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El Michels Affair's limited edition 7-inch single Anticipate b/w Indifference features two tracks from their latest album 24 Hr Sports. With guest appearances by Clairo and Shintaro Sakamoto, the release blends vintage soul with a modern sensibility.
Wendy Eisenberg has spent the past decade as a fixture of independent music and an artist of inspired multiplicity. As a singer-songwriter, improviser,and virtuoso guitarist, the coordinates of their artistry are ever-shifting, from art-rock to jazz to blistering free improv and eloquent folk. On catalog highlights including 2020’s Auto and the 2024 free-jazz sprawler Viewfinder, they’ve made a signature of ambition. After spending the past five years experimenting in different bands, genres, and creative challenges, and following a period of self-confrontation that they liken to a personal exorcism, Eisenberg has arrived at a milestone. The poetic and formally daring folk songs of Wendy Eisenberg comprise their most certain vision yet. The songs began to take root in 2020 when Eisenberg moved from Western Massachusetts—where they’d lived for a few years after attending Boston’s New England Conservatory—and relocated to Brooklyn. Longing for the pastoral feel of their former home, Eisenberg gravitated towards the warm sounds of country and folk. “The songs are genuinely folk songs,” Eisenberg says of their record. “The production is less about seeing what the guitar might be capable of and more accepting the inherent strangeness of the languages it has spoken for the last century and a half.” On Wendy Eisenberg, the artist creates their own paradigm with a tight-knit circle of longtime friends and collaborators—including bassist Trevor Dunn, drummer Ryan Sawyer, and co-producer Mari Rubio (more eaze), who handled pedal steel, synth, and string arrangements—recording often at Eisenberg’s home and bringing a gorgeous ensemble texture to each note. “I was finally around people who accepted me,” Eisenberg says. “Many of the songs on this record were written in that new feeling. I wanted it to be incredibly comforting as it describes some massive changes in self-understanding and self-regard. It’s about relief.”
The 1993 split point between pop punk and emo is no better illustrated than by Garden Variety's self-titled debut. While Billy and Bivouac flirted with the mainstream, this Long Island trio proposed at the post-hardcore prom. Muscular octave guitar chug with a side of late night zine work at the local diner. Backbeat heartbreak, hold the FX. Thank Charles Maggio for your favorite record next time you see him at the Paramus mall.
The 1993 split point between pop punk and emo is no better illustrated than by Garden Variety's self-titled debut. While Billy and Bivouac flirted with the mainstream, this Long Island trio proposed at the post-hardcore prom. Muscular octave guitar chug with a side of late night zine work at the local diner. Backbeat heartbreak, hold the FX. Thank Charles Maggio for your favorite record next time you see him at the Paramus mall.
Vind is 12 pieces written and performed by CTM and produced by Jakob Littauer. The album consists of cello compositions with few exceptions - a daf enhancing the rhythm, a distant memory of the kora, a pensive flute or folly sounds. The softness of the acoustic instruments is counterplayed by concise compositions and hyperreal productions. The music presents itself as part spirit, part form; the movement in the moment, repetition, anticipation, what happened and what is to come. It's a sensuous search into stretched out moments, captured and held in one’s hand for a little while. It finds play and devotion, love and light. Dedicated to Jannis Noya Makrigiannis
Bruno Berle is a singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and figurehead of a contemporary Brazilian music movement. With a quiet mastery of songwriting and an astonishing voice, his music has won hearts around the world. Since the release of his debut album No Reino Dos Afetos (2022), Berle has performed across the UK, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and China, only leaving his home country for the first time in 2023. Shaped by these journeys, Berle’s third studio album, Sem Fronteiras (Without Borders), reflects a utopian vision of a unified world. Recorded across London, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Germany, and Maceió, the album–co-produced alongside his longstanding musical partner Batata Boy–is the most expansive canvas Berle has worked on to date. Shot through with the imagery that has always animated his songwriting: open skies, morning light, vivid colours and the magic of human connection, Berle’s carefully crafted poetics and warm, delicate instrumentation drive this vivid body of work. “I came from nothing”–Berle doesn’t take his rise to global prominence for granted. Born to a working class family from Brazil’s northeastern Alagoas state, one of Brazil’s most economically deprived, Bruno moved frequently in his youth to follow any job opportunities his parents could find, before eventually settling in the coastal capital of Maceió. “I used to travel to Caruaru, Santa Cruz, Recife, Garanhuns, Arapiraca, which I loved and feel it made me ready to be in this rhythm i’, but at the same time I think not having friends from childhood and being in constant change made me a little numb to the constant upheaval”. On Sem Fronteiras, there is a similar duality at play. The album celebrates the collective joy and human connection that live touring brings, but it also sits with the darker realities of crossing borders. While music moves more freely around the world than ever before, our bodies are not granted the same privilege. Though he’s never lacked self-belief, Berle recognises that talent alone doesn’t guarantee opportunity. “Before my second album [No Reino Dos Afetos 2] everything I had ever recorded was made with the help and kindness of people who believed in my ability”. Determined to pay that kindness forward and help others from the sharp end of Brazil’s desperately unequal society, Berle produced and featured on the recent self-titled albums by his northeast Brazilian compatriots, Nyron Higor and Phylipe Nunes Araújo (both 2025), helping propel both onto the international stage. In turn, following the successes of Nyron & Phylipe’s albums alongside his own, Bruno finds himself at the forefront of a thriving community of artists now based in São Paulo, but primarily originating from northeastern states like Alagoas and Pernambuco. Much like the famed Clube Da Esquina movement that spawned in 1970’s Minas Gerais, they operate with a free-exchange of ideas, writing songs with and for each other, performing on each other’s albums and on the live circuit together. Lead single ‘Manha’ flows from this ethos. It was written by Berle’s friend and fellow Alagoan João Menezes (writer of ‘Ate Meu Violao’ and ‘Te Amar Eterno’ from Bruno’s previous albums) and Marvin Viera, and originally recorded on their 2018 album Areia e Mar. Sem Fronteiras opens with ‘Você Já Sabe Que Eu Te Amo’, just six beats of one nylon guitar chord ring out before changing key, paving the way for the gentle strike of fender rhodes and the arresting call & response duet between Berle and Higor. On ‘Amor Inteiro’, the album reaches a celebratory burst of catharsis, with the punch-packing drums of Pedro Lacerda and Nina Maia’s joyous backing vocals encapsulating the live energy that Berle and his band bring to the stage. With the abundant talents of this musical community at its heart, Sem Fronteiras releases 10th July 2026 via Far Out Recordings, supported by a summer tour across Europe. Bruno Berle will perform in a four-piece band alongside Nyron Higor, Phylipe Nunes, and Batata Boy, culminating in an appearance at Roskilde festival, Berle’s biggest live show to date. He’ll continue to carry a hopeful vision of a world where artists and musicians can move as freely as their music flows.
Dream of the Egg is the debut solo album by Tomo Katsurada, known for his work with the Japanese psychedelic band Kikagaku Moyo. This project is a unique fusion of music and visual art, inspired by the Japanese 1920s children's book “Yume No Tamago (Dream of the Egg)”. It reveals a deeply personal journey, reflecting Tomo's dreams and the numerous rebirths experienced in 2024—a year marked by profound new beginnings in every facet of his life. This mini album was driven by a passion for raw and immediate expression. Every song was crafted and recorded with only the materials available to him at the time, embracing an organic and handmade atmosphere. By eschewing rhythm clicks and standard instrumental tunings, a spontaneous sound emerged, capturing the essence of both uncertainty and immediacy. Adding to this distinctive sonic landscape, guest musician Jonny Nash (UK) contributed ethereal guitar sounds on the first and final tracks, enriching the record's dream-like quality.
Finally! The sixth studio album Dinosaur Jr. have recorded in the 20 years since their triumphal rebirth. There have been several live and/or closet cleaning collections to keep us punters sated for the five years since Sweep It Into Space, but there is nothing quite like having a full slab of new Dino tunes to fry your ears. And There Near has all knobs set to Extra Crispy. Created in short, intense bursts over the course of a year at Amherst's Bisquiteen Studio, There Near was recorded almost entirely by Dino's core trio -- king of the thunder tubs, Murph, human tornado Lou Barlow on bass/vocals and the inimitable J Mascis on guitar/vocals -- with a bit of piano and organ work by local master musician, Ken Mauri. And the album roars from start to finish. Trying to define the essence of Dino's sound is never easy. It's an instantly recognizable blend of loose vocals, sharp guitars and an animalistic rhythm section, but these parts combine into a whole far more magical and exciting than its components. In strict rock-write terms, you might call the approach “post-core power balladeering,” but what use is that? Dinosaur Jr. invented their formula for noise/pop jiggering around the same time Husker Dü were trying out some of the same ideas, all of which got made popular by a band they inspired called Nirvana. But that's an old and much-told tale. J's guitar tone throughout There Near is even more animalistic than usual, perhaps owing partly to the fact he's playing through a recently acquired 70's Mesa Boogie MK 1 amp. “I bought the same amp that Chris Dixon had when we made our first album,” J says. “Chris recorded us at his house with his amp. It has a real interesting sound I haven't gotten for a while. And it's something I was trying to get back to on this album. The Stones started using Mesa Boogies in the '70s after they heard Santana playing through them. Then The Clash copied The Stones, etc. As the years went on into the MK 2 and so on, the Boogie got more metal sounding. But the MK 1 has a souped-up Fender sound. You always hear how Rick Rubin always makes bands he's producing sit down and listen to their first album and say let's get back to that sound. So I just gave myself his advice." Asked about the philosophical opacity of his lyrical approach, J says. “I'm not always sure what a song is 'about' when I'm writing it. I guess the meaning will present itself at some point. I'll use whatever words work. And a lot of it will be influenced by whatever esoteric mumbo jumbo I'm reading at the time. I try not to think too hard about any of it. I think it's a drag that Spotify shows all the lyrics to a song. What's the fun of that? Japanese labels always wanted us to give them lyrics to print. I wouldn't hand them over so they'd just have to try and figure them out. It has always been better to make up your own version of lyrics to songs by the Stones or R.E.M. or whoever. I mean, R.E.M.'s whole thing was about mumbling. I never understood why they caved to pressure and started enunciating." “Someone suggested this album sounds more upbeat, but I guess that's to do with my delivery, because lyrics like 'No Friends' might make you think otherwise. But I usually write in the third person. It's all just make believe.” While it's true There Near does present a slightly softer lyrical edge on some of J's songs, even a relatively gorgeous ballad like “Put It Down” eventually explodes in a shower of fiery guitar distentions. It's just what happens. Meanwhile the two tunes provided by Lou -- “Blowin' Up” and “No One's Ready” -- may have less frenzied musical settings, but their lyrics sound like pointed and timely attacks on our current regime. As is so often the case, Lou's melodic constructions have a friendly mien, but his lyrics cut like knives. There Near continues Dinosaur Jr.'s string of classic albums. The new songs are sure to sound amazing with their monstrous riffs blaring from live stages amidst their historical brethren. Can't wait to catch them live, but in the meantime There Near will be a constant companion. The nearer the better. --Byron Coley
Lady of Mine is the 1989 debut LP by self-made Italian-American Joe Tossini. An astoundingly honest, passionate record of cosmopolitan lounge music, he willed this charming suburban oddity into existence without any formal musical training.
Sicilian by birth, Tossini drifted around the world between Italy, Germany and Canada, before finally settling in New Jersey. After the passing of his mother and the breakdown of a second marriage, an anxious and depressed Tossini took to songwriting as a form of therapy, crafting disarmingly candid lyrics from his extraordinary life and loves. Whatever industry savvy or musical virtuosity he lacked was made up for by unflinching resourcefulness and infectious charisma. Befriending bandleader Peppino Lattanzi at local club The Rickshaw Inn, he was encouraged to animate his singular songs with an ambitious cast of 9 players and 5 backing vocalists, sincerely credited as his Friends.
The Atlantic City basement sessions are a low budget, high romance testament to Tossini’s character and the power of positive thinking. From the defiant, Casiotone samba of If I Should Fall In Love, to Wild Dream’s dizzying escapism and the native tongue croons of Sulla Luna and Sincerita, Lady Of Mine hums with the inimitable magic of a true original. Piercing the heart with an effectively sparse combination of humming keys, CompuRhythm drums, horn flourishes and backing divas, ample room was left for Tossini to frankly deliver his much-needed life lessons.
Underperforming commercially at the hands of short lived label IEA Records, Lady Of Mine has since earned a place in the outsider music canon. Recently peaking interest as a cornerstone of the Sky Girl compilation, the private press trades for inordinate sums, typically with no financial benefit to its creator. Lady Of Mine is now finally reissued on the artist’s own terms via Joe Tossini Music, in partnership with Efficient Space, restored from original master tapes with unseen photos, extensive liner notes and Tossini’s trademark wisdom.
Devoutly independent, Tossini has previously self-released the 2015 instrumental album When You Love Someone as well as two books - a new fiction novel The Devil In White and his autobiography The Account of My Life.
Finally! The sixth studio album Dinosaur Jr. have recorded in the 20 years since their triumphal rebirth. There have been several live and/or closet cleaning collections to keep us punters sated for the five years since Sweep It Into Space, but there is nothing quite like having a full slab of new Dino tunes to fry your ears. And There Near has all knobs set to Extra Crispy. Created in short, intense bursts over the course of a year at Amherst's Bisquiteen Studio, There Near was recorded almost entirely by Dino's core trio -- king of the thunder tubs, Murph, human tornado Lou Barlow on bass/vocals and the inimitable J Mascis on guitar/vocals -- with a bit of piano and organ work by local master musician, Ken Mauri. And the album roars from start to finish. Trying to define the essence of Dino's sound is never easy. It's an instantly recognizable blend of loose vocals, sharp guitars and an animalistic rhythm section, but these parts combine into a whole far more magical and exciting than its components. In strict rock-write terms, you might call the approach “post-core power balladeering,” but what use is that? Dinosaur Jr. invented their formula for noise/pop jiggering around the same time Husker Dü were trying out some of the same ideas, all of which got made popular by a band they inspired called Nirvana. But that's an old and much-told tale. J's guitar tone throughout There Near is even more animalistic than usual, perhaps owing partly to the fact he's playing through a recently acquired 70's Mesa Boogie MK 1 amp. “I bought the same amp that Chris Dixon had when we made our first album,” J says. “Chris recorded us at his house with his amp. It has a real interesting sound I haven't gotten for a while. And it's something I was trying to get back to on this album. The Stones started using Mesa Boogies in the '70s after they heard Santana playing through them. Then The Clash copied The Stones, etc. As the years went on into the MK 2 and so on, the Boogie got more metal sounding. But the MK 1 has a souped-up Fender sound. You always hear how Rick Rubin always makes bands he's producing sit down and listen to their first album and say let's get back to that sound. So I just gave myself his advice." Asked about the philosophical opacity of his lyrical approach, J says. “I'm not always sure what a song is 'about' when I'm writing it. I guess the meaning will present itself at some point. I'll use whatever words work. And a lot of it will be influenced by whatever esoteric mumbo jumbo I'm reading at the time. I try not to think too hard about any of it. I think it's a drag that Spotify shows all the lyrics to a song. What's the fun of that? Japanese labels always wanted us to give them lyrics to print. I wouldn't hand them over so they'd just have to try and figure them out. It has always been better to make up your own version of lyrics to songs by the Stones or R.E.M. or whoever. I mean, R.E.M.'s whole thing was about mumbling. I never understood why they caved to pressure and started enunciating." “Someone suggested this album sounds more upbeat, but I guess that's to do with my delivery, because lyrics like 'No Friends' might make you think otherwise. But I usually write in the third person. It's all just make believe.” While it's true There Near does present a slightly softer lyrical edge on some of J's songs, even a relatively gorgeous ballad like “Put It Down” eventually explodes in a shower of fiery guitar distentions. It's just what happens. Meanwhile the two tunes provided by Lou -- “Blowin' Up” and “No One's Ready” -- may have less frenzied musical settings, but their lyrics sound like pointed and timely attacks on our current regime. As is so often the case, Lou's melodic constructions have a friendly mien, but his lyrics cut like knives. There Near continues Dinosaur Jr.'s string of classic albums. The new songs are sure to sound amazing with their monstrous riffs blaring from live stages amidst their historical brethren. Can't wait to catch them live, but in the meantime There Near will be a constant companion. The nearer the better. --Byron Coley
Reverend Baron’s singular troubadour soul may best understand the capacity music has to span the distance between points on a map and pages in a calendar. Daniel, the acoustic instrumental follow-up to 2022’s Karma Chief label debut, From Anywhere…, expands the world beyond LA’s concrete canyons and overpasses to the bustling, churning sea of life that is Mexico City, to the sparse, rolling landscape of Red Cloud, Nebraska. In each locale, the constant companion was a nylon-stringed acoustic guitar — with a well-traveled history of its own. “It was my father’s guitar,” recalls Danny Garcia, the man behind the Reverend. “I found out a few years ago that it was my grandfather’s as well.” Ever-present since his childhood, the Mexican acoustic has taken on increased meaning for Garcia with each passing year. Hours upon hours spent playing, traveling, and breathing meaning into its fretboard have made it both a tool and talisman. “There’s the obvious bloodline and family and link…that link through history,” confides Garcia. “It’s kinda the only family heirloom I have.” Over the last while, all this playing (or “noodling” as Danny puts it) had Reverend Baron chasing a sound — one which belies the guitar’s origins. It’s a sound he would hear from time to time, and when it came to record Daniel, it would be his true magnetic north (or south as it were). Spinning through Daniel, and you will hear echoes of Antonio Bribiesca and Luiz Bonfa's guitar tones. Dig deeper and you’ll see the bones of Townes Van Zandt and Nick Drake guitar textures as well. While not claiming their virtuosity in his playing, the soul and vulnerability that have become calling cards for the first two Reverend Baron albums complement these influences. There is a warmth in Daniel that takes center stage in these acoustic meditations. From brief, fluid moments like “El Monte” and “How Glad” to the high-lonesome “Muchacho,” the songs drift like cumulus clouds over a deep blue skyway. Their graceful float is in stark contrast to the album’s origins. The studio Garcia was using for his intended second release on Karma Chief was a victim of the LA wildfires in January of 2025. “[The fires] halted work on my record,” says Garcia. “So I ended up leaving and went to Mexico City for a few months, and so worked quite a bit [on Daniel] there.” With his striped-down set up -- featuring his guitar, a few microphones, and a laptop -- the time in Mexico City set the tone for the project. “I just came into this space because it seemed like I could just do it…it seemed like it was time, and I didn’t have to force anything.” After leaving CDMX, Reverend Baron spent a few weeks in Red Cloud. While all the traveling and miles energize Garcia, this small midwestern village’s peaceful and unassuming nature was the ideal spot to focus and create. “LA is home and has its own cultural juice, which I love…Nebraska is very quiet. No one disturbs you, and I can just work and concentrate for weeks [there].” Daniel’s 11 tracks criss-cross the laylines of border music and folk, but categorizing them along a fault line or genre tag misses the point. These acoustic numbers move with a deliberate ease, never overstaying their welcome. The songs respond to time and distance with equal parts reflection and transparency; both mirror and window to the soul. Daniel is Reverend Baron’s conversation with his bloodline, influences, and the stops along the way. By the album’s closer, “Velasco,” Daniel’s conversation becomes your invitation to search for a path along that great sonic continuum housed within a song.
“The Ruins of Things Unfinished” is the new album by Slow Leaves, the project of Canadian singer‑songwriter Grant Davidson. Featuring contributions from respected Canadian musicians such as Kris Ulrich and Roman Clarke, the record blends warm acoustic guitar textures with Davidson’s gentle vocals and carefully layered arrangements.
Sufjan Stevens, Asthmatic Kitty, and Soundsfamilyre announce Sufjan's third full-length album, a collection of songs for his birth-state, MICHIGAN, "The Great Lake State." Composed as a geographical tone poem, MICHIGAN follows a metaphysical expedition through the idiosyncrasies of middle America. Drawing from personal anecdote, regional history, and state heritage, Stevens mixes social and political grievances with songs about snowmobiles, Henry Ford, the Detroit race riots, and love. MICHIGAN's songs resonate with a range of sources-Vince Guaraldi, Terry Riley, and Nick Drake as accompanied by Stereolab and The Sea & Cake-in executing Stevens' peculiar palette that is simultaneously rock and blue-grass, jazz and pop, a style The Village Voice appraises as "Arthur Lee meets the Book of Psalms." In MICHIGAN, Stevens combines intimate, soft-spoken songwriting with the dense compositional complexity displayed on his previous release ENJOY YOUR RABBIT, which XLR8R called "...a transgressive, majestic album conjuring an academic jam session of Stereolab and Luke Vibert conducted by Steve Reich." Guest artists include Elin, Megan, and Daniel Smith (of The Danielson Famile), and John Ringhofer (Half-handed Cloud). Album art features original hand-paintings by Martha Stewart crafts editor Laura Normandin. MICHIGAN is the inaugural entry of THE 50 STATES, a cumulative recording project by Sufjan Stevens unparalleled in its panoramic enterprise: a record for each state! You think he's kidding, don't you? Now available from Asthmatic Kitty and Soundsfamilyre. Distributed by Secretly Canadian: release date: July 1, 2003 (which happened to be Sufjan's birthday).
A year and a half after the release of her already acclaimed album Me Chama De Gato Que Eu Sou Sua, the young and award-winning exponent of the Brazilian music scene releases a double single that ends the album cycle with a flourish. Winner of the São Paulo Association of Art Critics Award for album of the year in Brazil and nominated for a Latin Grammy for “best rock album in Portuguese”; in the US, it received excellent critical and public acclaim, and her show toured 11 countries on three continents, with over 40 sold-out shows. After an intense year of work, Ana returns to the studio to record the 2 songs that were included in the show's repertoire -- A Sua Diversão, by Ana and Tuca Monteiro; and Não Tem Nada Não, by Marcos Valle, Eumir Deodato and João Donato. The single will be released on 7” vinyl by the labels RISCO, MR Bongo and Psychic Hotline in July 2025. “The first time I played Não Tem Nada Não was in a solo show, and I immediately felt that the song should be included in the Me Chama De Gato Que Eu Sou Sua show. For the show of my last album, I decided to reduce the band a bit, remove the horns, so that it could be more flexible and be able to tour more places with it. First, it was a logistical issue. I wanted the new show to be audible… the bass drum, the snare and the hi-hat, the individual pieces and all the instruments. They had to have a lot of emphasis, I wanted everything to be audible. And I felt that in the shows with the big band, something always didn’t come through, it went unnoticed. So I thought of a leaner show so that, sonically, everything would have emphasis. So, these phonograms come as a continuation of Me Chama De Gato live, of the meeting with the band. I wanted to provoke this encounter with the band in a phonographic way. At the same time, it is a more subtle, more neutral phonogram than my other works. It almost fulfills the function of a live performance, the representation of a live performance, of an arrangement for the band. “A Sua Diversão, on the other hand, is an unreleased song, written in partnership with Tuca Monteiro, which I had been playing at some Me Chama De Gato shows… However, since it was an unreleased song, I didn’t see much point in releasing it alone, and at the same time, I didn’t know where to fit it. So, when I started considering recording Não Tem Nada Não, which is a song by my idols… I have this in my career, I don’t re-record idols, I don’t consider myself an interpreter, I’m a composer… So when I decided to record Não Tem Nada Não, I was racking my brains to make it natural in my discography, as someone who is a composer, who is a music producer. So A Sua Diversão came in perfectly, as a counterpoint, as a fitting, in a great farewell to Me Chama De Gato… “These are definitely songs that don’t point the way, but rather close a cycle. They reflect research based on live performances, on the MCGQESS shows, which will be celebrating their farewell in Brazil this year. The two tracks occupy a similar place in my discography to Mama Planta Baby and Mulher Homem Bicho, but different because without the pandemic factor, without the home studio, now recorded live, with a band.”
There are collaborations that feel engineered, and then there are those that feel like summer sun’s warmth on a Sunday. Helado Tropical, the debut collaborative album from Helado Negro and Reyna Tropical, belongs to the latter, channeling that easy, sun-drenched tenderness into sound. It didn’t begin with a plan so much as a meeting: two artists orbiting similar questions around language, identity, and music, finally landing in the same room. What followed was less a traditional writing process than a shared unfolding – an instinctive, immersive exchange that stretched across geographies, time zones, and states of being. The duo first met in June 2024 in North Carolina, brought together by a mutual friend and a loose invitation to spend time in the studio. What might have been a brief session turned into something closer to a three-day sleepover – equal parts conversation, curiosity, and creative risk. Reyna Tropical, who often works within intimate, long-standing collaborations, arrived unsure of what it would mean to open their process to someone new. Helado Negro, long known for expanding the sonic and emotional language of Latin music, entered with a similar openness: no expectations, just a willingness to see what might emerge. What emerged was immediate, rather than easing into collaboration, the two found themselves propelled forward by it – building songs in real time, responding to each other’s instincts without over-explaining them. There was no rigid division of roles. One would begin an idea, the other would answer. A melody would suggest a rhythm; a rhythm would reshape a lyric. “There was never a moment where we felt super stuck,” Helado Negro recalls. “It was just like ‘ok what’s next?’ and even within the songs, trying to create these micro worlds – we just felt excited about each moment.” That sense of momentum became foundational to Helado Tropical, a nine-song project that feels both weightless and deeply rooted. Built from guitars, drum machines, and synthesizers, the album resists clean categorization. It lives somewhere between ambient and rhythmic, intimate and expansive; essentially, a sonic language of its own making, shaped as much by feeling as by form. If there is a unifying thread, it’s movement. The album was written across multiple locations – North Carolina, Portland, and the midwest – with both artists continuing to shape the songs in between sessions, sending ideas back and forth in a kind of long-distance dialogue. At times, the process resembled a “postal service” exchange, each artist adding layers in solitude before returning to build together again. The result is music that carries a sense of travel within it – not just physical, but emotional and spiritual. For Reyna Tropical, that movement became central to the project’s meaning. “You can really lose yourself in where you are and you can miss a lot of processing,” they say. “But I think that this particular album really was able to ground me in what movement means to me and just different characters that the range of movement, travel… environment – sun, wind, and water – has the potential to bring out.” The songs reflect that duality: they drift, swell, and shift, yet remain tethered to something steady beneath the surface. That balance is perhaps most evident in “Sensación,” a song that explores intimacy outside of traditional frameworks. Rooted in curiosity, it opens up a more expansive understanding of closeness – one that, yes, can exist between people but also within oneself, and in fleeting shared moments. There is a softness to it, but also a charge: like a storm forming quietly in the distance. Elsewhere, “Fluye” captures a different kind of release – an almost suspended state of awe, inspired in part by Reyna Tropical’s experience watching a sunrise stretch endlessly across a long-haul flight. It’s a song about surrendering to flow, awakening, and recognizing continuity and connection – even in moments of disorientation. And then there is “Tocando,” one of the album’s most visceral recordings. Built from a pre-existing beat Helado Negro introduced during their sessions, the track took shape after more than a day without sleep. Reyna Tropical recalls pacing, waiting for the lyrics to arrive, before finally delivering them in what they describe as an almost essay-like outpouring. The result is a song that holds tension and tenderness simultaneously: a meditation on relationships that feels both fragile and fraught, intimate yet edged with warning. That duality of softness and sharpness, as well as openness and resistance, runs throughout the album. It’s there in “Soledad,” the final track recorded, which came together in a single late-night session after the project was technically complete. What began as an improvisation on keys turned into something magnetic, keeping both artists back into creation. “[We] couldn’t leave the room,” Reyna Tropical says. The finished song retains that energy between them, and sense of flow coupled with immediacy, unfolding with minimal alteration from its original form. Across Helado Tropical, there is a noticeable absence of constraint: not just musically, but conceptually. Both artists share a long-standing resistance to the expectations often placed on Latin music: what it should sound like, how it should feel, what stories it should tell. As they do individually, these two artists create space for something more fluid and personal on this project. That freedom extends to the album’s emotional perspective. While many of the songs explore intimacy, they rarely function as direct dialogues between the two voices. Instead, they exist within a shared world where each artist expresses something individual and collective. “It’s not about us speaking to each other,” Helado Negro explains. “It’s about us existing in the same feeling.” What makes Helado Tropical particularly resonant is the sense of trust that underpins it. Trust in each other, of course, but also trust in instinct, in process, and the idea that not everything needs to be fully understood in the moment it’s created. Much of the album was written through improvisation, with meaning revealing itself only later, as the artists listened back and reflected. In that way, the project functions as both creation and documentation: a record of a specific time, place, and connection. Reyna Tropical describes it as a form of archiving – capturing not just songs, but the emotional and relational context in which they were made. “It was a lot of processing, a lot of transition” they say about where they were at personally. Ultimately, it was about understanding that “this is supposed to be released so we could keep going. I really feel like this album does that personally, and hopefully is able to hold that for other people too.” That forward motion propelled by release is felt in every part of the album. It hums beneath the surface of even its quietest moments, carrying a sense of continuation, and of something still unfolding. Ultimately, Helado Tropical encapsulates a moment of two artists meeting at the right moment, with the right openness, allowing something larger than either of them to take shape. It is spontaneous yet intentional, grounded yet expansive, deeply personal yet invitingly universal. And this convergence of forces is just the beginning.
Originally released in 1998, Boston emo outfit Jejune's shoegaze-inspired second album has been given the Numero treatment with a long overdue remaster. RIUYL Rainer Maria, Superchunk or Karate.
Jejune were only around for four years, but they left behind them a subtle trail of influence that's exemplified on their milestone sophomore album. Unlike their debut 'Junk' (that Numero remastered and reissued earlier this year), 'This Afternoon's Malady' began to subvert the emo template, shoring up Arabella Harrison and Joe Guevara's fragile, cracking vocals with thick, wall-of-sound production that betrayed the influence of MBV's 'Loveless' and Catherine Wheel's 'Ferment'. The band were saddled with accusations of being "emo" when the album originally emerged in the late '90s and the term had become a slur, and now we can visualize their influence a little more clearly. They were emblematic of the genre's refined, ultra-melodic second wave, and since they splintered in 2000 they've been referenced constantly online. Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carrabba called them one of his favorite bands, and Jejune neatly bridge the gap between hardcore punk and indie rock, foreshadowing the '00s boom.