in, remarkable choruses of Indian children singing to his melody.
He described as well how it came about that the children began to sing the chorus. He did not plan it that way but the children liked the melody and chorus of his song so much that they learned it and in a couple of days treated the entire village to a performance. Now that’s a story behind a song that gets people’s attention and interest.
Another artist used unconventional recording techniques by capturing everyday sounds in his home and mixing them into his music. Another artist’s song is actually about his mother but he is playing the third person instead of the first person because it’s too painful.
With song descriptions, we want them to be detail-rich but also succinct. Anything too long will decrease the number of people that read it and the overall success of the track.
Song descriptions help the artist connect with listeners and fans and evoke emotions, memories, senses, and even actions – such as someone deciding to promote your song themselves on their socials because of what you wrote about it or for other bloggers to pick up and write about you because they have something compelling for the reader in addition to just the track by itself.
Interesting tidbits, facts, stories and triggering emotions are main points that get people to stop, listen and even care – for a minute. That’s hard to do in today’s millisecond world.
The aim is to get the listener not only to stop but to fully absorb the song. If they read the description, become even more intrigued, and start checking out even more music from the artist, that is a touchdown.
The fight for people’s attention is a true and serious one. We now live in a world where 24,000 songs are released every day on streaming services alone, according to a 2018 Gracenote study.
So, to get hundreds, thousands, or oh wow! tens of thousands (not bots, but real folks) listens online is a great thing. But it takes strategy, planning, smarts and knowing the ropes to rise even a little above the noise of 24K releases every day!
Want help to get there?
Get more information about professional music publicity, social promotions, branding, and other music services tailored specifically for promising and talented DIY artists and bands.
Another playlist features new indie rock singles from the following artists:
Rhymes – Uppsala, Sweden
The Duskwhales – Washington, D.C.
Tekla Waterfield – Seattle, Washington
Liz Hogg – Brooklyn, New York
The Edwards – Chicago, Illinois
Swedish indie band Rhymes’ latest single, “Fyrisån,” has received a good deal of play on Swedish Radio nationwide and has also become the band’s most popular song to date.
The single is “a hometown accolade” to the Fyrisan River that flows through the Uppsala region where the boys are from.
Interestingly, the song includes references to the Girls’ cover of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” from 2009 and “celebrates the river’s unrelenting journey through the shifting times.”
The band opened for the band Slaves during a world tour. The Rhymes was formed in a basement in Uppsala, Sweden in 2016, and have since then played over 70 gigs in England, Germany, Norway, Finland, and Sweden.
Washington D.C. indie rock, psych-retro band The Duskwhales not only lay down well-engineered sounds, but they are also somewhat of a miracle as well. The band drummer, Chris Baker, came down with cancer last year.
For months, he fought back and as of the past couple of weeks, he was one year into remission.
The band’s new single, “Today,” is described by Baker as a special song that “encapsulated my cancer experience in the style of 60’s inspired psychedelia with nods to The Monkees, The Beatles, The Turtles, and all the other lovable anthropomorphic bands from yesteryear.” Hot ditty!
With a new perspective and appreciation for life, Baker and his band members – Seth Flynn (guitar/vocals) and Brian Majewski (keyboards/vocals) – are geared up for a fantastic 2019.
The Duskwhales have opened for bands like Car Seat Headrest, Diane Coffee, Frankie Cosmos, and Little Green Cars. They are influenced by many bands, including those mentioned above, as well as The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Doors, Elliott Smith, and Radiohead.
Tekla Waterfield is a Seattle based singer/songwriter, recipient of Listen up! Women in Music 2018 grant by the Allied Arts Foundation, long-time Seattle Tacoma International Airport performer, among various other recognitions and awards.
Her songs have been featured in indie films, including the upcoming 2019 release, Dakota, and she has had multiple songs from both of her independent releases receive radio play.
In addition to Waterfield (vocals, guitar), band members include Jeff Fielder (guitars, programming, synths); Andrew Joslyn (strings); Aaron O’Neil (drums), and Eric Eagle (percussion; engineering).
At first, we thought the WiFi was tripping off and on but then realized it’s the way that this very different song – titled “This Is Trash” – was purposefully recorded (or is it played that way?), which is interesting, but not for three minutes. It came to us from indie DIY artist Liz Hogg of Brooklyn.
She has toured eleven countries playing numerous festivals and concert halls. Recently, she became the first American to win a fellowship to perform and study at the Lanciano International Guitar Festival in Italy. Her musical influences include John Frusciante, T. Rex, David Bowie, and Lou Reed.
The Edwards have been carving a niche in Chicago’s gain-heavy garage-rock scene of latee thanks to a home-brewed mix of warm, swingy guitars, chill percussions, and breezy melodies. This is exemplified in the band’s most recent single, “Northern States”.
The band features Chicago music scene veterans Kyle Maurisak (Nativity Beds); Emma McCall (Moonrise Nation); Chris Deporter (Torres); Stuart MacFadyen (Strange Foliage), and Chris Murphy.
Opened for bands like Sun Cop, Pooky, Blind Moon with musical influences like Yo La Tengo, Deerhunter, Radiohead, Pavement, Grizzly Bear, and Wilco.
Budapestian band Ivan and The Parazol takes genres like 70s glam-rock and modern psych-rock instrumentation to create an amalgam reminiscent of a Brian May-Kevin Parker collaboration.
The band does just this on the track, “Changin’,” the second single from the band’s third full-length album, Exotic Post Traumatic, produced by Grammy-award winner Wil Anspach (Muse, Red Hot Chili Peppers).
The band also has a new video for the track. The album drops officially on March 22nd.
The band members are vocalist Vitáris Iván; guitarist Balla Máté; keyboardist Beke István and drummer Simon Bálint. Of the bands we’ve been listening to so far this year out of Europe, I&TP is up on the list.
I&TP has opened for legendary psych rockers Deep Purple and bands like Rival Sons. They are also influenced by Tame Impala and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Earlier this month, Los Angeles indie pop band Girlpool released a new album, What Chaos Is Imaginary, featuring the shimmering, yet aching, lead single, “Pretty.“
“Pretty“ is appropriate as the first single not just because it’s an exceptional track, but it also is a solid example for the rest of the album.
Singer Harmony Tividad asserts: “You were such an idol/Yeah, you were the whole world/Now you see you look pretty broken/Pretty broken.“
The following playlist features single submissions from a variety of DIY artists and bands from across the United States and around the world and featuring many different genres. We leave it to you to make your own opinions.
(Coming Up: Bands to Watch in 2019!)
Eastern Island Statues – Oxford, England
ThBenj – Sardinia, Italy
White Collar Rebel – Seattle, Washington
Kuri – Vancouver, British Columbia
SHEE – Nashville, Tennessee
Mortimer Jackson – London, England
Lost & Found – Alice, Texas
Nubia Soul Goddess – Los Angeles, California
A brand new indie rock songs playlist from the following overseas artists:
Weal – Copenhagen, Denmark
Constant Supply – Donegal, Ireland
Maiorano – Rome/Berlin
The Magic E’s – Norwich, England
The Danish band Weal sets buzzing, ringing guitars, booming bass and crashing drums and cymbals with spooky, whispery vocals on the shoegaze-heavy single, “Night Drive.”
The new single is from the Copenhagen band’s recently dropped EP and has received a fair amount of attention from bloggers in the U.S., Denmark, Germany, and England, including National Danish Radio DR P6 – one of the most popular shows in all of Scandinavia.
“Night Drive” slow burns from start to finish with the angelic voice of singer Tanja Simonsen’s (Superheroes, Private, ONBC) coupled with band frontman Peter Thielst Jessen.
The band also plans to officially drop the new single, “Hang Low,” that paints a dark scene together with a simplistic black and white video.
Weal formed in 2017 when a few experienced musicians from the Danish alternative scene decided they’d work together as a band.
Based on the beautiful isle of Ireland in the small town of Donegal, the indie band Constant Supply will release their new single ‘The Misanthropic Phase’ on February 22nd.
The single, which pops along with a doo-woop like chorus, upbeat, sunny melodies via guitars and keys, and even a saxophone, is the advance track from the band’s upcoming album release, Isn’t Life Great, due to drop in June. The album was recorded and co-produced by Tommy McLaughlin (Soak, Villagers).
The band members are James Gillen (vocals, guitar), Conal Sweeney (bass, piano), Eoin Gildea (guitar, synth) and Justin McDaid (drums). Constant Supply put out what they like to call “melodic compositions driven along through light and dark alleyways by pulsing drums.”
In 2015, the band dropped their sophomore album as the follow-up to their 2013 debut, The Coast Ain’t Clear.
The Rome-via-Berlin indie band Maiorano creates rock and roll in an authentic, classic style without sounding dated. There are times listening to the band’s impressive new album, Glorious Days, that an astute listener is reminded of The Clash and Joe Strummer, which is a big compliment, and not one lightly attributed.
Bridging the divide between soul, funk, garage, punk, and rock may seem like a tall order on paper – but as audiences across Europe attest, Maiorano does it well.
And so Glorious Days will be a welcomed release for the band’s dedicated fans. If you’re having difficulty with the name, you’re not alone; it’s pronounced MY-OH-RA-NO.
The band’s live shows are energetic with tight rhythms, soulful grooves, and soaring brass accompaniments.
Last year the band toured through Italy, Spain, France, and Germany to promote the release of the album, which was recorded in Rome with Giuda producer Danilo Silvestri.
Creators of blistering, melodic guitar rock, the Norwich, England indie quartet The Magic E’s latest single, “Splinters,” really rolls with catchy melodies and textured sounds that are reminiscent of early Brit-pop and mod-rock through melodies and textured sounds.
Not surprisingly, the band’s influences include 90’s indie bands such as The Stone Roses, Ride and The Charlatans, punk rockers The Clash and classic rock bands like The Who and The Small Faces.
Since forming in 2014 Pete Thompson (vocals/guitar), Jasper Stainthorpe (Bass) and Stuart Catchpole (drums) have released a string of singles and gained radio play and critical acclaim for their debut album, It Goes On.
With its full indie pop blitz and sunny sounds, highlighted by remarkably warm vocals, “Facing Dullness” is the newest single from Nordic indie artist Sail by Summer, aka, Grammy-award winning musician William Hut.
His latest single is an inspiring, well-crafted pop/rock song that further enhances Hut’s songwriting, vocal, and musical abilities and talents.
Hut recorded the song with his longtime Danish collaborator Jens Kristian who plays on the keys on his tracks. This is a really good song that doesn’t disappoint on repeated plays. (Isn’t everyone in the mood for spring? This song will help.)
The following DIY indie songs have been spinning on our digital turntables recently and include new artists like WaxCat and The Broader Sound as well as more veteran artists such as Carol Martini, Fornis and Amalgamation. Enjoy and please share.
Wax Cat – Denver, Colorado
The Broader Sound – Langhorne, Pennsylvania
Carol Martini – Los Angeles, California
Fornis – Sacramento, California
Amalgamation – San Francisco, California
With more than 200,000 streams on Spotify, Denver indie band Wax Cat has experienced quite a big rise out of the gates with their debut single, “Oceans.”
The song is sparse and atmospheric, driven by electronic sound effects and beats overlayed with emotive vocals and psychedelic keys.
The interplay between the vocals, the instruments, and the beats is really interesting and you can tell they worked on it to make it work just the way they wanted. And they pulled it off – and nearly a quarter of a million listeners agreed.
Originally from Ohio, the band moved to the Mile High City to pursue their music careers at a new level.
On February 21st, the band will release a follow-up single titled “Comin’ Down Slow”. The band members are Jake Myers (vocals), Nick Nord (guitar), and Chris Comisar (production).
Pennsylvania alternative rock artist The Broader Sound, formerly known as The Tipping Velvet, is releasing a series of tracks over the coming months, including the lo-fi rock track of the same name, “The Broader Sound.”
The artist behind the moniker, Scott Melnick, describes his sound as “Led Zeppelin guitar solos meet Gin Blossoms’ bright chords while structured in a Nirvana-like verse/chorus pattern.”
Other comparisons that we feel are appropriate stylistically include Beck (circa 1990), in listening to the snarly, muffled vocals front and center flanked by heavy, lo-fi percussions and a crunchy, ringing rock guitar wailing away.
For a song that is basically minimalistic in its structure, it packs a damn good punch.
Melnick lives in Langhorne and crafts and records all of the instruments and tracks for his songs and mixes and masters them himself.
Melnick has other songs in production like “Shake Me,” and the more pop-oriented, “Tell Ya’ What I Remember” & “Fake News,” which exhibits more teeth overlayed by a dark mood.
Southern California musician Carol Martini recently dropped her seventh album, The Art of Singing While Drowning,” featuring a hefty 23 tracks. The single from the album is the evocative ballad, “Hit Man.”
Martini said that the single is a “rock/pop-rock song based loosely on Phil Spector” adding that the song was written in a “major key,” she says, “with hints of the Phil Spector ‘girl group sound’ (the layered female vocals)” and a touch of “his famous ‘wall of sound.'”
She admits that it was satisfying to weave a narrative and chorus. “I got a kick out of using the double entendre of hitman usage,” she adds.
“With this song, I got to write about a fictional character. I like how I was able to get a reference to a single (a 45-record) and a 45-gun in the bridge. These little allusions put a smile on this songwriter’s face.”
The producer, Daniel, played all of the instruments. “I love how he put a B3 organ sound in the mix and at the end of the song, the glockenspiel is the perfect touch. It was really a blast to record.”
Sacramento DIY rock band Fornis has been rocking the city clubs and various venues throughout California’s northern reaches for nearly a decade now.
Recently the band dropped its sophomore album, Endless Night, the follow-up to the 2017 debut, Generic Hope. The title track of the new album is a solid rock and roll single.
The band’s lead singer, Todd Pittman, is also the band’s songwriter and guitarist. His personal musical influences are old school punk rock, doo-wop and old rock and roll. The bottom end percussions are supplied by veteran drummer Trapper Herzog and keyboard accentuations come via keyboardist Keydragon.
Herzog has played in the past with bands like Tower of Power, Elvin Bishop, and The Cliff Fields Group while Langford has been active in the music scene since the 1970s.
Pittman began Fornis in 2013. The band’s persona is at heart rock-a-billy, although it’s difficult to categorize the band’s music into one genre. The band’s style is an amalgam of tastes and sounds.
Related: Fornis featured in 2017 in a Fresh Tracks post
Prior to Fornis, Pittman fronted two other bands, a punk rock outfit called Pruno (named after the ‘jail juice’ prison inmates drink) and a punk band named Duodenum.
As an established band in the San Francisco, and having been voted best band a couple of times, alt. rock band Amalgamation doesn’t really need much of an introduction, at least not to the musically-connected in the Bay Area.
With powerful vocals, big beats, and riveting guitars, frontwoman Robin Lovejoy and guitarist Ivo Mijac offer nimble arrangements with a lot of energy behind what they like to call “conscious rock. ”
That’s not too surprising; it’s the Bay Area after all. The duo got its launch after meeting, and then playing at, open mic nights at the Cafe International in the city’s Haight-Ashbury district.
Their new single, “We’re Not The Only Ones,” booms with a mysterious darkness and grit that runs through the song like a vein.
The duo’s other recent single release, “Boomerang”, incorporates contemporary bands like Queens of the Stone Age, Phantogram, and My Morning Jacket, with crisp melodic twists, heavier rhythms, and dynamic production.
They have already released a debut full-length album, Queen of Dreams, followed by the EP, Circadian Rhythms.
Quite simply this playlist is more of the best DIY indie of 2018 that we didn’t get a chance to review or post before (other than on some of our socials) due to time.
As always, IRC playlists are uninterrupted and commercial-free (except the tons we have on Spotify too). Please follow us – it makes our day!
Missed any new indie songs recently? So did we. It was easy to miss tracks dropped during the holidays, vacations, finals, and so on.
Listen to new tracks from Vampire Weekend, The Raconteurs, Sufjan Stevens, and many others. See the full playlist below.
Vampire Weekend dropped two new tracks – “Harmony Hall” and “2021” – last week from the band’s upcoming new album, Father of the Bride. A firm release date has not yet been nailed down.
In his Instagram posting, frontman Ezra Koenig said the album – the bands’ first in six years – will be a double 18-track album.
To promote it, the band will drop is dropping a two-song release each month for three months before the album’s scheduled May release date.
Although this is the first VW album without longtime band member Rostam Batmanglij, who left the band in 2016. However, Koenig said that Batmanglij did help produce “Harmony Hall” and “worked very closely on” another fresh track.
In the area of reissues, The Raconteurs – one of Jack White‘s three or four? (lost count) bands – reissued the Grammy-winning Consolers of the Lonely with two new tracks this month, including the dazzling music video for the track “Sunday Driver.”
The prolific indie Christmas songs artist Sufjan Stevens had one of his older wintertime tracks, “Lonely Man of Winter,” see an official release in December called (If you missed our Wintertime Playlist, it’s been popular), in addition to a new EP.
The Stevens’ single was originally recorded in 2007. However, Stevens’ label explained the song was ‘won’ by songwriter Alec Duffy (who became the legal copyright owner) in a Christmas exchange contest in 2008.
Recently, Duffy decided to release the song from his private collection for all to hear. The EP, Lonely Man of Winter, includes the recording as well as Duffy’s entry and a new Doveman mix with vocals by Melissa Mary Ahern.
This mini-playlist is not really so mini once you hear these fresh indie songs, including from some of our favorite indie artists of all – we just don’t have time to review everyone, but we hope you enjoy these recent singles we almost missed from The Struts, Fleet Foxes, Beach House, Phosphorescent, Deer Tick, Weezer, Pavo Pavo, Beirut, The Twilight Sad, Pedro The Lion, Deerhunter among others.
Danish band Iceage, once known for its punk music, turned post-punks some years ago. The band released a recently dropped a new single, “Balm of Gilead,” ahead of its North American tour with Black Lips.
The song follows up Iceage’s fourth album Beyondless. The song is available on a split 7″ with Black Lips for purchase exclusively at shows.
Also, The Diplo-fronted band Major Lazer dropped a new Caribbean-peppered single “Blow That Smoke” last month with Swedish pop export Tove Lo.
Got to see these guys at Coachella – woah! (And so much more)
Most of these singles are from recently released albums by said artists. This is a great playlist to listen to in the car or at work. Uninterrupted stream with no commercials.
The December indie rock edition of Fresh Indie Tracks is a special treat with standout singles from a wide cross-section of bands with their own unique attitudes, personas and genre-mixing.
These are some very interesting, under-the-radar tracks and artists we think you’ll dig – especially the more you listen to the tracks.
Molino – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The Women of the Night – Brooklyn, New York
The Flusters – Palm Desert, California
Mikey Mike – Hollywood, California
Para Lia – Cottbus, Germany
Le Corbeau – Oslo, Norway
Fornis – Sacramento, California
Tapes and Tubes – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Amsterdam indie dysto-pop band Molino mixes rock, electronic and avant-garde genres on the band’s new EP, Dodgy Dealings.
Standout singles like the incredible track, “Rorschach Test,” starts out an opening swing-like tempo, but then breaks into a full jazzy indie rock song – complete with orchestra instruments like the Frech horn.
It is a jangly, bright, sing-a-long track, very much experimental and it works. Perhaps hard to pin down exactly, Molino states that their sound is “experimental dysto-pop with a dark, surreal touch.”
As the band says, and we agree, the “reconfigured usage of this uncommon genre-mix draws out the musical tensions between structure and improvisation.”
With something reminiscent of Jagger’s swagger (and a bit resemblance in voice and elocution), Brooklyn ‘decadent sleaze band’ The Women of the Night, breaks out on the latest standout single, “Moscow Mansions.” This is one of the best DIY tracks we’ve heard this month.
TWOTN are a proto punk/glam pop band from the streets of New York by way of Adelaide and Seoul. There sound, as experienced on “Moscow Mansions,” is influenced by the band members’ favorite artists – The Birthday Party, Velvet Underground and Modern Lovers.
This is the first single from the band’s forth coming EP. They have opened for bands like Genesis P-Orridge, Santoros, and Pearl Earl.
California indie rock band The Flusters have accomplished something that few DIY bands can tout. They were named the Best Local Band by the Coachella Valley Independent newspaper in 2015, only a few months after the band’s formation.
The CVI is the local newspaper of the famous Coachella Valley where the world-famous music festival is held each year.
After fests, tours and building a following, The Flusters dropped the single and accompanying video for the song “Everyday Dreaming” from the album Extended Play No. 2.
Now the band is back with a pair of singles, like the soaring melodies, unique instrumentations and sound effects of the dreamy “Time Traveler” and The Smiths meets Vampire Weekend-sounding, “Little Mexico.”
“Going into the studio, if someone told us that ‘Time Traveler’ would feature a vocoder sequence and an orchestral outro, we wouldn’t have believed them,” says band vocalist Dougie VanSan.
“It’s almost like it grew and took shape all on its own. Despite the track being about underwhelming conclusions, we are very pleased with the outcome of this four-minute, sci-fi mini-drama.”
The band members cited a range of great artists like Roy Orbison, Dick Dale, The Beach Boys, The Pixies, and The Smiths as major influences.
Combining vintage guitars (oh yeah!) and more modern pop-rock elements, which the band calls ‘dream surf,’ the washy, hazy sounds, reverb, and driven in part by romantic ballads, one can see why The Flusters have risen so high so fast.
Last year, the Independent readers again voted The Flusters as the best local band and performed at Coachella and the Echo Park Rising Fest in LA.
California DIY artist and musician Mikey Mike (we don’t know his real name) is an unusual dude, to say the least. He has drawn fans with his own brand of what we guess you could call folk-inspired experimental hip-hop, a combo we can’t remember coming across before.
His latest single, “Strange Times,” features acoustic guitars, harmonica, a bass drum and a haunting, soaring chorus – all elements that you don’t usually hear mixed with hip-hop vocal representations.
Only a native boy of the real (that’s ironic) Hollywood could come up with such a moniker, and so far, it seems to have served him well, amassing a fair deal of followers online.
He describes his music as his “own way of turning the often ridiculous realities of modern human life into pure poetry backed by unusual, catchy melodies.”
With creative influences ranging from Kurt Cobain to 50 Cent, and Fleetwood Mac to Yogananda, he claims to
only draw inspiration from revolutionaries.”
In the past couple of years, he has launched a silly, but clever (if you will) campaign to find himself, using social image posts depicting his photo with the caption ‘have you seen this man?’ callouts.
The DIY outfit Para Lia is a newly launched indie/alternative rock project of German musician Rene Methner.
Based in the city of Cottbus, Methner weaves melodic guitars and analog synth-sounds along with creepy-like vocals on his debut single, “Wait.” Reminds us a bit of Editors. The song has a repetitive beat and droning bass, angling, ringing guitars and a mood of impending doom.
The dark, intimate sounds and vocals – a hybrid of indie, alternative rock and darkwave – are apparently the signature of Para Lia. The single, along with others, have garnered him praise online, mostly via Soundcloud.
“I grew up listening to the indie and alternative rock music of the 1990’s and was fascinated by the garage rock of the 1960’s and the powerful performances of Neil Young and Crazy Horse,” he writes.
Methner is a one-man band, writing and singing, and performing guitar, bass, mellotron, keys, and drum programming.
The latest drop from Norweigan band Le Corbeau, titled VI Sun Creeps Up The Wall, is the last in a remarkable trilogy for the band.
Le Corbeau was founded, and is fronted, by professional Oslo musician Øystein Sandsdalen. Sandsdalen played guitar for nearly a decade in the band Serena Maneesh, one of the most successful indie shoegaze bands to come out of Norway in recent years.
The newest single from the third and final album is a menacing, chugging single, “Psycho At The Wheel,” in line with their indie-noir style, according to Sandsdalen.
The band’s cinematic approach combines the elements of art rock with influences like Sonic Youth and Pavement are evident while listening to the single and the album.
Following the release of the second part of the trilogy, Moth On The Headlight, in 2011, Le Corbeau was getting booked for bigger festivals in Norway and toured with popular indie bands like A Place to Bury Strangers.
“Although we call this a trilogy,” says Sandsdalen, “it really is three individual records spanning the past seven to eight years of the band existence.”
All three albums in the trilogy are all quite different in aesthetics and production, ranging from lo-fi-esque to the more hi-fi production of Sun Creeps Up The Wall.
Employing punk elements with sound effects, lo-fi and guitar rock, soccer-rally like choruses and plenty of grit, Sacramento band Fornis can stir up a crowd with their balls-to-the-wall style.
In September the band dropped their new album, Endless Night, featuring the standout track, “He Gave You Good Advice.”
“Our style of music is commonly described by punks as rock and roll, and by metalheads as punk, as it is common for the band to play shows with various genres of bands,” says frontman and guitarist Todd Pittman.
“My personal musical influences are old school punk rock, doo-wop and old rock and roll.”
The band has recently opened for popular indie groups like Shonen Knife and thrash metal legends Trauma.
The bottom end and keyboard accentuation of Fornis is provided by keyboardist Keydragon and drummer Trapper Herzog, both vets of the Northern California music scene.
The band says about the album: it “starts with upbeat and jovial pop punk in Bobby Popadopolous then meandering through to darker songs.”
Long, sparse, even sometimes errie , dream-like compositions, marked by whispered poetry, are the elements that make up the musical MO of Philadelphia artist Austin Potter, aka, Tapes N Tubes.
We’ve been following him for years, even before he moved to Pennsylvania from the midwest, and in that time he has also built up a following of loyal fans who are helping to support his work.
In February, he released a three track EP, featuring the standout “Horse Trailer,” and just a couple of weeks ago the spectacular track, “Cemetary,” with angelic violins in the background of Tapes And Tubes’ newest poem.
The latest Fresh Tracks indie playlist highlights DIY artists and bands including:
Also see our playlists on Spotify1, Spotify2, YouTube and Soundcloud.
New York City solo artist, L. Valerie, who goes by the moniker Electro Pampas, has such a wonderful innocence behind her music and voice, and especially here on the track “Pinch Disco,” which is nothing like the title implies – in that it’s definitely not anywhere close to being disco.
Instead, it’s a sparsely populated track with a high treble (really no bass at all) backbeat, a dulcimer and not much else but Valerie’s cute vocals and repetition of lyrics that colors the song even more with a sense of long-lost innocence regained.
As we were reviewing “Pinch Disco,” the lo-fi, experimental, electro-pop bedroom artist also dropped a split single featuring the needling experimental track, “After Midnight” with John Zealous and “The Feeling” with its understated funky aspect lead by a shaker, a few electric guitar notes and Valerie’s whispery vocals contrasted with Zealous’ deeper tones.
Let’s switch it up. We’ve been following Brooklyn’s The Sleeping Tongues for some time and this is one of the band’s best singles so far – if not the best.
Each time the group drops a new single we can clearly hear the constant improvements in the band members’ playing, style, in their verve and commitment to excellence. Few bands we know switch it up as much as these guys on each subsequent single.
On “Confirmation Bias,” the newest single, there is an unmistakable likeness to Devo combined with a charging and explosive wall of guitars, vocals, drums and bass guitars, synths and keyboards for an all-out sonic assault.
If you live in Brooklyn, catch these guys live – they put on a romp of a show as evidenced by this track.
New England indie rock band Grawlix started out as an informal songwriting experiment that eventually evolved into the current six-piece group.
While the band members still practice in the art of songwriting, they also revel in blending noisy, yet harmonic, pop with rock elements and powerful vocals, as Grawlix’s new track “Born For The Sun” demonstrates.
The song is off of the band’s upcoming new album, Betwixt & Between. It will be their sophomore album and follow-up to the eponymous The Gumball Machine.
For a few years now and counting, we’ve been following the multi-talented Boise, Idaho artist senor Storie Grubb.
This guy, who is also a serious sketch artist, is an entrepreneur of the “open-book philosophy” of indie music – that is, he purposefully sets out to make original music but that also pulls in styles and sounds from all aspects of music and music history. He embraces indie’s implied allowance for creativity. And he is not afraid to totally immerse himself in off-beat, but also clever, indie rock story-telling and playing.
Grubb’s newest single, “asking questions,” (small caps intended) is more evidence in our minds – and we’ve said this in the past – of an under-the-radar musician who deserves to have a bigger following, and a following who has listened to his extensively exciting and engaging discography.
https://soundcloud.com/handlerariott/as-i-am
Chandler Marriott, who apparently uses the pseudonym ‘Handler Ariott’ as well, is a 19-year-old totally DIY one-man band from Boerne, Texas.
This is his latest single, “As I Am.” Pretty good for a kid. We don’t really have any other information on him because he’s just starting out.
https://soundcloud.com/shockmop/big-hit-2
Like so many other bands, Shockmop has been burdened by the constant comparison between its recorded material and live act. The comparison being that they can’t make a living with either.
Regularly rehearsing and recording inside Brooklyn’s acclaimed studio, the Sweatshop, these guys have proven once again that they don’t need to worry about no stinkin’ comparisons. Do what you do right.
The Finnish indie duo Oh For consists of Nicky Hagen (percussion) and J. Gronberg (vocals, guitars).
The guys, who are also both synth players, met in 2008 but only in 2017 did they start to collaborate and enjoyed success with previous bands. Their new song, “Willow Bark,” certainly got our attention for its originality and musicianship.
https://soundcloud.com/thewarroomofficial/01-secret-lovers-mfit-4424
