After some months of absence from making these lists, I am back, and I hope to be able to make lists for every month this year. January is always a slow month for new releases, but this year has been pretty good so far. 

Here is my summary of the releases I loved the most in JANUARY.

The list is in no particular order, but the ones I loved the most are marked with a red ||.

A Spotify playlist with songs from this list can be found below or via this link.
https://open.spotify.com/user/eardrumspop/playlist/3BigiP8CM5dKo54ttLq0P7

Did you miss the other posts in this series? Click the link to view them.

SINGLES I LOVED THIS MONTH

Alcabean (Photo: Line Westerboe)

Lots of amazing singles were released in January. Here are my favourites: 

Alcabean – “Tsukuyomi”  An irresistibly catchy and big-sounding indiepop track from this Copenhagen duo. (Spotify)

Stephen Malkmus – “Viktor Borgia”  Malkmus goes synth pop, and I love it! (Spotify)

It’s for us – “All the time”  Brilliant indiepop from Stockholm. Every time this one comes up in the playlist, my ears pay extra attention. Close to perfect. (Spotify)

Teen Body – “Validation”  Upbeat and catchy dreamy pop single from Brooklyn band Teen Body. If you like bands like Alvvays, you may like this. (Spotify)

Tristan Barton – “Talk to you”  Lovely debut single from Tristan Barton. Indiepop. (Spotify)

Lowpines – “Lost & Found”  What a beautiful song this is! I have been a big fan of Lowpines since he started, and this is probably one of my favourites from him so far. Calm, acoustic. (Spotify)

Whoa Melodic – “I Will Never Let You Down”  Everything is good about this song. It is one of those that will stay in your ears for a while after the song has ended. The song has a bit of the indiepop vibe from the music Sarah Records used to release back in the day, – with a lot better production. (Spotify)

Airhockey – “You don’t mind”  This is a really good dream pop track, which I believe is the debut single from Miami-band Airhockey. Melodic layered guitars swirls around the bass-line and the motorik drums, and the hushed, dreamy vocals adds to the beauty. (Spotify)

Lali Puna – “Being Water” A very upbeat electronic popsong from Lali Puna. Great, as always. (Spotify)

SACRED PAWS – “Brush your hair”  Super cool and energetic new song from Sacred Paws. (Spotify)

You will find even more of my other favourite January singles in the Spotify list.

ALBUMS I LOVED THIS MONTH

Earache (photo by Pat Cox)

Earache – Last || One of the real wow!-experience this month comes from Canberra/Melbourne duo Earache.  They play jangly, melodic dreampop/indiepop and both members share the vocal duties, – she has a light, airy angelic voice and he has a calm, warm, but rougher sound in his singing. Their voices fit perfectly together, and it adds a fine variation in the songs. I must say that I am very impressed about this wonderful debut! (Spotify)

Tallies – Tallies || Tallies new album is absolutely stunning, with musical nods to both The Sundays, The Smiths and newer artists like Alvvays. I am pretty sure this will be an album that will be played all through the year in my house. Lovely songs! (Spotify)

Pickle Darling – Bigness || Gentle “lo-fi-but-not-that-lofi” bedroom pop from multi-instrumentalist Lukas Mayo. Sweet, thoughtful melodies. An interesting album to listen to. (Spotify)

You Tell Me – You Tell Me || Peter Brewis from Field Music and Sarah Hayes from Admiral Fallow found together through their shared love of Kate Bush’ music. Their album has some elements of that influence. Strong songwriting, very melodic pop with an arty touch, beautiful orchestral arrangements, lovely vocals from both members.  (Spotify)

(more releases after the photo)

Misty Coast

Misty Coast – Melodaze || One of my favourite Norwegian bands at the moment. The duo of Linn Frøkedal and Richard Myklebust, who also play in Megaphonic Thrift, make wonderful dreamy popsongs, and this is an amazingly beautiful album. The song “Sundays” is the best song I have heard in a long time. Brilliant!   (Spotify)

Better Oblivion Community Center – Better Oblivion Community Center || Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) and Phoebe Bridgers have made an album together as Better Oblivion Community Center, and it is pretty good. Folky pop/rock.   (Spotify)

Toy – Happy in the hollow || London’s TOY mix together a lot of genres (psych pop, krautrock, shoegaze, garage, old school electronic music +++) and what comes out is always interesting. Lots of great songs on this one. (Spotify)

Rose Ette – Ignore the feeling || Teresa, Daniela, Jessica and John are the indiepop band Rose Ette from Houston, Texas. Catchy, warm indiepop-songs all the way through. (Spotify)

(more releases after the photo)

Pedro The Lion / David Bazan (photo by Ryan Russell)

Pedro the Lion – Phoenix || I always enjoy listening to David Bazan’s music, – everything he does – and he always make me feel something. If he wrote a song with lyrics including the instruction manual of his new vacuum cleaner, his lovely, powerful, sensitive voice would probably make me highly emotional anyway. The first Pedro the Lion album since 2004 is really, really beautiful.  (Spotify)

Ally Kerr– Upgrade me || I have waited for this new album from Scottish artist Ally Kerr for a long time, and he never disappoints. Definitely worth the wait. On his new album, he has included more instruments and the arrangement and production seems to be richer than on his previous releases. It works very well and lifts the beautiful songs. His core style is still sweet, sometimes a bit melancholic, heartfelt folky indiepop, but it sounds different in a good way. I love the full string arrangements on many of the songs, and the melodies are as usual outstanding.  (Spotify)

93MillionMilesFromTheSun – Echo Delay Fuzz Reverb || The title is probably a tongue-in-cheek way to describe the music on this album, because all those elements are heavily present here. The Doncaster-band with the long name play shoegaze with layers of textured guitars, a good dose of fuzz and reverb, pounding drums and dreamy vocals. They’re not all about the mentioned effects, like many bands in the genre sadly are, – the songs, the melodies and the harmonies are really good. It is of course easy to compare them to bands like RIDE, MBV and Slowdive, but I won’t do that. 😉   (Spotify)

(more releases after the photo)

Pavo Pavo

Pavo Pavo – Mystery lights || I like this album. Stereogum described it as “weightless pop that seems like it was beamed down from some glimmering utopian future”. Oh yeah, that describes it well. Now you know what it sounds like. Annoyingly vague, yes, but I don’t have many better words to use. Is it ok to just say that I like it?   (Spotify)

Angelo de Augustine – Tomb || Evening or night music. Soft vocals, acoustic guitar as the main instrument and an overall calm atmosphere. His music reminds me of the calmer side of Sufjan Stevens. (Spotify)

Leighton Craig – Diamond Eye || The short bio on his Bandcamp page says “Leighton is a musician who lives in Brisbane Australia. He records fuzzy hymnals and draws vertical lines descending”, and yes, all his record covers have vertical lines, and “fuzzy hymnals” may be a fitting description
. It’s beautifully experimental, kind of lo-fi bedroomy music, with Leighton’s warm and often very effect-treated voice sometimes singing small melodies. Not for everyone, probably, but there is a lot of beauty in these recordings. (Spotify)

Swervedriver – Future Ruins || 28 years after they released their debut, they are back with their 6th album. Shoegaze/Indie rock veterans, indeed. Their new one is a solid record, and I am happy that they continue releasing music, because they definitely have a lot of good music still in them. (Spotify)

(more releases after the photo)

Pi Ja Ma

Pi Ja Ma – Nice to meet U || The French pop duo Pi Ja Ma make lovely, fun, creative retro-inspired pop. This is their debut-album, and it is great to hear music that the artists obviously have had fun recording.  (Spotify)

Zach Haigley – Record-o-matic || Zach Haigley is a singer songwriter from Jacksonville, Florida, and this is his first album. It has a nice home-recorded sound, and he spices up his already lovely songs with field recordings and spoken elements (probably from films). Most of the songs are played on acoustic guitars, with interesting arrangements and surprising twists. There are some rougher tracks too with electric guitars and drums. I really like his songs and the beautiful atmosphere he creates in these recordings. (Spotify)

Eerie Wanda – Pet town || Dutch/Croatian songwriter and visual artist Marina Tadic is Eerie Wanda, and this is her second album. It’s pretty stripped down compared to her lovely indiepop-ish debut, and this time she has replaced live drums with handclaps, finger snaps and an old Roland CR-78 drum machine.  The album kind of has a 50s feeling, but still sounds very modern.  (Spotify)

(more releases after the photo)

The Bralettes (Photo by Roger Gallegos)

The Bralettes – Cheers! || The 3 girls in The Bralettes call their style “bubblegum punk”. Lots of energy, fuzzy guitars, sing-along choruses and catchy songs. I like this a lot. From their bio: “Paulina’s soft and sweet voice paired with Molly’s powerful vocals allows them to have songs that range from innocent & bubbly to edgy & punk”. (Spotify)

Crane Like the Bird – Crane like the bird || Kyle Crane is a musician who usually plays drums for several other artists, like Neko Case and M. Ward, and this is the first time he releases an album of his own music as Crane Like the Bird. He has an impressive list of collaborators here, – the before mentioned M. Ward is one, and others who feature on the album are James Mercer (The Shins), Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), Sabina Sciubba (Brazillian girls) Peter Morén of Peter Bjorn and John, Daniel Lanois, Luke Steele (Empire of the sun ++) and more. The result is lovely. Very good popsongs!   (Spotify)

David Turel – Wavelengths || It is a rare thing these days that you discover an artist with almost no social media presence and I can’t find any other info about him than that he is a solo artist from Lansing, Michigan. This album seems to be his debut, and he plays melodic, guitar based psych pop, obviously inspired by the golden days of psychedelic music, – from the sound to the album artwork. A modern reference can be Tame Impala. The EP ends with a fine cover of The Beatles’ short “Her Majesty”

. (Spotify)

EPs I LOVED THIS MONTH

Fanclub

Fanclub – All the same || Super-catchy indiepop from Austin, Texas. These songs are so good! (Spotify)

Sobrenadar – Rymixes || Remix EPs are rarely featured here on this blog, but I LOVE Sobrenadar, and I love many of the artists who have remixed songs from her “y” album. Gwenno, Slowdive, XAM and Mark Peters (of Engineers) have all added their own style to it, and it works so well together as an EP.  (Spotify)

Venerna – Monstret || Lovely, bittersweet indiepop from Sweden, in Swedish.  (Spotify)

Ist Ist – Everything is different now || Interesting, dark post punk from Manchester. (Spotify)

Twin Drugs – High Pressure || Noisy, dreamy shoegaze. (Spotify)

Listen to the songs from this list on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/eardrumspop/playlist/3BigiP8CM5dKo54ttLq0P7