Browsing Tag

Indie Singer Songwriter

Vemalo Painted the Sepia-Tinted Ache of Soul Separation in Their Genre-Fluid Single, Outside of Me

With Outside of Me, Vemalo refused to sidestep emotional devastation in favour of commercial palatability. They held it in their hands, inspected every facet, and layered it into a track that never shies away from rawness or restraint. The single bleeds from the starting line with dusty, distorted, diaphanous guitars that shape a middle ground between shoegaze haze and desert rock’s parched tone. As the instrumental moodboard unfurls, Vedantha Kumar’s vocals become the spiritual tether in the sonic expanse, offering the same slow-release burn as Jim Morrison’s lucidity laced with the melodic ache of Chris Isaak, without once losing his own voice to reverence.

The haunting sense of soul estrangement is matched by production choices that lean into cinematic melodicism without indulgence. After the midpoint, a jazz-licked interlude momentarily stills the chaos before the returning vocal refrain hits harder with each repetition. Vemalo used this section as a calculated lull; exhibiting their precision with dynamic emotional pacing.

Written by Matthew Davis and Vedantha Kumar, the single isn’t just autobiographical, it’s anthropological in the way it dissects the universal experience of watching someone disappear from your shared world, leaving you suspended, untethered, watching your own life move outside of yourself. Matthew, formerly signed to EMI and known for working with Daisy Chute and Stuart Moxham, brings his narrative precision, while Vedantha, drawing from his time in August and After and his Indian heritage, lends the soul. Paris-based producer Jonathan Le Fevre created the perfect environment to honour that intention.

Outside of Me is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

tongueshy Mapped the Agony of Existential FOMO on a Post-Punk Folk Frequency in ‘Come Along’

tongueshy

If Debbie Harry took her vocal talent on a sojourn to folk-rock territory and tinged the tonal atmosphere with the chill of 80s post-punk, it would result in a soundscape as phenomenally original as Come Along, by tongueshy which sets the bar for how much life can be poured into sound.

While there’s some brashy discord in the mix and a frenetic folk pulse joined by searing angular guitar lines, Come Along still paradoxically instantly feels like a consoling home as you listen to tongueshy pour out her rejection angst into the release, which is by far the most authentic sonic signature that I’ve seen scribed across the airwaves this year.

tongueshy is the solo vehicle for Canadian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jazeen Hollings, who layered the track from the ground up with rhythm guitar, synth, bass, lead, and vocals. While her studio work delivers raw lo-fi urgency, her live sets are stripped bare. Just her, an acoustic guitar, and whatever she needs to get off her chest. Her commitment to confronting heartbreak and self-discovery with sardonic transparency folds into her sound as tightly as the heartbreak that birthed the project. After a break-up, a cross-country move, and a crash landing back in her childhood bedroom, Come Along didn’t arrive—it demanded to exist.

If you get the opportunity to see her in an intimate space, consider yourself blessed. With her ability to speak beyond her lyricism and lock straight into the soul, she’s a diamond in the rough.

Come Along is now available to stream on all major platforms. Find your preferred way to listen via the artist’s website. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

How Agnesz Anna Planted Her Voice in the Soil of the Sixties: An Interview

In her first official single from a forthcoming debut album, Agnesz Anna etched out her own sonic terrain — one rooted in 60s rock ‘n roll and threaded with the complexity of personal reflection, cultural observation, and the subtle ache of lived experience.

In this interview, the actress-turned-songwriter reflects on the duality of her lead single No One Will Ever Know, discusses why imperfections deserve space in recorded music, and explains how motherhood, grief, and social awareness quietly shaped the emotional architecture of the record. With references spanning Roy Orbison to Francoise Hardy, her sharp grasp of nostalgia is never surface-level. It’s filtered through a director’s eye, a playwright’s pen, and the human impulse to archive what matters before time moves on.

No One Will Ever Know marks the first glimpse into your debut album. What made this the right track to lead with, and how does it set the tone for the rest of the record?

I wanted an upbeat energetic track with a catchy melody as a first single. But I also wanted some romance and nostalgia to it. I like the duality of that. I think this song has it all. Although the song is about moving on during a heartbreak, it is about self-reliance and self-empowerment. We all have our baggage that nobody knows about that can change you profoundly. But you can overcome it. Musically it has this rock ‘n roll vibe to it that takes you back to The Beatles or Roy Orbison. The retro quality of the song with all the above qualities combined made me think that this might be a good starter. The entire album is made with the guitar as a leading basic instrument. We started building from there. I think you can expect that on the rest of the album as well. But we felt free introducing other genres into the music as well. Without losing an approachable pop sensitivity.

There’s a clear affection for the golden age of rock ‘n roll running through the single, both sonically and visually. What drew you to that retro aesthetic, and how did Paris come into play for the video?

Because of the 60’s rock ‘n roll sound to it I started to get inspiration from that era. You can see it is a prominently male owned genre in that era. I went looking for female references. I lived in New York City for quite some time, but I am also European, so I wanted it to have a European vibe to it. I love the old 60’s Italian and French movies for the aesthetic. And I love the female vulnerability in those movies and in the music. I thought of Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Hardy, Vasthi Bunyan. Perhaps a more natural take on the aesthetic. With the city being the backdrop for the story.

The album spans rock ‘n roll, folk-rock, country, blues, and funk, all grounded in pop sensibilities. How did you approach keeping that cohesion while still honouring your varied influences?

Some songs on the album rely a little less on pop structure but most songs on the album do maintain the common pop structure. If you maintain a pop structure throughout the song, it remains accessible. We also worked with layering sounds and vocals to get a more modern pop sound, the pop vocals that most people listen to nowadays. Postproduction, the mixing of the songs, is also very important. We didn’t work with beats but with real instruments. That can sound like a band if you mix it a certain way. But by keeping the focus on the voice, in the right recording settings, you get a more pop quality to it. Some may qualify the music still very much indie because of the lack of synths and a drum computer. But I think the songs have gotten a more timeless feel because of it.

You’ve previously spoken about the importance of imperfections in your sound—guitar scratches, vocal cracks. How did that rawness inform your recording process for the album, and why is it something you consciously hold space for?

I think that makes the recordings unique and authentic. Everything is so polished nowadays with stuff like Melodyne and autotune. I recently did a Bob Dylan cover, and in the first verse, I sang a couple of blue notes instead of the original version. We left it in there because it makes sense to do it that way as well. There is a certain sadness about what I am singing, and the chords are blues. Why not? Or in another song the guitar sounded a bit on the edge. It gave the song a rawness to it. That’s the thing with music as well. If it feels good, why not? Why be conventional? I love singers with their own sound. You can always distinguish them. Singers like that might not always appeal to the masses, but when they emerge at the right time, they leave the biggest impact.

Your work often balances the personal and the political. How have recent years shaped the lyrical direction of the album, particularly when it comes to themes like social criticism and grief?

I’ve made this album together with my partner independently. We invested in our own recording equipment and turned our attic into a recording studio. A game changer. Before, I was always dependent on a budget for a recording studio. Working on the clock. Now we were able to do it ourselves in our spare time. This gave us challenges, like figuring out the recording process, but also the advantages of coming back to a former recording session and tweaking things. We spent two years working on this album. I don’t know if it is in the cards to do it again. So, I wanted the last decade of mine to be reflected in this album. Everything I learned, I experienced and what I want to pass on. I had some older songs lying around, but I also wrote new songs for this album. The first part of the album is about self-reflection. Once we can do that and maintain our empathy, we can look and turn towards the outside world. Midway, the album that shifts. I also have children, and I felt I wanted to make an album that sends a message to the next generations as well. How to cope with all these things in life, we all deal with sooner or later.

You’ve worked across disciplines as an actress, director, and songwriter. When you’re building an album like this one, how much of that theatrical sensibility spills into the writing, arranging, or visual storytelling?

It is all so connected to each other. You can compare the singer to the actress, the music producer to a director and the songwriter to a playwright or screenwriter. The content may vary, but they all do basically the same thing with a different discipline. As a director, you oversee the entire play or film. You have a vision you want to achieve; you try to connect all the elements. As a music producer, you do the same but with music. When I am singing, I try to imagine or feel the way I (or someone else) was feeling at that time so I can make a truthful interpretation of the song. I use my voice in a more elaborate way. Which asks for another skill. And a song is just a more concise form than a movie script, but they all obey certain rules to make it coherent. The songwriter and the writer are both lyrical storytellers. In all disciplines, you tap into that vulnerability to create with your own sense of truth.

Your past projects have drawn heavily from where you were living at the time. Did any particular city or environment shape this new body of work, or did you approach it from a more internal space?

No, this album reflects my late 20s to my late 30s. Things I’ve dealt with, how I see the world or how I feel about certain things like love, friendship, society, nature, motherhood, death.

As the album heads toward its release this autumn, what conversations do you hope it sparks, especially among those who, like you, carry a love for the old masters but are still navigating the world in the here and now?

I hope people appreciate the musicality of it. We did it ourselves in the little time we had, mostly at night. I think I managed to make an album that has all the influences of the music I love. If I love it there must be someone else in this world who loves it as well. I think of the subjects and the instruments, creating a more timeless feel to it. But let’s see in another decade or so. Let them be entertained by it. Let them feel something. I hope the diversity of topics on the album can give them some comfort or hope. I wanted to make an album that leaves you with a good feeling once you’ve finished the last song. An album that reminds us that we are all connected despite our differences. God knows we need a little bit of that in this world.

Discover more about Agnesz Anna via her official website.

Interview by Amelia Vandergast

GISKE Cast Stillness in Soft Light Through the Nostalgic Lilt of ‘Light Upon the Water’

Light Upon the Water is an invitation to float with the melodious flotsam of an emotive indie folk serenade. With this radio-ready release, GISKE envelop you in a nostalgic approach to production, where every instrumental and vocal note resonates with intention. The arrangement rushes nothing. Everything arrives exactly when it needs to, lifting you from the weight you didn’t realise you were carrying.

This one is for the dreamers. The ones who strive to find beauty in the periphery, but especially within the worlds that affection and connection open. Light Upon the Water draws from classic 70s singer-songwriter introspection to hold a mirror to what’s missing in your world, filling that space with layered harmonies that lull you into a soft-focus, psychotropic trance.

Born from the lifelong collaboration between Rune Berg and Alex Rinde, GISKE carries the spirit of a shared past on the remote Norwegian island they both called home. Their bond, rooted in bike rides and first songs, evolved through the years and musical incarnations, culminating in their second album, Ten Visits, Ten Songs. Each track was shaped during visits between Oslo and the island, becoming a testament to endurance, loyalty and the kind of connection that time doesn’t dilute.

Light Upon the Water captures that unspoken language between people who have never stopped creating together. It holds space for stillness without letting silence take over.

Light Upon the Water is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Inamorata Refracted Unspoken Reverence Through a Prism of Power Pop in ‘Rainbow’

True to its title, Inamorata’s latest single, Rainbow, is a kaleidoscope of colour, filtered through the prism of power pop nostalgia. Echoes of the Psychedelic Furs ripple through the verses before the choruses erupt in vibrant guitar-driven fervour. Even with its lo-fi aesthetic, nothing gets lost in translation. The textures may be frayed at the edges, but everything within the mix rings with clarity, framing singer-songwriter Ramses Bulsara as one of the most affectingly uplifting evocateurs of his generation. If your world is lacking colour, you know exactly where to find it with this release.

Beneath the punchy chords and fluorescent hues lies an emotional nucleus few would expect. Rainbow is not a romantic confession, it’s a secret sent out into the ether. A love letter without a name, written in solitude, addressed to Daniela Villarreal of The Warning. The admiration lives in the subtext, buried in the late-night recordings and the soaring refrains. Bulsara never dared to send her a message. Instead, he gave the world this track, hoping it might drift into the right ears.

It’s a bridge built between continents. A sonic thread stretched between Jakarta and Monterrey, wrapped in admiration and vulnerability, but never veering into self-indulgence. His longing never asks for reciprocation. It simply asks to be heard.

Rainbow is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. Connect with the artist and find your preferred way to listen on Instagram.  

Review by Amelia Vandergast

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

Minko

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

Paul James Project Translates the Afterlife into Atmosphere in the Alt-Indie Grief Anthem ‘Speak to Me in Silence’

With Speak to Me in Silence, UK singer-songwriter Paul James Project candidly cracks open the consuming complexity of grief after the loss of a parent and pours the bitter-sweet mourning into an anthemic synthesis of Britpop and shimmers of alt indie euphoria to lift listeners struggling with their own multifaceted pain into an atmosphere which can hold all of the pain personal nostalgia can carry.

More than just a lament of what we lose as we mature and meet all the pains of material reality, there’s a metaphysical power to the poetically titled track, which attests to how the lack of physical presence doesn’t have to mean total emotional absence. Sonically, thematically, and emotionally, it’s a stunningly rendered release of relief for anyone struggling to see the light in grief.

With industry heavyweights involved in the production, including Grammy-nominated Chris Potter (The Verve, The Rolling Stones), every instrumental, from the angular indie guitar notes to the cathartic pulse of the percussion, lends itself to the visualisation of this emotionally-charged tour de force.

Following collaborations with Billy Lawrie and praise from Will Champion of Coldplay, the project is gaining traction ahead of the debut album Book of Memories, due in autumn 2025.

Speak to Me in Silence is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

ExWife Stirs the Ashes of Rock Rebirth – An Interview with Ria

With her debut LP, ExWife’s frontwoman, Ria, throws open the windows on a decade’s worth of songwriting shaped by chaos, rebirth, and a hunger for the unvarnished truth. In this candid interview, Ria traces the arc from whispered phone demos—recorded amidst the daily reality of motherhood—to the raw, live-wire performances that define ExWife’s sound. The conversation explores the band’s commitment to authenticity in an era where perfection is polished and feeling often fades. Ria opens up about how personal upheaval, from religious restrictions to post-divorce liberation, set the stage for ExWife’s distinct voice, while also weighing in on the pitfalls of contemporary songwriting and the pulse of playing live around the Pacific Northwest. For those ready to step outside the formulaic, this is a debut—and a story—worth your full attention.

Welcome to A&R Factory, Ria – and congratulations on the release of Blow. It’s a pleasure to have you here to talk about ExWife’s debut and everything that brought it to life.

It is our pleasure to share the new record! Thank you for having us, Amelia.

Ten years is a long time to hold onto songs before releasing them into the world—how did your relationship with the material shift during that time, and what made now feel like the right moment to let Blow out?

The songs had a wild metamorphosis over these ten years. They started out as phone recordings while I was taking care of my at-the-time 2 and 3-year-old toddlers. In a lot of those early recordings, you can actually hear them singing along or asking for more crackers. But it was during the most chaotic time of my life that I felt compelled to write the majority of these songs. The band developed the sound above and beyond what I would have been able to do by myself. I enjoy bedroom recordings, but I was born to play rock and roll. The wait to release this music has been so long; most of the hangups have been around life just happening. 

You’ve mentioned that Blow was recorded almost completely live—what does capturing that kind of immediacy in the studio mean to you, and how does it affect your relationship with the songs when you take them to the stage?

For our band, it was important to be able to bring what we had made in the studio onto a live stage. This album really has very minimal overdubs, and even some of the vocals are from the live takes we did, which I feel amazing and proud about. More and more we are hearing recordings that are manipulated, comped, over-processed, and in my opinion, stray from the real thing. We’ve introduced AI into the field, and I think we are doing ourselves a disservice in the pursuit of a “perfect” album or single. I always want to strive to make our music sound like what it is – the sonic truth. Playing live is one of my favorite things in the world. Orchestrating an experience with these songs we have made is an unbelievable feeling. 

There’s clearly an emotional arc running through the 14 tracks on the record—can you talk us through the themes that tie it together and what you hope listeners take from the full record experience?

The arc I hear within the album is one of loneliness, frustration, and rebirth, but that is my interpretation. Our music is out in the world now, and I have no intention of trying to control the narrative of it. What someone feels while listening to our music is their experience alone. My entire life was wrapped up in these songs, and for me they have been a facilitator for healing and joy. I sincerely hope others might be affected in a similar way.

 Starting the band during a turning point in your relationship must have given the project a very personal core. How much of that original emotional foundation remains present in ExWife today?

ExWife will always be deeply personal for me. My bandmates are still some of the people I spend the most of my time with. 

The comparisons to artists like The Breeders and PJ Harvey are undoubtedly flattering, but you’ve said that you weren’t actively trying to sound like any era or artist. What were you chasing sonically and emotionally when shaping ExWife’s sound?

I grew up religious and was not allowed to listen to a lot of modern or classic rock, and still into my late 20s, had never listened to an AC/DC song or anything remotely heavy and dirty. After my divorce, I was free to listen to anything I wanted to, and I was always drawn to rock and roll. Any flavor, any year, I just adore rock music. This was something super new and exciting. I had started to pick up the electric guitar, and it felt like a beautiful marriage. Heavy beefy tone with the sometimes saccharine, sometimes sexy lyrics that I had been writing. The band never sat down together and said, ‘we should sound like this’, the magic just happened when we played together. We all come from different backgrounds with different musical tastes, and I think our combination sounds pretty delicious.

You’ve been open about how modern music often feels oversimplified to you. What do you think has been lost in contemporary songwriting, and what standards do you personally hold your lyrics and compositions to? 

Modern music has become more and more simplified over the years. They’ve done studies on this, and we use fewer words, limited vocabulary, sing less about love and more about pain, and even use more generic chord structure in our songs today. They say people want easy listening, but I’m not convinced this is actually what we want as individuals, but more as a society. Contemporary songwriting has become extraordinarily blunt and repetitive. For me, a good song has the ability to be vague but still evoke an emotional reaction from the lyrics. When I write songs, I am putting on different people and then viewing it from their perspective. It’s all about play and how we can shape a story within the song that is important to me.  

Gigging around the Pacific Northwest, what has stood out to you most about the live reception to your songs, and how have those shows shaped your vision for what ExWife can become?

Gigging can be very up and down. The venues are still recovering from the pandemic, and crowd attendance can be very unpredictable. I love playing live, and it’s my hope that we will be playing bigger shows down the road. Plans to add lighting and other little touches are in the works.  A lot of artists are chasing Spotify metrics, but to me, those don’t hold a candle to having a packed venue and getting to experience playing our music with a real-time reaction and response. My favorite show memory is probably playing Wild West, and the barback was standing against the back wall, absolutely locking into the groove. It’s those little moments I would play over and over again for. 

With this powerful debut now available, what’s next for ExWife creatively—and what do you feel this record has set in motion for you going forward?

We are just getting started. More music is in the works, and it is my intention to release another album very soon. Tits up, and let’s rock.

Stream ExWife on Spotify now, and connect with the artist via Instagram and TikTok. 

Interview by Amelia Vandergast

Asiah Holm Etched the Sting of Emancipation into the Ambient Ache of ‘Let Go’

Taken from Asiah Holm’s debut album, The Mask You Made, the standout single, Let Go, fuses the fractured, scratchy magnetism of downtempo trip-hop percussion with minor key indie piano pop melodies, creating a cathartically ambient platform for the singer-songwriter to unravel her pain, poise and poignant lyrics that illustrate the struggle of knowing you need to write your next chapters away from a soul that brings you the comfort of home.

From the artfully stylistic intricacies in the arrangements to how the single builds into a crescendo which visualises the bitter-sweet emancipation of freedom you had to fight for but never wanted, to the complete synergy between harmony and melody, Let Go came from a place of pain and became one of raw resonance that fully encompasses the phenomena of emotional dissonance.

Based in Edmonton, Alberta, Cree First Nations singer-songwriter and self-producing polymath Asiah Holm draws from her Indigenous roots while scoring emotional narratives through layers of ambient electronica, folk, indie and pop. She’s made her mark by building emotive architecture around memory and internal conflict, using her home studio as a sacred ground for sonic introspection.

With a string of acclaimed releases already under her belt, including her Self-Portrait EP, which secured Native American Music Award nominations and Canadian Folk Music Award recognition, Holm has already proven she’s a natural evocateur who never pulls punches while laying her heart down on the line.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Clay Goodman Let His Lyrical Vulnerability Echo in the Lo-Fi Reverie of ‘Hello’

Clay Goodman

Clay Goodman made a soft yet indelible entrance with his debut single, Hello; a fitting title for the lo-fi acoustic release that quietly beckons listeners into his alt-indie introspection. The short, sweet, and saturated-in-delay track resounds in the raw vein of Elliott Smith, using gentle yet emotively aching guitar lines to create the atmosphere that the seraphically ethereal vocals drift into. It may be a very brief introduction to Clay Goodman, but it is one that makes an affecting impression and one that proves that once he’s ready to take the leap with a less abstract single, he’s going to take the alt-indie scene by storm.

After a decade of writing in rural Virginia, Goodman’s decision to launch with a track that holds itself back from grandeur is a statement in itself. Every part of the track, from the minimalist production to the distant vocal presence, was shaped entirely by Goodman himself, revealing not only his artistic intent but his restraint.

Rather than using polish to mask the fragility, the production lets it breathe. There’s no demand for resolution—only a request to listen closely. As the reverb trails behind each phrase, the weight of creative solitude lingers, making this lo-fi lullaby feel like a secret you weren’t meant to hear, but needed to.

Discover more about Clay Goodman via their website. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast.