“Sparks” has been a live staple for Jordana for a while. Anyone who saw her 2021 tour with TV Girl, likely saw her silence rooms with this one late in her set. So to celebrate another upcoming tour (announcing today – details below!), she’s released a studio version of the track. Listen above, or wherever you get music.

Now about that tour: Jordana will be hitting the road this Fall with rising indie pop rebel Dev Lemons. Tickets on sale this Friday at 10am local – you can snag them in our tour section. Flyer below.

It’s rare for things to feel and sound this raw and true. You may have discovered Crooks & Nannies – the West Philly duo of Sam Huntington & Max Rafter — on their early 2023 No Fun EP, a short-player that deserved every plaudit it received. Just last month, Paste proclaimed “what a joy it is to watch a band at the top of their game make such dazzling, singular tracks; how lucky we are that Crooks & Nannies have so, so much left to give.”

Today the band announced exactly what that more-to-give is: a new 10-song record, Real Life.

Alternating between painfully tender and jarringly obtuse, the childhood friends fashion themes of growth, loss, and transformation into off-kilter pop songs that whirr with the unpredictability of a failing engine. In early 2020, just days after Huntington decided to start hormone therapy, her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. After his passing, she and Rafter retreated to the partially-finished, off-grid cabin that her father had been building prior to his diagnosis. It was the first time either of them had been back to their hometown in upstate NY since transitioning, and it resulted in a distinct contrast between vulnerable, melancholy hush and explosive, confused guitar throughout every fiber of their new record. “Temper” is the first tease, a song that feels like an open wound filled with sugar, a rumination on the difficulties of forgiveness.

You can preorder copies of the album now on limited edition cassette, highlighter yellow vinyl on Bandcamp, or on ultra clear wax anywhere else.

A new era dawns on Wasteland. There’s country twang atop vintage guitar pop and plenty of cathartic rock moments to go around on this new Hippo Campus EP. If the past few releases from the Minneapolis indie rebels have pushed the experimentation envelope, this one feels like a self-assured return to early days form. It’s everywhere you listen to music now.

And we heard y’all loud and clear – *where’s the vinyl?* So we’ve got a limited edition 12″ pressed on Wasteland Smoke available for pre-order right now on Bandcamp. Shipping in late August.

Meanwhile, tour approaches. Get your tickets now while you still can. Lots of dates are already sold out. Get your tickets over in the tour section now.

Anyone who bought a deluxe edition version of Honey earlier this year received a limited edition flexi disc featuring Samia covering Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Country by Porches. With those copies long gone, today Samia has released both covers digitally and unveiled a limited edition 7″ for purchase on Bandcamp now.

Today Samia shares the new music video for “Amelia,” shot on the road during the first leg of Honey touring by Muriel Margaret. It encapsulates everything that makes a Samia show so special, with a few behind the scenes treats thrown in for good measure.

“This whole crew are like family to me and making this video was the such an honor to do,” says director Margaret. “I just wanted it to feel like what it feels like to be friends with Samia. It’s joyful, and special, and something you want to capture and share with other people.”

In case you missed it, that run of dates also saw Samia stopping by KEXP for a session. She did some Baby classics along with “Dream Song” from Honey. Watch the whole thing, including an interview with Kevin Cole, below.

More dates are on the way, as Samia kicks off the second leg of Honey touring later this month with support from Christian Lee Hutson. Tickets available in the tour section now.

File this under things you didn’t know you needed in your life: Crooks and Nannies covering “Islands In The Stream,” the Dolly Parten & Kenny Rogers classic. Available everywhere now.

“To me, Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers’ “Islands In The Stream” is one of the most iconic duets in human history,” says Crooks’ Madel Rafter. “We wanted to cover this track so Sam and I could mess around and have fun gender-swapping Dolly and Kenny’s parts while highlighting each of our vocal styles. Our pal and occasional bandmate Jacob Blizard produced the song; he and I spent a few days in his bedroom studio trying to make it into a disco version, which we ended up scrapping for this early-aughts pop-song compilation (think Now That’s What I Call Music but quirked up) approach. Solving the puzzle of this cover was a blast.”

2022’s How It Ends is one of the most thoughtful records we’ve released – TOLEDO’s debut full-length is a collection of songs that examine the relationships that make us who we are, all painted with a gentle indie folk palate. Today they return with seven additional tracks, bundled together on How It Ends [UNRATED EDITION]. “Patch,” a clear standout, is above. The digital is available everywhere you stream music, and physical copies of the standard are still available over on our Bandcamp.

When Hippo Campus returned last month with “Kick In The Teeth,” from their forthcoming Wasteland EP due in April, the twang caught a few folks by surprise. The band’s cowboy era continues on new single “Yippie Ki Yay,” less indebted to folk & country songwriting than the tune that preceeded it and more a return to the cathartic roots of their early material.

The single is accompanied by a vivid, stop-motion style visualizer directed by Julian Gross. Of the release, Hippo Campus says, “we initially started writing this song 6 years ago. it’s a story within a story. the narrative follows a character who has been outlawed but zooms out in each chorus to the perspective of the characters writing the story. it deals with “giddying up” in the sense that we gotta keep on keeping on despite not knowing what the fuck we’re doing a lot of the time.

imposter syndrome. the etymology of the word “yippie” is not commonly agreed upon, but in the 1936 song “I’m an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)” written by Johnny Mercer about a changing landscape of the traditional cowboy portrait, the lyrics seem applicable to our current state of affairs, perhaps the human condition; the constant observation and resistance to social change. the ugly reflection of a faux cowboy not knowing how to actually, really, truly rope a steer.”

Hippo will be heading out on the road later this year. Tickets in the tour section.

To celebrate the second leg of Earth Worship US touring now under way, Rubblebucket have shared two demos that became songs you know – each presented in collaboration with their respective solo sideprojects. Listen to “Cherry Blossom (Alex’s Version)” courtesy of Rubblebucket and Toth & “Truth in the Air (Kal’s Version)” courtesy of Rubblebucket and Kalbells everywhere now.

And if the Earth Worship tour has yet to hit your city, grab tickets now over in the tour section.