Always a bit of a smaller week for submissions directly after the masses received in and around ‘Bandcamp Be Nice’ day…but at least they tend to be fresh, brand new music, rather than a track from a 2012 EP with an extra semi quaver on the final bar (is that even a thing…?).

Either way, only 16 tracks this week but oozing genuine quality…remember please support these acts and your other favourite indie artists, with any fiscal purchases of their music and/or social media love that you can muster. Let’s do our bit to help them through these gigless, face-hanky times.

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Swiss Portrait

Track:  Find My Way  From:  Find My Way (single)  Label:  Willow Records Out:  Now

For those that love the whole jangly melancholic dream-pop sound of Community Swimming Pool, this fellow Scot accentuates the jangle and adds just a touch of surf to the best of ‘Scottish Melancolia’.

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Family Mart

Track:  Starlite  From:  Starlite (single)  Label:  Self released Out:  Album out 23.10.20

Third single from the new project of Mike Lee (Fanclub and Letting Up Despite Great Faults). With precious indie-pop vocals juxtaposed against the slightest of a dense post-punk nuances, Family Mart tick just about every melancolic beauty box imaginable.

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The Tisburys

Track:  Broken Wing  From:  Sun Goes Down (album)  Label:  Self released Out:  Album out 23.10.20

The beautiful, traditional 80’s jangle-pop sound, of The Miracle Legion with a definite sense Americana proudly strutting around. The three singles off the forthcoming album promise that it will be one to satisfy the genre’s purists.

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Voluptuous Panic

Track:  Sun Is Shining  From:  Sun Is Shining (single)  Label:  Self released Out:  Now

With a juxtaposition of Dayflower style dream-pop and Mazzy Star sultry, Washington’s Voluptuous Panic wrap everything in a beautiful sense of cinematic  epic.

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Hamburger

Track:  Supersad  From:  Teenage Terrified (EP)  Label:  Specialist Subject Records Out:  EP out 11 December 2020.

Accentuating the long standing Bristolian tradition of alt.jangle, Hamburger are the latest brilliant, jangly lo-fi rock act out of the City’s Specialist Subject Records label.

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Baby Combat

Track:  Difficult But True  From:  12 (album)  Label:  Self released Out:  Album release date TBA

Fuzz-laden beauty that enables just the right amount of melodic to permeate the aural texture. After the brilliance of their recent Hana Was A Wrestler single, all follow buttons are firmly pressed to ensure I don’t miss the release of the forthcoming album.

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Olivia Rafferty

Track:  When You Walk In  From:  When You Walk In (single)  Label:  Self released Out:  Now

With the cool of Soccer Mommy and the sweetness of Baby Girl, this London based chanteuse weaves beauty out of a lyrical tapesty of jumbled, break up emotions.

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The Soods

Track:  Begonias  From:  Ornaments of Affection (album)  Label:  GTG Records Out:  Now

Left field lo-fi jangle / Americana crossover, that typifies an album that reveals itself, after repeated listens, to be the ‘ultimate grower’. Truly laconic, blue collar beauty, from this Grand Rapids, Michigan, based act.

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Albino Ski Monks

Track:  Kiss Me  From:  Kiss Me (single)  Label:  Self released Out:  Now

Garage rock, that shakes off slight alt. country inflections as the track develops and dives head long into hidden melodies amid fuzz-rock. Four minutes of total dynamism.

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Elephant

Track:  Midnight In Manhatten  From:  Midnight in Manhatten (single)  Label:  Self released Out:  Now

Wilco / Big Thief style, laconic introspection, juxtaposed against buoyant jangled, pop melodies. The perfect antithesis from this Dutch act.

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mybittersweetheart

Track:  When Moon Sleeps  From:  When Moon Sleeps (single)  Label:  Self released Out:  Now

Lo-fi jangly aesthetic that drips in so much melancholy that you might be tempted to dump it in the emo bin…if it was not just so intensely beautiful.

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Silkwood

Track:  Only A Whisper  From:  Only A Whisper (single)  Label:  Self released Out:  Now

Londoner, doing indie-folk very much his own way, coursing twisted alt.jangled riffs through the most of precious of lo-fi nuances. Truly stunning.

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Ethan Gold

Track:  The Last Dive  From:  The Last Dive (single)  Label:  Elektrik Gold Out:  Now

Having been signed by The Orchard (part of Sony), Los Angeles based, San Franciscan, Ethan Gold, looks set to continue receiving the critical acclaim that bubbling, guitar driven, contempo pop, tracks like this one deserve.

With his new Earth City album out in mid-2021, this artist is one that will really be able to put 2020 behind him! 

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Sunstack Jones

Track:  How It All Went Down  From:  Golden Repair (album)  Label:  Mai 68 Records Out:  Now

Psyche rock that stays firmly rooted in 60’s west coast melodies, rather than drifting into the wizard’s armpit territory of all this new wave Australian stuff. Perfect psyche, to accompany the very concept of the sunny day. 

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Majak Door

Track:  Will She Leave You  From:  Will She Leave You (single)  Label:  Off Tap Records Out:  Now

Flirting with all things De Marco but remaining firmly in surf territories, Melbourne’s Majak Door’s latest single is undoubtedly their finest ear-worm yet.

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Dream Suicides

Track:  King  From:  Reflections of Ourselves in Scars Within Others (album)  Label:  Self released Out:  Now

Unapologetic, melancolic shoegaze…but simultaneously the joy of total beauty, from the solo project of the incredibly talented, Daniel Romero.

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Moving Kvitova

Track:  Pipeline Daisy  From:  805​-​64 / Pipeline Daisy (single)  Label:  Self released Out:  Now

Old school surf rock with the slightest of an alt spaghetti western feel. Feels like the lost track from a Tarantino movie.