Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.
Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week, we got new music from Japanese Breakfast, Toro Y Moi, Pup, and more.
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Twin Shadow – “Permanent Feeling”
On “Permanent Feeling,” George Lewis Jr., AKA Twin Shadow, coats his voice in gratuitous Auto-Tune and sings of eternal life (and love) over a bed of fluttering guitars, cloudy synths, and plucked bass. Reckoning with permanence, namely the lack of it, Twin Shadow has created one of his most gorgeously urgent songs in years. If “Permanent Feeling” is any indication, then his forthcoming album, Georgie, is shaping up to be a standout in his vast catalog.
Pup – “Hallways”
While making their fifth album, Who Will Look After The Dogs?, Pup learned how to have fun again. The pop-punk (or should I say “pup-punk”) band’s infighting is infamous, the creative process resembling something more along the lines of a destruction process. Following the acerbic anthems of 2022’s The Unraveling Of PupTheBand, the Canadian outfit focused on coiling themselves back up into a coherent whole. “Hallways,” the first song frontman Stefan Babcock wrote for LP5, is a simple exercise in rediscovering inner joy as a means of recalibrating your outer community. Shout-along vocals and a propulsive drum beat center Babcock’s self-reflective musings. It underlines the enduring idea that playing music with the buds is supposed to be fun.
Florist – “Gloom Designs”
Emily Sprague begins “Gloom Designs,” the closing track of Florist’s forthcoming album Jellywish, gazing inward. “In my life, will I see the day / We can be face to face,” she wonders. As the song progresses, the indie-folk musician expands her purview to muse on the world in its entirety: “Humanity what have we done to this? / Is there nothing left?” In press materials, Sprague describes “Gloom Designs” as the “whole history of us” and “the question mark for what comes next.” Ending Jellywish with this existential entanglement seems to be the point for the record’s existence in the first place.
Lucy Dacus – “Best Guess”
Next month, Lucy Dacus will release Forever Is A Feeling, her first solo studio album in four years. Whereas previous singles “Ankles” and “Limerence” hinted at the boygenius member’s Baroque inclinations, her new single, “Best Guess,” is more standard Dacus fare with its steady drum beat and lightly modulated guitars. “If I were a gambling man, and I am / You’d be my best bet,” she sings in the chorus. It’s an ode to taking a risk on someone and how that risk can ultimately pay off.
Venturing – Ghostholding
“So should I change my name again,” Jane Remover asks on their latest single, “JRJRJR.” Well, in a way, they already have. Venturing is the alias Jane has given themselves, and Ghostholding, their debut LP under this moniker, builds on the post-rock foundation they established on Jane Remover’s 2023 album, Census Designated. Whereas the next proper Jane Remover record returns to the rap cadences and hyperpop-inflected sounds of their earliest work, Ghostholding posits a parallel universe in which Jane kept pursuing rock’s outer edges. Venturing gives them the outlet to reify that universe.
Real Lies – “I Could Join The Birds”
As Real Lies themselves tell it, We Will Annihilate Our Enemies contains more songs in the present tense than their music ever has. The English electronic duo is normally known for its wistful, swooning love songs carried by pulsing bass and thumping drums. All those crucial elements are still here, but this time around, Real Lies don’t dwell in retrospective thought so much as observe their current surroundings. On “I Could Join The Birds,” for instance, Kev Kharas and Patrick King consider all the people that make up their city, all the stories transpiring at that given moment. With its four-on-the-floor house beats and aqueous synth pads, “I Could Join The Birds” constructs itself as a conduit for introspection, capable of branching outward. A disco ball, after all, is just a sphere composed of countless mirrors.
Kaela – “Tender”
Kaela Sinclair successfully auditioned to become M83’s keyboardist in 2016. The Texas native beat out hundreds of applicants after bandleader Anthony Gonzalez issued an open call. From there, Sinclair embarked on a global tour and has since become a permanent fixture of the group’s lineup. In May, she’ll release a new solo album, Supraliminal, on Gonzalez’s label Other Suns. “Tender,” the single that accompanies the announcement, abounds with gauzy synth pads and hypnotizing arpeggios. Although she initially gained notoriety through her M83 affiliation, Kalea is here to cement herself as an artist in her own image.
Horsegirl – Phonetics On And On
Following the release of their 2022 debut album, Versions Of Modern Performance, indie rock trio Horsegirl quickly became one of the most exciting bands to come out of Chicago. While its core songwriters Penelope Lowenstein and Nora Cheng juggle English courses at NYU, they’ve managed to record their second album for Matador with the singular Cate Le Bon, who produced it at the Loft. Phonetics On And On is a level up by means of scaling back. Decidedly spare in its instrumentation, especially compared to its Sonic Youth-inspired predecessor, Phonetics‘ panache is translated through its minimalist confidence. Rather than lathering the guitars in Lee Ranaldo levels of distortion, Horsegirl have opted for clean, open space, allowing their infectious songwriting to resonate clearer than ever.
Japanese Breakfast – “Mega Circuit”
Michelle Zauner broke through to a wider audience with Japanese Breakfast’s indie-pop opus Jubilee and her memoir Crying In H Mart when they both released in 2021. For the next Jbrekkie album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women), Zauner dials back the synths and sweeping choruses in lieu of a more subdued aura. “Mega Circuit,” its latest preview, adopts a livelier flair with country drummer Jim Keltner’s shuffle. Given that Zauner has covered Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again” at many Japanese Breakfast shows, it’s a full-circle moment to see her collaborating with the man who played drums on the original recording.
Toro Y Moi – “Daria”
Last year, Chaz Bear released the eighth Toro Y Moi album, Hole Erth, a swerve away from the psych-rock-heavy Mahal and a dive into Travis Scott-esque hip-hop. Featuring guests such as Don Toliver, Kevin Abstract, and Duckwrth, it only seems appropriate that an exclusive track from the Japanese edition of the record, “Daria,” is produced by rap trailblazer Kenny Beats. With its chorus-soaked bassline, in-the-pocket breakbeat, and Chaz’s unbothered delivery, “Daria” meets the middle point between its two creators’ signature styles.
