Browsing Tag

Psych Pop

Alexander Yearns – What the Hell: The Indie Surf Pop Sound of an Existential Summer

Posted on 30 April 2026

Alexander Yearns cruised onto our radar through woozy, surfy psych pop, saturated oceanic scintillation and 60s kaleidoscopic indie cool with his standout single, What the Hell; riding cosmic waves while brushing against irreverent deadpan indie malaise, Yearns concocted a mind-melding sonic menagerie you’ll want to get lost in time and time again.

What the Hell is a timeless exasperation of how reality is more of a suffocating surreality when desire revolves around escape. The sun-bleached production tempers the wiry tension while never inhibiting the kaleidoscopic aesthetic pleasure of the release, which allows the guitars to shimmer with a narcotic glaze, the rhythm section keeps the pulse taut, and the vocal delivery lands with the kind of shrugging discontent that makes existential frustration feel oddly anthemic.

Hints of Mac DeMarco’s woozy ease, strokes of The Strokes’ clipped cool, and Allah-Las’ coastal psychedelia flicker through the single, which is lyrically antithetical to your average summer single, but for the outliers whose existentialism doesn’t diminish when the heat hitches up, it hits all the right spots.

Based in New Jersey, the singer-songwriter has built his sound around Americana rock, soulful vocals, and emotionally direct songwriting; What the Hell could easily be considered his Notre Dame.

What the Hell is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Dreamy Doo-Wop and Raw Self-Reflection Drift Through the Kaleidoscope of Jacob Tell’s ‘So Much of the Time’

Posted on 27 February 2026

Jacob Tell wore the scars of self-flagellation on his sleeve in So Much of the Time, the standout single from his sophomore LP, Hard to Be Human. The dark lyrical themes are tempered by a whimsical twist of 60s psych pop, the kind of wistful theatricality you’d expect to hear drifting from a dimly lit backstreet cabaret stage. That push and pull between bruised confession and off-kilter charm gives the track its beautifully skewed gravity, and it instantly pulls you into Tell’s inner monologue.

By using dreamy doo-wop textures as a form of emotional abstraction, Tell triumphed in his attempt to lay the rawest wounds bare, the kind inflicted by existing in a world where self-directed derision settles in the bones long before anyone else gets close enough to hurt us again. It’s an eccentrically forlorn meditation that taps into the collective desire to revisit a version of ourselves and connections when we weren’t quite so idiosyncratically obscure or tangled up in doubt.

As the barbershop-quartet-esque harmonies drift in and the jangly honeyed melodies wrap themselves around the hazy aura, Tell hands you the perfect sonic space to sit with your own contradictions. You drift, you ache, and you feel that peculiar relief that comes from knowing someone else has given language to the isolation of kicking yourself alone.

The LA-based independent artist continues expanding this world of emotional excavation across the rest of Hard to Be Human, produced by Don Douglass and released through Ekletrik Rekordz. Recording for two follow-up projects is already underway, including the intimate collection Someone to Cry and the classic-song tribute record Under the Influence.

So Much of the Time is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Best Friend from The K.I.J Experience redefined swagger with indie sleaze and soul

Posted on 9 January 2026
Best Friend by The K.I.J Experience

The K.I.J Experience laid down a groove like he was warming up at CBGB with his latest single, Best Friend, taken from the longlisted debut LP 12 from 24. The swanky-with-swathes-of-swagger track struts in with an unfiltered looseness, inviting listeners to the middle ground between the leathered drawl of Jim Morrison and the swirling synth rush of Inspiral Carpets. If you can hear Morrison vocally riding the infamous UK organ lines, you’re halfway to grasping the strange magic conjured here.

More than anything, it’s the middle-eight that catches you off guard, where the raucous electricity dials back to let a wave of Beatles-esque psychedelia flood in. As the instruments stretch out and soften, Karl Ian James extends longing across the airwaves with the kind of tenderness that quietly pulls apart the bravado. ‘Best Friend’ doesn’t yearn for lust or hedonism; it aches for reciprocity, mutual madness, someone to meet you halfway in your madness and call it connection.

Welsh multi-instrumentalist and producer Karl Ian James has made a name for himself by threading his off-kilter sonic imagination with his wry observations on love, loss, grief, and everything skewed in-between. From scribbling three-minute heart-pangs to soundtracking heartbreak on Amazing Radio and Radio Wigwam, he’s fast becoming a familiar presence in the leftfield pop underground. And ‘Best Friend’ just might be the one that turns heads the long way round.

Best Friend is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Bandcamp. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lake Crook Mouth Pulled Psychedelic Swagger from Vocational Monotony in Boring Jobs

Posted on 15 June 2025

Lake Crook Mouth threw sparks from the static of suburban disillusionment in Boring Jobs, the debut single from their upcoming LP, Here, Here & Finally Here. With a drawl steeped in Mark E Smith-esque discernment and a rhythm section that ebbs with the languid cool of surf pop, it’s a cut built for those whose thoughts get loud while their day jobs grind them down to mute.

Instead of chasing structure, the tropic-soaked psychedelia of Boring Jobs slips in and out of rhythmic grip, pushing and pulling like heat haze off asphalt. It is not comfort you’ll find here, but the confrontation of apathy through lyricism that waxes and unravels the irritability of monotony. When the chorus hits, harmonies mellow the angst without ever shedding the deadpan grit that gives the track its bite. There’s cheek, charm and a quiet existential reckoning in every twist of tone and texture, from spoken-word swagger to chameleonic catharsis.

The project is the brainchild of Lock Campbell, who cut his teeth in Sydney before relocating to London to deepen his musical vocabulary at Abbey Road Institute. That education didn’t polish him clean; it prised open new sonic possibilities, allowing him to stitch together the jangle of guitars with the low-end swing of rap and electronic immersion.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Jonathan Stephen Braught Raised a Kaleidoscopic Middle Finger to Convention in ‘Drug Shed’

Posted on 5 May 2025

Drug Shed from one of the most visionary troubadours of psychedelic country in the 21st century, Jonathan Stephen Braught, is a short, sharp sunstroke of sonic disobedience. Surfy, swanky, angularly kaleidoscopic guitars carry plenty of the instrumental weight in the single which ebbs and flows like the waves under the California sun as Jonathan Stephen Braught injects a little garage rock panache into the tropic psychedelic country pop earworm with his playful reprise of ‘I wish I had a drug shed’ which embeds itself into the playful vignette of mind alteration that conjures feelings of complete renegade freedom. Jonathan Stephen Braught is one of the rare kinds of artists you hear once and feel yourself become instantly endeared to. He’s a vibe in himself.

Operating somewhere between the sonic smog of lo-fi country, basement Americana and psych rock, Braught’s songwriting becomes the perfect circle in the unfiltered, weirdly witty, raw, and deeply human Venn diagram. His refusal to sand down the edges only amplifies the magnetic pull of his offbeat charm. From the opening hook to the last warped reverberation, Drug Shed rattles with the ragged joy of a brain just unspooling.

Written, recorded, and mastered in a creative flash fire as part of his latest project, Unorganized Crimes, Drug Shed is a bleary, unapologetically imperfect dispatch from a mind determined to make noise that tells the truth—even if it’s duct-taped together with half-broken guitars and fried drum loops.

Drug Shed is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Alt-Pop Sad Boy Psychonaut Jake Marshall Captured the Messiness of the Human Psyche with His Earworm, Next Time

Posted on 3 January 2025
https://soundcloud.com/jake-marshall-663570032/next-time/s-dbPXf13SIWu?si=0047c05f1cc947cb891083f8dffb3e38&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Jake Marshall continues to push boundaries with Next Time, the defining single from his debut EP, Better Luck Next Time. The perennial pop earworm blasts past contemporary trends with its retro-futurist spin on disco, funk, synth pop, and Avant Garde indietronica. Marshall’s music remains unapologetically unique, and Next Time is no exception, delivering the kind of sonic innovation that makes you fall a little deeper for his unfeigned artistry and unflinching mission to capture the messiness of the psyche as it wrestles with themes of affection and rejection.

The track evolves and drifts into obscure interstellar experimentation, allowing the listener to imagine what John Grant could create with the sardonic grit of Fidlar. It’s a testament to Marshall’s restraint-less approach to laying it all down on the line—idiosyncrasies and all. Next Time carries the emotional resonance of heartbreak but reframes it as an empowering experience; this ongoing saga of self-discovery is as stunning to hear as it is to witness, particularly as Marshall gains both artistic confidence and career traction.

Anchored by his striking four-octave range, Marshall delivers every lyric with a depth that feels revolutionary in a genre where vulnerability can often be an afterthought. The dynamic vocal lines, paired with the intricate production courtesy of Daniel Finn, create a rich sonic panorama that bridges raw emotionality with experimentalism.

Next Time will be available to stream across all major platforms from January 3rd, including Soundcloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Marlon Bianco went left of leftfield in his experimental electronic trip, Mad Man

Posted on 1 November 2024

Marlon Bianco’s latest single, ‘Mad Man,’ plays like an auditory hallucination; like peering through a drunken kaleidoscope, sounds and colours blend into a vivid sonic trip. Beginning with scratchy, trip-hop-adjacent beats, the track seamlessly evolves as Bianco’s dreamy, nostalgically textured vocals marry with the underlying rhythms.

It’s a sonic sculpture that etches itself into the mind, pulling you into the affirmation that insanity is infectious as elements of funk and jazz are weaved into a sublime lo-fi collage of sound.

Hazy summer nights may be behind us, but this psyched-to-the-nth-degree synth-driven odyssey from the Brighton-based aural polymath is here to stay. There’s no escaping the dreamy Avant Garde clutches of this release which forces you to live within its layers.

Mad Man will hit the airwaves on November 1st; stream the single on Spotify and follow Marlon Bianco on Instagram and Facebook.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Silver Magpie’s alt-indie single ‘Dickens’ is the perfect package of style, substance, and scintillation

Posted on 3 September 2024

Forget about the Oasis reunion, Silver Magpie’s return to the airwaves following a two-year hiatus with the single, Dickens, is infinitely more laudable. The trippy in all the right places alt-indie art-pop single, which embodies the classic songwriting of epochs gone by, is a tonal triumph. The glistening piano keys and angular guitar notes against the moody reverberations create an evocative platform for the singer-songwriter to pour candour across as he covers the pain of coming to terms with externally and internally concealed truths.

The consistently in flux vocal presence delivers everything from punchy cadences that punctuate the track as much as the percussion to resigned yearning to fiery swaggering outpours of unfeigned emotion to ethereal harmonies which endlessly ascend through the production.

Jesus Gutierrez hit pause on the Silver Magpie project after his 2022 single, Cartoon Hero, to refine his sound; given the kaleidoscopic gravity which pulls you into the poetic cosmos of Dickens, it is safe to say that the singer-songwriter has got his sonic signature down to a fine art.

The way Dickens implores you to swim with the thematic currents establishes Silver Magpie as so much more than an artist paying homage to the alt 80s and 90s; he’s a 21st-century pioneer, filtering his evocative narrative through lenses of textural nostalgia, resulting in a sound that you can sink into and instantly feel at home while prising new-found resonance from his eloquently penned productions.

Dickens was officially released on August 22nd; stream the single on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Denim Dan is in the borderlands between optimism and pensive resignation in the folky 60s psych-pop single, ‘Guess I’ll Be Alright’

Posted on 2 September 2024
Denim Dan

The invitation to celebrate Denim Dan’s 25th Anniversary (1994 – 2024) is the hottest sonic ticket on the airwaves. The commemorative LP compilates some of the biggest hits from the band’s seven studio album legacy, including 3AM, Don’t Throw it Away, Let Your Love Fall Down on Me (Too) and Down By the River Bend Flow.

Every release earned its coveted space on the expansive double album, yet potentially none more so than the quintessential kaleidoscope of eccentric nostalgia, Guess I’ll Be Alright. After a smoky 60s psych-pop overture, the single unravels in Denim Dan’s signature folk troubadour style, which permits his vocals to flood the mix over the cosmically swanky melodies.

Few artists dare to lyrically roam in the grey area between pensive resignation and optimism, yet Denim Dan boldly ventured over unchartered emotional territory to sonically visualise a relatable sensation of suffering a blow to the soul but looking ahead with jaded self-assurance that wounds will eventually heal.

Following the release of Denim Dan’s 25th Anniversary (1994 – 2024), Denim Dan is starting a new chapter with a new album in the pipeline and set to drop in November 2024.

The anniversary album will be available to stream on all platforms, including Spotify, from September 2nd.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Barry Slorridge – Why? Avant-Garde Whovian Electronica

Posted on 21 August 2024

Any artist who uses the vocalisations of an existential Dalek in their tracks is an icon in our book, and that’s just the tip of the ingenuity iceberg in Barry Slorridge’s slice of Whovian avant-garde electronica.

With Why? the UK-based composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist didn’t use his Bachelor’s Degree in Classical Composition by any conventional means; instead, he chose to score his cultivated composition chops into an installation of delicious discordance which reminisces with nuances of The Beatles and Kraftwerk.

The synth lines carry echoes of The Phobophobes, introducing a dark, reflective undertone, interwoven with kaleidoscopic effects, allowing distorted waves of psychedelia to cascade through the music. Meanwhile, sweet psych-pop harmonies offer a stark contrast to the monotonal menace of the Dalek samples.

The track epitomises revolutionary art, achieving a rare feat—it unsettles those comfortably ensconced in their auditory preferences while providing solace to those who find beauty in the bizarre. Once Slorridge finds his niche, he will be an unreckonable force in the alt-electronica scene; his ability to orchestrate sensory experiences which bend the mind and electrify the pulses is unparalleled.

Why? was officially released on August 5th; stream the single on YouTube now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast