Browsing Tag

Jangle Pop

Alexander Setzko’s Fairy Tale Is a Dreamy Indie Rock Escape from Memory’s Sharpest Edges

Posted on 3 July 2026
Alexander Setzko

Rose-tinted glasses come with thorns -on the dreamy, new wave indie jangle-pop single, Fairy Tale, by Alexander Setzko. The Brooklyn-based multi-disciplinary artist instantly sweeps you up within an ethereal cinematic glow, conjured by spectres of 80s synth pop and the kind of guitar work which made Johnny Marr stake his claim as one of the most influential indie guitarists to ever live and breathe over a fretboard.

Fairy Tale carries the romance of immaterial mythology, but these fables only carry visions of your past as Alexander Setzko’s dramatically lush indie rock opera vocals paint a vignette of wistful passion for what you wish still remained. The track feels suspended between sentimental illusion and the dull dawning of realisation, letting nostalgia shimmer while still exposing the emotional cost of living too long inside it.

Setzko is the powerhouse behind the vocals, instrumentation, recording and final production, giving Fairy Tale the distinct signature of an artist steering every contour of the release. As the cherry on the cake, Alex Blade Silver’s saxophone solo adds a strident timbre to this narratively enrapturing triumph, which we have been blessed with an early preview. If there is any summer single worth waiting for, it is this stunningly evocative tour de force, granting better escapism than navel-gazing into your memories.

Fairy Tale will be available to stream on all major platforms from September 1st. Buy the single on Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

WeAreTheStation’s post-punk transmission, ‘Hide’ rose from the pessimist panache of The Fall

Posted on 15 April 2026

Attempts at indie post-punk panache most often end up as posturing pastiche, but WeAreTheStation let nostalgia echo through the shockwaves of their own distinction in Hide, from the debut LP, Looking for a Better World. The way the slew of jangly guitars in the intro throws you straight into the atmosphere and energy of the track with enough conviction to give you whiplash is a testament to WeAreTheStation’s command of aesthetics from the very first seconds.

From there, the cynical air of post-punk snarls its way through the riotous riptide of influences. There are elements of Half Man Half Biscuit nestled alongside echoes of the experimentalism of Magazine, while hints of The Fall and Yard Act sharpen the deadpan angle of the delivery. Still, WeAreTheStation are on cruise control through them all, ensnaring through their devil-may-care decadence rather than getting trapped in imitation.

Recorded locally at Bunkhouse Studios in Bulwell, Looking for a Better World already points to a band with a strong sense of place, stylistically and geographically; they know their roots, and they know how to harness melodic force, sharp attitude and live-wire urgency into them.

Hide is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Proto-Punk Amplification Propelled the Drifts of Indie Shoegaze in Julia’s Bureau Breakout Single, ‘Ignatius J’

Posted on 6 March 2026
Julia's Bureau

With an audible reverence to authenticity and after perfecting the art form of transforming indie nostalgia into tones that ring with the assurance of familiarity instead of assimilation, the breakout single from Julia’s Bureau from the aptly titled EP, An Introduction to Julia’s Bureau, is set to be an introduction not forgotten.

In Ignatius J, momentum floods and floors the overdriven guitars between angular indie-pop notes, giving the seminal track a tinge of shoegaze, especially as the harmonies drift into the instrumental arrangement like they are a puzzle piece waiting to be slotted in. Through melancholically bright tenderness in the vein of Slowdive, fused into unrestrained amplification drawn from proto-punk and college-radio rock icons, this jangly indie anthem feels miles removed from the watered-down mediocrity saturating streaming platforms. Ignatius J is as far from indie-landfill as you can get, and it deserves a place on every indie-radio A-list.

There is a rawness that aligns neatly with the second wind of the analog age. The track keeps its edges intact, resisting trend-chasing in favour of something real and resonant. If the indie scene operated as a meritocracy, this would sit at the top of the charts in no time, driven by the simple fact that it sounds lived-in rather than engineered.

Glasgow-based four-piece Julia’s Bureau have taken their time arriving at this EP. Featuring Euan Davidson and Tom Gilbert on guitars and vocals, Gavin Murray on bass, and Thomas Emslie on drums, the band carry influences rooted in Postcard Records and off-kilter US alt-rock, with a clear affection for 12-string jangle. Recorded in 2025 with Ronan Fay at Green Door Studios in Finnieston, the EP was tracked largely live to tape, favouring immediacy over polish. Ignatius J stands tall within that ethos, confronting social anxiety and ill health through the lens of literary anti-hero Ignatius J Reilly, grounding its sonic sweep in something as timeless as Reilly’s work.

Ignatius J is now available on all major streaming platforms, including SoundCloud. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Nostalgic spectres and swoon-worthy harmonies lit up It Ain’t a Sin (If it’s Christmas)

Posted on 4 December 2025

Lemonade Sin’s It Ain’t a Sin (If it’s Christmas) may just be the wooziest, most amorous Christmas song we’ve ever heard, and it absolutely deserves to be as integral to the UK Christmas canon as Love Actually.

With members of Pale Blue Eyes jingling sleigh bells into the jangle-pop tipple of a track that teases ambiguous hedonism that’s left almost entirely to your interpretation, the atmosphere glints with wholesome festive seduction. There’s just enough instrumental iconography to fill you with the warmth of spectres of Christmas nostalgia and draw you closer to the people still in your world, yet nothing dilutes the effortlessly stylish signature of Lemonade Sin, which has been impossible not to adore since they first affixed themselves to our radar.

It’s an intoxicating release which proves there’s still plenty of scope for Christmas songs released this side of the millennium to reach the top of the charts. We may be living in an era when indie is kept mostly underground, stumbled upon by the lucky few, but that doesn’t get in the way of the swoon-worthy, superlative songwriting display on show here. As for the deliciously layered harmonies, you might just end up meeting angels that aren’t spiked on your tree as you lose yourself in them, metaphorically, of course.

Behind that unmistakable shimmer lies a project shaped by Lee Friese-Greene and Simon Aldous, assisted by Charlotte, Robin and Jen, crafting dreamy indie-pop shaped by their shared love of Abba, the Velvet Underground and the golden age of boy-girl duets. The single’s lush production arrived thanks to Lucy Board and Matt Board of Pale Blue Eyes, who steered the recording while adding drums, bass, trumpet and the essential sleigh bells. It’s a seasonal mutation of classic tenderness, filtered through the soft-focus intoxication Lemonade Sin conjures so naturally.

It Ain’t a Sin (If it’s Christmas) is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Alice SK constructed a space for quasi-histrionic indie reverie in ‘When You Leave’

Posted on 25 November 2025

There’s an effortless vitality to When You Leave, the latest single from breakthrough singer-songwriter Alice SK, with hints of Johnny Marr’s fretwork in the angular new wave jangle pop guitars. When You Leave revisits the trend of quasi-histrionic lyrically conversational indie pop, giving fans of Kate Nash and Lily Allen a new icon to follow through the pits and falls of their diehard romanticism.

Rather than orchestrating singles with mainstream appeal clouding her mind and creative appeal, Alice SK finds new indie intersections to explore, giving the genre the free spirit of jazz. This can most perceptibly be noted in the untamed nature of the instrumentals, which even throw in Hammond organ notes for eccentric good measure.

While the emotions are firmly rooted in the ache of realism, Alice SK abstracts the listener from the confines of heartache, giving them a space of voracious reverie to escape into. With melodies that seem to frolic rather than progress in a traditional sense, there are no bounds to the catharsis you can prise from this track.

Through her Hollywood Sunset EP, which was released on the 21st of November, Alice SK continues to channel the vocal richness of Joni Mitchell and Ella Fitzgerald, while staying rooted in her own lyrical immediacy. Her EP launch at Signature Brew, Haggerston, on the 27th, no doubt affirmed her place as one of the most exciting voices in the current indie landscape.

When You Leave is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

‘My Morbid Tone’ by Alpine Jubilee – When Affection and Discord Collide in Twee Indie Folk Pop Harmony

Posted on 12 February 2025

Few debut releases arrive with such a firm grip on authenticity, but Alpine Jubilee ensured theirs did. My Morbid Tone makes no effort to dilute its raw humanistic essence—it presses it to the forefront with piercingly poignant intimacy.

The alternative duo entwine the hallmarks of traditional folk singer-songwriters with jangly indie pop guitars to resonate with fans of Julian Cope. As meta as music gets, My Morbid Tone employs multifaceted devices to lay bare the dissonance of emotional and ideological distance. The morose vocals steep the track in melancholy, yet the luminous longing in the guitar tones offers a contrast potent enough to mirror the ache of being tethered to someone whose nature exists in opposition to your own.

Clashing perspectives, musical tastes, and the unspoken chasms between people manifest through every note, turning this into a deeply personal exploration of isolation that is rarely approached with such lyrical and melodic precision.

Formed by brothers Trevor and Glenn O’Neil, Alpine Jubilee’s folk-tinged indie pop is the result of a transcontinental collaboration between Toowoomba and Geneva who extrapolate influence from 80s new wave, twee-jangle pop, electro, and contemporary nu-folk to orchestrate accessible Avant-Garde installations of often unspoken introspection. 

My Morbid Tone is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lie awake in the illusory land of Mindless Crowd’s new wave seminal release,  ‘Dreamscape’

Posted on 15 September 2024

With their desperately anticipated LP, Wanderlust, released on 30th August, Mindless Crowd stand as innovative new-wave indie architects; if you’re always looking for new ways to explore this vain of sonic nostalgia, let Mindless Crowd be your guide with the standout single, ‘Dreamscape’.

‘Dreamscape’ may not deliver your quintessential dreamy ambient aesthetic, but who decided dreamscapes are unanimous in tonality anyway? Mindless Crowd orchestrated their own chimaera with the reverie of angular jangle pop guitars that resonate with the perpetually influential rhythms of Johnny Marr and echoes of Iggy Pop through gruff, spoken-word style vocals that strikingly juxtapose the vibrant tones of the instrumentals.

As the track evolves, the guitars transition in the middle eight, creatively adorning the track in veritable rock n’ roll stripes. The vintage-toned lead work ascends to what can only be described as guitar porn, embodying the perfect melodic narrative switch for indie fans always on the lookout for boundary-pushing new-wave indie sounds.

Emerging from Geneva, Mindless Crowd has evolved from covering rock titans like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin to crafting their original material. Formed in 2012 by school friends and driven by a blend of nostalgia and innovation, the band—comprising Alex, Julien, Gaël, and Lucas—has grown a significant following, propelling them forward with over 150,000 listens on Spotify.

The album ‘Wanderlust’ encapsulates this growth and exploration, offering a mix of motivation, disillusionment, success, and failure, reflecting the winding journey of introspection the band describes.

Mindless Crowd’s LP, Wanderlust, is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

In Our Sea electrified the airwaves with their rhapsodically eclectic alt-indie single, When You Kissed Me I Went Numb

Posted on 15 July 2024

The third album, Flowers! Swallow Me!, from the inimitably rhapsodic and harmonically euphonic outfit, In Our Sea, has landed, introducing one of the most infectious singles to date from the architects of unpretentious alt-indie.

If you took the jangle pop guitars of Johnny Marr, the sticky-sweet synthy sensibilities of Yo La Tengo, the kaleidoscopic colour of the Beatles and the innovatively rhythmic flair of The Violent Femmes, you’d be left with a soundscape as electrifying as the standout single, When You Kissed Me I Went Numb. The lyrically avant-garde celebration of pure and innocent passion hits as hard as any of the tracks on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea LP. With the unbridled self-effacing energy that’s poured into the single by the smorgasbord, it is impossible not to fall for In Our Sea, melodic hook, line, and sinker.

When You Kissed Me I Went Numb was officially released on July 5th with the Flowers! Swallow Me! LP; stream it on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Riverman opened a doorway to 60s psychedelic pop summers with his alt-indie single, Somnambulism

Posted on 26 June 2024

Once you grab an oar with Riverman’s seminal single, Somnambulism, taken from his Summer Up / Summer Down LP, you’ll be reluctant to ever put it down. Riverman, the moniker of the Winston-Salem, NC-residing singer-songwriter Steve Hedrick, has earned his place in the pantheon of indie greats with this epoch-traversing genre-fluid installation of nostalgic euphony.

With sticky-sweet harmonies that pull at the heartstrings as fervently as Elliott Smith’s dreamy timbres juxtaposed with an exuberant indie-pop production which interweaves Johnny Marr-esque jangle-pop guitars and opens a doorway to 60s psychedelic pop summers all the while embracing brash, garage rock-infused licks, Somnambulism, which introduces Riverman as a ‘soporific spectre’ is a release that will send serotonin firing through your synapses.

The metaphorical exposition of sleepwalking is a masterclass in nostalgic synthesising. Riverman effortlessly infuses motifs from a broad sonic spectrum to pour a cocktail of aural summer haze that will quench your thirst for fresh indie sounds. It’s a lush escape that’s impossible to resist.

Stream Somnambulism on YouTube now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast