The Line of Best Fit

Madra Salach are creating ancestral melodies with blistering modernity and have forged a raw new folklore from Dublin's restless spirit.

“Music has always been there for me,” says the British-American songwriter – real name Jenny Hirons. After learning piano for ten years as a child, she has turned a private habit into something intensely public. “I would play piano whenever I had access to one. I credit LA for bringing …

They take their name from a renowned French psychoanalyst, compelled by her dual-status as a “serious academic and unhinged romantic figure,” she’s a person they desperately wanted associated with themselves.

By the time I find Julia Wolf in the green room at Camden's KOKO, the chaos of load-in and an early fan queue is already underway. She's calm, grounded and a quiet contrast to the storm brewing outside, just ahead of her support slot with PVRIS. The next evening, she’d …

In the quiet before release day, Cari Fletcher sits with the rawest album of her career, and the question that’s followed her through it: Would you still love me if you really knew me? The earthy smell of burning incense curls through the air in a dimly lit room, tucked …

In November 2022, the Montreal-based rapper-singer-songwriter Quinton Barnes tweeted “I want to work with noise/improv musicians in some capacity”. Barnes was looking to explore the Frenchman’s thesis that, by providing a channel for noise, music can challenge the normative order and change the course of social development.

Across the songs of his debut album sosocamo, he pays homage to the joys of the Southern lifestyle, and frames those hooks with irresistibly melodic flows.

For years, SXSW has remained a springboard for breakout acts – among them one of Ava’s key inspirations, Amy Winehouse, who began gaining traction in the US after her 2007 debut in Austin, Texas. There is a quiet significance, then, to Joe performing at the festival’s inaugural London event; soul-rooted, …

For many artists, their art is a recollection of life. While the source makes the work meaningful, where do you draw the line?

Yes, it’s that intense.

Transcending his South East London roots as well as the played-out ‘genreless’ tag, Sam Akpro knows exactly who he is and what he’s doing, as Jamie Wilde reports from Peckham.

Are the stories of some futuristic dystopian films still a thing of fiction, or have they become a reflection of the current age?

Past lovers might not get away with our hearts, but they do take something almost equally as precious: our time. That’s the real heartbreak.

Chasing after love could take you a lifetime. To save yourself the hours, and the heartbreak, burgeoning dream-pop group Roomer suggest you leave things to chance instead in their aptly-named new single.

When blinded by the euphoria of love or lust, it feels like the perfect time to live life with reckless abandon. Depending on your perspective, it’s an easy trap to fall into, or an opportunity to chase to its fullest.

In a world like this one, we still have the choice to be still, contemplative, and kind, but it takes bravery to be that vulnerable. Artists like Natalie Wildgoose can help us get there.

Inspired by the vast Midwestern terrain that informs their lives, the underground shoegaze group she’s green steeps textured alt-rock sounds in dream-pop tenderness.

What musicians believe about life inevitably seeps into their sound. In turn, one of the most valuable gifts music offers us is perspective.

Maybe we all secretly love the delicious torture of what rising alternative rapper mynameisntjmack calls “argue typing”.

Every time we fall in love, it feels like the last. All-encompassing in its hazy euphoria, this one feeling has more power over us than anything, and its startling effects force us to ask impossible questions.

Even in the darkness, we transform. Purveyors of shoegaze and grunge genres like Cryogeyser know this truth well, spilling out those knowing hearts accordingly in wildly cathartic alt-rock ballads.

Yet, it wouldn’t have been released without the insistence of her producer Cameron McVey and girlfriend Grace. Invoking the likes of Lauren Aquilina and Wrabel, the 12-track anthology divides its time pretty evenly between piano and guitar to tell stories about finding, cherishing, and grieving love. The opening title track …

The work of the heart is often something of a tightrope walk between fulfillment and despair. While navigating these realities is often difficult, it also, ironically, makes for great fodder for more art too.

For most experimental fans, the lure of shoegaze, dense noise pop, or fuzzy alt-rock lies in the innate mystery of these songs.

From forward-thinking soundscapes to captivating visuals, and even crafting her own sustainable merch with t-shirts from her local charity shop, as Kaeto prepares to release her debut mixtape INTRO, the boundaries to her creative potential are limitless...

On their sixth album A Dream Is All We Know, The Lemon Twigs pay tribute to the lush, layered sounds of bygone eras.

But the project, mainly its lead single collaboration with producer Finneas on “Serotonin”, shot her into a stardom she hadn’t experienced before. After that, depression and endless touring took its toll on the artist, and she had to postpone several shows due to voice issues. In interviews done during this …

Ahead of the release of Ride’s seventh album Interplay, Mark Gardener talks Jamie Wilde through five pivotal songs of his career, taking in solo work, collaborations, and his reunited band.

A prolific producer nestled in the woody tranquillity of his home and studio in upstate New York, Sam Evian has worked with the likes of Big Thief, Palehound, Blonde Redhead and Cass McCombs, and is also a brilliant artist in his own right.

The Derry band epitomise the new age, bringing the political as well as the personal and echoing something of Meet Me @ The Altar across the pond. Their earworm 2019 single "Abigail" arrived steeped in vintage pop-punk influences, and was backed up two years later by the Hey Tori EP. …