MUSIC

Rat Heart’s debut album for Modern Love finds Tom Boogizm blurring genres with instinct and grit. Joined by Adam Sinclaire, Cansu Kandemir, Tha Payne, Ruby Conner and Juan Camilo, he weaves torch songs, DIY blues and cracked pop into something raw and compelling.

Opener ‘I H T’ sets the tone with its weary refrain and spectral flute, grounding the album’s mix of tenderness and unease. Kandemir’s smoky vocals glide through the ghostly shuffle of ‘Not 2Nite’ and ‘Senle’, while Ruby Conner’s spoken word adds bite to the funked-out ‘Real Hardcore Pleasure’. By the time Juan Camilo’s Spanish narration drifts through closer ‘IGOTDRONESINMYBONES’, the record has folded dream pop, post-punk and dub into a single, bruised vision.

A vivid, unclassifiable portrait of Northern soul, noise and nocturnal romance.

Highly recommended for fans of Dean Blunt and hypnagogic pop. Emerging in the late 2010s as Belgium’s counterpart to Music From Memory with its focus on obscure archival excavations, and now known for releasing cult records from contemporary artists, STROOM.TV presents the full LP debut of the enigmatic act Felicity J Lord. A collision of obscure playfulness and fragile poetics, the album unfolds as a collection of nearly 30 fragmentary tracks, each lasting only a minute or two—like peering into a diary or sketchbook. Synths, piano, cut-up voices, and intimate domestic sounds appear and dissolve, sometimes evoking lo-fi pop sensibilities, sometimes drifting into experimental collage. Rather than striking with force, it’s the accumulation of hazy, fleeting fragments that lingers—resonating quietly in the listener’s memory. A rare and remarkable work.