The Photocopies – The Not Knowing You must know by now what you are getting from prolific The Photocopies. If not you have been missing some of the finest fuzzy indie/noise pop of the past year or so recordsilike.

Jeanines – Any Day Now this album is just precious indie cool. Lasting around 20 minutes for all the 12 tracks and with none of them needing to offer a note past the two minute mark, this is an album that touches on all of the best jangly indie/twee-pop references points of yesteryear Janglepophub

more than a few nods to ‘60s folk, which the band runs through a prism of UK indie pop that hits like a cold blast of air on a spring morning ravensingstheblues

Ezra Furman – Forever In Sunset The scene: December, 2021. Drizzly grey evenings. Doom. Covid. Bleurgh. Something really compelling started to be transmitted into my living room one evening. A change to the normal programming on BBC Radio 6 Music. Ezra Furman, an artist I’d long admired was standing in for Marc Riley. I had no idea what delights I was in for. These were to be my favourite radio shows of all time. Her mix of personal anecdotes, especially of her close musical community, her command of pop music history and the plain fact that the mix of music selected just happened to align perfectly with my own taste was nothing short of captivating. I listened every night and bemoaned the second she was off air. godisinthetvzine

Arcade Fire – The Lightning II On the heart-racing first single from their sixth album, WE, Arcade Fire sound alive for the first time in years….

There’s a sense that after Arcade Fire steered away from shout-choruses and earnest sing-a-longs—those musty relics of aughts indie rock—they’ve found their way back home, sounding fearless and genuine once again. pitchfork

Yumi Zouma – In The Eyes Of Our Love Charlie Ryder from the band says of the track: Recorded at 204bpm, ‘In The Eyes Of Our Love’ is a rip-roaring belter of a track and the fastest song we’ve ever written. What started out as an homage to Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift ended up as a love song set against a backdrop of torture and insurrection stoked by the Nixon administration, so if you like songs with two bridges and strong socialist leanings, then ‘In The Eyes Of Our Love’ could be the track for you!

Swim Deep, Hatchie – World’s Unluckiest Guy a perfectly realised bop that implies that the artists have forever sung from the same musical hymn sheet… While a dower faced few might call the track overly simple, unchallenging and teeny, it would seem that the record is set to capture a wider number of fans for both emerging talents as it joyously highlights just how much of a boon a rolling little ditty can be. Faroutmagazine

Nah… The Useless Model Jangling from the get-go, it’s hard not to fall for the stuttering pop, particularly when Rosa’s vocals come in with this feeling like collapsing into a bed of down feathers; it’s the perfect foil for Voss, who has a hint of David Gedge going on in this austintownhall

The Wedding Present – I Am Not Going To Fall In Love With You In 1992, The Wedding Present emerged from the shadows of the C86 scene with a historic run of singles. That year, they had 12 tracks charting, one for each month, a feat which tied with the one and only Elvis Presley for the most top 40 hits in a single year… Now, the group are set to revisit that landmark achievement 30 years on with their latest project. 24 Songs aims to provide a 7” double-sided single for fans every month throughout 2022 faroutmagazine

Annika Norlin – Darkest Shade of Dark I do not know Annika Norlin and she does not know me. Still, it feels like an old friend is visiting every time she lets go of something. Some songwriters and writers have the ability, whether for short story collections such as I See Everything You Do or the recent album Mentor, to find that universal and obvious tone that strikes a chord with audiences and readers, without compromising on their artistry or their integrity. Gaffa.se

Kindsight – Sun Is Always In My Eyes When we spend several months eagerly anticipating an album based on a few smashing singles, there always is a nagging worry that the end product won’t live up to the internal hype in our minds. Not that we were particularly concerned about Copenhagen band Kindsight. Their singles were more than good songs — they were evidence that this quartet had range, depth and vision… While there is plenty of Nordic shimmer and chime, the fans of fuzzy ’90s riffs will find it to their tastes as well. The vocals are special, with echoes of The Cranberries, The Sundays and The Sugarcubes and an impressive emotional content and nuance. Swedish Punk is a remarkable debut and we recommend it highly. whenyoumotoraway

Say Sue Me – Around You When Say Sue Me are good, the Korean outfit are summery-sparkly-sweet-strawberry good. From the breezy ‘you-oo-oo’s in ‘Around You’ to the absolutely pristine melodies of the undeniable highlight ‘To Dream’, The Last Thing Left basks in more sunlight than the band’s previous record sputnikmusic

Ducks Ltd – Sheets of Grey a song about depression and about worrying that you’ll never be happy again. That sounds dour, but the song itself is something else. Ducks Ltd. play “Sheets Of Grey” with serious purpose, and the song has a playful melodic zippiness working for it. stereogum

Ducks Ltd feat Illuminati Hotties – Head On No one is ever going to do a better version of Head On than The Pixies. And that includes the Jesus And Mary Chain who originally recorded the song! Ducks Ltd., with the help of Illuminati Hotties, give it a good try but ultimately pull up short. Still it’s fun which I guess is one point of this cover recordsilike

The Reds, Pinks and Purples – Let’s Pretend We’re Not In Love there’s something about listening to Glenn Donaldson that just feels like coming home to your loved ones and curling up on the couch together. It’s one of the biggest reasons that I love his songwriting; it just feels safe austintownhall

Dehd – Bad Love It’s a special kind of joy to hear a rock album that actually sounds like the band had fun making it… On its face it’s a simple surf-rock song, but it fits into the album’s larger narrative about chasing joy and abandoning the negative thoughts (or people) that have a tendency to rot our minds. “Run from the bad love,” Kempf sings, proclaiming later, “I got a heart full of redemption,” in her signature growl pastemagazine

My Idea – Crutch a sunny and bright pop song about an unhealthy co-dependency stereogum

Swimming Pools and Movie Stars – Stay I am not sure if it is just me but I have noticed that more and more acts seem to be influenced by New Order’s Brotherhood album and to a lesser extent their Low Life one too… Primarily it’s the guitar work that is influenced by those albums with the odd synth melody too… Okay it’s not the most original album I have listened too but it is certainly one of the most enjoyable I have heard for a while Recordsilike

Crystal Eyes – Wishes With it’s hypnotic guitars and fast pace it would easily bring out the dancer in all of us with the influences blurring the lines between Brotherhood (Sisterhood?) and Technique. Sigh. I could listen to that glorious outro forever, hoping it would never end. Wishes and erm, dreams eh? Recordsilike

Red Sleeping Beauty – Solid Gold it makes us feel young and happy. And given our age and the state of the world, such emotions are a much needed gift. Whenyoumotoraway

Belle and Sebastian – Do It For Your Country Whereas their 1996 debut ‘Tigermilk’ cast Belle and Sebastian in the public’s imagination as the eternal school kids luxuriating in juvenilia, their 10th studio album candidly grapples with getting older. Violin-led nostalgic opener ‘Young and Stupid’ sees frontman Stuart Murdoch sing “Now we’re old with creaking bones / some with partners, some alone” over a gorgeous, buoyant melody… Musically, it’s full of universally lovely melodies and earworm choruses, from the Burt Bacharach-style ‘If They’re Shooting At You’ (with proceeds going to those affected by the conflict in Ukraine) to the wistful ‘Do It For Your Country..

‘A Bit of Previous’ takes its album title from the Buddhist notion of reincarnation – that you may already have ‘previous’ with people you meet – and there’s a similarly comforting familiarity to the album. All of the well-worn Belle and Sebastian hallmarks are present, but what’s truly impressive is how effortless it all sounds this time around. nme

Flying Fish Cove – Tinsel Tavern the song hones in the complex dynamics of life as an artist as told through the duo’s signature shimmering jangle. “Being a clown /Is this what we’ve been scheming all along /Split in two,” ruminates Zilber on the path of constant performance that being an artist often requires. “I wonder when I’ll learn not to show all my cards,” she continues before concluding, “Probably never.” kexp

Peaness – irl Formed whilst in Chester University digs.. The trio have been playing together since summer 2015, and their fun, friendship-fuelled live performances have been winning the hearts and minds up and down the country ever since. Describing themselves as having ‘more hooks, charm and depth than a dozen identikit indie-boy bores’ their fuzzy, harmony-driven songs focus on love, friendship, and mid-twenties frustrations. louderthanwar

Porridge Radio – Back To The Radio Porridge Radio’s engaging lo-fi scrappiness corrals all sorts of ancient indie into beautiful shapes until it’s completely their own sound. Some songs go too heavy on the sombre keyboards, but the focus stays on Margolin… “I wanted it to sound like when your heart breaks so badly that your entire body aches,” Margolin has said, and she succeeds. Every chorus is therapy, or a declaration of war. Ideally both theguardian

Salt Lake Alley – I’m Always Near this Stockholm based duo imbue subtle modernity into the best of the familairity of yesteryear… I’m Always Near and I Can Wait Forever are absolutely everything so perfectly,  jangly guitar-pop from the late 80 / early 90’s, anglo guitar-pop scene. janglepophub

The Muldoons – Audacity Trumpets and guitars collide on this retro sounding new single recordsilike

The Photocopies – I Don’t Want You To Want Me Another blast of retro indiepop from the exiled Londoner. Fuzzy, poppy and, as ever, as simple and effective as the artwork. recordsilike

Love, Burns – Dear Claire As something of a fanboy, Phil Sutton could fart in a bottle and record it and I would still invariably find it aesthetically pleasing, so perhaps I am a biased judge…but listen to this entire album yourself and it is impossible to argue that my adulation is not justified. Janglepophub

David West – The Poet Of My Dreams Like most musicians even remotely associated with the Melbourne “dolewave” scene, David West has been in a lot of bands… The music he makes where he’s the focus, be it under the Rat Columns moniker or his own name, tends to be the kind of brittle pop — jangly, sparkling guitars, cheap synths, drum machines — that match his appealing, fey vocal style. It’s music that politely asks if you want to listen and demurs if you don’t. brooklynvegan

Neutrals – Gary Borthwick Says Each song on this EP is a golden nugget of DIY indie pop with clean and jagged guitar work, tunes at every corner and a joyous naivety thefatangelsings

Chocolate Chainsaw – Jeannie Wakes Up Chocolate Chainsaw come from Peterborough and Jeannie Wakes Up is the debut single. And it’s not a bad place to start. The single that is, not Peterborough although I must visit the Oakham Brewery Tap room once again! The single itself is the sound of the early 1980s and what followed punk music recordsilike

Sinaive – Tenebres Opening up with this wall of scuzzy fuzzy guitars immediately captures my attention. From there it turns right into something cozy and warm, with the melodies mingling together to create this wonder-world of daydreaming. Few band really capture the perfect balance between noise and pop elements as perfectly as this French quartet do austintownhall

Le Pain – Is That How You Want Me To Feel? retro, twee-oriented pop that toes the line between Stereolab and Jane Birkin…. a knack for cheffing up sunny, bilingual music that wouldn’t sound out of place in a ’60s art film thefatangelsings

Panic Shack – The Ick What they do is entirely of themselves, but they fit spectacularly into a lineage of kicking against the pricks with joy, company, energy over muso-ness and above all the fun of being in a band with something to say and the electric means to bring the whole package to people. Some might almost dismiss it as “putting the fun back into indie rock”. For the people making it, however long for, it’s evidently much more than that sweepingthenation

Humdrum – Superbloom distils with painstaking accuracy a clearly nostalgic and classic, yet absolutely riveting fresh, vibrant and crystalline jangle pop, or whatever you want to call it, that warms the heart whitelight-whiteheat

Ex-Void – Boyfriend Think of Ex-Vöid’s clangorous cuts as cream-filled truffles, the outside hard and sharp and bracing as dark chocolate, the interior gooey with sugary pop ingratiation… It has, of course, been done before, maybe best by Teenage Fanclub, but also lots of others, including Joanna Gruesome, the preceding band for two of Ex-Vöid’s key members… Ex-Vöid ups the melodic content while maintaining a frenetic racket.

Consider “Boyfriend,” with its majestic mass of guitars; its furious, obliterating vamp of drums; its very Bandwagonesque twist of melody hooking through the mayhem. The sound peels back at the verse, leaving a suddenly bared bassline and skeletal drums under McArdle’s sweet soprano. She’s singing something about not wanting a boyfriend, and just when you start to hear the words, the band comes in again and rolls over everything dustedmagazine

US Highball – Let’s Save Bobby Orlando’s House a good 12 songs of infectious power-pop that’s sing-a-long ready. Plus, your listen should also keep in mind that you’re also get a little bit of dry humor, which only makes the group all the more endearing austintownhall

Gordon McIntyre – Tiny Marks As the singer and songwriter with legendary Edinburgh indie-pop band Ballboy, Gordon McIntyre has been sharing his music with the world since all the way back in 1997. With a famous fan, in the shape of Radio-legend John Peel who featured them several times in his Festive 50 as well as inviting them on for multiple sessions, Ballboy became something of a cult sensation…

The track might be a foray into solo territory… Gordon’s unmistakable vocal adorned with piano, strings and percussion, like a rural Scottish folk song re-imagined for an orchestral setting. Ultimately as Gordon explains the Tiny Marks become a part of us all, “they might hurt, but we hold them very dear to us and wouldn’t want to let them go“, after twenty fives years with Gordon’s magical music, I certainly wouldn’t want to let those memories go either. fortherabbits

Artsick – Look Again No fuss all fuzz guitar pop didnotchart

Kids On A Crime Spree – All Things Fade The guitars bang away furiously as the drums thunder and smash in the background; it’s all creating this infectious cacophony you can’t ignore. Mario’s voice is perfect here, wound with this earnestness and melody that always seems like it’s trying to play catch-up to the rest of the tune austintownhall

Let’s Eat Grandma – Happy New Year a genuinely happy track, with actual firecrackers entering at three-and-a-half minutes and lines about the joy of having a clean slate while keeping nostalgia tucked away in your back pocket. “Sparks in the sky until we meet the sunrise,” Walton sings, “then see the year come into bloom.” rollingstone

Sugar World – Time To Kill a blissfully fuzzed-out bit of indie-pop with a menacing edge, taking aim at political elites who make empty gestures towards progress without following through… The track fades out halfway through and transforms into an atmospheric instrumental that’s placed over a monologue that’s sampled from the 1946 propaganda film It’s Your America stereogum

Maggie Rogers – That’s Where I Am  a gleaming synth-pop jam in which Rogers celebrates the love of a lifetime over a melodic vocal loop, hand claps (that become loose, upbeat live drums) and synth drone, swearing in its anthemic choruses, “It all works out in the end / Wherever you go, that’s where I am / Boulders turn into sand / Wherever you go, that’s where I am.” It sounds like an artist with one foot in late-’90s, sunny, Sheryl Crow-style radio fare and the other in our electronics-dominated pop present—moreover, it sounds like Maggie Rogers. pastemagazine

Tallies – Hearts Underground an upbeat, twinkly shamble with some elegantly weary vocals stereogum

Doe St – Pandanus an instant classic that suggests dolewave – pop punch, noisy assault, slacker tendencies – but doesn’t rely on a scene. A lot of their raw rock’n’roll sounds like it was made up jamming after a few beers. It’s the sort of record only young people with nothing to lose and everything to give can make. didnotchart

Jim Shepherd – Le Circle The jangle guitar and the very paisley flavor of “Le Cercle” welcome us to the first solo album of Jim Shepherd, voice and guitar of The Jasmine Minks, a band that was among the first finished in Alan McGee’s Creation Records. Although they did not have the fabulous success of Jesus and Mary Chain, Oasis and Primal Scream, the Aberdeen band found some moments of glory, as in 1986 with their most successful single “Cold Heart” (single of the week for NME) indieforbunnies

Breakup Haircut – Marie Kondo with a sound defined by humorously relatable lyrics, boppin’ basslines, and making a legitimate, concerted effort not to use the same three punk drum beats over and over again the band is already pricking up ears recklesseyes

Colatura – Jet Lag Brooklyn-based dream surf-pop band that writes sad songs that sound happy 🙃colatura.bandcamp

Mick Trouble – Jim’ll Fix It Can songs be this catchy, this full of references to Blighty, and not be made by a real British person? They would at least have to live somewhere that sounds British, like Queens. In any case, Mick will have you believing, or at least singing along. Brooklynvegan