Last week, COOL HEAT  – also known as the solo project of Chicago-based musician and photographer Eden Sierotnik –  released his stunning sophomore album Abandon. It is follow up to Sierotnik’s remarkable debut album Nowhere released back in 2022 as well as his EP Permanence released last summer. Both releases, meticulous, maximalist, modern dream pop ..read more

Back in April, beach novels released their excellent sophomore album Flowers From Your Garden. The Mississippi-based quintet’s sound is an ethereal, yet concentrated blend of dream pop and post punk, incredibly similar to the breathless nuance of Turnover and Hotline TNT. Of course, their approach and execution is all their own, with passionate instrumentals and ..read more

Phantom Handshakes is the NY-based lofi dream pop duo of Matt Sklar and Federica Tassano. Their third album, Sirens at Golden Hour, follow-up to their sophomore album A Passport To Remain back in 2022, will be released this August, right in time for the dissolution of summer into fall. In fact, both the title of the album as well as the date of its release are apt, for the duo has repeatedly encapsulated nostalgia, warmth, and longing in their previous releases; “Good Intentions,” the album’s first single, is no exception. The duo explained the meaning behind the song: “The track explores ho ..read more

Today, COOL HEAT  – also known as the solo project of Chicago-based musician and photographer Eden Sierotnik –  shares the stunning single “Not My Fault.” Following “Real Life” back in December, it’s the second new single from Abandon, Sierotnik’s upcoming sophomore album, follow up to his remarkable debut album Nowhere released back in 2022 as well as his excellent EP Permanence released last summer. We described Permanence as meticulous, maximalist, modern dream pop that – oscillating between shoegaze, coldwave, and synthwave – ultimately represented endlessness, solidifying it as ..read more

Later this summer, Brooklyn-based indie rock quintet Ok Cowgirl will release their debut album Couldn’t Save Us From My Gut. Led by singer/songwriter Leah Lavigne, the band’s debut will be about “ self-empowerment in a variety of contexts – romantic love, societal obligation, how merciless a day in America can be – and working to parse their own truth from a tangle of inherited noise.” Following their first single “Little Splinters,” their recent single “Forever,” released this week, is somewhat of an anti-love song, a ballad about falling out of love, not into it. Specifically, it’s about va ..read more

Seattle-based duo glass egg is the project of songwriter/musician Emilia Glaser and collaborator Julian Stefanzick. The duo met in college back in 2017 and quickly became friends; two years later, Glaser would bring in Stefanzick to play bass for glass egg, which was their existing solo performance project. Though evoking the ethereal, intensely emotive tones of bands like Beach House and Weyes Blood, glass egg is in a space all their own, amalgamating dream pop, shoegaze, and freak folk. “Choke” the duo’s gorgeous debut single, is about “breaking free from someone who is destructive, accompa ..read more

Earlier this week, Swiss Portrait – also known as the solo dream pop project of Michael Kay Terence – released his gorgeous new single “Worries.” The track is the second single from his upcoming sophomore album out later this year, and the latest from the Edinburgh-based artist since his wonderful debut album The Crippling Pain of Happiness released last summer. Recording, mixing, and producing everything in his bedroom studio, there has always been an equal emphasis on craft and intimacy in Terence’s work, resulting in a uniquely expansive, ethereal, and gorgeously endless sound that has bec ..read more

Earlier this week, Butter Bath – aka the psychedelic dream pop project from Sydney-based multi-instrumentalist Toby Anagnostis – released the stunning single “My Love,” featuring fellow dream pop artist Jermango Dreaming. From his bedroom studio, Anagnostis is meticulous when it comes to his compositions; directing all parts of the process, his music is a “sincerely raw and undiluted insight into his psyche,” with songs that, in their impeccable production, gorgeously maintain their intrigue (his 2021 EP Spectator is still on perpetual rotation for me, and I wish I could hear his single “You ..read more

Today, Hana Vu shares her brilliant new album Romanticism. The follow-up to the stunning Public Storage, the album is described as a “contemplative, coming-of-age indie-pop that mourns the impermanence of youth,” with narratives that  unafraid to consider the existential side of identity and the true depth of affect and emotion, showcasing “how thrilling it can be to look directly at our feelings, to sing their sorrows and praise.” Vu explained that the “nexus of this album is indulging in these sad feelings, indulging in the senses,” and this occurs both in narrative and composition ali ..read more

Last week, alt-pop artist Kai Bosch released his new EP Love, Throw Me A Bone. Bosch’s music is inspired by “articulating feeling rather than any particular genre,” and as part of that articulation, prioritizes narrative. In that regard, Love, Throw Me A Bone is, according to Bosch, “a diaristic real-time account of my breakup with my first long-term boyfriend;” “like the relationship itself,” he continued, the album is “sometimes messy, sometimes beautiful, sometimes oversharing, but always heartbreaking.” In that sense, “Wishbone,” the EP’s closer, is something of a final chapter, but also ..read more