Chicago’s own Kristyn Chapman, performing under her new project name Morpho, has shared her latest single “Half of Two” today, marking the second single released from her upcoming debut EP, Morpho Season, out November 15 via Hit the North Records. As an expansive guitar player, having played across Chicago’s beloved underground scene for some time now, Chapman melds ferocious grit with alluring delicacy as “Half of Two” expands on natural endings and the fear within the uncertainty that can follow.
Partnering up with Henry Stoehr of Slow Pulp to mix the EP, “Half of Two” sets out with a determined drive, waiting with astonishing patience to explode, as little glimpses of feedback manage to escape throughout Chapman’s steady melody. Written back in 2021, “this song’s about finally making peace with endings,” she explains. “Untangling from the past and old stories.” The song soon breaks from its enduring groove into a vivacious guitar solo, swarming amongst crushing distortion, toned feedback and melodic temptations, finding its own ending as Chapman sings, “It’s beyond mending / Can’t undo the unraveling / Beyond mending / Can’t undo the unravel,” settling within the layers of her gentle vocals.
Listen to “Half of Two” here along with an accompanying lyric video.
Morpho Season is set to be released November 15 via Hit the North Records. Morpho will also be embarking on an East Coast and Midwest tour with fellow Chicago group, Rat Tally. They will be celebrating the EP’s release with a show at Schubas in Chicago, IL on December 12 with support from Rat Tally and Sprite. You can buy tickets here.
Written by Shea Roney | Featured photo by Leah Wendzinski
In a telling glimpse of both devastation and redefined beauty, Toronto-based artist ZINNIA, the pen name of Rachael Cardiello, shares “Always A Romantic”, the next single from her upcoming album, Dollar Store Disco, set to be released February 7, 2025. Described as a divorce rager, Cardiello searches for self-preservation and joy throughout the record, as “Always A Romantic” echoes within the hollow feelings of solitude and the comfort lead by newfound clarity.
Like the weight of heavy eyelids, “Always A Romantic” drifts into a soothing moment of stillness, blurring out the world as an absorbing piano fluctuates with intensity, animating only what we can feel around us. Although the instrument is isolated in this rather spacious track, the singular voice that it leads becomes the benchmark for retainment and release as Cardiello’s powerful vocal range explores the room. “I really thought I was a romantic / I really thought you were worth it,” she sings, reflecting on a once fulfilling relationship now broken and fading with a tender and soaring performance.
About the song, Cardiello shares, “‘Always A Romantic’ arrived years after the wreckage of my divorce from the quiet of a hard-fought-for stability. There is a stickiness in letting a new truth settle into your body when you believe another story to be true. There is an almost physical whiplash of coming to terms with, and integrating that change.”
“Always A Romantic” is accompanied by a music video, both filmed by and starring Oriah Wiersma. In a decaying house, flashing hints of a once connected appearance, what is left becomes a search for the stories now lost, only to live within the people that once called it home. “When Oriah and I talked through possible movement for this piece, I kept returning to the way Ginger Rogers used to bend back in Fred Astaire’s arms when they danced. How she was so terrifyingly open and malleable amidst the dips and twirls,” Cardiello shares about the video.
Watch the music video for “Always A Romantic” premiering here on the ugly hug.
Dollar Store Disco is set to be released February 7, 2025 via the Montana tape label Anything Bagel. Preorders of the record will be available this Friday, October 11.
Fronted by Diego Clare, a local spearhead to the New York community and a project of influence and vision, their penname D.A. Crimson has shared a new single called “Barrel to Heaven” this week, along with an accompanying music video. Within a controlled burn of sonic dismemberment, Clare’s performance withers and writhes in the face of loss and the complexity of familial altercations when emotions and memories begin to conflict.
Leaping in strides like a choreographed dance, “Barrel to Heaven” begins with a guitar that quickly establishes the thematic weight, further brought to life by an array of sonic voicings and deliberate timbres – dilapidated yet concise; harsh yet sobering when face-to-face with its grand scheme. “When I wrote it, my grandmother had just passed away after I’d spent a month staying with her and my dad at her house in Costa Rica. There was a lot of familial drama between her kids throughout this process, which I just found really upsetting,” Clare shares about the song. As the chorus follows the movement below, singular harmonics flash out at the end of each repeated stanza, “There’s a way out” – reverberating before screeching in exasperation – “Looking down the barrel to heaven”. “I felt especially attached to her home, my memory of which now feels sort of embedded in this song. In any case, those are the things that came through, or morphed into this kind of Hamlet-ass soliloquy about loss and what remains in the wake of it,” Clare finishes.
Along with the release of “Barrel to Heaven”, D.A. Crimson has shared an accompanying music video made by the creative duo known professionally as “The Valdez”, which features both Clare and movement by choreographer, J Gash. You can listen to “Barrel to Heaven” out everywhere now.
The tender voicings of New York-based project Adeline Hotel return today with their fourth and final single “Isn’t That Enough” before the release of their new album, Whodunnit, out this Friday. Fronted by Dan Knishkowy, Whodunnit so skillfully captures a snapshot of an individual’s journey to redefine joy in their life as the aftermath of an ended marriage begins to fade in time. “Isn’t That Enough” serves as the companion piece to the album’s title track as an emotionally freeing piece that circulates through grief, beauty, anger and understanding.
“In a sympathetic world, I saw right through you and you saw through me,” becomes representative of the complex hindsight that Knishkowy paints throughout “Isn’t That Enough”, yet this lyrical curiosity, hanging on to each breath with a protruding edge, grasps the conversation as it catches up to where he is now. In a tender pacing, sparse and warm with an acoustic drone, the band begins to find a progression, growing in the slight sonic voicings that tinker and play underneath the heavy stanzas with heightened synths and harmonies that revel in the track’s depth as it moves forward. “Isn’t That Enough” becomes a story of a relationship left baron – where the ideas of people, places and things turn against each other in depravity and a chance to gain ground, where the question feels less inclined to ask ‘isn’t that enough’?, but rather ‘will it ever be?’
You can listen to “Isn’t That Enough” below.
Whodunnit will be released this Friday, September 27 via Ruination Records and you can preorder the vinyl here. Adeline Hotel will be playing a release show at Union Pool in Brooklyn, New York on Friday, September 27 with Sima Cunningham and Katie Von Schleicher. Get tickets here.
Written by Shea Roney | Featured Photo by Amghy Chacon
Based in Brooklyn, New York, Youth Large is the solo project of Em Margey, who has returned today with a new single, “Warn Me, Hold Me”. Previously known as Emma Blue Jeans, Margey has become a staple in the intimate BK scene, both through their musical projects as well as coordinating and curating a monthly queer residency at venues such as Purgatory, Nublu, Trans Pecos, Rockwood Music Hall and more. Upon this return, Youth Large plays with articulated patience as they strip back their sound into a methodical burn on “Warn Me, Hold Me”.
There is an immediacy to the tension that “Warn Me, Hold Me” contrives, as it brings notice to the conflicting emotions within a relationship. The heavy thuds of a drum are deepened by the sparseness of instrumentation, as Margey’s instincts look every which way for a deliberate and cathartic release, singing “And every week / It creeps around the corner / we’re just saying things / you warn me, hold me.” The track’s emotions hit a peak as a harsh and swirling guitar rips through the space, as Margey repeats the very utterance, “warn me, hold me” – a clash between comfort and self-preservation as the song slowly burns out.
“Warn Me, Hold Me” is accompanied by a music video directed and edited by Margey. As a fun exposure to the rather melancholy track, the video plays with humor towards New York’s macho skate scene, even including a mustached stunt double filling in when needed.
“Warn Me, Hold Me” is Youth Large’s first release with New York-based tape label Toadstool Records and the track can be streamed everywhere now. Earlier this year, Toadstool Records also released a bandcamp compilation where all proceeds will be donated to The Freedom Theatre in the West Bank, Palestine, which you can purchase and listen to now.
Anne Malin Ringwalt, who performs and writes under the name Anne Malin, is an absorbing artist and poet, branching through a career that is transcending of any boundaries as her art collects upon her most basic instincts as an individual. Following 2022’s album, Summer Angel, the North Carolina artist returns today to Dear Life Records to announce her fifth album, Strange Powers! (due 10/25) as well as share its first single, “River”, along with an accompanying music video.
Pivoting within an ever vivid sense of self, “River” becomes part of Ringwalt’s journey towards recovery, as she rebuilds trust in the earth and feels its reciprocation. In a bloom of violin played by Lily Honigberg, both cinematic yet simple, “I saw my heart beating in a river and left it there for the earth to save / Some muscle wet in the weeds, and flooded through still I will sing” – rests with some weight on top of Ringwalt’s fingerpicking as her articulated vocal expressions ebb and flow with such delicate intention as the track breathes in and out without congestion, immortalizing these moments of calming reassurance and understood fear amongst its wandering pace.
“River” is accompanied by a music video shot by Abby Jones at Eno River and Jordan Lake in Durham, North Carolina in a spurt of pouring rain. Shot on super 8, the video becomes a representation of solitude, as Ringwalt moves across the natural landscape, falling into the spirit of the enduring earth and the timeless warmth of the tape’s hue.
“River” is also used as a bridge that joins the release of Strange Power! and What Floods, a new book-length poem written by Ringwalt published by Inside the Castle.
If you have ever experienced the rich communal impact of the Chicago music scene, there is a chance that you have caught a performance by guitarist and pedal-steel player, Andy “red” PK, who has become a substantial player in countless Chicago acts such as Free Range, hemlock, Tobacco City and other touring groups. Although PK’s presence in the scene feels matured, established and highly influential, their skills as a songwriter are a new endeavor for them, as last week saw their debut singles as a songwriter, “Bedroom” and “Moving Off the Line”, added to streaming platforms for the first time, marking the start of a new talent that stands out on its own with such sincerity and contextual instinct.
Stemming from immediate inspiration and recorded directly to tape, these singles are brief, yet dense with intention and clarity. “Bedroom” plays within a confined space, a collective exhale – a rummaging of thoughts that plunder our consciousness when the latch of your bedroom door comes to its purposeful resting spot. “And I heard you driving / I looked away too long and I missed you,” PK sings in a hushed whisper, lingering amongst layers of guitars that create a comfort of stringed textures underneath. In a more eager push towards folk-pop, “Moving Off the Line” so cleanly plays to both of PK’s skills as a melody maker and compositional instrumentalist. Progressing with a lively and nostalgic drum track that holsters an array of off-beat accent points, the track still leaves room for the underlying bass to speak for itself as PK’s established guitar voicings kick in. “If anybody told you / That I’m moving off the line / You’d listen close for warnings / But you’d hold on to the signs,” is noted by anyone who lives in Chicago; bustling, pragmatic and essential to navigating a complex city, let alone navigating your own placement on an individual level. Balanced with a string of harmonies that are performed with familiarity in influence, PK’s debut singles already feel timeless at their core.
You can listen to “Bedroom” and “Moving Off the Line” on all streaming platforms now, as well as purchase them at Red PK’s bandcamp.
The “flow state”, only reached when a racecar driver hits 180+ mph, feels like a momentary lapse in time, where all movement becomes one and control over the situation begins to feel effortless. Today, the ugly hug is premiering Violet Speedway, the debut record from Sacramento artist, Levi Minson, which is set to be released this Friday via Anything Bagel. Although not reaching the speed at which the engines rev and the heart is left in synchronous palpitations, Violet Speedway is a flash of grace, as Minson smoothly transitions in and out of stories of love, loss, fear and most of all, hope.
Oftentimes minimal, Violet Speedway confronts the open spaces with soft, yet hearty soundscapes. Recorded fully in a bedroom on a tascam four-track, these deceptively sparse, lo-fi songs live in this subtle density of Minson’s instrumental expressions of looping guitars, light synths and heavy drums that spackle in the cracks. Songs like ‘The Shadow’ and ‘I Can’t Say It At All’ play with persistence, as Minson’s somber melodies sit on top of the chunking of heavy guitars – attuned to that of the early catalog of Elliott Smith as he transitioned from the rock roots of Heatmiser. ‘The Gleam Is All I See’ is a rambunctious indie rock stinger that plays passenger to the melancholic feel of the lo-fi recordings at hand, yet the distorted undertones are still muddily layered and excitingly harsh at its core. The harmonies on ‘Colin Is’, featuring Taylor Vick, build and flow with such tender vigor that any hints of pain begin to blend with bits of satisfactory release.
This type of writing – reminiscing on momentary feelings and the duality at which they are experienced and then later remembered – so creatively opens up little worlds within each one of Minson’s songs. As the third generation of a dust bowl family, Minson’s writing articulates a rural life; the stories of time, place and being that stick out while fine details help hammer them down with sincerity and charm. ‘Anyone can do it/Sidekick’ begins with one of the most subtle moments on the record, letting each word hang in the air as staggered guitar strums reverb around them in a bare mini two-part epic. “My old man was a psychic / When he said I won’t need him / Cuz I’m your sidekick”, he sings with a stirring string of harmonies. ‘Did You Try’ plays through a stumble, falling into minor intonations as the guitar picks along, fixated on its pacing as it tries to grasp on to anything other then solitude. ‘I’ll go, you stay here’ marks Minson’s presence as he toys with distance. With the beautiful subtlety of synthetic strings – a restrained form of cinematic trust within the track – the song turns into a doomed romance as Violet Speedway reaches its most inflicting emotional height.
Minson sings of shortcomings as if he is one step ahead, reflecting while simultaneously looking at the path forward. “Do they look both ways yet? / I know all about regret”, he utters out, with no hesitancy, bringing the album to a close with the song, ‘Memory’. It’s not really a love song, and yet, it’s not really about heartbreak either, but a sincere glimpse at Minson’s heart and mind beginning to flow together.
Listen to Violet Speedway early below.
You can now pre-order a limited screen-printed tape of Violet Speedway from Anything Bagel at their bandcamp. Make sure to check out the rest of their excellent catalog!
Today, the Philly-based project Thank You Thank You has shared a new music video for their latest single, “Watching the Cyclones” which was released earlier this month via Glamour Gowns. As an ever expanding project brought out by the artistic stamina of Tyler Bussey, Thank You Thank You is an imprint of the people who pass through – an articulation of the souls that make a moment long lasting.
“Watching The Cyclones / Not long ago / The diamond gleamed in the sun / The great illusion that’s on my mind / Time standing still on the field for us / It’s going, it’s going, it’s gone.” Oftentimes, the heavy air of summer can be indistinguishable from underlying heartache and impressionable worries, but on the contrary, can be just as easily defined by the vitamin D and the chance to engage with its picturesque revelries. “Watching the Cyclones” thrives in that very tenderness of life, where momentary feelings blend together to form a brand new experience. It’s a patient song, allowing time and energy for the folky groove to exude its charm and make for an enjoyable experience – a chance to look around and see how good things can be.
Shot by Ty, Jesse Gagne and Sam Skinner along with animations by Julia Sutton, the music video for “Watching the Cyclones” becomes a misty morning excursion, a preservation of friendship, and an exploratory of goofing around in empty public places.
About the video, Ty shares, “In September 2022 I went to Coney Island with Jess and Sam, and on a whim on Monday, July 15th, I reached out to both of them to see if they’d like to go there with me at sunrise to make a music video. With nothing but iPhones and apples, this is what we made. We didn’t check the weather forecast and had no idea it was going to be so foggy. The video is a fun testament to making things with your friends and not overthinking it.”
You can watch the video below and stream “Watching the Cyclones” on all platforms now.
look below for some behind the scenes photos taken by Jesse Gagne and Sam Skinner that morning at Coney Island.
There is a sense of longevity that resonates within the artistic musings of Olympia, Washington – almost folkloric – where projects like Generifus have been acclimated to the ever shifting scene while still manage to trailblaze their own paths after decades long careers. Fronted by Spencer Sult, Generifus returns today with “Waking Winter”, the first single from his upcoming album Summerberrys set to be released 10/18.
Recorded up at the Unknown Studio in Anacortes, WA, “Waking Winter” plays to those cutting interludes of change and the deafening moments of stillness that seem to follow. Amidst the shuffling of drums, a reliable movement that sets the tone, Sult pushes forward into a light and hearty groove of sedated bass and spacious keys – “I don’t enjoy this / I should talk to someone / I should get it fixed,” he sings with a melody dedicated to the path ahead and the rhythm underneath. Sult and co. are patient in their delivery, stretching out the edges of their barebone roots while the different brushings of organ tones, twangy guitars and dreamy scale runs animate the track into a leading moment of realization; clarity in the cold.
the ugly hug 