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 albums from Courtney Barnett and Idles, an excellent new track from Pup, and the announcement of a new record from Mitski. Check out the rest of the best new indie music below.
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Courtney Barnett – Things Take Time, Take Time
Courtney Barnett stormed onto the scene in 2015 with her debut album Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. A lot has happened since then, including a few more solo releases and a collaborative release with Kurt Vile. Things Take Time, Take Time feels like some of Barnett’s most focused work to date, sure to satisfy fans who fell in love with tracks like “Avant Gardner” or “Depreston.”
Idles – Crawler
Crawler, the latest release from political punks Idles, “immediately sets itself apart from the rest of Idles’ catalog on the album-opening track “MTT 420 RR,” in which Talbot for the first time on record actually … sings,” writes Steven Hyden for Uproxx. It sets the stage for a record that continues to expand the walls of what Idles are capable of, showing a new sense of dynamics that haven’t been present on previous efforts.
Damon Albarn – The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows
Originally conceived as an orchestral piece inspired by the landscapes of Iceland, Damon Albarn‘s sophomore solo album, The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows, was borne of the pandemic. During lockdown, the Blur/Gorillaz mastermind returned to the orchestral music and transformed it into 11 narrative tracks that each tell a store and explore themes of fragility, loss, emergence, and rebirth.
Makthaverskan — För Allting
It feels like just yesterday that Swedish power pop outfit Makthaverskan were announcing their new album För Allting. Now, the album is suddenly here, delivering twelve tracks that are equal parts dreamy and driving. “For our previous albums we have written the songs in our rehearsal space and pretty much recorded them the way they were,” the band explained in a statement. “For this album we intended the songs to be finalized in the studio in a different and left some more room to work with.”
Jon Hopkins — Music For Psychedelic Therapy
Jon Hopkins is back with his first new music since 2018’s Grammy-nominated Singularity. It was around this time that Hopkins embarked on an expedition through a huge cave network, living underground with a group for four days. Music For Psychedelic Therapy is an amalgamation of drone, ambient, and classical arrangements, making for a truly unique sonic experience (that sounds just as good when you’re sober).
Sega Bodega — Romeo
Sega Bodega has spent almost a decade perfecting the craft of indie-electronic music, and while his debut solo album Salvador might have been difficult to dig into at first, its follow-up Romeo is a much more approachable affair. However, the album’s high-concept narrative revolves around a fictional character named Luci that serves as an illuminator that brightens the world around them. Even if you don’t want to dig into the concept of Romeo, it’s still a pretty damn enjoyable listen.
Mitski – “The Only Heartbreaker”
Mitski broke her lengthy silence earlier this year with the release of “Working For The Knife,” which she quickly followed up with “The Only Heartbreaker,” alongside the announcement of her new album Laurel Hell. “The Only Heartbreaker” is more upbeat than its predecessor, an indie pop number anchored by driving percussion and Mitski’s gorgeous reverb-soaked vocal. “Sometimes you are just the bad guy in the relationship,” Mitski said of the track in a recent interview with Zane Lowe. “Sometimes you’re the one who keeps making mistakes, who’s breaking your favorite person’s heart, and there’s nothing you can do about it because you can’t just suddenly be a better person.”
Camp Cope – “Blue”
Melbourne trio Camp Cope made waves with their 2018 LP How To Socialise And Make Friends, and are now setting the stage for a new release in 2022. The first taste of what’s to come is “Blue,” a new song about depression, that is built atop a clean guitar, light percussion, and beautiful backing vocal harmonies.
Claud – “Tommy”
A little over a year ago, Claud signed to Phoebe Bridgers’ ever-growing label Saddest Factory, releasing their debut album Super Monster through the imprint. Now, they are following up the success of Super Monster with “Tommy,” which Derrick Rossignol calls for Uproxx an “evocative new single.”
Let’s Eat Grandma – “Two Ribbons”
Three years since the release of their sophomore album, I’m All Ears, Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth are finally back with a taste of new music. With little more than a solo reverberating guitar, “Two Ribbons” is a song that “plays on both singers’ heart-tugging songwriting as they deliver lyrics about fraying edges, friendship, and memory,” writes Carolyn Droke for Uproxx.
Charlie Hickey — “Seeing Things” (MUNA’s Version)
The second of two signees to Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory is Charlie Hickey, who is back with another remix of a song from his EP Count The Stairs. “Seeing Things” (MUNA’s Version) takes on a more pop-forward approach, building upon a basic electronic bass-snare beat before dropping into a full-blown electronic dance number.
Shamir – “Cisgender”
Shamir has been incredibly prolific over the last few years, releasing two records in 2020 alone. With no full-length releases in 2021, Shamir is now prepping a new record called Hetereosexuality, which is due for release early next year. The album is previewed by “Cisgender,” a spacey guitar number that Shamir says is the first part of “finally acknowledging my trauma. Everyone knows I’ve been through so much shit and I kind of just rammed through, without really acknowledging the actual trauma that I do feel on almost a daily basis.”
PUP – “Waiting”
After taking much of 2021 off, Toronto punks Pup are finally back with some new tunes to get us in the mosh pit. “Waiting” is what Adrian Spinelli called for Uproxx “an expectedly loud track,” which arrived alongside a B-side called “Kill Something.” The song came about by “smashing the heaviest riff [bassist] Nestor [Chumak] could write with the simplest, most uplifting chorus I could write, just to see what would happen,” Stefan Babcock said in a statement.
Vundabar – “Devil For The Fire”
Vundabar have been one of the most underrated and consistent bands in the indie rock scene, releasing impressive record after impressive record. Now, the Boston trio is prepping Devil For The Fire, previewed by its title track. The song starts out like a classically angular Vundabar song, before building into a noisy outro that almost evokes the distorted shoegaze of the most recent Diiv record.
Proper – “Red, White, And Blue”
We’ve had our eye on Proper since catching their set at South By Southwest a few years back. Now, the band has teamed up with artist/producer extraordinaire Bartees Strange for “Red, White, And Blue,” which brings a whole new depth to the trio’s sound and allows them to set their sights on the highest echelons of the punk scene.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. .
