Indie Pop

New album: cootie catcher || Something We All Got

Toronto's cootie catcher move their basement to a studio without losing the spark

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Toronto’s cootie catcher just made the leap from bedroom to studio, and somehow they didn’t lose an ounce of their chaotic charm in the process. Something We All Got is the sound of a band figuring out how much they can cram into a song before it bursts at the seams, and then cramming in a little more just to see what happens. Spoiler: it works.

The core setup is still bass, guitar, and drums, but that’s where normalcy ends. Synths spiral off in every direction, programmed drums collide with live ones, scratched samples pop up out of nowhere, and three distinct vocalists trade lines like they’re finishing each other’s sentences. There is plenty to discover (and enjoy) here. Songs like Quarter Note Rock and Pirouette bounce around like they had too much sugar. Lyfestyle sounds like a 2026 update of a ’90s alternative rock ballad. Straight Drop is a jangly twee punk banger. Etcetera, etcetera!

Lyrically, cootie catcher aren’t afraid to get specific: disappointing heroes, blurry relationship lines, crying on public transit, and the small humiliations of being in your twenties without having it figured out yet. It’s vulnerable without being precious, direct without being heavy-handed, their playful nature the perfect catalyst.

Something We All Got is out today on Carpark Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Carpark

New album: Daily Worker || Prefab Maverick

Two-minute gems with timeless spirit

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Prefab Maverick marks the 22nd release from Daily Worker, the indie-pop vehicle of Austin, Texas–based poet and guitarist Harold Whit Williams (of Cotton Mather). By now, introductions feel almost beside the point. but if one were needed, these ten new songs make the case effortlessly.

Each track is a compact gem, most barely brushing the two-minute mark. Jangly guitars chime over buoyant power-pop hooks, crisp vocals deliver sharply observed, relatable lyrics, and the production strikes a sweet balance: lo-fi in texture, yet warm and inviting in tone. Nothing overstays its welcome, every melody lands, lingers, and makes room for the next. “Rock ’n’ roll will never die,” we hear in standout cut Pop Knock-Offs. You’ll understand, it’s not difficult to embrace this record.



Prefab Maverick, produced by Reinli Style, is out now digitally and on limited lathe cut vinyl LP Repeating Cloud.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: Las Margaritas || Haru

Chilean trio nail the sweet spot between cutesy and melancholic

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Santiago (Chile) trio Las Margaritas are making their Wantlist debut today with their new 7-track EP Haru. It’s the band’s third EP since 2020, for those keeping score, and it showcases a band that knows their twee pop inside and out, with the talent to write indie pop hits that are both cutesy and punchy.

Listening to songs like Baby and Niebla, you get the sense that Winter has passed and Spring is here. Las Margaritas have a breezy, sunny disposition, but their singer’s voice also has that melancholic edge that works oh so well for indie pop. It’s that push and pull between bright melodies and wistful delivery that makes Haru something beyond saccharine.

Haru is out now on CD through Joyboy Records.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: It’s All You, Cowboy || I Can’t Eat

And now for something completely different, it's Frankie Furillo!

By / / Funk & Soul, Indie Pop, Psych / Leave a Comment

Frankie Furillo spent 15 years playing experimental grindcore with The Central, but that tells you nothing about what to expect from his pop project It’s All You, Cowboy. I Can’t Eat is what happens when someone who’s mastered extreme music decides to make something catchy you can actually dance to: a unique brand of sophisto-pop that’s part AOR, part yacht rock, part ’80s/’90s neo-soul, and a whole lot more. Think Michael McDonald’s solo records filtered through basement show desperation and too much caffeine and sugar. It should be a mess, but it’s the exact opposite. Tenement gets namedropped too, and indeed, some of the vocal melodies are reminiscent of that band. Of course Tenement’s Amos Pitsch is involved, though not in production but rather in art direction, and his Crutch of Memory label is releasing the record.

I Can’t Eat is a sonically rich album packed with different styles, layered vocal harmonies, and key-driven hooks that burrow into your brain. Lyrically, it’s a tour through self-deprecation, romantic dysfunction, and the grinding mundanity of just trying to get through the day. Furillo documents what it’s like to exist with relationships that fall apart and a brain that won’t shut up. Absurdism and tenderness go hand in hand in these songs.

Furillo treats his songs with precision and care. Clearly a lot of attention to detail went into the arrangements, and yet this is not a sterile record. Snark, sparks, and snickers all go together, and this is way more fun to listen to than I expected before pressing play. And the video for Loser? Hang it in your local modern art museum!

I Can’t Eat is out now on Crutch of Memory as a digital album and double-cassette. It’s pretty special.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: We Are Only Humans Once || Drowning Dogs

DIY vulnerability with a steady pulse

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We Are Only Human Once is the solo bedroom project of Adalyn Clarke, based in Dublin, Ohio, who has been steadily self-releasing music on Bandcamp since 2018, growing over time into an artist to be reckoned with. His latest full-lengther, Drowning Dogs, feels like a culmination. Spanning 16 slowcore-tinged tracks across 64 minutes, it is immersive without ever becoming indulgent, a hypnotic quality endlessly fascinating on my headphones. When asked, the singer-songwriter explains that the new record “came together very quickly in many spur-of-the-moment sessions, often before work or on days off.”

Somehow it all seems well thought out, with attention to detail. Musically, it inhabits a restrained emotional space, allowing tension to accumulate almost imperceptibly. You’ll hear lyrics gravitating toward themes of vulnerability, isolation, and self-interrogation, sung by a voice that bends to every mood, yet always pulls you closer. It is somewhat reminiscent of the early days of Car Seat Headrest, but in a version where Will Toledo couldn’t make noise in the back of his parents’ automobile, so he had to be quiet at home. Here the intensity simmers rather than explodes, unfolding gradually, revealing its strengths in texture and atmosphere.



Drowning Dogs is out now digitally, on cassette and CD, via Mosslight Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: PONY || Clearly Cursed

Pop instincts that are impossible to ignore

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It probably does not get more pop on our blog this week, or even this year, than the third PONY record Clearly Cursed, but right now I simply cannot resist its sugary hooks. Sam Bielanski and Matty Norand have appeared on the wantlist before with their side projects Heavenly Sweetheart and Pretty Matty, but honestly, their main show deserves a spot as well.

Clearly Cursed is a half hour of college radio hits with a high chance of bubbling over into the mainstream or landing on a late-night TV stage. The band’s grungy alt-pop is that appealing, that smooth, that seductive.

At a more cynical time, I probably would have dismissed a band like this for being too polished, too accessible, or too closely tied to pop gloss. That would have been my loss. This is music that takes zero effort to appreciate, but what impresses me most is that after the initial sugar rush, the shine does not wear off. Its pull only gets stronger with every listen.

Clearly Cursed is out now on Take This To Heart Records.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Take This To Heart

New album: Department || Audacity Files

A sampledelic symphony built from heartbreak and hard drives

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And now for something completely different, we head to Melbourne, Australia, where producer Adam Kyriakou turns his crate-digging obsession into something gloriously maximal under the moniker of Department. On his Audacity Files LP, you won’t hear the heavy riffs and heartfelt screams usual in these columns, but girl-group melodrama slammed against trip-hop beats, electronic haze, and plush R&B, bold, bruised, and thrillingly overstuffed.

You wouldn’t expect it at first listen, but this debut album carries real weight, as it’s born from heartbreak, industry dead ends, and a soul-resetting expedition to Macedonia, though it never wallows. This is a dense, sample-delic rush that feels less retro than time-collapsing, a 21st-century wall of sound that’s far outside my comfort zone, but strangely addictive.


Audacity Files—recorded, arranged, produced, and mixed By Adam Kyriakou—is out now digitally (self-released).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Vegas Water Taxi || Long Time Caller, First Time Listener

Sharp jokes in sad pop songs

By / / Country & Folk, Indie Pop / Leave a Comment

Long Time Caller, First Time Listener is the beautifully titled sophomore full-length album from London-based indie pop/alt-country outfit Vegas Water Taxi. It’s actually a combination of the five tunes we knew from last fall’s Long Time Caller EP (we called it “a wry soundtrack to post-breakup self-sabotage”), supplemented with four new ones from the First Time Listener EP, forming a cohesive whole where humor and sadness intertwine.

Song titles such as Brat Summer, Birkenstocks, Ozempic (Celebrity Weight Loss Anxiety Blues), and Jamie XX seem to honor pop culture and the spirit of the times, but the underlying lyrics drag modern life for filth. Yet, with warm melodies and funny observations, this is comforting music that feels like sanity sneaking through the noise.



Long Time Caller, First Time Listener—produced and mixed by Louis Milburn and Ben Hambro—is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through PNKSLM Recordings. Featuring Ben Hambro (guitar, vocals, bass, synth), Fred Lawton (bass, guitar, vocals), Charlie Meyrick (drums, guitar, bass, vocals), Molly Shields (vocals), Rhodri Brooks (pedal steel), Louis Milburn (organ), and Holly Carpenter (violin).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || PNKSLM

New album: Railcard || Railcard

British supergroup delivers a love letter to classic pop

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Dolly Mixture’s Rachel Love (vocals, guitar, cello, keys), Heavenly’s Peter Momtchiloff (bass), and Papernut Cambridge’s Ian Button (vocals, drums, guitar) met a year ago at the launch of must-have indie-pop anthology Sensitive, and discovered they were all born within weeks of each other. They took this as a sign to form a band together, although their initial 1962 age limit rule has since been dropped to allow more youthful trumpeter Allison Thomson to complete the line-up.

Their self-titled debut LP contains seven tracks from their first two EPs (Railcard E.P. and Railcard E.P. 2), along with three new ones, including a cover of Dandy Livingstone’s Think About That. The British musicians deliver elegantly crafted pop that folds soul and sunshine into a lightly indie framework, enriched by dreamy melodies, sly grooves, warm brass, and angelic harmonies—a nostalgic palette used with such confidence that it feels brand new. Rooted in shared histories (most obvious: Born In ’62), the songs feel quietly autobiographical, their lived-in themes matched by arrangements so finely balanced they edge toward perfection.




Railcard’s self-produced eponymous debut album is out now digitally and on limited edition CD through Skep Wax and Slumberland Records. A successor will follow later this year, a vinyl LP featuring twelve new tracks.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Skep Wax

New single: The Blank Tapes with Dust Collector || 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

Sing along for 30 minutes: "Take one down and pass it around"

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Whaaaaat!? Are they really doing this? Yes, they are!

We’re talking about Matt Adams of the Californian psychedelic garage pop project The Blank Tapes, along with a host of musicians who know the band well. With audible relish, they perform the traditional song 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, counting down for half an hour—”take one down and pass it around”—until there’s nothing left. Contrary to what you might expect, it’s by no means boring, but rich, warm, and uplifting, thanks to the variety of collaborators, instruments, styles, and sound effects. For those who can’t get enough, there’s also an instrumental version, perfect for singing along to during sun-drenched road trips.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, assembled and mixed by Jason Cirimele (Dust Collector), is out now digitally via Dusty Sea Records. Featuring Matt Adams (vocals, guitars, bass, marxophone, glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, steel drum, Celtic harp, ukulele, Bulbul Tarang, space echo, bottles, percussions), Jason Cirimele (vocals, guitars, drums, stylophone beat box), Will Halsey (exotica percussion), Ash Reiter (guitar), Sean Olmstead (synth, guitars), Veronica Bianqui (vocals), Sal Joseph (drums), Sarah Barlow (vocals), Aslan Rife (piano), Spencer Grossman (vocals, synth), Collin Ludlow-Mattson (banjo), Peter Maffei (vocoder, mellotron, moog, wurlitzer, wind), Sam Faw (bass, guitar), Shaughnessy Starr (drums), Olaf Sellend (pedal steel), Hunter Stroope (FX), Joe Lewis (bass), Alan Siegel (vocals, sax, shakers), Mark Matos (vocals, guitar), Indianna Hale (vocals, omnichord), Matt McCluer (guitars), Jason Medina (guitar, synth), DA Humphrey (upright bass), Joel Williams (drumbeat sample), Charles Gonzalez (synth, synth percussion), Bryant Denison (guitars), Obo Martin (vocals, harmonica), Flo Hohmann (organs, guitar), Ramiro Verdooren (vocals, organ, Wurlitzer FX, guitar), Arthur C. Lee (tremolo slide guitar), Darryl Blood (guitar, micro freak, SFX, piano FX), Steve Winchell (birds), Mat Davidson (accordian), Joshua Bruner (brainwaves), Michael Musika (snare, percussion, music box, frogs), Josh Magill (percussion), Brandon Graham (guitars), Levi Strom (420 FX, hand drum), Joe Napolitano (tambourine), Ryan Erskine (guitars), Francisco Fernandez (cabasa, cowbells, whistles, shaker), Marco Antonio “Gallo” De Carvalho (bass, rain stick), Felix Havstad Ziska (Cellotron, keys), Franck Fiser (hand drum), Kacey Johansing (keyboard), and Mat Davidson (accordion).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

P.S. Last month, The Blank Tapes released a new full-length album, titled Lost Weekend, which is also worth checking out.

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