Today we are thrilled to release No Fun, the new EP from Philly’s Crooks & Nannies. Last year, you heard the spare “control” and fragile yet powerful “Sorry” & the slow-building title-track (embedded above) dropped earlier this week. The cassette version of the EP features three exclusive tracks: “Liquor Store,” “Cantaloupe,” & “3am.” Crooks songs are like an exposed nerve – all tensions, spasms, singalongs and pathos – and those three are no exception. Cassettes available here.

The band will be playing an EP release show in Philly this weekend, alongside Empath & Another Michael. Tickets here.

More soon.

You’ve already heard “Kill Her Freak Out” & “Mad At Me” from Honey, Samia’s long-awaited follow up to 2020’s The Baby and 2021’s Scout EP. Today, the Nashville-via-NYC songwriter returns with two more emphatic reasons to pay attention, a pair of linked ruminations on the end of a relationship.

“Pink Balloon is trying to make amends by looking at it from a bird’s eye after everything got too complicated,” says Samia. “Sea Lions is not zoomed out – stewing in it, too angry to work it out or let it go, finding old voicemails and trying to decide where it went wrong on a loop until you have to run it off, running until you were never angry in the first place.”

A pair of twins in music video form arrived last night alongside the single, each directed by Samia with friend & collaborator Jacqueline Justice. While the palate of “Pink Balloon” matches that song’s spare intensity, both the video and track “Sea Lions” play coy with their intentions until exploding into a surprise climax.

The double single’s Max Taeuschel artwork, which mixes photos shot by Justice on the video set with handwritten lyrics from Samia, is below.

Honey is set for release January 27th of 2023, and is available for pre-order in multiple formats. Tickets for the extensive Honey tour are available now over in the tour section.

Hippo Campus don’t stop. They can’t. They just wrapped the second leg of their LP3 tour last month, and they’re back this morning announcing a full slate of BIG shows in spring 2023. Expanding on the already-announced Red Rocks show that went up last month, these shows will be on sale this Friday at 11am local.

More soon.

Jordana’s new EP I’m Doing Well, Thanks For Asking is out now. It’s the kind of confidence check EP that manages to pull from everything that came before it, while finding out how to improve upon all the elements that made Jordana so endearing in the first place. If you liked the dreaminess of the TV Girl collab EP Summer’s Over, it’s here. If you liked the more softly bittersweet moments of Something To Say To You, you won’t be disappointed. If you’re chasing the overt pop of Face The Wall, yep, present.

Following the previously released “Is It Worth It Now?” and “SYT” comes “You’re In The Way.” On this single, Jordana recalls the leathery indie pop she explored on Something To Say To You, with a track that is built around a simple drum loop, guitar strums and her impeccable voice. Like much of the EP the subject matter centers on self-discovery in the wake of change. “It’s about getting to know yourself again after seemingly wasting time investing in someone else,” she explains. Listen to the song and watch its The Valdez-directed video above.

Fresh off her Remi Wolf support dates, Jordana is in the middle of her first ever ex-US tour, hitting Pitchfork London last night and Paris later this week, with a few headlines & a Rough Trade instore for good measure. Tickets for all available in our tour section.

Back in September we announced Samia‘s sophomore album Honey on the back of the spare & beautiful lead single “Kill Her Freak Out.” Today Samia returns with something different: “Mad At Me” is a firework display of gas pedal indie pop (produced by Rostam, guest verse from papa mbye) that celebrates the time honored tradition of faking it till you make it.

“The lyrics for Mad At Me came from a poem I’d written about imagining what it’d be like to stop caring about what anyone was thinking. I was cosplaying a position that I haven’t experienced which is of literally any confidence in my point of view,” says Samia. That’s right, even the fun songs are a little in their own head.

The video, available above, was directed by Samia herself alongside regular visual collaborator Muriel Knudson. “In the video we tried to embody that character,” Samia continues, “a bunch of girls having a good time in spite of it all. It is a big lie.”

The album is currently available for pre-order in multiple formats, each linked below.

In other news, yesterday was Samia’s first stop on Maggie Roger’s Feral Joy tour in Leeds, UK. It’s the first opportunity anyone outside of North America has had to see Samia perform her songs live. The tour has several more stops, while Samia will be playing her own sold out(!) XOYO gig and a stop at Pitchfork London while she’s in the UK.

Back stateside, US tour in early 2023 with Tommy Lefroy is on sale now. Get tickets for all dates over in our tour section.

Today Crooks & Nannies are back with “Sorry.”

It’s the second song we’ve released since announcing the signing of the West Philly duo of Madel Rafter and Sam Huntington. Our first came back in September: “control,” a roller coaster ride of emotion from Rafter. “Sorry” veers into slightly different territory. The fragile-yet-dynamic anthem from Huntington, arrives with the announcement of the January 13th EP No Fun.

Of the song, Huntington says, “Sorry is the first and only song I’ve written entirely in one sitting. I recorded a demo immediately afterward, and the final vocal is still the take from that demo. It came to me in 2018, at an incredibly overwhelming and unstable time in my life – I had recently made the decision to stop ignoring the fact that I was transgender but was struggling to grapple with what that meant for me personally, and was feeling a lot of frustration toward myself for not having figured it out. Simultaneously, I found myself single for the first time in years and without the self-understanding to forge structures and supports i had, until that point, found in other people. I was in over my head, looking for strength in the wrong places and having an increasingly difficult time seeing a future for myself.”

No Fun will be available digitally and on limited-edition cassette, featuring three tape-exclusive tracks. You can pre-order one of 200 available copies now over on Bandcamp. While the digital is coming in January, the cassette will arrive in March.

The announcement comes only a few short days after the band wrapped up a run of dates supporting Lucy Dacus. They’ll hit the road again later this winter alongside our very own Rubblebucket at their release show next month in NYC then a handful of dates throughout the north east. All dates in our tour section.

Today we release Earth Worship, the latest triumph from Brooklyn joy peddlers, Rubblebucket. Up until now you’ve heard  kaleidoscopic pysch-pop and playful rainbow soul singles like “Morning In The Sun,” “Cherry Blossom,” and the title track.Earlier this week, the band gave one final teaser in the form of the gloriously groove-forward “Geometry,” along with its Hayoan of America-helmed music video above. You may have caught the song spinning on your local radio station over the past few weeks, but now it’s available everywhere.

But the album as a whole is a living, breathing celebration of sun-drenched indie pop, party funk, and dumpster diving disco – no, we can’t believe we wrote that sentence either. But, seriously, this album manages to do everything you could imagine with a horn underneath some of the brightest melodies of the year.

In other news, the band recently surprised fans by mailing out exclusive invites to a listening party/green up event taking place in Brooklyn later this month. Fans who RSVP early received event info and guaranteed entry. Fans who plant their invites, get a flower. No really. In keeping with the spirit of Earth Worship, the invites were printed on plantable seed paper. Invites are also available at the site of their NYC release show, Public Records.

Speaking of release shows, the band announced a mini run of dates earlier this year and at the time we promised we’d be back with more soon. Soon is now: a full US headline is going on sale this morning here. Full list of dates, some of which include our very own Crooks & Nannies below.

Off With Our Heads, the new EP from Brooklyn’s Native Sun, is out now. Earlier this week the band’s new single “When She” made a final, compelling case for why you should listen to the Walter Schreifels produced EP. There they trade in the stoner bombast for some crunchy jangle, but match the dialed back sonic with their most vulnerable and deeply personal song to date.

“It was composed during the time of my mother’s declining health and ultimate passing away,” says Native Sun’s Danny Gomez. “I wrote the song from start to finish in about half an hour and post-writing it realized how it encapsulated what my reality was in that moment…seeing somebody you love fade away inside and imagining what that must be like. Always found it interesting how the cheeriest sonically sounding track turned out to be the most somber lyrically, the paradox of reality.”

Both bassist Justin Barry and drummer Nico Espinosa had lost a loved one, so the song took on a shared meaning for the group.

“When Danny showed us that song, it was really emotional,” says bassist Justin Barry. “Everyone in this band has lost a parent. It’s all something we share and have bonded over, music is all we have.”

They’ll bring that music to stages across New York for the rest of the month. Supporting SLIFT on October 18th at Elsewhere. Officially celebrating the release of Off With Our Heads on October 25th at Baby’s All Right. Playing alongside Geese & The Bobby Lees at The Colony in Woodstock, before knocking out an opening slot for FIDLAR at Irving Plaza and a halloween show at Knockdown Center in Queens. Tickets over on their site.

This is “Daisy (Piano Version),” a beautiful reimagining of the stand-out from Charlie Martin’s debut solo album, Imaginary People. Last month Martin announced the deluxe edition of Imaginary People which features 4 alternate piano versions of songs from the 2021 album. The deluxe edition, is available now for purchase on CD & cassette, alongsid standard vinyl versions of the album.

“I started writing ‘Daisy’ years ago. It existed just as a piano melody for the longest time. Around 2020 finally the words came that felt right,” explains Martin. ‘I’m singing about safe travels; how vulnerable traveling can feel and how grateful I am when things go well. This past summer I lost my grandpa; made countless trips down to Gulfport, MS where he was in the hospital (along Hwy 90), and I was working on this piano project in the time between those trips. Needless to say to it was a hard time for me and my family, and I was lucky as always to have music to lean on.”

Hot on the heels of a tour with Teethe, Martin is hitting the road next week with Ichiko Aoba. All dates over in the tour section. Additionally, on October 11th at 9:30 pm ET, Martin will be streaming a live performance exclusively on his Bandcamp page, and Charlie will be present in the chat taking questions from fans. The performance was recorded live in Austin, Texas around his recent hometown debut at Mohawk.

On her new EP, I’m Doing Well, Thanks For Asking, Jordana is getting to know herself again. Or more accurately: getting to know her selves. It’s fair to say the 22-year-old New York songwriter has shifted shape a few times in her short career. She got her start with homespun indie folk on Classical Notions of Happiness before jumping to the spindly bedroom pop of Something To Say To You. A year later, she was veering into the dreamy haze of her TV Girl collaboration Summer’s Over, before eventually giving way to the hi-gloss pop of Face The Wall. It’s the kind of omnivorous output the phrase something for everyone was invented for.

Today she unveils the impossibly massive lead single “SYT,” along with a Graham Epstein music video, which you can watch below.

Along the way she’s managed to make fans of Wallows & Local Natives, who’ve each taken her on the road in 2022, landing her in front of crowds that number in the thousands. Today she adds Remi Wolf to the list, as their run of dates together kicks off. Tickets would be available over in the tour section, but this on is pretty much sold out across the board!

PS: Yesterday was Ducky’s third birthday. Everybody say happy belated birthday to that adorable lil guy in the front page photo.