Indie Pop

JR JR: “Back to the Land”

Like the sun finally coming out from the clouds after five days of relentless summer thunderstorms, comes the new album from Detroit indie pop duo JR JR. On Back to the Land, it’s all in the name. After spending time letting their bubbly, direct indie hooks take side stage for some more experimental endeavors, here, the duo marry the two philosophies.

Like your sibling who came back from college, still the same person you love to fight with, but now with an added layer of sophistication and maturity. Back to the Land‘s title track opens with a delicate, folksy guitar melody hearkening back to the charm of 2011’s It’s A Corporate World. The album’s pervasive theme of reconnection and renewal builds up before throwing back the curtains on a shimmery, sythn-driven chorus.

Windser- “These Days”

Sometimes we need to revel in the melancholy to understand it and pick ourselves up, and sometimes we have to combat darkness with warm sunshine, finding growth and therapy in a catchy earworm. Such is the case for L.A. producer Jordan Topf AKA Windser, who mulls over and emotes on his mix of sadness and boredom in his new track “These Days,” a hooky, early Two Door Cinema Club-esque indie pop groove to lift you back up.

Topf is joined by a gaggle of impressive musicians on “These Days,” including but not limited to members of Phoebe Bridgers, Mt. Joy, and Father John Misty’s bands to fully actualize this song to get you hyped for Winder’s debut album out tomorrow.

Chinese American Bear: “Feelin’ Fuzzy” (Live At Scholz Garten)

The last day of Spring Break deserves a real party, doesn’t it? Well, Chinese American Bear has the honey pot for just that.

Classically trained Anne Tong immigrated from China with her family when she was around six years old, and after moving around several states in vastly different parts of the country, the family settled in Spokane, Washington. Concurrently, Bryce Barsten’s Spokane-based family were part of the global “llama boom” of the 90’s that hit the US specifically in the Pacific Northwest. These two singular life experiences eventually brought them together in matrimony and music.

Chinese American Bear, simply, is wonderfully weird. Mixing the bubbly, whimsical nature of Chinese pop culture with more off-the-wall Western sensibilities of groups like Deerhoof or even a melodic Animal Collective to bring a bright, fun, bicultural party to the stage. And it’s a party we’re all invited to.

At their Scholz Garten performance, we learned the Chinese words and process for making dim sum and we got a reminder to not take ourselves too seriously, to let loose, and just feel fuzzy.

Maddy Kirgo: “Spare”

New Orleans’s Maddy Kirgo writes music not only akin to the eclectic, all-embracing attitude of the Big Easy, but also to the sounds currently pouring out of its venues, or in her case, the buskers on the corner. To that end, her sounds simultaneously evokes the California country rock sounds of the nudie suit era and the contemporary indie art pop sounds of artists like Weyes Blood or Faye Webster. And nearly seven years since her last release, she dropped Shadow On My Light late last year.

“Spare” is the first track on Shadow On My Light, opening the album’s theme of finding joy and just feeling good. Her soprano voice floats around her mellow, sun-soaked melody, setting the mood for the next half hour.

Maddy Kirgo performs this Friday at Hole in the Wall with Austin’s Fishplate and Dallas’s Brody Price.

Kowloon: “Heart Begins With You”

L.A.’s Kowloon is truly a one-man operation. Songwriting? Him. Instrumentation? Him. Recording, production? Yep, all Kowloon.

Backed by a full library of effects and music gadgets from various eras, Kowloon released a string of singles last year, demonstrating his affinity for the darkwave sounds of the 80s a la the Cure and Bronski Beat. Ahead of his sophomore album out later this year, Kowloon has gifted us “Heart Begins With You,” a song that leans more towards current indie pop than a fresh take on the past, like a laid back TC Superstar. But that relatable bleeding heart power runs through. And despite the song’s overall laidback energy, no part is simple or just there to check a box. And remember, it’s all him.

“Heart Begins With You” is out now.

Glassreel: “Myself Included” [PREMIERE]

Winnepeg’s Glassreel is a masterclass on the hard-to-nail trifecta of layers, technique, and breathing space. Nothing is simple, but everything is effortless. Following their 2022 debut Lustre, the group returns with “Myself Instead,” a song that shows the further fine-tuning, cohesion, and boldness the quartet has been building on.

While the Belle & Sebastian and Mazzy Star inspirations remain, “Myself Included,” indicates an upcoming album where those nods will be in mere glimpses because, honey, Glassreel is now staring into the looking glass; it’s all them. And it’s very exciting.

“Myself Included” is out today.

Cloud Companion: “Who Took The Night Away”

Ever get stuck in between states of sleep? Ya know, that Inception-type trip where R.E.M. feels more like reality than when you actually rise? If so…far out, man. Us too. If not, we’ve got just the thing to try and replicate it: Cloud Companion.

Now, the term “collective” gets thrown around a little too often these days. But this Austin outfit embodies the spirit of an art collective in a true sense of the word; by curating multi-media magic complete with bubbles, puppets, and altars…not to mention the mascot-of-sorts, Bardo, a towering solar sorcerer that helps the band cast eerily-cheery spells onto their live audiences. That said, it’s not just a theatrical gimmick. Aside from practicing the ancient art of celestial ceremonies, this solo bedroom pop project turned stage-spanning act sonically fulfills that day dream sensation of finding your mind caught up in the clouds. And that’s earned Cloud Companion the opportunity to share stages with former KUTX Artists of the Month Big Bill, Grandmaster, and Pelvis Wrestley.

After the sun-kissed sounds of last September’s Ordinary Time (and this September’s ExtraOrdinary Time deluxe edition), Cloud Companion continues the sequence with their new EP Waking Up / Falling Asleep – out tomorrow and followed by a gig December 4th at Empire Control Room alongside Holy Wire. While shock rockers aim to churn out nightmare fuel, this Cloud Companion release more like a refinery of dream diesel. WU/FA aspires to explore a cascade of consciousness and a stirring of spirits. It adopts the Pink Floyd approach of bookended album closer/openers – perfect for repeat listens on either side of your sleep cycle. It embraces a twilight aesthetic for a lucid listening experience that soothing, stimulating, and anything but a bedtime bore. And whether intentional or not, this record definitely falls in line with the early evenings we’ve had as of late.

Lastly, we gotta give credit to Cloud Companion for CC’ing us on the EP’s last lead single a day early. Because “Who Took The Night Away” chimes its charm even before the first downbeat and steals your senses in a four-minute, oddly-meditative mantra that evokes that ’80s/’90s transition era of moody and surreal R&B. In other words, “Who Took the Night Away” isn’t restricted to mere earworm status; it may just evolve into a nocturnal thief that echoes through your subconscious delights.

Waking April: “Rules”

North Carolina’s been in the news a lot lately, and our hearts go out to everyone in Asheville who are rebuilding after Hurricane Helene. Anecdotally, we also know some folks who sought sanctuary in nearby Raleigh, and we’ve learned that Raleigh’s also a refuge for one couple’s killer electronic collaboration.

We’re talking about Waking April, the classically-trained high school romance-turned-savant synth-pop pair. The duo’s been dropping tunes as Waking April for nearly a full decade now, but it wasn’t until the pandemic era that they really proved their firm footing in the Phantogram/CHVRCHES/Sylvan Esso corner of things, negating pretty much everything we’ve presumed around the “stereotypical” Raleigh sound. And that’s a legacy that’s only grown fuller with the release of Waking April’s debut full-length Fear of Failure that came out at the top of the month.

Mastered by Beyoncé/Olivia Rodrigo engineer Levi Seitz and flourishing with all kinds of exciting sounds (both live and synthesized), Fear of Failure spells nothing but mainstream success in our minds for the future of Waking April. The entire record’s an enthralling new chapter for the two-piece that covers plenty of moody, alternative dreamscapes, so if you want to dive headfirst into it, check out the workout-ready drum-and-synth-driven aggression on the second of FoF‘s eleven: “Rules”.

Deer Fellow: “Shock Value”

Demanding attention. Acting erratically. Stirring the pot just to start some shit. We’ve seen plenty of all that int the lead up to this election, but truth be told, for some people, that’s just part of their hardwired human nature.

At least that’s the inspiration for the latest single from Deer Fellow. This Austin duo’s coming up on nearly a full decade together, a duration throughout which we’ve broadly categorized their style as indie folk. However, just like you can never keep their namesake Cervidae in just one spot, Deer Fellow’s done a great job of branching out past their folk breeding grounds with ten point bucks of genre crossbreeding, primarily with pop, best exemplified by last April’s Unravel EP.

Based on that, and even this January’s “Closing Time”, we sort of feel caught in the headlights off Deer Fellow’s latest single that dropped last Friday. Yes, it’s still got those charming orchestral elements carefully nestled in rather than haphazardly slapped on the arrangement. But this time the sonic backdrop is a meadow of mellow psychedelia that we’ve never heard Deer Fellow graze before. Yeah, for a song called “Shock Value”, this one goes down super smoothly, with tons of reverb, far out vocal processing, woody snare rim clicks, soulful chord changes, harmonies galore, and of course, that gorgeous violin we look forward to in each Deer Fellow track.

Tish: “Burning Up”

We’re barely a week into October, everyone’s spooky season decorations are going up, excuses to miss Thanksgiving are already stewing…and we’ve still got highs in the 90s here in Texas. Autumn is a bit ablaze. Just goes to show you that life’s a…Tish?

At least, Tish is a big part of life for one particular group of Austinites. What started out as a sweetheart deal between Ethan Ames and Erin Thelen a half decade back has since rounded out into a four-piece thanks to the addition of AJ Audain and Tyler Rusin. Needless to say Tish has influences galore across their personnel’s varied backgrounds, but we’ll go ahead and put them somewhere around the intersection of indie rock and soul pop.

And this year Tish is finally ready to dish out their efforts onto streaming with the release of their debut studio album early next month, corresponding with an LP release show on November 3rd at Hole in the Wall that’ll be joined by Cash Grab and Foxglove. If you’re trying to stay as far away from ACL this weekend but still want to get out, check out Tish for a single release show 6PM tomorrow night at Knomad alongside openers Tiny Specks at 4PM and Ivy Mine at 5PM. And if you’d prefer to stay a slave to the precious A/C without ever stepping foot outside, go ahead and set your senses aflame with the record’s lead offering “Burning Up”. Evoking the nostalgia of that ’90s tightrope of grunge, alternative, and pop (complete with guitar distortion and unconventional vocal harmonies), “Burning Up” torches with airtight instrumentation, clever section segues, and overall just a ton of heart that leaves us eager to hear more.

Lindsey Rose Black: “One Of Your Girls” [PREMIERE]

As we noted yesterday, it shows real strength to unearth the passion of a certified classic by revitalizing it with a version well outside its initial genre. So we do have another cover today, but this one belongs much more to a contemporary catalogue. Which is frankly a great strategy for appealing to…shall we say…less adventurous listeners who fall in love with one streaming giant of a song, play it to death, and become curious to hear a different take on their favorite earworm.

That brings us to multi-instrumentalist-producer-singer-songwriter Lindsey Rose Black. Raised in Fort Worth and currently splitting time between LA and ATX, Black first caught our attention with her 2022 debut Subterra, an EP that showcased her Tex-ified art-pop-meets-indie-rock sound and delightfully down-to-earth attitude. Sure, Black’s discography’s been a bit lacking since then, yet rest assured, she’s got a ton of new original releases on the horizon throughout the rest of this year and extending into the next.

That said, Lindsey’s kicking off the streak with a sapphic spin on Troy Sivan’s smash hit “One Of Your Girls”. Just like how Aretha Franklin took Otis Redding’s “Respect” and flipped it into a endearing anthem of women’s empowerment, LRB’s version of “One Of Your Girls” is less a shallow lyrical gender swap and more a dream-pop powerhouse that’s perfect for Southern queers, especially the gay ladies. Preferences and orientation aside, anybody can appreciate the subversive positivity of this Texas-bred revisionist rendition, carried immensely by Lindsey’s calm-but-confident and thoroughly impressive pipes.

Madison Baker: “WANNABE”

It’s New Music Friday. It’s time to pump some fresh life into your playlists so let’s get straight to it; there’s new stuff from an awesome Austinite and a Howdy Gals-presented release show this weekend to boot. Both of which you might’ve already caught wind of through yesterday’s Austin Music Minute.

Yep, it’s Madison Baker, the sultry songwriter who first cut their teeth with classic country and R&B covers in rural East Texas. For the past half-decade-plus, however, they’ve settled nice and naturally into Austin’s abundant indie-alt-pop atmosphere and earned a respectable following on streaming starting with 2019’s “Champagne Shine”. Outside of the solo front, it’s the beginning of a bold new era for this intimate mood-maker as they launch their “cult country” trio Next of Kin next month with the three-piece’s debut single.

And while Next of Kin ticks the box for Baker’s country background, their newest standalone is a real return to form in terms of their R&B upbringing. Instantly entering the ranks of wonderful “Wannabe”s right up there with Spice Girls, GloRilla, and Megan Thee Stallion, Madison Baker just shared “WANNABE” ahead of a single release show tomorrow night at Antone’s alongside our January 2023 Artist of the Month Skateland and The Past Lives. You’re gonna wanna be there, no doubt. Can’t make it? Well, you can still admire the intricate arrangement on “WANNABE”, one that inspires awe with all-too-relatable relationship turmoil, drum fills that hit you right in the feels, sophisticated chord changes, haunting vocal harmonies, and a ton of other nuances that make “WANNABE” a ripe candidate for repeat listens, well after you’ve already memorized the biting lyrics.

So the next time someone realtively-ill-suited behind the mic brags that they’re a sensational singer, you might wanna politely point to this one and say, “you’re just a Madison Baker wannabe”.

Painterly: “Ok/Alright”

What’s that old stereotype about the acting hubs of L.A. and New York? Oh right. Every server you meet is actually an actor who’s just waiting tables ’til they score that sweet screen time. Which is fairly different from music hubs like Austin, where success is less about streaming numbers and more about overcoming artist multiplicity to make yourself stick out amongst the crowd. Yeah, the dissonance between the “Live Music Capital of the World” and status as one of the most expensive places to live has pretty much guaranteed that if you’re not in a corporate role…there’s a fifty/fifty chance you’re also a musician in your free time. And if you can find a profession that matches your passion, more power to you.

Take people like JC Barrett. If you’ve attended any of the events from the recently-wrapped 2024 spring season of KUTX’s Rock the Park live series, you’ve heard Barrett and his fellow Werd Company engineers making our featured artists sound mighty fine out at Mueller. But outside The Werd Company (which, full disclosure DOES serve a sponsorship role for Song of the Day), Barrett applies that technical prowess and tremendous passion to his Austin project Painterly. Serving as chief producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Barrett’s already steered this indie pop three-piece through an enthusiastic introduction, culminating in Painterly’s debut EP from last April, What’s the Year?

Last Friday Painterly unfurled their latest single and music video “Ok/Alright”. As the stylized title implies, it’s somewhat of a two-parter with a bit of a left turn in its final minute. But don’t get thrown off by the “blah” aspect of the words themselves in the title. Because “Ok/Alright” is actually an awfully optimistic piece of indie pop, one that’s an actually an endearing testament to the comforting power of love and connection in the face of day-by-day medicated malaise.

So if the Monday blues have got you down, cheer up. It’ll be Ok. Alright?

Indoor Creature: “Cross The Line”

Although we’re bound to find a silver lining eventually, when we take the time to really look at the world we live in – gross injustices, grievous atrocities, shared struggles and all – it can make staying inside super appealing. And for sonic creators, as long as the bleakness doesn’t make the music meek, the weight of societal commentary can say a lot about an artist’s maturation.

So let’s talk Austin Indoor Creature, who you may remember as our June 2021 Artist of the Month. Initially born from a stripped-down duo between singer-songwriter Caleb Fleischer and drummer-guitarist Travis Kitchen in the mid-2010s, Indoor Creature’s since evolved into one beast of a six-piece that breathes new life into their retro collection of influences. For any project who made it to this side of the pandemic, the outlook’s gotta be more optimistic. But as we mentioned before, harsh realities don’t just get hushed when the juices start flowing.

Marking their second standalone installation since 2021 full-length Living in Darkness, last Friday Indoor Creature embraced iniquity once again on “Cross The Line”. With a robust pop backbone and Fleischer’s vocals that evoke Thomas Mars, “Cross The Line” reminds us of the tragedy-spurred background behind Phoenix’s Ti Amo. But instead of gating the heck out their instrumentation and keeping the BPM far north of 90 (both straight out of Phoenix’s radio-friendly playbook), “Cross The Line” relishes in a spacious, stereo-spanning mix and a truly introspective tempo. And for an act that call themselves “Indoor Creature”, they’re sounding awfully human on “Cross The Line”, thanks to its jazzy dynamic range, soulful chord progressions, extended jammy outro, and of course, the socially-conscious lyrics.

Melotheory: “Breathe”

When you have roommates, at least good ones you get along with, group activities naturally arise around the house. For most folks, it’s watching TV, recreational smoking and drinking, or maybe the occasional board game. For musicians, however, having a practice space within eyeshot of your bedroom door is too good of a scenario to pass up.

At least that’s the situation that producers Patrick Insull and Austin Pedersen find themselves in; they’ve spent the past three years patiently penning in their apartment on behalf of their Austin quintet Melotheory. And who has a better insight into both blooming and wilting romances then your roommate? Maybe that’s why the sad boi aesthetic shines so bright on their debut batch of indie-rock love songs, which are genre dalliances themselves, albeit with disco rhythms.

This morning, ahead of a FREE release show 7:30PM tonight at the Cactus Cafe, Melotheory rolled out their eponymous debut full-length. At thirty-six minutes and ten tracks melotheory is a journey best enjoyed front-to-back, no doubt. That said, we also get why Melotheory chose “Breathe” as the LP’s lead single. There’s a serious Thomas Mars quality to the vocals , which quickly draws comparisons to everyone’s favorite Versailles indie rock revolutionaries. But where Phoenix flourishes with pop radio-ready, heavily gated, conservatively contained choices, “Breathe” maximizes their mix with stereo-sprawling selections over crests and valleys of dynamic shifts. Well…we’ve said enough. Time to exhale out of the work week and let “Breathe” do its thing.

King Air: “Power Ballads”

On this second New Music Friday of 2024, we just gotta give a bow to some Austin pop rock royalty. We’re talkin’ about husband-and-wife songwriter-producers Joy and Bill Baldwin, best known by their collaboration King Air. After securing a legacy in marriage and parenthood, the Baldwins – both veterans of the ’90s local live scene – finally sat down and held court in what would become the pair’s kingdom – songwriting.

As with any parents in need of some quality quiet time, King Air initially crafts most of their tunes on the acoustic front. That said, over the past dozen years and four EPs they’ve churned out some really impressive guitar-vocal-and-drum-driven indie rock that incorporates the most appeasing breezes of ’80s college jangle, ’90s alternative, and turn-of-the-millennium post-punk-revival.

Well, next Friday King Air’s decreed to bless us peasants with their debut full-length, Natural High. We’ve already caught some of Natural High‘s buzz and fuzz from two lead singles released last year, both of which benefit from an ongoing relationship with Nada Surf/Moving Panoramas collaborator Louie Lino. So while we don’t know what’ll happen to the grid during next week’s big freeze, us subjects can at least expect a modicum of harmony under King Air’s two rulers based on the LP’s final lead single, “Power Ballads”. Electricity and cold weather aside, “Power Ballads” charges and warms with a hit-inspired hearth that evokes heavyweights without sounding derivative.

Resin: “I Think I Love You”

Creatives can find inspiration pretty much anywhere; naturally in the world of art, but also through the process of nurturing, be that in helping others brush up on their talents, or simply in bringing a piece flora to fruition. Well, just a stone’s throw away from Austin out in Round Rock, high school art teacher Kristi Holthouser and plant producer Mae Sanchez have been reaping what started off as a mere seed of friendship a decade back with their passion project Resin.

True to their handle, Resin’s jam sessions secrete a viscous mix of styles composited from Sanchez and Holthouser’s individual experiences with a myriad of players and producers in Central Texas and on the West Coast. And although stirring things up in the same room is always preferable, the duo didn’t have that convenience at the top of COVID, leading Resin to reference a previous in-person blueprint before building on it one remotely inserted stem at a time.

The finished product “I Think I Love You”, is a damn good piece of alt-psych daytime disco, whose infectious indie pop repetitions remind us of what Guts might sound like if they’d had enough of someone’s guff and slowed down to tell ’em off. With Sanchez on hypnotic six-string, Holthouser holding down the haunting main melody, and the pair sharing beatmaking and lyrical duties, we think “ITILY” and its retro-meets-modern aura has staying power throughout the summer and well beyond.

Generationals: “Strangers”

As streaming numbers become one of the defining metrics for success, you see a lot of young up-and-comers try to cover their bases by cranking out singles. Longer-standing, well-established acts, however, know that the “quality over quantity” builds stronger staying power.

Just look at NOLA-born indie-garage-pop duo Generationals, who first got started in 2008. With a decade and a half of experience and plenty of fans across the globe, they’re getting pretty close to reaching their namesake in terms of lifespan and impact. The pair’s fared well with a production technique of remotely collaborating – shaping songs one file share at a time – so in 2021 when Generationals went to track a new EP in Athens, Georgia straight to tape, it was already a trepidatious process. They listened back, weren’t thrilled with the results, and wisely went back to the drawing board.

The result is Generationals’ sixth full-length, Heatherhead, out this Friday. The LP’s a real case study in looking inward, defining what makes a certain brand of music great, and taking care to make sure the end product is far beyond listener expectations. In a final effort to familiarize us with Heatherhead before it drops, Generationals graciously introduces us to “Strangers”. From its initial ear-perking staccato guitar and hazy vibrato synth, straight to its driving daytime disco bass line and breezy, effects-tanned falsetto vocals, “Strangers” tosses chillwave into a caipirinha that’ll serve up the spirit of flirty summer fun all year-round – even when they stop by The Mohawk on September 8th.

Madison Baker: “U-Shaped Dent”

As we’ve come to expect in the Live Music Capital of the World, this past weekend once again treated us to a bevy of release shows. But among the many, one you might’ve missed came on behalf of Madison Baker, who, alongside our September 2019 Artist of the Month Flora & Fawna, Glasshealer, and Clover the Girl, scorched the Swan Dive stage on Friday night.

The occasion? Madison Baker’s latest single “U-Shaped Dent”, breaking a nearly two-year period of no releases. In contrast to the Beyoncé-esque trap and R&B drum programming that helped define Baker’s 2021 EP Boundary, “U-Shaped Dent” is a real endeavor into alt-pop; it sounds like Imogen Heap and Robyn hive-minded their vocal techniques into a relaxed-tempo Flight Facilities track. And although the single’s promotional photos find Madison rummaging through a junkyard, rest assured “U-Shaped Dent” salvages the crisp, clean production and feathery falsetto we’ve been missing since Boundary.

Madison Baker’s next listed gigs include an appearance at Planet K next Friday, March 10th and BLK Vinyl on Wednesday, March 15th, which ought to help you put a dent into your annual live show quota.

Half Dream: “Roses”

With the autumnal onset of dreary, drippy weather here in Central Texas, this past weekend was kind of a wash for live events; at KUTX, we ended up postponing our final Rock the Park performance of 2022 a full week. But if you’re not as easily deterred by the elements, you might’ve made your way out to ABGB this weekend for a free show featuring Mean Jolene and Austin quartet Half Dream.

Masterminded by chief vocalist Paige Renee Berry, Half Dream’s been hammering down a hazy brand of indie pop rock for about half a decade. True to their name, Half Dream’s lucid instrumentation sounds like an original score to a fevered hallucination, one you won’t want to wake up from right away. The reason Half Dream was hunkering down at ABGB? The group’s latest single, “Roses”.

“Roses” fell last Friday, and Half Dream opens up for Shooks’ residency at Hotel Vegas 10PM tomorrow night. Myself? I’ll probably show support from home with fuzzy slippers on and a hot chocolate steaming. So if you’re like me and want some synesthesia for your senses without ever leaving the cave, get a whiff of languid rhythms, jangly guitar, and of course, Half Dream’s signature harmonies, with “Roses”.