Essential new singles, also featuring Lacross Club, Awning and selthe.
Lifeloose – ‘07XXXXXXXXX’
DIY electronic pop duo Lifeloose are back with one of the instant highlights of their live show, ‘07XXXXXXXXX’. Driven by the tuneful bleeps of retro telephone tones, the single captures the irreverent charm and hook-led instincts through which Lifeloose have made such an immediate impression. The project started as a bedroom escape from the more high-minded demands of each member’s studies at Guildhall and that sense of fun and immediacy runs through this single. Every detail here is essential and catchy, while there is a charm in the rough edges and the sense that nothing is being taken too seriously. The band are playing 12 times in London in the next month, if you are in the city there is no excuse to miss the chance to find a dancefloor with this blaring over a PA. (Lloyd Bolton)
Eterna – ‘Come what it may, the bitter and the grey / Kyrie’
Returning with news of upcoming third album ‘Push’ – his first full length via Partisan sister label section1, set for release on the 6th November – Spain-born, London based producer Eterna has shared brooding double single ‘Come what it may, the bitter and the grey / Kyrie’. Distant but not cold, opener ‘Come what it may, the bitter and the grey’ is an autumnal waltz of low lit experimental-leaning alt rock, lingering on the question, in the intimate sprawl between wondering and knowing. Cast in a haze of smoke, second track ‘Kyrie’ is a lesson in the virtues of restraint, and here Eterna savours each slow, simmering instrumental tension that ebbs and flows across the mix until its quiet beauty shines. Non-instrumental moments in ‘Kyrie’ flicker with an essence of The Stone Roses – that is, if they were translucent, celestial beings straddling a netherworld of curious unknowns. Overall this is a really compelling set of tracks that has us excited to hear his new album in full. (Hazel Blacher)
green star – ‘atomic paradise’
Taken from green star’s new EP ‘silver + dust’, out today via Cold Summer, ‘atomic paradise’ opens in a haze of soft riffs and ethereal vocals, each layer settling against the next before sudden bursts of distortion. Guitars grind into each other, fuzz spreading through the softer edges, while the drums pull everything forward, giving the song a restless current beneath its dreamier surface. There is something beautifully disorientating in the way green star let elegance and noise occupy the same space. The vocals float above the guitars before being pulled back into them, whilst the production keeps shifting between softness and abrasion. green star never seek to resolve these opposites, only to hold them in delicate suspension. Underneath it all, the bass has a dense, physical texture, giving the track a weight that you feel as much as hear. As the drums gather speed and force, that weight tightens around the track, turning its sense of disassociation into something visceral. There is a certain cruelty in that momentum: wanting to get away whilst knowing that the world you return to will no longer be the one you left. ‘atomic paradise’ leaves you caught in that distance. (Isabel Kilevold)
Lacross Club – ‘Hanging’
Cardiff punk-rock outfit Lacross Club are thrashing out the kind of music that you can really… smell. And it doesn’t smell good. Coming on strong with a throat like a desert, bad breath, dry sweat and the threat of chunder, new single ‘Hanging’ really is just about drinking too much bevvies the night before. Channeling the kind of goofy and ridiculous sesh-head bravado well-honed by Australian homies like The Chats or, more recently, The Gnomes, ‘Hanging’ is accompanied by an exceptionally relatable music video that reaches for Jackass levels of gross-out. (Elvis Thirlwell)
Awning – ‘Little Green Book’
LA record label Winspear have firmly landed on our radar this year as fine purveyors of fresh-cut indie-rock, with notable album launches from Swapmeet and Wishy in 2026. Joining this healthy roster comes the biting jags of Auckland, NZ outfit Awning. Their first release on the label, new single ‘Little Green Book’ is a rough-hewn pure-guitar cut, bringing the neat arrangements of Cola to the table before messing it all up with harsh eruptions of loud, loud noise. The vibe makes sense, once you learn the track is an outpouring of grief. Lead vocalist (and prominent visual artist) Christian Dimmick explains: “There are some pretty on-the-nose lyrics… ‘I want to remember what you said’ and ‘Grief is a corner…’ I mean, you get the gist. We carry people’s words around for them after they are gone.” (Elvis Thirlwell)
selthe – ‘Hard 2 Admit’
Initially coming to our attention via this year’s Slow Dance compilation – an annual endowment of the underground’s most intriguing emerging talent from London tastemaker imprint Slow Dance Records – enigmatic duo selthe have shared a visualiser for track ‘Hard 2 Admit’, taken from their ‘Illuminations part 2’ EP, out today via newly formed label drawing. A cluster of lo-fi slacker-indie oozing with grunge and rave influences (maybe even…GRAVE?!) and enveloped in trance-esque Eurodance synths, ‘Hard 2 Admit’ serpentines between melancholy and euphoria. It’s an enthralling juxtaposition, a coalition of something that could be found both at an Ibiza nightclub or an indie sleaze night in a dingy, sticky-floored underground basement. (Brad Sked)
