Those of you that have been following the blog and our social media over the last five years will know that I am the grinchiest of grinches when it comes to all things Christmas music and it’s sickeningly twee guff.

This cover of The Pretenders‘ 2000 Miles by Sheffield’s Adam Van der Veer and Tommy Wilson’s bedroom-pop project seems determined to prove to me that All I Want for Christmas is the Dukla Prague Away Kit by Half Man Half Biscuit is not the only worthwhile Xmas music ever, with its tiny, incidental jangled riffs and plaintive vocals flitting through subtle fuzz-laden production.

All proceeds go to local Sheffield based charities.

I have been totally enamoured by The Sensitive since the Shiny Happy Records cassette label released their EP, Do Everything or Else Yourself, in May 2021.

To my knowledge, this Disagreement single (and the equally as perfect Shall Thou Be A Sellout b-side) out of the Indonesian Disanorak label is their first single since June 2022’s brilliant Mono Donkey (out of the Let’s Kiss A Secret label…they love a label change!).

All potted Sarah Records style jangle in aural texture, and as vocally fluffy as the recent Letniy sound, this act is probably just a full-length album away from becoming the next “big” thing among the “little” indie blogs that matter.

This Jackpot track is the initial single to be released from a Blush EP that Galore will be releasing in collaboration with Safe Suburban Home Records and Paisley Shirt Records on December 16, 2022.

Galore have the kind of aesthetic that just fits so perfectly onto both labels’ rosters, combining the whirring, playful organ of The Clean’s Beatnik/Slug Song era with nervy and timid, jangly indie-pop introspection.

There seems to have been something of a shift in aesthetic between the slight gaze inflections of the debut Mild Anxiety EP in April 2020 and the wonk-pop of the Sleep While You Can EP in March 2021.

Here, Portland’s Alex Schiff takes his Blue Canopy solo recording project towards the plaintive, emotional jangly indie-pop of the Trembling Blue Stars-meets-Dayglow sound, with a Bright Spot single out of Grind Select that could well be destined to be a late entry into the year-end “best ofs.”

Melbourne’s Grazer offer a sound for those who like humble melodies, sparse arrangements, and warm emotional vocals, augmented by subtle jangling riffs.

This One Another single is the sort of indie-pop the mature gravitate towards when the quest to appear cool has finally been accomplished courtesy of the realization that it does not really matter who thinks what of you. Aduly Pop for pop connoisuers if you will.

This Drowner 16th track is the B-side to the Losing You single that April Magazine released in collaboration with Chicago’s Radical Documents label in early December 2022.

Probably like to appeal to fans of the recent The Gaby’s release this is all fuzz, reverb, distortion and retro-production and perfectly indiscernible vocals all all amalgamated to offer strange hypnotic beauty.