Browsing Tag

Ethereal Pop

Sleeps Under Beams’ ‘If a Kiss Could Speak’ Is an Indie Dream Pop Love Letter Written in Vapour

Posted on 30 July 2026

If a Kiss Could Speak, would it be as dreamy as the latest single by that title from the transatlantic indie dream-pop trio Sleeps Under Beams? It would be hard-pressed to reach the same level of ethereal electricity as the new-wave nostalgia-tinged single, which carries the stylistic charm of Honeyblood and Warpaint in its diaphanous haze while reaching a new plateau of transcendence.

Formed in 2020, Sleeps Under Beams brings together USA-based lyricist Lisa Ann Swain, Netherlands-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Drew Campbell, and vocalist Anna Rea, making If a Kiss Could Speak feel like a love letter passed across borders and translated into atmosphere. Their sound pulls ethereal instrumentals, shoegaze aesthetics and raw lyricism into an intimate dream-pop language.

The romanticism of the release knows no bounds. It stretches with infinite fervour, inviting you to get lost in the sublimity of one of the sweetest sensations we can experience. Rea’s vocal presence drifts through Campbell’s production with feather-soft magnetism, while Swain’s lyrical framing keeps the track rooted in emotional specificity.

Ensuring that intimacy is the heart and soul of the release, Sleeps Under Beams more than succeeded in orchestrating a sonic visualisation of tender desire.

If a Kiss Could Speak is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ava Trepeck Cast a Multi-Sensory Cinematic Spell with the Beach House-Level Textural Sorcery in ‘Sphinx’

Posted on 20 July 2026

Ava Trepeck created multi-sensory cinematography with her seminal ethereal pop single, Sphinx. The New York City-based alternative dream-pop artist, originally from Birmingham, Michigan, has a voice that could see her hailed as this generation’s Kate Bush, a sound that establishes her as talented as Beach House when it comes to alchemising intoxicatingly timbred melodies, and that touch of je ne sais quoi that makes her so stylistically hypnotic.

The soft, reverb-lush way every note drifts in hazy weightlessness through the retro-futuristic colour of the pastel-toned triumph is enough to make you feel as though you’re defying gravity as you drink in the dreamy, artful textures. Beneath the beauty, Sphinx carries a deeply considered emotional architecture, exploring divine union within the self and the balance of masculine and feminine energies as a route towards safety, freedom and inner equilibrium.

Trepeck’s background in psychology and cinematic arts at the University of Southern California gives the single its rare sense of psychic detail and visual depth. You can hear why Dora Jar, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, Kate Bush and Miley Cyrus sit within her wider constellation of influence, but Sphinx never feels derivative. It’s escapism at its finest, and it is proof that Ava Trepeck’s talent refuses to settle into complacency; there’s a palpable sense she’s pushing sound design into transcendently imaginative terrain with each of her new releases, and this is no exception.

Sphinx is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Get Caught in the 2010s Indie Afterglow with the Ethereal Oscillations in LORI USAI’s Masterstroke of Melancholia, ‘Wet Denim’

Posted on 24 April 2026

With more style than a cover of Vogue and as a haunting indie callback to that 2010s sweet spot when Warpaint, Poliça, Wolf Alice, Lorde, and London Grammar sat deep in the cultural bloodstream, LORI USAI’s standout single, Wet Denim, hypnotises you into its ethereal oscillations of melancholia. There’s a lived-in emotional intelligence to the way she handles atmosphere, making the track feel less like a throwback and more like a continuation of everything that made that era hit so hard in the first place. Her writing circles what remains when self-deception falls away, when longing, loneliness and obsession are left exposed without anything neat to hide behind.

Even when playing with elements of discordance, the release stays committed to catharsis, keeping the production euphorically lush through its torrid spells of riled-up feeling. The luminous synths and quasi-cosmic indie pop aesthetics temper the romanticism of LORI USAI, who feels fully attuned to the torture of letting emotions run deeper than surface level. There’s heartbreak, but also shame, hope, anger, and that strange state of breaking apart while still feeling feverishly alive.

Wet Denim is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Liliana de la Rosa – haunted by roses: Melancholic Fantasia in Dark-Pop Form

Posted on 13 February 2026

Liliana de la Rosa opens haunted by roses with the same arcane pull that shapes her wider creative world, letting the cinematic sweep breathe through a sound that leans into shadow and soft ruin. In haunted by roses, she scores cinematic etherealism which transcends trends, and material reality to boot; drifting away from the monotony that bites on our souls to veer into the weightlessness of melancholic fantasy. The track feels like a quiet slip into where desire glows at the edges and pain turns strangely luminous, guided by her hypnotic siren presence.

Her non-lexical harmonies rise with that arcane power she channels so naturally, creating the sense of a portal being held open. The lyrical burn ignited by a love turned toxic carries its own sting, especially as she sketches out corsets catching fire, a heart torn apart, and a love slipping into ghostly territory. Through her unique vision, emotion lands in the liminal space where hopeless romantics and poetry-soaked souls tend to linger. It sweeps through the darker corners of longing, yet it offers relief in the same breath, giving listeners a route out of their emotional weight rather than leaving them drowning in it.

Her background as an actress and visual creator shapes the world around the track; she has spent years moulding an aesthetic and choreographed tension build a universe that pulls you in with ease. As she continues expanding her catalogue for a full 2026 reveal, it is clear that her approach to dark-alternative pop is grounded in instinct and imagery. This debut serves as a doorway into the world she has been quietly constructing, one where beauty, fantasy, and danger circle each other without losing momentum.

haunted by roses is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

When I See Your Eyes by PostOmnis: A Lynchian Transmutation of Trip-Hop Desire

Posted on 20 December 2025

In PostOmnis’ new single, When I See Your Eyes, featuring Evangile, the electronica project of California-based multi-platform creator Seán Graves rips the spine out of traditional romantic balladry and reconstructs it in the surrealist theatre of Mysticism, his forthcoming full-length album. Rather than settle for familiar loops and trite emotion, this track destabilises. It seduces, then disorients. It speaks in haunted riddles rather than rhythmic comforts.

The track unfolds like a haunted sermon, stitched together with glitch-splintered syncopation and spectral vocal lines which nod toward IAMX’s celestial electronica. Graves and Evangile thread shards of retro synths through a mist of reverberating ambience, then let the composition twitch and hum with experimental leftfield touches. You’ll hear disconcerting laughter where most would place a drum fill, and feel the shadows of ghosted beats long after they’ve faded. This isn’t a love song – it’s a transmission from the warped ether of grief, longing, and abstraction.

As a preview of PostOmnis’ upcoming album Mysticism, When I See Your Eyes hints at a wider conceptual depth. Known for cultivating dark, immersive sonic environments in earlier cult releases like Ghost and Ashes and Kaleidoscope World, Graves builds on that foundation here with more pointed disfigurement of genre and mood. This track invites you into a Lynchian netherworld where desire becomes data and harmony is skewed by spectres.

When I See Your Eyes is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Minko Translates Temporal Longing into Neo-Pop Mythos in ‘Circle of Fifths’

Posted on 29 May 2025

Minko tightened the thread between classical precision and future-pop romanticism in her new single, ‘Circle of Fifths’, a track that redraws the shape of pop itself. Slated to feature on her debut LP Lemon Psyche, which will flavour the airwaves from May 29th, this release is a neo-pop fever dream that glides through time as effortlessly as you flick through your Instagram feed.

Baroque textures ripple through the track as arcane folk nuances are woven into orchestral pop motifs that deliberately reject the tyranny of musical chronology. Minko delivers a lyrical panorama soaked in imagery, where nostalgia lives unanchored to any fixed point in history. Instead, it finds a surrealist stronghold—an aural utopia where freedom reigns and art exists as a sovereign state, ruled by intuition rather than industry.

Raised by the wilds of the Cornish landscape and shaped by a history of sonic exploration—including scoring the BFI-backed Dog Years, winning Cornwall’s national songwriting competition with the Cornish-language single Kan an Tewyn, and being plucked for airplay by BBC Radio 3 and 6 Music—Minko’s experimentalism is no accident. Her DIY ethos and her collaborations with Steven Havenhand (ex-Pulp) channel a rare artistic clarity. ‘Circle of Fifths’ proves she doesn’t flirt with genre—she reconfigures it through a kaleidoscope of melodic surrealism.

Circle of Fifths is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Embrace Emotional Suspension with Daniel Liam Glyn’s Downtempo Dream ‘in this moment for days’

Posted on 29 March 2025

‘in this moment for days’, from Daniel Liam Glyn’s latest LP ‘WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES’, is a slice of indie dream pop reverie that lifts the tones of retro-futurism to a plateau of pure euphonic bliss. Downtempo electronica, trip-hop, and synth-pop coalesce in distinctive flux, offering tranquillity as you’ve never experienced, yet a dreamy palette you’ll compel yourself to acquaint yourself with, time and time again.

Ethereal dream-pop vocals echo tenderness into the release, wrapping delicately around the beauty of preserving perfect moments. The single grasps these ephemeral instants tightly, praying the romance found within small details stays clear from memory’s obscurity. It’s a soundtrack to bliss in every true sense, gentle yet unshakably memorable.

Daniel Liam Glyn, a Manchester-born composer renowned for sinking synaesthesia into his compositions, channels his unique visual perception of colour and sound directly into ‘in this moment for days’. Influenced by the contemporary minimalist styles of composers like Erik Satie and Steve Reich, Glyn transforms abstract mental hues into tangible sonic landscapes. His latest album navigates themes of mental health, hazy recollections, and fleeting serenity, and nowhere is this balance clearer than in this dreamy soundscape—an invitation to pause, reflect, and remain in emotional suspension.

‘in this moment for days’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Empara Mi Tears Into the Fabric of Grief with ‘I Can’t’

Posted on 22 February 2025

Empara Mi has long been a voice that defies convention, and her latest single, I Can’t, is no exception. As the first chapter of her forthcoming album, Monsters & Masochists, this heartbreak-laden anthem traces the contours of loss and lets them bleed into every note. With lyrics that seem to be torn from the pages of premonition, Empara Mi wrote I before experiencing the very devastation she feared, turning this track into a cruel case of life mirroring art.

Proving how frivolously the word ethereal is thrown around, Empara Mi’s vocal delivery is as otherworldly as it is gut-wrenching. The sombre introspection quivers through each aching vibrato harmony, carried by a sparse yet cinematic arrangement that makes every moment linger in the silence.

In parts, the instrumentation strips itself to the bare iridescent bones of reverb bleeding from a lone synth note, yet nothing is left hollow—this is a masterclass in knowing when to hold back and when to let the weight of emotion fracture through.

From one soul to another, I Can’t is a reflection of alienation, a meditation on grief that deepens in resonance with every discordant beat.

I Can’t is out now on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, setting the stage for what promises to be Empara Mi’s boldest and most vulnerable era yet.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

NYC’s seraphic songstress Eleri Ward reached the epitome of evocative etherealism with ‘Float’

Posted on 21 February 2025

Eleri Ward’s latest single, ‘Float’, exhibits how she doesn’t just live up to the hype cascading around her multifaceted creativity; she immortalises herself through arcanely affecting textures and harmony.

Originally from Chicago and now based in NYC, Ward has been immersed in music and theatre since she was five years old, honing her ability to turn storytelling into an emotional force. Known for her critically acclaimed reimaginings of Stephen Sondheim’s work, which The New York Times and Forbes praised for their imaginative indie-folk acoustic approach, Ward has shifted her focus to crafting her own celestial and introspective sonic universe.

With ‘Float’, she moves beyond her acoustic roots into expansive electro-pop territory while retaining the storytelling depth that defines her artistry. The emotive elements ensure that the single never veers towards pure theatre. Instead, Ward enmeshes intensity with intimacy; crescendos tear through you with dramatic potency, only to be followed by ethereal, caressing alt-indie intricacy.

‘Float’ is immersive enough to make you hold your breath, as though you’re being abstracted from oxygen and plunged into a pool of pure unfeigned artistry, its balance of raw emotion and sonic subtlety creating a hypnotic grip.

Float will hit all major streaming platforms on February 21^st. Find your preferred way to listen via Eleri Ward’s official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Breaking the Sound Barrier: Eleri Ward’s ‘There You Go’ Spiritually Shatters the Monocultural Mould

Posted on 10 January 2025

‘There You Go’ by the Chicago-born, NYC-based spiritual seductress of alt-pop, Eleri Ward enmeshes an arcane aura that breaks through the monocultural mould with baroque beguile in a way that makes Björk sound positively pedestrian.

Every second of ‘There You Go’ is a revelation; as you sink into the scintillation, you’ll find yourself in awe of the singer-songwriter’s expansively seraphic octave range and how her harmonies effortlessly complement the transgressions in sound, which shift you into a state of transcendence.

Teasing dark aesthetics into the syncopated alchemy of the indietronica release, she pairs moody etherealism with crystalline embellishments to immerse you into a session of expression that goes beyond sound. In this labyrinthine soundscape, where each texturally electrifying twist offers a new sonic delight, Ward proves her connection to music runs as deep as her lyricism. She’s a convention-challenging phenomenon in her own right, making no pantheon prestigious enough for her to enter.

There You Go will hit all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, on January 10th.

For more information and more ways to connect with Eleri Ward, visit her official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

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