Browsing Tag

New Wave

Lon3! Broke the Sonic Matrix with his Retro-Futurist Adrenaline-Fuelled Dreamscape of Genre Distortion, SUBCULTUR3D

Posted on 7 July 2026

Lon3! defies both genre and the contemporary zeitgeist in his seminal LP, SUBCULTUR3D, a retro-futurist synthesis of new wave synth pop, distortion-warped electronica, existential philosophy and 8-bit-inspired melodies, constructed into a digital dreamscape of leftfield sound.

Across the 8-track monolith, angst-trap vocals drift over kinetic beats that build spacey vignettes of a disillusioned mind moving through pure experimentalism. Experimentalists often mistake obscurity for depth, but Lon3! reaches authenticity and infectiously fresh ingenuity without sounding like he is straining for either. It feels as though he is scarcely within the same orbit as us when laying down the gravity-defying foundations of his genre-fluid sound, pulling pop, RnB, DnB and funk into tableaus of escapist colour and jaded soul.

The Southern California recording artist, singer-songwriter and producer carries the ethos of a generation that grew up between internet nostalgia, corporate surveillance and DIY self-invention. After collaborating with ericdoa on 2NITE, signing with Boom Records in 2025, returning to independence and founding CULTPOP Media, Lon3! has already proved he is operating with more than surface-level rebellion.

Even securing a settlement against a Big Three major label without legal representation speaks to the same refusal to be flattened by the machine. SUBCULTUR3D is a vivid act of reclamation after creative stagnation, sparked by Y2K memory and sharpened into pure adrenaline-fuelled ingenuity.

SUBCULTUR3D is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ariel Diaz – ‘Might as Well’: A Neon-Stroked Temporal Gateway into the Escapism of Pop’s Retrofuture

Posted on 26 March 2026

Ariel Diaz has returned with his latest single, ‘Might as Well’, an iridescent retro-pop cut that shimmers like a neon-stoked kaleidoscope. Blending the self-aware swagger reminiscent of Alex Cameron with the blinding lights of The Weeknd’s urban soundscapes, Diaz offers a vibrant, ear-snagging anthem. It finds the perfect moments to lean into new-wave synth-pop, revel in 80s nostalgia, and emerge as a truly scintillating floor-filler. This track wraps you in its hazy, affection-soaked pop production, its synths strobing and glistening, leaving you utterly spellbound by the independent singer-songwriter’s distinct vision.

Diaz takes the archetypal love song and transforms it into a mesmerising temporal gateway. He swaps out mundane sentimentality for an escapist fantasy where love emerges victorious amidst pulsing rhythms. Lyrically, Diaz continues to explore longing and the subtle complexities of affection with an emotionally candid approach, often using self-effacing humour to reveal a raw vulnerability. His knack for balancing melancholy with sharp wit ensures that even his most intimate lyrical disclosures resonate with considerable power.

‘Might as Well’ is now available on all major streaming platforms, including YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Mythic Melodys: Broken Halo – A Neon Melancholy-Stroked Bridge into the Future of Melodic Alt-Trap

Posted on 24 March 2026

The Swiss visionary Pascal Stich has his emotive peak with the latest Mythic Melodys single, Broken Halo, providing melodic alt-trap with a definitive bridge into the future of the genre. It is production perfection for the way the angular shoegaze-esque guitar notes sting as they dance around bass-swathed beats and electronic motifs, which edge the release into a melancholic pool of new wave synth-pop.

It feels almost perverse to derive such immense pleasure from a lyrically cutting release where raw wounds bleed into the contours of the lyricism. The track touches on themes of resilience, hope, masochism, and mourning with a refreshing lack of artifice; it outpours the emotive revelations that come to us when we’re looking up from rock bottom; the kind of introspective fragments that few people would dare to air, let alone let loose on the airwaves.

Having already surpassed one million streams, this track follows the massive success of previous hits like AM I HIGH, proving that the 26-year-old artist has mastered the art of turning lyrical confessions into highly visual, pensive neon-stroked snapshots.

Created in the solitude of late-night reflection, the music invites a deep connection through its cinematic atmosphere. It is a total vibe for those who prefer their playlist staples with a side of vulnerable, inner reflection.

Broken Halo is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Going Rate – Road to Nowhere: A New-Wave Ska Riot Fueled by Iridescent Horns

Posted on 10 February 2026
Road to Nowhere by The Going Rate

In The Going Rate’s Road to Nowhere, the galloping guitars rush forward with a momentum, carrying iridescent-with-euphoria horns that flare against the rapturously zealous vocal delivery. There is no separation between voice and instrumentation; they surge together as a single ecstatic force, turning the age-old idiom at the track’s core into a spark of renewal capable of tilting a worldview back toward possibility.

The slightly surrealist middle eight deepens the sense that stepping into The Going Rate’s whirling dervish of a ska world comes with its own rites. Expectation becomes irrelevant when uncertainty is greeted with a smorgasbord of talent, zero restraint, and a vitality that very few outfits inside or outside the ska zeitgeist have the audacity to carry. The vocals act as a steadying force within this sunny side up burst of serotonin, radiating the kind of exhilaration that would surface if Debbie Harry had steered Blondie headfirst into ska. It’s a new-wave riot with its blood up.

The narrative behind the brightness reaches further than the thrill of the arrangement. Road to Nowhere was shaped as an anthem for reclaiming your own direction through doubt, obstacles, and the weight that gathers when you forget your own agency. The horn-heavy progressions and fast-paced guitars pull that intention into physical motion, sending the listener through winding harmonies and straight into an uplifting final chorus. The unresolved closing chord leaves the question hanging in the air, nudging the listener toward whatever comes next.

As a collective, The Going Rate fold their multi gender, multi racial line up into a sound driven by unity, exuberance, and an unwavering support of original music across Long Island, New York City, and the broader Northeast.

Road to Nowhere is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

TRANCES shaped a chorally crystalline alt-indie ascent in Last Devotion

Posted on 31 January 2026
Last Devotion by TRANCES

From the depths of Seattle’s DIY scene, TRANCES have unleashed the sonically diaphanous ecstasy of Last Devotion; the first single from their upcoming EP, beyond the glow. With their name as a manifesto and a sound forged in lucid disarray, they’ve mastered the art of letting experimentation lead the way without veering into indulgence. If you imagine a more chorally crystalline aesthetic caressing the slacker spirit of Britpop at its most gorgeously unbothered, you’ll get a sense of the sonic alchemy TRANCES summon here. Their expressive zeal lands somewhere between Pavement’s playfulness and something altogether more transcendental; the only issue being that it didn’t arrive on the airwaves sooner.

Rather than grappling for a sense of authenticity, it’s embedded in every one of their creative impulses, from the oscillating guitar harmonies to the centrifugal rhythm section that steers the kaleidoscopic progressions into new off-kilter territories. There’s a quiet confidence in the production, recorded by Don Farwell at Earwig Studios and polished by Matt Bayles, that lets the more fever-dream elements unfurl without ever losing shape. With a lush post-punk glaze and flashes of shoegazey friction, the track feels like a product of both longing and propulsion — constantly renewing itself without ever starting from scratch. It’s a full-body immersion into emotive disorientation.

With the rest of beyond the glow due to land in March, and with mastering credits from Rachel Field at Resonant, the pieces are in place for TRANCES to cut through the noise with an alt-indie sound that defines this generation of alt-indie.

Last Devotion is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Bandcamp. 

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Review by Amelia Vandergast

Etherdene’s ‘Water is for Walking’ is an indie pop dream of sylistic semi-lucidity

Posted on 29 November 2025

Etherdene has never left anything to be desired in the stylistic department, but with her latest single, Water is for Walking, the trailblazing singer-songwriter toyed with the aesthetics of indie with more fervour than ever, allowing the motifs of post-punk to go pop in the vortex of her dreamy sonic signature. An anthem for the overthinkers, the new wave synth-pop obsessed, and those who will never get over the pull of 00s electronic pop nostalgia, Water is for Walking is as fluid as the titular element. The oceanic semi-lucidity stands as a testament to both Etherdene’s talent and authenticity as an artist; it’s no surprise to see so many pulled into the gravity of her orbit as she spills soul, style, and colour onto the airwaves through sheer etherealism.

South African-born and Oregon-based, Etherdene (the moniker of Dala Botha) is a creative polymath whose artistry has spanned both sound and design. After years of threading melody into meaning through her former band Kaktus and exploring her aptitude for production, she stepped into her solo stride in 2020. Since then, her output has become a mirror for her innate ability to fuse introspection with sensory sublimity.

The dreamlike pull of Water is for Walking reaffirms Etherdene’s place as an architect of emotional resonance in modern alt-pop.

Water is for Walking is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

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

From shorelines to songwriting acclaim, Alt Taverna set sail with The Sea, The Sea

Posted on 18 October 2025

In The Sea, The Sea, Alt Taverna delivered one of the rare new wave indie-rooted debuts that broadsides through sheer sublimity. It’s the kind of track that makes you want to sway your way into complete surrender, as you’re pulled beneath the surface by the waves of angular guitar refrains and the vocals that command the emotional tide. Every turn of the track leaves you suspended in tentative anticipation for the next burst of voracious electricity.

Imagine Interpol called a British coastal town home and donned woolly jumpers instead of designer suits. That’s where The Sea, The Sea lives, in the space where ascending guitar lines rise through the sea air and production drapes everything in a fine ethereal mist. The harmonic layering arrests without ever straying into indulgence, leaving the songwriting as sharp as it gets. No posturing, no facades, just the quiet, undiluted power of someone who knows exactly how to make resonance manifest beneath your skin.

Alt Taverna is the solo vessel of a guitarist once tipped as one to watch, who went from recording with Greg Haver to chasing meaning through religion and philosophy in London, Barcelona, and Dorset. These shifts ripple through his lyricism as much as the influence of Big Thief, Sufjan Stevens, and Leonard Cohen. Already recognised in the UK Songwriting Contest, The Sea, The Sea earned a five-star rating from the judges. But the only star you’ll really need to pay attention to is the one who penned it.

The Sea, The Sea is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Walter the Dead rewrote the darkwave canon with cinematic shadows of panache in his eponymous debut single

Posted on 18 September 2025

Walter the Dead has made his eponymous debut, leading listeners down a dark corridor of post-punk, where portraits of Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, and Joy Division hang alongside his greatest influences: She Past Away, Depeche Mode, and The Cure. Walter the Dead conjures the past with dark reverence and cinematic weight, delivering a release that doesn’t breathe nostalgia but exhales necromantic devotion.

The analogue synths, moody oscillations of reverb, and solid pulsive percussion leave no timestamps, no illusions that Walter the Dead belongs to any single era. Instead, it swarms with the seduction of the spectral energy, echoing the artists who gave us vessels to pour our ennui and lament into in the 80s. There’s something intensely sacred in the way this track was delivered—not as a revival, but as a dark offering on an altar built from decades of post-punk heartbreak.

Put together by Eric Smith, who has spent over 20 years shaping sound, the project captures the essence of his favourite 80s icons without slipping into imitation. It’s not always easy to draw a line between pastiche and panache, but Walter the Dead did it with razor-sharp precision. This debut will leave you restless in your wait for what might come next.

Walter the Dead is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Søftbleach Staked Their Claim on the Indie Dream Pop Zeitgeist with Fortress

Posted on 10 September 2025

With a sound so ethereal it slipped straight into the new wave indie dream pop zeitgeist, the debut single Fortress from Søftbleach marked yet another trajectory of ascent from the diaphanous London-based powerhouse. They’re already shaping up to be an artist that seeks out your senses rather than waits to be sought.

It’s the most plausible outcome that they’ll be on all the hit radio stations, TV shows, and appear on the most prestigious stages based on the ephemeral weight of their talent, which is enough to bridge the gap between fans of Sabrina Carpenter and Beach House. With a CV that already stretches from Abbey Road to Love Island sync placements, they’ve made short work of leaving their sonic fingerprints all over the industry before their first EP has even landed

Their debut is a sublime sonic sojourn into the affection within tenderness, which allows you to feel the full force of the beauty of intimacy with its strobing and stabbing synths that pour reverb over the staccato-funk-spliced guitars. The softness doesn’t take the edge off; it heightens the ache of wanting to hold someone so close in perpetuity that they become your sanctuary. The sharpness of the rhythm section dances in perfect juxtaposition with the featherlight vocal presence, creating a sonic interplay that gently devours attention.

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


Review by Amelia Vandergast