Also featuring new singles from MEMORIALS, Skiving, Alice Costelloe, Flip Top Head, Shaking Hand and zosia on a hill.
New year, new music! As we kick off 2026, it is time for the return of our weekly Tracks roundup, collecting the best new songs released every week. Kicking off the new year, we have tasters of new collections from Mandy, Indiana, MEMORIALS, Alice Costelloe, Flip Top Head and zosia on a hill. Added to that are also standout tracks from two early highlight albums, Dry Cleaning’s ‘Secret Love’ and Skiving’s ‘The Family Computer’.
Mandy, Indiana – ‘Cursive’
An ice-cold assailment of driving, nimble techno rhythms, ‘Cursive’ dares to confront our most primal trepidations -– in the most Mandy, Indiana way that a tune of this ilk possibly could. The new single from the Anglo-French quartet is a gut-churning patchwork of propulsive percussive elements; live drums hurtle alongside their synthetic counterparts with the chilling precision of an artillery assault, as Valentine Caulfield’s French-language vocal distortions oscillate and surge with agitation. Arriving ahead of Mandy, Indiana’s sophomore album ‘URGH’ – due for release via NYC indie Sacred Bones next month – ‘Cursive’ is said to be the band’s “most collaborative track to-date”. Synth player Simon Catling elaborates, “It was exciting having everyone bring their own ideas to the table from the off, throwing them together and seeing what could come out of it — a bit of a step into the unknown for us as a band”. (Hazel Blacher)
Dry Cleaning – ‘Joy’
Dry Cleaning share the fourth and final single from their upcoming record ‘Secret Love’, released January 9 via 4AD. ‘Joy’ unfolds with a quiet assurance, its jagged guitar textures and steady, insistent drums forming the framework for Florence Shaw’s spoken observations. Her voice remains calm and unsentimental, hovering above the arrangement as if detached from its urgency: “It’s a horrorland / Destruction / Don’t give up on being sweet / Joy”. Shaw’s words settle into the arrangement with a gentle inevitability, allowing their meaning to surface slowly. On ‘Joy’, the south London four-piece maintain a patient momentum, balancing sharp edges with warmth. The repetition feels grounding rather than oppressive, giving the track space to breathe. Holding the line between unease and reassurance, intimacy and distance, the track offers a moment of tenderness within the band’s evolving avant-garde rock sound. Dry Cleaning continue to carve out a space where softness and edge coexist, post-punk energy tempered by care. ‘Joy’ holds itself in that balance: soft without sentimentality, compassionate amid collapse. (Isabel Kilevold)
MEMORIALS – ‘Cut Glass Hammer’
Across lucid plum-tinted plains and ripples of sugar-spun flora, MEMORIALS shine their cosmic guiding light on ‘Cut Glass Hammer’, muzzying the mundane with a trippy chromatic aberration that swirls one’s senses into the most ambrosial visions of utopia. A heavenly, sprawling exploration of motorik-driven psych-pop, the new single from the pioneering duo – formed of Wire guitarist Matthew Simms and Electrelane’s Verity Susman – was said to be inspired by a visit to Yoko Ono’s recent Tate Modern exhibition ‘Music of the Mind’. In tandem with the track, MEMORIALS have also announced their upcoming album ‘All Clouds Bring Not Rain’, set for release at the end of March via Fire Records. (Hazel Blacher)
Skiving – ‘Things Made of Metal’
Skiving (fka Human Resources) have kicked off the year with the release of their debut album ‘The Family Computer’. Alongside the singles previously released, ‘Things Made of Metal’ stands out as a showcase of the best of what the South London-based outfit can do. Lyrics collage modern images with a surreal twinge. The doomy jam over which these are laid recalls the formulations of Legss, though Skiving add more elements in the way of industrial noise and synth interjections which materially evoke the digital veneer suffocating a generation of iPad kids. The vocals, dry in humour and tone, are occasionally tweaked to heighten the sense of hyperreality, echoing the phrase “a voice that can only be described as Lib Dem”, and amplifying the line “I got that one in the notes app as well!”. As the song progresses, it builds up a mundane-dystopic picture of a miserable suburban family on a commuter train before accounting for each detail, at one point crucially reminding us it is the parents not the kids who buy the iPads. As the song intensifies, it swings upwards, coil-like, on a propulsive and winding riff. (Lloyd Bolton)
Alice Costelloe – ‘How Can I’
Having initially emerged with more Stateside-leaning psych-pop stylings, Alice Costelloe has seen a sonic evolution in the time since her debut back in 2022. Ahead of first full-length record ‘Move On With The Year’, due on the 6th February via Moshi Moshi, Costelloe has shared new single ‘How Can I’. The track sees Costelloe’s mesmeric, candied vocals croon over a country-space pop enchanter that evokes Katy J Pearson, along with tinges of Stereolab with its sci-fi synths. It’s a joyous intergalactic odyssey that’s nothing short of a delicate, mollifying delight. Lovely stuff from the rising artist. Kicking off a busy year, Alice Costelloe follows a Shacklewell Arms headline this week with a return to the capital on 11th January at Rough Trade Denmark Street for an in-store and signing. (Brad Sked)
Flip Top Head – ‘Porcelain Plugs’
Ahead of their upcoming EP ‘Trilateral Machine’, due for release on 23rd January, Brighton outfit Flip Top Head have returned with ‘Porcelain Plugs’ via London imprint Blitzcat Records – also home to releases from the likes of ashnymph and C Turtle (RIP). Opening with a noir-like western-tinged jangle, the cinematic stunner steadily builds into a gothic and orchestral post-art-rock epic. It makes for a wonderfully enthralling journey that escalates into what might be imagined as a Godspeed You! Black Emperor riot, that is if the cult legends revelled in something more buoyant and hopeful. It makes for a mammoth marvel. The 6-piece will also be taking their ever-enthralling live show across the UK, including a London date at The Lexington on 7th March and a homecoming show on the 14th March in Brighton at St Augustine’s Church. (Brad Sked)
Shaking Hand – ‘Cable Ties’
As genres are repurposed and recycled within newer contexts, the recent evolutions in post-rock have been significant. Where artists like Huremic or Maruja have remodelled the noisier edges of the genre made famous by progenitors Swans, a newer, more baroque/chamber-pop styling has also emerged in the wake of Black Country, New Road’s previous two albums. Alongside these emerges a separate contender in the shape of Manchester’s Shaking Hand – their latest single ‘Cable Ties’ provides a moodier cut of contemporary post-rock ahead of their upcoming, self-titled debut LP. Undulating waves of foreboding guitar lines repeat over shifting polyrhythms, only to be interrupted by caustic blades of distortion and shuddering adjustments in tempo and timbre. Both open and vast yet tense and close, ‘Cable Ties’ sees Shaking Hand invoke the bright expansiveness of Tortoise’s more stripped back material and the bleak introspection of Slint. A rising and falling expanse of sound, ‘Cable Ties’ is a carefully crafted transmutation of classic post-rock sounds into novel forms. (A. L. Noonan)
zosia on a hill – ‘i set out to find you’
Cast in soft, chalky hues, ‘i set out to find you’ is a delicate ode to human connection from Brighton’s zosia on a hill, aka Zozia Szymanowska – a multidisciplinary artist who also serves as a member of eclectic psych pop risers big long sun. A lilting fragment of pared back, lo-fi acoustic sensibility, the track is a short, sweet meditation on kinship, capturing the stillness of reflection with understated intimacy and grace. Also featuring harmonies from big long sun’s Jamie Broughton, ‘i set out to find you’ is the second single from Szymanowska’s upcoming EP ‘green of the shadow’, set for release on the 20th January. (Hazel Blacher)
Hard Of Hearing Magazine 