Category: 1/2/3/4

Featuring the latest release from Chicago band Fran (aka Maria Jacobson) “Leaving,’ it finds the band at a crossroads of loss and possibility, forged through a preoccupation with the climate crisis as well as newfound contemplation of the intertwined nature of theology and religion. Angular, precise and filled with melodic entanglement, this is another rising female singer songwriter from the constantly evolving Chicago music scene. Excellent!

I’ve followed Canadian rock band Sloan for a very long time. Thirty years in fact! It’s hard to think of another band that has stayed as consistent for three decades musically and still has all the same band members for their entire career. Thirteen albums later, slow and steady wins the race. Their latest offers power pop glory. Highly Recommended.

Los Angeles-based songwriter Spencer Hoffman has been gigging for a decade, since he, his brother and their high school friends formed the band Honyock when he was age 16. He’s just released the first music released under his own name. Recorded during isloation and under duress, this release is overflowing with gorgeous melodies and literary references, it’s a celebration of the togetherness of humanity.

A special Christmas Cracker for all pimpod subscribers. Merry Christmas and a Happy 2023 to you all.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE The Go! Team. They have this incredible uplifting vibe that is infectious. They join forces with Benin’s all teenage sensations The Star Feminine Band for new track Look Away, Look Away, taken from upcoming new album Get Up Sequences Part 2. Straight from the heart, an end to end jumpstart. Plenty of great new music plus I pay tribute to Mimi Parker of Low who passed away aged 55. 

Maya Bon, the singer-songwriter behind Hudson, New York’s Babehoven, views light as one of life’s few fundamental truths. Babehoven’s first full-length album Light Moving Time revolves around Bon’s view of life as a confusing, jarring, and kaleidoscopic experience filled with contradictions, loss, and change. Bon has built a solid partnership with her musical collaborator and producer Ryan Albert over the last few years and the result is a stunning debut album. Highly Recommended.

ALL BLUE is the debut solo album by Julianna Riolino and marks the arrival of a major new songwriter, singer, and performer into the spotlight. She’s been called the “white-hot-lunged vocalist” best known for her increasingly prominent role as a member of Daniel Romano’s Outfit, Highly Recommended.

A wonderful worldly collection of sounds on this edition. The Badge Époque Ensemble are from Toronto, Canada and return with their third album, Clouds of Joy. It represents a shift from the group’s previous sonic excursions into the worlds of vintage soundtrack grooves and early electric jazz towards a more era-ambiguous, complex and all-encompassing approach to arrangement production. Just one of nine killer tunes for you to explore.

Big Time Things’ is a story of crossed wires and missed connections, sleepless nights and scrapped plans. On the third album from Office Culture, the Brooklyn-based band led by pianist-songwriter Winston Cook-Wilson, the magic is in how every element of their texturally rich, emotionally complex music conjures these same visions. Highly Recommended!

Alicia Clara is a dream pop prodigy working at breakneck speed — after last year’s triumphant EP Outsider/Unusual, the Swiss-Canadian songwriter holed up in her apartment to begin work on Velveteen, a lush and breathlessly tender four-song sequence conceived as an homage to her teenage self. I’ve featured her music before, a lush amalgam of 70s folk pop, 80s sophisti-pop & 90s shoegaze.