Best new indie rock songs, indie news, best bands, reviews
Author: IRC Staff
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Indie/alt rock trailblazers Sonic Youth will release a new mini-album of rarities called In/Out/In on March 11th.
The mini-album assembles five previously-unreleased tracks recorded between 2000 and 2010.
The songs on the new EP were recorded in a number of locations across the country in the early 2000s.
“Basement Contender” and “Machine” were recorded in the Sonic Youth rehearsal room in Northampton, Massachusetts (homebase since forever). During the scrappy, long sessions also emerges “The Eternal.”
The track “In & Out” was recorded in Pomona, California while “Out & In” was recorded in Echo Canyon, New Jersey with Jim O’Rourke , who also performed on “Social Static”.
A passage by the band on their Bandcamp page addresses the amount of ‘rarities’ they still have to go through: “…it’s a massive mountain to chip away at in the sense of the group output alone; individual members’ projects are a whole other game, needless to say. ‘In/Out/In’ ably delivers a new slab of mostly-unheard Sonic righteousness, with a scope on the post 2000-era band in especially zoned/exploratory regions.”
“‘In/Out/In’ ably delivers a new slab of mostly-unheard Sonic righteousness… ” – Sonic Youth
The release of five additional previously unreleased ‘rarities’ from the band follows their 2020 Bandcamp album Raritites 1 featuring a dozen previously-unreleased rarities.
In/Out/In Tracklist: 1 Basement Contender 2 In & Out 3 Machine 4 Social Static 5 Out & In
Irish indie rock bands like Fontaine DC and Silverbacks headline IRC’s first bi-monthly best new singles report of 2022.
We also just posted our Best Songs of 2021 – 125 amazing tracks from the best indie and non-indie albums of the year (and it was a blockbuster year for albums!). Plus, new music from Pavement, Spiritualized and Holodrum.
Dublin indie rockers Fontaines DC just announced a new album Skinty Fia for release this spring. The first new single from the band’s forthcoming third album is the driving first single “Jackie Down The Line”.
There’s confusion about the title of the album swirling around. Basically ‘skinty fia’ is an expletive, but historically it’s an Irish phrase that translates to ‘the damnation of the deer.’ Over time, the original meaning has been Anglicized and diluted.
The band have also announced a North American tour for this spring along with fellow Irish band Just Mustard.
Fontaines DC is one of the hottest Irish indie rock bands of the past half decade. The band members are Grian Chatten, Carlos O’Connell, Conor Curley, Conor Deegan III, and Tom Coll.
Silverbacks start ’22 wih latest single from Archive Material
Irish indie band Silverbacks kick off 2022 with the fourth single, “A Job Worth Something”, from the Archive Material album due out later this month.
“A Job Worth Something” is latest single drop and their first new material of the year. The previous three singles dropped include “Rolodex City”, “Archive Material” and “Wear My Medals”.
“For most of the pandemic I lived with my sister who is a healthcare worker and was working in the designated Covid hospital in St James’ Dublin,” says frontman Daniel O’Kelly. “Unfortunately, I was far less heroic, writing copy for a car insurance company.”
“This song is about feeling embarrassed about how different our lives were at this time,” O’Kelly adds. “When it comes to telling my grandchildren what all this was like, I’ll be telling them about my sisters who have more important stories to share.”
Archive Material drops officially on January 21 .
Pavement drops ‘new’ single from massive Terror Twilight re-issue
As one of the clear purveyors of the indie/alt rock sound slack rockers Pavement will drop a deluxe reissue of Terror Twilight in February with three previously unreleased songs. Here is one of them: “Be The Hook”. Thoughts?
Matador Records will release the reissue on April 8th. According to the label, the reissue will reincarnate producer Nigel Goodrich‘s (Beck, Radiohead) original track listing suggestion along with Pavement’s final track order.
The four LP/2-CD editions will also include a book featuring previously unreleased photos and notes. Obviously, a must-have for die-hard Pavement fans.
The reissue includes a stunning 45 tracks and a remastering of the original album, as well as B-sides, rehearsal tapes, live recordings, home demos, rehearsal tapes, live recordings and sessions – such as recordings from a scrapped session at Sonic Youth’s Echo Canyon studio. In all, the compilation offers 28 unreleased tracks, including “Be The Hook.”
The LP will restore Terror‘s producer Nigel Goodrich (Radiohead, Beck) suggested sequence, yet the new CD will preserve the final track order lined up by Pavement.
U.K. indie trailblazers Spiritutalized drop second single
Ahead of the release of their forthcoming new album, long-time English space rockers Spiritualized unveiled a video for the fresh single, “Crazy.”
The single follows the release of the first single, and opener, “Always Together With You” from the upcoming album release, Everything Was Beautiful, set to drop February 25 on Fat Possum.
For 30 years, Spiritualized, easily one of the U.K.’s first popular ‘indie’ bands, has remained innovative and relevant. The new country-soul single features backing vocals from Nikki Lane. Directing the video – and inspired by Andy Warhol’s 60’s silent film, Kiss – frontman Jason Pierce, a.k.a., J Spaceman.
Speaking of ‘crazy’, the album was recorded in 11 different studios over a couple of years. Pierce plays 16 different instruments on the album with help from some 30 invited musicians, including choirs, chimes, brass and string section and finger bells.
“I felt like I’d been in training for this my whole life,” Pierce said in a statement. “There was so much information on it that the slightest move would unbalance it, but going around in circles is important to me.
“Not like you’re spiraling out of control but you’re going around and around and on each revolution you hold onto the good each time. Sure, you get mistakes as well, but you hold on to some of those too and that’s how you kind of… achieve. Well, you get there.”
Holodrum drops debut single “Free Advice”
Shimmering with disco-like electro-pop, U.K. supergroup Holodrum has drop the debut single, “Free Advice”. The track is layered and complex and atmospheric.
“When it comes to doing music, most bands fall between two extremes of doing it for some goal or as an end to itself,” says guitarist/vocalist Sam Shjipstone. “I think Holodrum is about the joy and complexity of living, and I just hope to god everyone gets to have a good time doing it.”
“[Free Advice] expresses the state of feeling invincible in the face of adversity,” says lead vocalist Emily Garner, “and acts quite explicitly as a piece of good advice, applicable to anyone that’s gone out of their way just to harsh your vibe.”
The accompanying video is steep deep in technicolour with 8-bit animation. “[It] mostly includes things we miss and love about being in a band. Namely jamming, travelling, seeing stuff and enjoying the local delicacies. Iced in a candy-core palette, the video art is a motion collage of 2D, 2.5D and isometric 3D graphics.” shares the group.
“Free Advice” is out now and the debut album drops February 25.
For her new Bjork cover of “All is Full of Love,” indie musician and singer Rosie Thomas enlisted an ‘indie’ all-star cast of guest vocalists for a virtual choir, including Sufjan Stevens, The Shins, Iron & Wine, Alexi Murdoch, Charily Theilen, Kanene Pipkin, William Fitzsimmons, Dawn Landes, and a bunch of others.
The cover track is off of the Lullabies For Parents Vol 1 EP, a “multimedia series of resources, entertainment, and encouragement for parents of all ages featuring music, podcast, videos, essays, assorted content and community that promotes finding common ground, connection, and comfort.”
The song is undeniably beautiful rolling through cycles of choir infusions. The problem is, however, that it is difficult to hear the full force of all of those voices as a listener would expect.
Nonetheless, and to be fair, unless you’re seeing the choir, or virtual choir, at the same time (like the famous Live Aid video from the 80s) then everyone’s voices pretty much get drown out, not to mention the music.
Perhaps one of the things that Quincy Jones did brilliantly with the song, and video, was to record them at the same time, in the studio. But even more than that, Jones realized the ‘drowning out’ effect and therefore had individual solos for a number of the top vocalists of the time – MJ, Bruce, Bono, Michael Stipe, etc.
Death Cab for Cutie, David Byrne, Yo La Tengo, Japanese Breakfast, Sharon Van Etten and the Flaming Lips.
A festival line-up?
Nope. Rather the group of top indie artists all came together for the new album Ocean Child: Songs of Yoko Ono a compilation tribute album “imagined and curated” by Death Cab’s Benjamin Gibbard and set to drop Feb. 18, Ono’s 89th birthday.
Also featured on the album of covers are US Girls, Jay Som, Stephin Merritt (of Magnetic Fields), Thao, Deerhoof; Sudan Archives, We Are King and Amber Coffman.
Byrne and Yo La Tengo’s cover of “Who Has Seen the Wind” is out now:
A portion of the album’s proceeds will go to WhyHunger, a non-profit organization Ono supports. WhyHunger builds social justice and food networks to combat the roots of hunger and poverty.
Over the years, Ono has released a sizeable number of her own singles and albums that have made a variety of charts.
“As an advocate, the tallest hurdle to clear has always been the public’s ignorance as to the breadth of Yoko’s work,” he continued. “To put it into context, this is an artist whose output has run the gamut from avant-garde to bubblegum pop, often across a single album.
“For years, it has been my position that her songwriting has been criminally overlooked. She has consistently created melodies as memorable as those of best pop writers. As a lyricist, she has always written with poignance, sophistication and deep introspection.””
Veteran indie rockers Eels have shared a new bouncy and upbeat single “Amateur Hour.” The track is the fourth advance from the band’s upcoming 14th studio album. The LP, Extreme Witchcraft, is set to drop officially on January 28th.
Previously, Eels released the tracks ’The Magic”, “Steam Engine” and “Good Night On Earth.”
Frontman Mark ‘E’ Oliver Everett co-produced the album with alt rocker PJ Harvey and producer/guitarist John Parish. It is the first time Parish and E have worked together since 2001’s Souljacker release.
“John Parish is one of the most even-tempered, polite people I’ve ever met,” E said in a statement. ” A true gentleman. Actually he’s probably THE most polite person I’ve ever met. But when he gets into the studio he becomes a mad scientist.
“If you make music with John Parish, you get stuff no one else does. He has a really unique toolbox and musical outlook. Perhaps his politeness is a coping mechanism to keep Mr. Hyde under control when he’s out of his laboratory.”
Eels will head to the UK and Ireland in March for a tour starting in Belfast on March 11 and concluding on March 18 at the O2 Guildhall in Southampton before starting their European tour.
The final DIY top ten songs playlist for 2021 has dropped. Right here. And it’s a superb one.
In fact, many of the artists and bands in this particular Top 10 are also some of our top Artists/Bands to Watch in 2022. More on that in the ensuing days.
We’ve carefully listened to hundreds and hundreds of submissions this year (not to mention all of the non-submission releases), and shared those throughout the year via posts and top 10 playlists.
In the playlist below, you’re going to find a lot of nice little goodies (surprises?) from artists and bands you’ve probably never heard of before, including YEN Strange; Poploader; Connor Eko; New Moons; Loops & Loops; Andrew LaVogue; Nick County (see Nick’s album in IRC’s Overlooked Albums of 2021); Alisha Liston; Blunt Bangs and Carnation Blue.
NOTE: As with many of our playlists, we are going to use Spotify stream counts to rank No. 1 to No. 10 as much as possible (unless a song is so internally loved we’ll pump it up the count regardless) for the sequential order of the tracks. You decide which are your favorites.
Recently we came across the fascinating indie folk/alt country music of Miami musician Nicolas Mencia who uses the moniker ‘Nick County’.
Having listened to Mencia’s latest album, A Colorful Corner of Northeastern Pennsylvania, more than a half dozen times at this point, it is convincingly one of the best folk/alt. country rock albums of 2021 most people never heard of.
Mencia’s amazing recording is a collection of 13 wonderfully-written and composed tracks featuring soaring violins (“Jesus is Dead”); the cheerful piano keys on the sentimental “Going Back” (which reminds us of Kurt Vile); the upbeat melodies and unforgettable rhythym of “Stormtown”, not to mention the heartbreaking ballad, “Your Pain Tears Me Apart.”
Unlike his previous two albums, Mencia added indie pop and folk influences on his record as songs like “Stormtown” so vividly demonstrate.
Colorful was released on Public Works Department Records which Mencia co-founded. Based in Miami he considers his fellow artists on the label as his best friends who subordinate musical genre to the pursuit of songwriting.
Americana-UK writer Lyndon Bolton wrote: “‘Daddy’s Robe’ is a vivid insight into a tragic life with intense arrangements that just hold together. ’Dreamland Hotel’ has a very Brit feel, The Kinks come to mind as [Mencia] duets with his principal collaborator, Rick Moon, daring each other into oblivion: But I’ll buy the champagne/ We can toast to your pain/ Sign your name on the line and we’ll have a good time.
Mencia’s range of styles, genres and emotions is quite impressive and no doubt one of his strongest skills, a good second to his remarkable songwriting abilities.
A number of mixed-genre acoustic numbers include the sing-along “O Sailor” and the two minute and fifteen second number “Whiter Than A Ghost,” not to mention the touchingly beautiful “Prayer For You” as well as the provocative “John Silver.” Thankfully, Mencia saved one of his acoustic gems, “Denny’s Dream,” for the closing track. Nice!
When Mencia lost his father in 2019, there was a “rush of pain and profound sadness” that levelled anything he thought he had known. The fact that the two had been estranged for many years only compounded Mencia’s sense of loss.
With these emotions also came a “deep desire to reconcile” not only with his “fathers ghost,” but also the small town where Mencia grew up, and his lapsed relationship with god.
A ‘journeyman songwriter’ and a self-described ‘lifelong student of country music hailing from little havana,’ Mencia’s second album, Cocorico Simpatico Corazon, was a family affair.
He recorded in Miami and LA with a collection of old compadres and played with bands such as Gemma, Vampire Weekend, Krisp, Rick Moon, Jacuzzi Boys, and Jeff The Brotherhood.
Mencia lists his top musical influences as Hank Williams, Lucinda Williams, Neko Case, Townes Van Zandt, among others.
Alt-J returns to the music video feed with the exciting new single “Hard Drive Gold.”
The track is an advance from the trio’s highly anticipated new LP, The Dream, set to drop on February 11th.
“‘Hard Drive Gold’ is a slightly tongue-in-cheek song written at what we thought was the height of the cryptocurrency gold rush,” Newman says.
t“It’s the story of the ultimate childhood fantasy, the schoolboy who becomes a millionaire overnight, and the different interactions he has with people in his life from teachers to neighbours.”
The video single drop was preceeded by the singles “U&ME” and “Get Better.”
The release of the video marks Alt-J’s Joe Newman’s directorial debut with co-direction from his partner Darcy Wallace.
The Flaming Lips and 14-year-old musician Nell Smith have returned with cover of Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand.”
The cover comes from Smith and the band’s Nick Cave covers album, Where the Viaduct Looms, released back in November.
Backdropped with a psychedelic light screen, and with members of The Lips faded into the background, Smith takes center stage coupled with her beautifully-mature vocals and presence.
The performance, captured live on CBS, is the latest in a series of videos, including a stunning cover of Cave’s “Ship Song” dropped in November.
At the end of the performance for “Red Right Hand,” drummer Matthew Kirksey reveals a t-shirt which reads ‘Bad Seed.’
I hadn’t heard of Nick Cave but Wayne suggested that we should start with an album of his cover versionsNell Smith
Where the Viaduct Looms features nine Nick Cave covers performed by Smith and The Flaming Lips.
“I hadn’t heard of Nick Cave but Wayne suggested that we should start with an album of his cover versions, and then look at recording some of my own songs later,” Smith said about being asked to record with the band. “It was cool to listen and learn about Nick Cave and pick the songs we wanted to record.”
The record features “Red Right Hand,” plus previously released covers “The Ship Song” and “Girl in Amber,” among others.
The band and Smith first met at a Flaming Lips concert where Wayne Coyne offered the mic to Smith who was seated in the front. Apparently, Coyne heard something special in her voice.
Interesting, the album’s front cover referencing only “Nell” without even a mention of The Flaming Lips. View it and listen to the stream via Bandcamp.
The Top 10 Indie Songs for November 2021 highlights the best, and most popular, singles from some of November’s best album releases – and from 2021 in general.
Over the past few months, many of these singles have had time to really make the rounds on millions of speakers and buds. They include releases from MUNYA, Matt Pond PA; Ovlov; Holly Humberstone; Black Marble; The Flaming Lips and Nell Smith; Courtney Barnett; Snail Mail; Deap Vally with jennylee and Gov’t Mule.
Since we love so many of the songs in the Top 10, selecting the No.1 track is almost impossible.
Therefore, we are going to default and use Spotify’s number of recorded plays to rank these tracks – which were already going to make our Top 10 for the month regardless of the number of plays.
From that batch of tracks (which can be dozens), the number of plays helps whittle it down to ten tracks and to make more sense of a playlist that would otherwise be ten fresh songs in no particularly helpful order.
It’s up to you to choose which of our top 10 tracks you dig the most. D
Listen to the previous months’ Top 10 Songs playlists to discover more talented artists and bands from across the globe.
Number of Streams at Publish Time
12.8M holly 3.8M snail mail 3.4M court 500K govt mule 432K marble 372K deep 296k muny 219K lips 162K ovlov 3.9K matt
As another year winds to a close, more diy/indie music videos from our submission box are being uncovered.
Here are some more of our favorite 2021 indie music videos that came from the box.
Check out our latest video posts for more and subscribe to IndieRockTV.
This playlist features 2021 video singles from PLSR; Adar Alfandari, POENO, Braison Cyrus and Fortitude Valley.
WHO: PLSR featuring Brandon Mordecai (Keys and Synths); Andrew Royal (Guitar); Joel Kaiser (Vocals) WHAT: Video/single “Heat” from Pleaser WHERE: Nashville, TN WHEN: Aug. 28 2021 GENRE(S): rock,pop,lofi,synt,altr
Nashville-based virtual band, PLSR, presents the fourth single, “Heat,” off of their upcoming EP, Pleaser.
The song integrates synthetic elements from Mordecai and wonderfully mangled guitars from Royal to create a bubbly, lo-fi bed for the vocals of frontman Joel Kaiser.
According to the band, “Heat”‘s lyrics “explore the sudden onset of claustrophobia in a close relationship.”
Self-identified as “a dadaist alt-rock group” the trio formed PLSR in 2019 to write songs about three fictional characters living on a space ship PLSR.
The songs chronicle “the various misadventures of Zyon, Jasper, and Dez” caught in a dystopian future. The bands top influences include Gorillaz, Radiohead, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
instagram.com/plsrmusic
WHO: Adar Alfandari WHAT: “Wonder” single and video from Gold Dust WHERE: Rehovot, Israel WHEN: July 31, 2021 GENRE(S): pop,folk,altf
Adar Alfandari is a 25 y/o singer-songwriter from Rehovot, Israel who writes music in both Hebrew and English in various genres- mainly indie-rock and folk.
His debut album, Gold Dust, is an anthology of writings revolving around Alfandari’s languages and genres. He says “Wonder” is “the album’s "love song" written in my own kind of way, and is more of an indie-pop song, with a C part that gives it an alternative twist.”
Alfandari previously played with Dor Hamabul along with his brother. They released an album, gigged around Israel and received a number of good indicators.
He is a fan of, and influenced by, musical artists and bands like Hozier, The tallest man on earth, The Arcs, Arctic Monkeys, and Father John Misty.
instagram.com/adaralfa/
WHO: POENO WHAT: “Alive” Song and Music Video (Lived by… (EP)) WHERE: Dublin, Ireland WHEN: June 6, 2021 GENRE(S): alt, rock
“We are outsiders done with old, useless, ill-fitting moulds,” says Dublin guitarist and vocalist Adam Matthews together with his bandmate and multi-instrumentalist Liam Corbett.
“We find turning points even in the most difficult of times. We can take control and cast-off oppositional forces. We can declare that we are here, awake, and new. We can begin again, alive.”
That sounds like a pandemic breakdown, and breakthrough, of sorts.
“We write songs out of our own necessity. There is an urgency in the expression… simmering in electronic soundscapes while anthemic statements coalesced.”
The duo dropped their Lived By EP in August. They are influenced primarily by Kate Bush, Matthew Good, Joni Mitchell, Trent Reznor, Depeche Mode, and Radiohead.
instagram.com/phoenomusic/
WHO: Fortitude Valley featuring Laura Kovic (vocals, guitar, key); Daniel Ellis (lead guitar); Greg Ullyart (bass); Nathan Stephens Griffin (drums) WHAT: “Cassini” music video WHEN: September 24, 2021 WHERE: Durham, United Kingdom GENRE(S): rock,pop
The video single “Cassini” is a scorching mix of slacker-rock and power-pop that the band says recalls “the eponymous satellite’s lonely final days and fiery self-sacrifice,” referring to the 2017 expiration of the Cassini-Huygens space research mission that began in 1997.
The four-piece band, known as Fortitude Valley, is a dynamic outlet for the songwriting talents of Durham-based Brisbanite Laura Kovic.
Having spent the majority of her musical career playing keyboards in various bands, Kovic’s awkward power-pop sound will likely be welcomed by fans of The Beths, Weezer or The Weakerthans. Martha’s Daniel Ellis on lead guitar and Nathan Stephens Griffin on drums along with Night Flowers’ Greg Ullyart on bass.
instagram.com/valleyfortitude
Braison Cyrus – “Disappear”
If you’re looking for an easy-going Americana-flavored singer-songwriter, and you don’t already know Nashville artist Braison Cyrus‘ music, check out this track and more of his music online.
For us, the fact that his parents are celebrities – and he is one himself in his own right – does not calculate into assessing his music one way or another.
The opening energy of his song, “Disappear,” is touching, but once the steel guitar and the piano enter the picture, well then, it’s a different level of good – it’s great.
Altogether, the track feels like it’s from another era but with a modern production aesthetic that really makes it pop beautifully. The story is about faithfulness to someone in the midst of the everyday grind – its salt-of-the-earth philosophy and country-rock charm make it a keeper.
This new alternative Christmas song – “My Boyfriend is a Snowman” – is a full-band production including drums, guitars and pianos from London indie outfit Winterbrook.
“At first listen, it is a magical Christmas song like many others (“Frosty the Snowman”, “Walking in the Air” etc); because, well, the singer´s boyfriend is a snowman,” says frontman TJ Winterbrook.
Between the lines, however, the singer´s journey through bad relationships (which has led her to choose a snowman) is revealed to us. It is not clear if the snowman is inanimate, animate or perhaps animate only in her own mind. But this doesn´t really matter. What matters is a celebration of the here and now, without worrying too much about tomorrow.
“In a world that finds itself in a constant state of nail-biting anxiety about what might happen tomorrow,” Winterbrook adds, “this is a refreshing message that is perfect for the one time of the year where we can allow allow a little magic into our lives.”
The melody of the tune is soulful while the musical arrangement is an upbeat and acoustic until an electric guitar jumps in right before the song descends back into a dreamy conclusion.
“This is rather restrained; you will see on the other Winterbrook releases “(I Won´t Be Your) Christmas Turkey” and “Polar Bear for Christmas” how we like a guitar solo” and his firm belief that guitar solos deserve to enjoy Christmas the same as everyone else.
Winterbrook has his roots in Britpop and post-grunge and has been a vocalist in various rock bands over the years. Although he never quite found his ‘musical happy place,’ the right formula for moving forward as a musician. After a hiatus from music to work a “proper job”, the bleak Christmas of 2020 compelled Winterbrook to write some Christmas songs.
A whirlwind of composition, recording and producing ensued, as Winterbrook found himself driven by an unknown force to “change Christmas music for the better.” His musical project has grown to include collaborations with musicians across the globe. His songs are part pop, rock, and soul and have found listeners across the globe.
