Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.
Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week, we got new music from Waxahatchee, Rapt, Mei Semones, and more.
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Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory – Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Sharon Van Etten songs have typically functioned as the work of one person. Accompanying musicians are there mainly to buttress her ideas rather than contribute their own. For what is billed as the self-titled debut album from Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, Van Etten is merely one part of a quartet where all four members split songwriting duties. Compared to her solo material, Van Etten, alongside bassist Devra Hoff, drummer and programmer Jorge Balbi, and keyboardist-guitarist Teeny Lieberson, works with a wider canvas. Together, their ideas run free with a cinematic panache.
Barker – “Reframing”
Dance music is often an exercise in tension and release. There’s a rising synth that eventually, predictably, yet nonetheless satisfactorily builds to a bass-heavy drop. It gains steam throughout the first third or so of the track, and once that first chorus hits, the decibel levels and endorphins grow in tandem. With Barker, however, he’s far more interested in the “tension” part. “Reframing,” the latest single from trance producer Sam Voltek, is a vast, drumless expanse with the pulse of a calm river, patient but never stagnant. Even though there’s no easily discernible drop, there’s still a release. Around the halfway mark, the filtered synths float to the surface of the mix, gleaming like brilliant stars in the cosmos.
Destroyer – “Hydroplaning Off The Edge Of The World”
Who doesn’t love a Bejarism? On the latest Destroyer single, “Hydroplaning Off The Edge Of The World,” Dan Bejar treats us with a treasure trove of them. Following a synth-pop romp with rollicking toms and airy backing vocals, he goes spoken-word mode like he does toward the end of Labyrinthitis highlight “June.” He rattles off one memorable line after another: “Mirthless husk floating on an ocean / On the surface of the King of France;” “My life’s a giant lid closing on an eye;” “In the shop window, illumined like candy / I bought all these people this brandy.” It all makes for another magnificent tune by one of the greatest working songwriters.
Cloakroom – “Story Of The Egg”
Indianapolis trio Cloakroom are on the cusp of releasing their next album, Last Leg Of The Human Table, but they’ve shared another single ahead of its arrival. “Story Of The Egg” is its shoegaziest offering yet. Meddling in new wave and dream-pop, the band trades in their normally sludgy tempos for a quicker pace that calls to mind groups like DIIV and Wild Nothing. “Story Of The Egg,” with its fuzzed-out guitars and cavernous reverb, stands out among Cloakroom’s best.
Waxahatchee – “Mud”
Katie Crutchfield is about to hit the road supporting legends such as Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, plus she’s got some headlining dates, including a stop at Madison Square Garden. That’s all to say that Crutchfield’s indie-rock project, Waxahatchee, is bigger than it’s ever been. Ahead of the tour, though, she’s shared another one-off single with “Mud.” Like “Much Ado About Nothing” before it, “Mud” is an alt-country banjo-strummer that showcases the Kansas City songwriter’s preternatural melodic gift.
Oklou – Choke Enough
Futuristic pop is the sound of the present. From Magdalena Bay’s sci-fi-influenced Imaginal Disk to the maximalist ubiquity of Charli XCX’s Brat, left-of-center pop has gone further afield in recent years than it has in a while. Add Oklou to that growing list. For her full-length debut album, Choke Enough, French musician Marylou Mayniel warps conventional pop melodies and structures to suit her outré visions. Take the serpentine synth arpeggio that weaves its way throughout the title track, the drum-and-bass pulse of “plague dogs,” or the softly coursing house beat in the Bladee feature “take me by the hand.” Across its 13 tracks, Oklou transports us to a realm where escapist pop music becomes escapism itself.
Mei Semones – “Dumb Feeling”
James Murphy wrote about how New York was bringing him down. David Berman envisioned the city as a wintry backdrop for the Sabbath. For Mei Semones, it’s the setting of her chaotic yet comforting life: the shrill trains, swarming rats, and glimmering skyscrapers converging into a locale the 24-year-old songwriter is elated to call her home. “Dumb Feeling,” the opening track of Semones’ forthcoming debut LP, follows up on last year’s excellent Kabutomushi EP with a broader palette, expanding her proggy indie-rock blueprint to include bossa nova, samba, and jazz fusion. It’s a love letter to New York, but more importantly, it’s the proper introduction of an exciting new artist.
Anika – “Hearsay”
Annika Henderson’s music has always exhibited a raw edge that placed her within the upper echelons of her post-punk peers. For her latest song, “Hearsay,” those unvarnished qualities are more prominent than ever. The British songwriter recorded her forthcoming album, Abyss, at Hansa Studios, the famed setting that birthed David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy. Like Bowie does on his influential triptych, Anika deploys jagged basslines and discordant guitar to mirror the city’s wan atmosphere on its lead single. “Yesterday’s papers they line my bird cage / You’re telling me tales to get your own way,” she seethes in its verses. On “Hearsay,” Anika explores the void, but it doesn’t sound empty.
Panda Bear – “Ends Meet”
Later this month, Noah Lennox will release the first new Panda Bear solo album since 2019’s Buoys. Although he’s stayed busy with his main band Animal Collective on excellent records like 2022’s Time Skiffs and 2023’s Isn’t It Now?, plus his collaborative endeavors with Sonic Boom on 2022’s Reset and its numerous variants, Lennox shapes his own voice once again on the forthcoming Sinister Grift. “Ends Meet,” its final pre-release offering, highlights his chamber-pop, Beach Boys-indebted vocal harmonies alongside instrumentation from his AnCo bandmate Avey Tare and Spirit Of The Beehive’s Rivka Ravede. February 28 can’t get here fast enough.
Rapt – “Making Maps”
Jacob Ware, the man behind indie-folk project Rapt, is about to put out his fifth album, Until The Light Takes Us. Before its imminent release, however, the London songwriter has shared “Making Maps,” a gorgeous tune with lilting pianos and twangy guitars that meet the middle point between Wild Pink and Will Oldham. Still, Ware is in a class of his own, merging tenderness and devastation that’s nothing short of magical.