[engl] For almost three years, Shit Present front person Iona Cairns struggled to write a song. It was the result of a hospitalisation, and coming to terms with her mental health issues, and while Cairns was in a much healthier place, she felt as if she couldn’t return to the person she was before. Then, without any epiphany or grand catalyst, Cairns picked up the guitar again and began writing what would become their first full-length album ‘What Still Gets Me’. The album deals with weighty emotions, but it’s not about helplessness or intimidation. Through Cairns’ exorcising vocal delivery and the band’s relentless sonic arrangements, there’s a kind of rebirth that announces she is not a victim of herself nor anyone else. It’s a surrender to the feelings that make us uncomfortable, pushing them to the forefront instead of hiding them behind a curtain. By owning the messy, ever-changing landscape of our interior worlds, Shit Present offers up a collection where we can find solace in even our darkest, scariest moments. Clear vinyl limited to 500 copies.

[engl] Latest album from Bethlehem, PA, husband & wife, drums & keys, heavy pop duo Slingshot Dakota!

[engl] New EP from Exeter's Soot Sprite! 6 songs on a one sided 12"", purple smoke vinyl limited to 500 copies. The rising trio have seen Soot Sprite grow from a one-woman lo-fi bedroom pop project to a fully-fledged touring alt-indie shoegaze outfit. This new EP is yet another collection of heartfelt songs that see lead singer Elise Cook learn how to find self-acceptance and belief.

[engl] Second album from London's, Supermilk, (the solo indie rock project from ex-Doe drummer Jake Popyura). Arriving just over a year after debut Death Is the Best Thing for You Now, the album showcases a more gentle and personal side to Popyura's songwriting whilst retaining the urgent fuzz-pop and post-punk of previous releases.

[engl] "Second 12"" EP from Bristol folk infused punk trio Toodles & The Hectic Pity! Toodles write snappy, percussive punk songs with rich vocal melodies. Their lyrics are crafted with subtle literary hints and playful turns of phrase, tucking existential themes into catchy refrains that cry for sing-a-long. Far from pretentious, their live show is full of contagious energy and enthusiasm. Lyrically, ‘Ghost, Guilt & Grandparents’ is an exploration of loneliness, anxiety, and the nature of familial relationships through time. Despite handling heavy themes, the five song EP is uplifting, carrying you through irresistible, pop riffs and into the beautiful, long build intro of Mountain Man, the EP’s closing track.

[engl] Debut album from Bristol, UK folk-punk/emo trio Toodles & The Hectic Pity! Affectionately known to their fans simply as Toodles, band members Callum, Max and Dom all met at secondary school in Gloucestershire and formed Toodles & the Hectic Pity in the political quagmire of the mid 2010s for one covers set at the original iteration of what would later become Inglefest, a small festival in the Cotswolds. The band subsequently released 3 EPs including The First EP (2016), Call In Sick (2017), and Ghosts, Guilt & Grandparents (2020), which was their first release through Specialist Subject. Hold Onto Happiness With Both Hands was recorded and produced by Phil Booth jr. at JT Soar, Nottingham in October 2022, with cello, percussion and backing vocals recorded at Woodbox, Bristol by Dom Mosley. The album was mixed by Robin Newman at Snug Recording Co., Nottingham and mastered by Ian Farmer and his cat, Onion, at The Metal Shop in Philadelphia, PA. Described by the band as “at least half-way a break-up album”, where previous EP Ghosts… was an exercise in introspection and mostly set within one room, the album is set in “the outside world”. While it might start out life as a break-up album, Hold Onto Happiness… quickly becomes a record about personal transfiguration. “It seems to me kind of pointless to write a merely depressing song or a merely depressing album,” says vocalist Callum McAllister, “so most of these songs and the album as a whole attempt to take a journey that ends in positive resolution and catharsis.”

[engl] For an album that hits with an instant rush of fuzz-fuelled energy, the gestation time for Witching Waves’ Streams and Waterways has been somewhat more protracted. A blistering advancement of the knife-sharp hooks and urgently efficient post-punk structures that they’ve spent over a decade refining since their formation in 2011, the band’s fourth album – and second on Specialist Subject - emerges from a period of flux for the band’s chief songwriting partnership of Emma Wigham (drums/vocals) and Mark Jasper (guitar/vocals). First came a move north to Yorkshire from their native London. “We had decorated a tiny, rented house in Mytholmroyd” Jasper explains. “We setup a practice room in the top of a mill nearby and tried to write music, which we did amid stress about money, and a fear of having made the wrong decision. We had left our jobs, friends and a nice but absolutely tiny flat in London behind, and moved to a small village in West Yorkshire.” Although they found the location to be beautiful, the transition from city life to rural turned out to be an odd fit – too much so, it turned out. From this relatively short stay in West Yorkshire, however, came a more permanent change as the couple welcomed their first child Ivy into the family. Although, they’re hesitant to put too much of Streams and Waterways influence on the shoulders of their young daughter – she arrived a year and a half into the album’s conception – there’s no denying that its themes of loss, birth, and being part of this eternal, momentary life were brought into sharp focus following their new arrival. “Streams and Waterways is about the struggle of looking at the clock, realising it’s actually going pretty damn fast and knowing that really you have no control over anything” Jasper confirms. Perhaps that explains the way that opener The Valley doesn’t even introduce itself before careering into a full-throttled, three-minute scuzzy rager that would approach the descriptor anthemic had it not been kicked and scuffed along the way; it’s maybe why the wiry, ferocious Choice You Make feels like a charge into a storm despite the uncertainty of what you might find. It’s perhaps why even when Witching Waves allow themselves respite on the pared down Open A Hole, there’s a churning anxiety that lies below the acoustic guitar and harmonising vocals: in many ways musically and thematically Witching Waves are relinquishing the control that’s always been a fixture of their music – with all the thrilling and nervous fallout that comes from that. Although the pair have since returned south (having relocated to Exeter), Streams and Waterways also serves as a document of their foray northwards. The surviving artefact from Jasper’s never-to-be-finished studio that he’d began to build in Yorkshire – following the ending of his London-based Sound Savers studio – the record is also the first to feature current bassist Will Fitzpatrick, who joined initially live on their support tour with Australian punks Camp Cope. Fitzpatrick – a key component of Liverpool’s DIY scene for two decades – quickly became a key part of the writing process. Recording sessions were done during periods of lockdown that allowed congregation, Jasper recalling a still unborn Ivy kicking hard during an early mix playback of It’s A Shame’s layered noise rock assault. “The song was about my past, a much harder time. But my future was egging me on” he says. It’s a neat summation of Streams and Waterways and its representation of the discomfort of life amidst the compulsion to ride on its journey regardless. It’s a record that finds Witching Waves looking into the future more than ever before, but still bristles with the rush of being in the moment – because ultimately, despite what may have happened or may yet come, the band’s strongest trait remains being able to keep you feeling in the present.

[engl] An amazing personal, power-pop record from Bristol, UK's Woahnows!