Southend-on-Sea’s in earnest are an alt/indie three-piece consisting of front-couple Thomas Eatherton and Sarah Holburn, and Toby Shaer. Since their formation last year, they have self-released three singles – with the most recent being the excellent 29, released a couple of days ago and already picking up plaudits. The band describe their music as being…

The Anorak Band are one of the more interesting and unusual artists that I’ve stumbled upon over the last month or so, and their debut release – an old school double A-side single, no less – is an utterly charming, double dose of 60s-influenced instrumental surf jazz that feels weirdly timeless. Based in Newport, the…

Loaded with analogue warmth, Things I Tell Myself is the latest single by Copenhagen-based duo, Mikkel Dahl and Jesper Klinge – otherwise known as The Vice. Following on from June’s F.U. and taken from their forthcoming EP, Songs for No One, it’s something of an indie rock tour de force complete with 80s retrofuturistic vibes…

Lovely Assistant sound like a band out of time. As for exactly when time that was it’s hard to say, but they definitely don’t sound like every other indie pop group you come across in 2020. That’s a good thing too. Among other things, they cite “torch songs of the fifties” as one of their…

Few things give me as much pleasure as thumbing my way through old cookery books and marveling at the photos of the food. There’s something about a vividly printed image of a tray of vol-au-vents from the 70s, or a plate of fondant fancies from 1983 that just ticks all the boxes. Anyway, the point…

Revolving around songwriter Paul Bessenbacher, Santa Monica’s Opus Orange have been steadily honing their indie pop chops across four albums and several EPs since 2010. Having spent a lot of time hovering in the background and providing texture for other artists up until then, Bessenbacher (also known as PB) has certainly picked up the knack…

Sometimes when you listen to a band you can hear exactly what’s going on beneath the surface… you can quite easily see how the music was made, and instinctively get your head around how the disparate parts fit together. And then sometimes you find a piece of music that’s just like a living, breathing, constantly…

Opening with gentle washes of psychedelic vocals and an intricate acoustic guitar motif before giving way to an expansive, surprising sound pallet, Get Away is the latest single from South-East London’s Jim Jam (AKA James Newman). It’s an interesting listen – and a timely one, given how 2020 has unfolded so far – capturing the…

Earlier on in the summer, London-based indie duo Dust In The Sunlight released their eponymously named debut EP. Clocking in at fifteen minutes and featuring four sublime (and sublimely recorded) tracks of atmospheric and ethereal pop, Billy Wright and Annie Rew Shaw are a partnership that certainly know their way around a melody.  As do…

Recorded in large part with her band just before the UK entered lockdown measures in March, Gallery is a dreamy, constantly shifting ballad that works its way from a sparse piano-and-vocal beginning through to a glorious full-band resolution. In the press release that accompanies the release, Mercer is quoted as saying it’s a song “that…