Convinced Friend • Robitussin • 2026

convincedfriend.com

“The band captures a swampy, heat-drenched collective chemistry, managing to sound shaggy and loose while careening along the track’s winding grooves.” - Under the Radar

 

“An intimacy underlined by a certain sense of disbelief” - Various Small Flames

 

“... An introspective folk record with balls, sort of like if Pedro the Lion pushed ‘Control’ even further, or maybe like Good Looks, more recently.” - Austin Town Hall

 

“blown-out folksy rock" - Post Trash

 

"Austin Wilson might be Providence based, but he hasn’t forgotten his roots in Houma, Louisiana and the people he grew up alongside, the people he left behind.” - Americana UK

So Faint • Fully Slow • 2026

So Faint is the collaborative project of Lyn Heinemann and Hannah Georgas, born from a chance encounter in a Vancouver recording studio and shaped by a decade-long friendship. After years on separate paths, with Lyn stepping away from bands, but still writing music for herself and Hannah building an acclaimed international music career that has recently seen her join Broken Social Scene for their latest LP Remember The Humans, the two reunited in 2023 to create the music they’d been quietly missing. 

 

https://sofaint.com/

https://groupspeed.lnk.to/SoFaint

Brother Bird • “Landlord” • 2026

 

“'Landlord”'was in a big pile of songs I started in 2023," Glaser says of the track. "I had just turned 29 and was essentially starting over. Most painful, beautiful, necessary year of my life. I was bopping around between friend’s guest rooms and my parent’s basement in St. Louis. Writing is genuinely all I wanted to do. This was one of the first that came out that really excited me… I started playing the little arpeggiated synth line & just let it loop for hours.. slowly wrote words over it and added a clunky guitar part. It was the first one off “The Lodge In Miller County” that I brought to other people. I made a demo with Owen Lewis & Jamie Dick in Nashville.. Hearing real drums kind of turned the “I’m making these into album” switch on. It also gave me maybe the most severe case of demo-itis I’ve ever had?? There are probably 14 different versions of this song."

brotherbirdmusic.com

Carl Krausnick • Captivating • 2026

Memphis-based artist Carl Krausnick continues to carve out a distinct lane for himself as a solo artist with "Important Questions," a track that opens on quiet reflection and closes in a swell of distortion. The song begins with a lean, twangy guitar figure and a vocal that feels almost conversational, then gradually stacks layer upon layer until it arrives at a genuinely rousing finish, the kind of slow-burn build that rewards patience.

https://www.instagram.com/carlkrausnickmusic/

attic abasement • Moonlight Passes On • 2026

After a decade since their last record, Attic Abasement returns with their fourth studio album, Moonlight Passes On, out August 14, 2026 via Father/Daughter Records. The Rochester, NY recording project, led by singer/songwriter Mike Rheinheimer and joined by a rotating cast of local musicians, has existed as an outlet to work through Rheinheimer’s doubt and low-grade existential anxiety. While 2016’s Dream News was captured in a live, full band setting, Moonlight Passes On emerged from years of introspection; a practice of solitude. “I had a handful of songs sitting on the shelf for years but had just been inspired over the course of a few nights in my basement in early 2023,” explains Rheinheimer.

Hello Shark • "In Hell” • 2026

Since emerging from Vermont's DIY underground in the mid-2000s, Lincoln Halloran has built a body of work distinguished by its startling intimacy. Across a string of beloved records, his songs have occupied a rare space, full of details drawn from lived experience and transformed into something larger. His writing has always been less concerned with resolution than observation: half-remembered encounters and emotional afterimages that remain long after a moment has passed. "In Hell" embodies that gift. Written as an attempt to create a more overtly pop-minded, jangle-driven song, the track glides forward on bright guitar lines and an understated melodic ease. 

https://helloshark.lnk.to/inhell

That night outside the Dolphin I was having so much trouble walking light skipped my legs they went too soon I loved watching you laughing outside, holding your friend crying cuz your moving home are you still? How your eyes still look like heaven for how long they have been open and i saw you walk in you split the room are you still in hell? or are you still?

SOM SOM • safe space • 2026

welcome to 'safe space', an EP contemplating loss, moss and acceptance. a collection of lo-fi but lush songs about coming to terms with yourself and reclaiming your voice through making peace with your circumstances and submitting yourself to the unknown.

 

Graham Hunt • "Getting Older” • 2026

grahamhunt.lnk.to/A-P

American Pyramid finds Hunt pushing himself out of his comfort zones, eschewing the homespun, computer-oriented explorations of his previous work and instead entering Minneapolis’ legendary Pachyderm Studio with a eight-piece band to try and capture a different side of his boundless creativity. "Getting Older" follows "Riverboat Blues," “Waiting For You To Come Home” (which drew attention from the likes of Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, and more) and where those previous singles leaned into Hunt's off-kilter production and intricate arrangements, this latest tune goes right for the hooks. It's an infectious cut of Westerberg-ian guitar pop that's sure to be stuck in your head after one chorus.

Case Oats • Full Session | Paste • 2026

https://www.pastemagazine.com

The Male Pattern • I Was Shot in the Heart! • 2026

“I Was Shot in the Heart! tells the story of an unnamed suburban dad as he navigates his acrimonious divorce, spends too much time watching TV and on the computer, gets addicted to pills, loses his job as a mortgage broker, shoots and kills a small-time drug dealer, finds God, and commits suicide by cop at a 24/7 Stop and Shop in White Plains, NY. The songs are character-driven and satirical. I drew on the work of Terry Allen and Randy Newman, while combining disparate influences like the narrative craft of a Bruce Springsteen ballad and the prurience and silliness of Ween.

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #191 • Mull Historical Society

Some artists write songs. Colin MacIntyre seems to collect entire lives. For more than 25 years, the man behind Mull Historical Society has turned grief, small-town stories, oddball observations, and big melodies into one of Scotland's most distinctive catalogues. Along the way he's become an award-winning novelist, playwright, and the kind of creative who somehow makes writing a musical seem like a perfectly reasonable side project. His latest album, In My Mind There's a Photograph, takes memories shared by some of the world's best writers and transforms them into songs that are funny, moving, and deeply human. We talk about memory, storytelling, growing up on Mull, and why the best songs often begin with someone else's story.

http://mullhistoricalsociety.com/

http://www.colinmacintyre.com/

Building on from the critical success of In My Mind There’s A Room, Mull Historical Society take an interesting approach to this new album; combining lyrical contributions from world-leading authors (including Irvine Welsh, Ali Smith and Louise Welsh) with the lush musical creations of MacIntyre to produce 12 songs of interesting textures and emotional leaps. Standout Charing Cross Canyon is a pop perfect, Prefab Sprout-esque tune for 2026 and Wish We’d Taen Mair, with minimal electro over spoken words, showcase the range of ideas and sounds. With a new book out this year, and a musical in pre-production, MacIntyre really is on a creative high. Excellent. NARC

Celestial Skies • Today's Malaise • 2026

Celestial Skies · Today's Malaise

Charlie Ivan Band • 'Of Nothing’ • 2026

 

At its core, Of Nothing is an album concerned with beauty found inside bleakness. Throughout the record, Ivan returns to recurring themes of longing, love, desperation and the strange futility that shadows everyday existence. It also represents a continuation of a lifelong relationship with songwriting. Ivan credits his mother, who is a songwriter herself, with introducing him to guitar and piano, and the music of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Sinéad O'Connor, Radiohead and Nick Cave, at an early age.

Swapmeet • Bonny • 2026

"An uncommonly magnetic indie rock quartet...one of this year’s most impressive new acts." - Rolling Stone

“The four close friends have found themselves entering a future so bright and open-ended that their lofty ambition for Swapmeet will only rise.” - The Line of Best Fit ★★★★

"A sublime debut from soon-to-be indie stars." - Far Out Magazine ★★★★

SORRY MONKS • Grass Is Greener • 2026

Recorded between March & June 2026, Grass Is Greener is a collection of 12 songs that evoke the golden age of guitar-pop without veering into pastiche. Stop Look & Listen captures the poignancy of Summer turning into Autumn, wrapped in a tune you might swear you heard once on the Ed Sullivan show. Bird of Paradise is Mamas and Papas meets Between The Buttons era Stones. Careful attention was paid to the running order to ensure a cohesive listen from start to finish and the mixes hold up well in both stereo and mono.

Django Django • Cameos • 2026

 

"Cameos" captures themes of grief, isolation, memory and the fleeting nature of human connections present in the record. "Like a lot of the album, the lyrics are much more inward looking and about journeying through grief and how important people are only there for part of your story,” says Jim Dixon of the band and the single’s lyric writer.

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Ada Lea • copycat • 2026

https://adalea.scfm.me/theendisawave

 

For this EP, I wanted to combine songs that were cut from when i paint my masterpiece, as well as the ones I’d recorded a million years ago when I was just a child. It was to test their fragility. How would they behave next to the other? The old and the new? The brave and the haunted? The impression and the finely sculpted. I also decided to mix three of the songs myself (was it a mistake? you tell me…I says). I’ve been thinking of the kind of artist I’d like to be, and how I’d like to see all artists treated. I am most at home when I am creating and performing, it is what I was born to do. These worlds are opposites. 12th house and 6th, 4th & 10th, the story goes on. I can imagine a future where artists are supported by UBI and they do what they want. A kind of welfare for the serious artists that are not afraid to play. It serves the betterment of society to support artists this way. I know there are others out there, like me, that feel little purpose in their life when they’re not working toward making things. But it’s also near to impossible to make things when you are fighting to protect your energy at every turn, feeling burnt out. stereogum

Tele Novella • Paper Crown • 2026

With fable-like storytelling and thoughtfully crafted arrangements, Tele Novella's songs draw from folk fantasy, American Gothic imagery, and old-world traditions, often weaving together unexpected textures like chimes, dulcimers, toys, and vibraphones. The result is a sound that feels both wise and childlike, as though these stories have been passed down through generations before finding their way onto tape.

https://ffm.to/merlynnbelle.oyd

Wendy Eisenberg • 2026

Wendy Eisenberg has spent the past decade as a fixture of independent music and an artist of inspired multiplicity. As a singer-songwriter, improviser, and virtuoso guitarist, the coordinates of their artistry are ever-shifting, from art-rock to jazz to blistering free improv and eloquent folk. On catalog highlights including 2020’s 'Auto' and the 2024 free-jazz sprawler 'Viewfinder', they’ve made a signature of ambition. After spending the past five years experimenting in different bands, genres, and creative challenges, and following a period of self-confrontation that they liken to a personal exorcism, Eisenberg has arrived at a milestone. The poetic and formally daring folk songs of 'Wendy Eisenberg' comprise their most certain vision yet.

Anna McClellan • “Twirl” • 2026

On her latest output, Space, you big cloud, Anna McClellan documents a stretch of time where many musical parts clicked into place. Booking the session on a whim, traveling between Fort Worth, TX, where she was working, to New York City, where she currently lives, the songs came out fast, recorded in three dizzying days with unapologetic urgency at Atlanta, GA’s Mirror Mirror Recording (Sword II, Arbor Labor Union) with producer and engineer, Graham Tavel. You can hear it in the bright and unguarded guitar, a band that free-flows, not overworked or cleaned up. There’s no sense of strain or overhandling in these songs, just a quiet insistence that suggests they already knew what they were supposed to be. F/D