Atwood Journal is worked up to share our Editor’s Picks column, written and curated by Editor-in-Chief Mitch Mosk. Each week, Mitch will share a group of songs, albums, and artists who’ve caught his ears, eyes, and coronary heart. There may be a lot unimaginable music on the market simply ready to be heard, and all it takes from us is an open thoughts and a willingness to pay attention. By means of our Editor’s Picks, we hope to shine a light-weight on our personal music discoveries and showcase a various array of latest and up to date releases.
This week’s Editor’s Picks options Consideration Chook Utopia, Your Smith, Bo Staloch, Matilda Mann, Courting, and ESKA!
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“Infinity Inside a Buying Cart”
by Consideration Chook Utopia
Tright here’s a heat and weightlessness to Consideration Chook Utopia’s debut single; a dreamy unraveling that drifts between surprise and existential longing. Losing no time with introductions, the duo of Harrison Whitford and Eli Hirsch dive straight into the center of all of it – what it means to be alive, to exist in a second, in a group of moments, and nowhere in any respect. Launched on February 21st, “Infinity Inside a Buying Cart” is a kiss on the cheek and a cry into the darkish. It’s an intimate reckoning with life, time, id, and the irreconcilable complexities of our shared human expertise – all stitched collectively by way of a patchwork of tender sounds and sentiments that defies strict construction but by no means loses its form. The top result’s a mixture of comforting indie people catharsis and provocative upheaval; a stream-of-consciousness reflection turned poetic mirror to our personal macro and micro worlds.
I’m the killer in your television display screen
I’m the buzzer in your laundry machine
All this evil’s gonna break your coronary heart
Infinity inside a procuring cart
What’s the purpose in even attempting to snigger?
The punch line is only a shotgun blast
Hit a automobile once I was 17
However I inform everybody my report is clear
Trigger nothing issues, it by no means did
However I don’t wanna die a nihilist
What’s the purpose in even attempting to stop
It doesn’t matter what you simply get sucked again in
“This tune is a collage,” Whitford – finest often called a member of Phoebe Bridgers’ band, whose sophomore album acquired its personal Atwood characteristic in 2021, explains. “It’s about attempting to make sense of issues that don’t make sense, and the non-linear nature of lived expertise despite the assemble of linear time. It’s additionally about no matter you need it to be. Eli and I arrange just a few mics, I recorded the piano after which he jumped on the drums. From there, we did every little thing else. The guitar solo has vertigo.” That embrace of uncertainty and spontaneity is what in the end led to the formation of Consideration Chook Utopia within the first place.
Oh Emma had a dream
Concerning the fungus on the root of every little thing
Guess it could possibly be god
I assume it could possibly be Jesus child
I assume it could possibly be Buddha
I assume it could possibly be the blood in my veins
I assume it could possibly be the rain
I assume I could possibly be insane
The duo’s story begins in Los Angeles, the place Hirsch was government producing Suki Waterhouse’s 2024 LP Memoir of A Sparklemuffin at his studio. One afternoon, Whitford dropped in on a session, and the 2 rapidly related. What began as an opportunity assembly quickly developed into one thing extra as the 2 discovered frequent floor over a shared love of The Beatles, Jackson Browne, and Paul Simon, and ultimately, to a band of their very personal.
That pure camaraderie carried over into their musical course of. “Eli and I arrange just a few mics, I recorded the piano, after which he jumped on the drums. From there, we did every little thing else. The guitar solo has vertigo,” Whitford remembers. There was no inflexible plan, only a mutual understanding of sound and house.
“This was one of many first concepts Harry confirmed me,” Hirsch provides. “We recorded piano and Harry singing after which drums. It’s form of a dream sequence.” They leaned into an old-school, analog aesthetic, monitoring nearly every little thing on classic RCA ribbon microphones. “Harry is a brilliant visible individual and an important photographer, and I like how he paints with phrases. It looks like a picture.”
From an impromptu connection to a full-fledged artistic partnership, Consideration Chook Utopia’s music displays the essence of their beginnings – instinctual, immersive, and guided by the sensation somewhat than components. Such is the fantastic thing about “Infinity Inside a Buying Cart” – a tune that soothes because it stirs, that comforts because it caresses the soul. The lead single off Consideration Chook Utopia’s forthcoming debut album Better of Kings (out June 6 by way of right here, right here recordings) is catchy, cozy, and cryptic – a blanket of lovely, spellbinding songcraft for all who pay attention.
I’m the killer in your television display screen
I’m the buzzer in your laundry machine
All this evil’s gonna break your coronary heart
Infinity inside a procuring cart
“Change of Coronary heart”
by Your Smith
What first attracted me to Your Smith’s music, some six-plus years in the past now, was her wholehearted embrace of massive, daring melodies along with unflinching, confessional lyricism. Tracks like “Unhealthy Behavior” and “In Between Plans” hit arduous and left an enduring mark not simply due to their insanely catchy hooks, however as a result of that they had depths and shade; you might sing them out loud with the automobile prime down, whereas feeling one thing deep inside.
Selecting a struggle once more
Isn’t it wearin’ skinny
It’s getting arduous to inform
It’s getting arduous to name
Perhaps the explanation
We’re falling aside
Why we’re falling aside
The identical can simply be mentioned of “Change of Coronary heart,” Your Smith’s bouncy ‘return’ to the music world after a chronic hiatus – one which noticed her transfer from LA again dwelling to Minnesota, return to highschool, get married, have a child, and open a bar on her hometown’s most important avenue. From the lows of pandemic-era 2020 to the highs 2025, the previous 5 years have been a real rollercoaster for Caroline Smith, and her new music breathes with the electrical vitality of her ongoing trip. Launched on January 3rd, the indie pop artist’s first single since 2019 is a candy, deep exhale – of a relationship, and of the previous.
“This tune is concerning the lack of love somewhat than the lack of a relationship,” she explains. “Typically relationships crash and burn, they go away you spun out for years, writing songs about heartbreak and selecting up the items. However as you age, generally relationships simply flip to lukewarm bathtub water, and the scariest half isn’t coronary heart break, it’s disentangling your self from consolation and behavior.”
“I additionally appreciated writing from an air of indifference, like ‘I’ve had a change of coronary heart, it’s actually not that deep.’ I really feel placing house between the emotion and the motion has been wildly transformative for me in life, so it type of honors that if that is smart!”
Isn’t my sister
Otherwise you crashing my automobile
It’s change of coronary heart
It’s a whiff of a sense that grows in your sleep
Preserving you up til the daybreak
What number of telephones are you able to throw at a wall?
It’s a change, it’s a change of coronary heart
Smith sings scorching on the mic, her voice entrance and heart as glistening piano chords and buoyant bass guitar strains fill the air with ease and surprise. It’s a tender, but stirring ‘hiya’ to followers new and outdated, at the same time as she cuts ties within the lyrics.
Each “Change of Coronary heart” and February’s single “Peaches” provide a glimpse at what Smith calls a reinvention of her profession, on her phrases. They’re additionally the primary two singles off her upcoming, long-awaited debut album as Your Smith, set to launch later this 12 months.
“To me, it feels extra like a de-invention as a result of I made a decision to strip again any type of picture that was put-on or wrought with effort,” Smith admits. “Your Smith was pure invention. I created a personality, I picked out a uniform she wore, I wrote songs that I felt have been cool. I wanted armor after a very delicate time in my life and in my profession, and Your Smith supplied me that safety and distance from the trade and listenership.”
“However as of late I really feel far more comfy, like I’m able to reconnect my private self with the work I make once more. I don’t want a uniform or an hermetic sound. I really feel most myself being a bit of underdressed, a teeny bit sloppy, the manufacturing a bit of looser, realer, and human.”
You retain the couch
Simply maintain all of it
And begin strolling it off
Why can we carry on
Making it arduous
It’s a change of coronary heart
It’s a shift of some weight that builds in your again
Catching your stability off guard
What number of emotions are you able to throw to the canine
It’s a change, it’s a change of coronary heart
Time could bitter some relationships, however my admiration of Your Smith and love for her music stays as robust as ever. “Change of Coronary heart” is the right reintroduction – an intimate, groovy, enchanting, and assertive tune that’s as charming as it’s cathartic and comforting. Welcome again.
Right here I’m
It’s 10:00 AM
I’m placing you again in my cellphone once more
I by no means claimed
I used to be good at clear breaks
Or spending the evening alone, however rattling
(Perhaps the explanation)
(We’re falling aside)
Why we’re falling aside
Why we’re falling aside
I would be the purpose
I would be the purpose
Why we’re falling aside
“Give It a Break”
by Bo Staloch
The title of the sport is launch – emotional and bodily – and “Give It a Break” has each in spades. Bo Staloch’s first tune of the 12 months – and the opening monitor to his brand-new EP, The Backyard – is a charged and churning folk-rock fever dream pushed by uncooked emotions on- and off-stage.
I known as you honey, known as you humorous
Who the hell are you to cry?
If love is humorous, take my cash
Set the joke on hearth
Give it a break now
Give it a break now
“The idea of ‘Give It a Break’ was originated on my first ever tour this previous fall,” the Capitol Data-signed singer/songwriter tells Atwood Journal. “I really feel like my unconscious holds a variety of energy over my writing, and I believe this tune is a major instance of that. I used to be clearly impressed by the vitality and feelings of tour, which you’ll be able to hear with the instrumentations and energetic sounds all through the tune. I used to be additionally impressed by some relationships in my life that had both simply ended or simply begun.”
“I don’t assume I might ever have considered singing like this a 12 months in the past, but it surely simply felt so proper. I actually wanted to get that kind of unhappy and heavy vitality out of my system, whether or not that’s as a result of I used to be holding some vitality again in me from this relationship, or I used to be simply tremendous impressed by the stay music of our tour. Actually, I believe it was a little bit of each. This tune feels important to me as a result of I really feel prefer it marks a brand new chapter.”
Now you’re crying, I don’t purchase it
Name it being unhappy final
If peace is silence, name it stability
I’m barely getting you
Was I let down?
Was I let down?
Wading by way of heavy riffs and a sticky beat, Staloch rises gracefully from softer verses to all-consuming choruses, sustaining a candid, confessional air all through. “I believe the final, anthemic part of this tune is my favourite,” he says. “‘Sometime, I’ll be high quality’ is a extremely robust and vital line to me, and I hope others can resonate with it as a lot as I do. It type of serves as a reminder to myself that as a lot as issues would possibly suck or harm within the second, one can find peace ultimately with it and your self.”
“I hope individuals can use this tune to launch of no matter vitality they should eliminate,” he provides. “That’s precisely what it did for me, as it’s positively one in every of my extra energetic songs. Writing songs at all times finally ends up being some form of remedy for me, particularly with this tune.”
Thought your thoughts in Arizona
Please, the sky was on hearth
I noticed you consuming while you’re pondering
In some way calling me a liar
Give it a break now
Give it a break now
It’s actually exceptional, the actual weight one can convey by way of their artwork. “Give It a Break” is an intimate upheaval unleashed by way of an impassioned and electrical efficiency, with the purpose of getting as large an influence as attainable.
To his credit score, Staloch overachieves – delivering an intense and immediately memorable reverie. Whereas he already made an enormous impression with final 12 months’s songs like “Santa Fe” and “Your Eyes Inform Tales,” it’s with “Give It a Break” (and its mum or dad EP) that the Austin-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter cements himself as a part of people rock’s ‘subsequent technology’ – and a definitive Atwood artist-to-watch.
Sometime I’ll be high quality
I’ll go on dwelling the place nothing’s flawed
And I’ll see the orange mild
Sometime I’ll be high quality
I’ll say my title and I’ll discover it’s place
And I’ll get up with a smile
Sometime I’ll be alright
Some f*ing God
“Say It Again”
by Matilda Mann
Singer/songwriter Matilda Mann has been a private favourite ever since she debuted some five-plus years in the past; from the intimacy and surprise of 2021’s “Bloom” to the dreamy, delicate bliss of 2023’s “In Plain Sight” (additionally an Editor’s Choose!) and its mum or dad EP You Look Like You Can’t Swim, the London-based artist has emerged as some of the enchanting songwriters and storytellers of her time. Her lately launched debut album Roxwell cements this fact in stone as Mann takes listeners on a soul-stirring fourteen-track journey by way of her personal innermost depths, exposing and leaning into the cracks she finds alongside the way in which.
A type of ‘cracks’ is unrequited love, and nowhere does Mann say it higher than on “Say It Again,” the album’s spirited second monitor (and lead single). As exhilarating as it’s emotional, “Say It Again” captures the interminable angst and nervousness of getting these three particular phrases hanging within the air, acknowledged but unreciprocated. It’s a pop tune with punk sensibilities – a powerhouse of each ardour and frustration that channels the narrator’s very actual ache right into a rallying cry – an anthem for the hopeless romantics in all of us.
There isn’t a lot I wouldn’t do
To point out you ways a lot I like you
I’d soar off of a cliff then get again up
I’d stop my job to stick with you
I’d vote for who you’d inform me to
I’d put on no matter you resolve is scorching
Why don’t you need me like that?
Why don’t you wish to know what we may have?
Why don’t you say it, say it again?
Why don’t you’re feeling the way in which I really feel?
How will you assume this isn’t actual?
Why don’t you say it, say it again?
“‘Say It Again’ is that irritating confusion of why, when you love somebody a lot and do every little thing you’ll be able to, do they nonetheless not love you again?” Mann shared upon her tune’s launch final 12 months. “Unrequited love hurts essentially the most as a result of there’s that feeling of ‘the chase’ and it by no means being reciprocated. Are you simply not their kind? Sensible sufficient? Cool sufficient? It may well make you overthink a lot you’d do loopy issues for them.”
I’m no stranger to mentioned overthinking, and fortunately I’ve discovered the one who ‘mentioned it again’ to me, however that doesn’t make this tune any much less actual, uncooked, or relatable. Mann holds nothing again in “Say It Again,” embracing her heavy coronary heart and weary soul with an inspiring depth that makes this tune an immediately memorable and achingly significant standout in a catalog that’s, fairly frankly, filled with hits.
“Pause at You”
by Courting
Courting’s third studio album is bound to instill all who pay attention with a sure ‘lust for all times,’ after which some. The Liverpool indie rockers have been fairly open and sincere about their purpose of maintaining “every little thing extremely direct – to hit everybody within the face and go away” with this report. So it goes that the eight-track Lust for Life, Or: ‘The right way to Thread the Needle and Come Out the Different Facet to Inform the Story’ is a mouthful in title, however a decent bundle in observe – dashing in with the curious “Rollback Intro” and “Stealth Rollback,” hitting its stride with lead single “Pause at You,” and in the end phasing out with the angular, accentuated, and feverish “Possible place for them to be,” which closes with a literal twenty-second onslaught of banging drums.
It’s a singular report with quite a bit to like, and for me that love begins with “Pause at You,” the hard-hitting fireball with a seductive strut, a roaring refrain, and the type of angle that places the ‘sleaze’ in ‘indie sleaze.’
I see the constructing lights, I see indicators on the street indicators
Anyone’s watching, any person cease me
Exit stage left, billboard proper
I see God within the metropolis, I don’t imagine it
And I see ladies tonight, typeset in white neon lights
I see any person’s watching, any person cease me
Exit stage left, billboard proper
I see God within the metropolis, I don’t imagine it
I don’t imagine it
“‘Pause at You’ is a fruits of every little thing we’ve been engaged on over the previous couple of years – an remark on nighttime paranoia combined about with evening out ecstasy. Gentle outing, flooring filling, tie undressing, rock,” vocalist Sean Murphy-O’Neill tells Atwood Journal.
“It’s meant to be nervy, it was lyrically impressed by the distinction between large metropolis paranoia and in addition a celebration of metropolis nightlife. Musically, it was primarily impressed by Berlin period Bowie, utilizing large rock piano, e-bows, and partitions of percussion. It’s meant to really feel seedy, unusual, and energetic.”
I see you generally with a glass eye
You solely see me with the lights down
See you round
I at all times see you round
Streetwalking cheater within the nighttime
New York Metropolis, name me, I bought brilliant eyes
I’ll see you round
I at all times see you round
Charged, churning, and charming, “Pause at You” is a decent three minutes of sonic revelry and emotional unraveling. The tune’s urgency and depth make it an simple headbanger, however what actually stands out is how Courting ship a rallying cry within the chorus – a second for artist and viewers to return collectively in a second of mutual connection, reckoning, and launch.
I see you generally with a glass eye
You solely see me with the lights down
See you round
I at all times see you round
Streetwalking cheater within the nighttime
New York Metropolis, name me, I bought brilliant eyes, honey
I’ll see you round
I at all times see you round
I believed I’d married an enormous, large star
Yeah, child name me, I bought brilliant eyes
I’ll see you round
I at all times see you round
I bought this metropolis in encompass sound
Dwelling prefer it’s the final day of my life
I’ll see you round
I at all times see you round
I at all times see you
I can’t go ’til
I can’t go till the present is over
It’s wonderful how one tune could make up for a ten-year drought. Not less than, that was my first thought once I heard “Down Right here,” the lead single off ESKA’s forthcoming sophomore album. Arriving practically a full decade after her Mercury Prize-nominated debut album put her on the map, the Zimbabwe born, South London raised artist’s return to the highlight is fierce, dramatic, and definitive: A breathtakingly daring show of Eska Mtungwazi’s singular skills behind the microphone.
Caught within the rush, bones aching
Uncontrolled, these sounds I’m making
Depart me alone, down right here
Say what you need however I desire it down right here
After I’m sleeping
Oh Lord, down right here
Mentioned, that I desire it down right here
Down right here
Down right here. Oh Lord, down right here
Please don’t wake me now, down right here
I desire it down right here within the sleeping zone
Within the sleeping zone
Hope that I by no means wake
Please don’t stir me
Let me sleep some extra
Or I’ll awake to unhappiness
Hey, or I’ll awake to unhappiness
The place the music’s
Runnin’ by way of my veins
Music runnin’ by way of my veins
Drums pulse polyrhythmic beats as ESKA pours her coronary heart out in tune. “Caught within the rush, bones aching,” she sings, her achingly expressive voice scorching on the mic. “Uncontrolled, these sounds I’m making. Depart me alone, down right here.” She reckons and roars her method as much as a triumphant, emotionally charged chorus the place she declares, “Music runnin’ by way of my veins!” – as a lot a visceral mantra as it’s a passionate mission assertion.
Because the lead single off ESKA’s upcoming sophomore album The Bizarre Lifetime of a Magic Lady, “Down Right here” is an immediately memorable, head-turning reintroduction – one which stuns and stirs by way of a efficiency that ostensibly reaffirms ESKA’s place as a vocal virtuoso and an inimitable, simple artistic pressure.
Music!
It’s like listening to however with so many
completely different ranges of sound
Music runnin’ through my veins
Music!
It’s like listening to
Runnin through my veins
Music runnin’ through my veins
Please don’t wake me now
I desire it down right here within the sleeping zone
Within the sleeping zone
Hope that I by no means wake
Hope that I by no means wake
Please don’t stir me
Now, why can’t I get through to you?
Let me sleep some extra
Oh! Let me, let me sleep some extra
Or I’ll awake to unhappiness
Wake to unhappiness, wake to, wake to…
Or I’ll awake to unhappiness
To insanity this unhappiness
It’s insanity, this unhappiness
Give me music
Music runnin’ through my veins
Runnin through my veins
Music runnin’ through my…
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