Atwood Journal is happy 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’s a lot unbelievable 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 lightweight on our personal music discoveries and showcase a various array of latest and up to date releases.
This week’s Editor’s Picks options Matt Maltese, sombr, Hannah Cohen, OSLO SLOW, Wafia, and Fontaines D.C.!
observe EDITOR’S PICKS on Spotify
“Buses Change Trains”
by Matt Maltese
“Bmakes use of substitute trains and white traces substitute planes, however tright here’s no changing you and I.” Matt Maltese has lengthy had a manner with phrases, however his newest launch is one thing particular: A stunning, timeless, heartrending addition to the ever-growing pantheon of nice love songs. Launched in mid-April, “Buses Change Trains” finds the beloved British singer/songwriter at his most tender and poetic, spinning scenes of departure and distance right into a quiet, breathtaking meditation on love’s permanence in a world stuffed with change. Together with his signature heat and wistful candor, Maltese turns on a regular basis photos into one thing sacred, capturing the ache of affection in transit – and the gravity of what it means to really miss somebody.
Shut ain’t shut sufficient
I wanna’ tiptoe in your thoughts
Perpetually is simply too brief
I wanna’ make love within the afterlife
And time received’t cease being variety
Minds received’t cease altering minds
Buses substitute trains and
White traces substitute planes however
There’s no changing you and I
Buses substitute trains and
Highways substitute lanes however
There’s no changing you and I
Oh, I’d wish to see them strive
“It’s most likely one of many purest love songs I’ve ever launched,” Maltese tells Atwood Journal. “A detailed Welsh good friend of mine has an uncle who all the time wished him to name his band ‘Buses Change Trains.’ I keep in mind listening to that phrase – I’d seen it earlier than whereas touring, however there was one thing so mundane about it… In a long-term relationship, you understand you’re simply making the boring lovely half the time. It’s in regards to the on a regular basis, the small issues. I believed it was the proper title for a love track. I used to be in a position to be extremely earnest and passionate below the guise of a ridiculously drab British phrase.”
There’s a soul-stirring magnificence in the best way Maltese captures love’s smallest moments — the abnormal areas that fill with depth, historical past, and that means over time. “You sweep your enamel, I do the dishes / It’s these exchanges that I miss,” he sings, wrapping home mundanity in a blanket of longing. “Buses Change Trains” is a love track not of grand gestures, however of fidelity and care — the rhythms of cohabitation, the consolation in routine. Strains like “Don’t want fireworks or setting suns / Simply somebody who received’t attempt to run” strike with unvarnished honesty, distilling affection into its most important type: Presence.
Each single morning
You wrap- you wrap your legs round mine
And satellites gentle above,
mythological crеatures run
Simply to catch a glimpse of her
And busеs substitute trains and
White traces substitute planes however
There’s no changing you and I
Buses substitute trains and
Motors substitute sails
However there’s no changing you and I
Oh, I’d wish to see them strive
A lush, expressive orchestral association courtesy of legendary arranger Rob Moose (Bon Iver, Paul Simon, Taylor Swift) heightens the track’s emotional impression, his string swells complementing each Maltese’s lilting piano efficiency and his tender, sentimental vocal supply — elevating the observe’s intimacy into one thing cinematic and lasting – an immediate fashionable traditional.
With “Buses Change Trains,” Matt Maltese doesn’t simply write about love — he honors it. Majestic, profound, and effortlessly transferring, this track is a reminder that among the strongest expressions of devotion reside within the margins: Within the missed mornings, the mundane exchanges, the areas left behind. “I do know it’s not that straightforward, however it’s,” he repeats within the outro, distilling life and love right into a single, soul-stirring reality – a mantra we are able to carry with us, in our hearts and on our tongues.
The newest single off Maltese’s upcoming fifth studio album Hers (out Might 16th through The Orchard), “Buses Change Trains” is the form of track that lingers lengthy after the ultimate chord – a mushy ache, a realizing smile, a held breath – and in its simplicity, it says all of it.
I do know it’s not that straightforward
However it’s
I do know it’s not that straightforward
However it’s
I do know- I do know it’s not that straightforward
However it’s
“I don’t wanna get undressed for a brand new individual over again.” With one easy, gut-punch of a line, sombr captures the exhaustion and hesitancy of opening your coronary heart after heartbreak. Launched March 21st through Warner Information, “Undressed” is dreamy and aching by and thru — an irresistibly catchy indie pop reverie wrapped in bittersweet longing. Glistening guitar loops and honeyed vocals masks a quietly devastating emotional core, because the 19-year-old singer/songwriter and producer confronts the burden of intimacy, reminiscence, and emotional renewal.
You had a dream, you wished higher
You had been sick of all of the holes in your sweater
You seemed to me and questioned whether or not
I used to be the lamppost to which you had been tethered
I’m lookin’ at you, and also you’re lookin’ at me
However the glimmer in your eyes
is sayin’ you wanna depart
You’re sayin’ to me what you’re sayin’ to me
However the glimmer in your eyes
is telling me different issues
“This track is about eager for a previous love and navigating the sentiments and energy wanted to begin over with somebody new,” sombr explains, and that longing bleeds into each beat. There’s a delicate vulnerability embedded within the observe’s mushy shimmer, a heavy-hearted nostalgia woven into its breezy pulse. “Undressed” lingers like a bruise – heat and melodic on the floor, however aching simply beneath.
I don’t wanna get undressed
For a brand new individual over again
I don’t wanna kiss another person’s neck
And need to fake it’s yours as a substitute
Whereas the LA-based, New York native (née Shane Boose) has been on the rise for fairly a while, latest singles like “again to pals,” “do i ever cross your thoughts,” and “undressed” appear to be tipping sombr absolutely into the mainstream highlight – and it’s simply as nicely: His newest touches a young human core, resonating with anybody who’s ever needed to decide up the items and attempt to love once more.
“Mountain”
by Hannah Cohen
“Losing you is a mountain of stillness.” So begins Hannah Cohen’s “Mountain,” a dreamy, aching requiem to a misplaced good friend that finds solace in sorrow and wonder in grief. Featured on her gorgeous new album Earthstar Mountain, the track is pure, trustworthy, and uncooked — a gut-wrenching meditation on absence and remembrance. “I miss you dangerous, I miss my good friend,” Cohen laments within the refrain, her voice buoyed by wealthy harmonies and heat, glowing textures that evoke each the ache of loss and the tenderness of affection that lingers on.
Dropping you is a mountain
Of stillness
A distant star flashes
Your mischief
A nasty thought rises
And I really feel sick
I received’t ask questions
Forgiveness
I’ll simply play it on time and again
A love like that received’t ever finish
We might be like this or that as a substitute
I miss you dangerous I miss my good friend
“It’s arduous for me to speak about as a result of I misplaced a good friend actually out of the blue… and that was my manner of processing it,” Cohen shared with Atwood Journal. “While you lose somebody out of nowhere, your nervous system continues to be connected to them and related to them, and your nervous system continues to be kind of looking for them. And so in a manner, you all the time want the issues that you can have stated to them, or that you simply wish to say to them.”
“That was my manner of form of coping with – and having the ability to specific – the grief that I used to be experiencing. It’s about how grief might be so pervasive and it will probably really feel like you possibly can’t escape it.” That ache programs by each lyric — from the light plea of “Maintain on to me such as you imply it” to the ghostly picture of a soul untethered: “I do know you’re free, I can really feel it / Your ft don’t contact the bottom.” With touches of Fleetwood Mac heat and her personal distinct vulnerability, Cohen crafts a track that doesn’t shrink back from harm, however strikes with it — a panoramic tribute to the form of love that by no means really leaves.
“SUN EYES”
by OSLO SLOW
Bproper, daring, and superbly dazzling, “SUN EYES” seems like sunshine in track — a second of pure, golden readability captured in sound. OSLO SLOW’s debut single is blissful and glowing, dreamy and deep: A wash of tender vocals, ambient textures, and reverberant guitars swells into one thing intimate and all-consuming. The London and Essex-based duo of James Kellegher and Chris Lehane (previously of Eliza and the Bear) step into the highlight anew, providing a radiant reflection on life’s fleeting, formative moments — the type that flood the center and stick with you perpetually. “Solar eyes, you saturate me / Soak me within the second that I realise my readability,” they sing, wakeful within the gentle.
Solar eyes,
I’m feeling what you’re doing to me
Solar eyes,
I’m feeling what you’re doing to me
Solar eyes, you saturate me
Soak me within the second
that I realise my readability
It’s a tremendous line, this timeline is completely flawed
This second is fleeting, so take it; it’s yours
Operating in goals and I’m breaking by partitions
I’m wakeful now I’m with you
Solar eyes, I’m feeling what you’re doing to me
“‘SUN EYES’ is a track about little moments in your life that make you are feeling one thing intensely,” OSLO SLOW share. “They might solely be a second or a number of seconds on the time, however you spend an infinite extra time considering and reflecting again on them. The precise second you realised you had been in love, if you determined you had been going to suggest to that individual, the primary time seeing your new child child. Typically they don’t even need to be vastly important occasions, it may simply be being within the automobile with household or a good friend/group of pals, however at that particular time you felt utterly content material.”
That sense of vivid, present-tense reminiscence fuels each layer of “SUN EYES” — made all of the extra significant by the loss that helped reshape it.
“Once we initially began scripting this, a good friend of ours, Geraint John, misplaced his spouse, Debs, to most cancers. He posted footage, recorded podcasts and offered updates all by their journey, all of the ups and downs, with little tales and anecdotes. There was one thing so profoundly lovely in what was, and nonetheless is, such a horrible scenario and set of occasions. His and his household’s journey actually resonated and utterly modified the route of what and the way we had been writing. It modified the mind-set extra usually outdoors of music too; it made us re-evaluate how we dealt with grief in our personal lives and whether or not we actually had processed it within the first place. It seems we hadn’t. There’s one thing poetic in that although isn’t there? Somebody who’s now not right here is continuous to have an effect and higher different individuals’s lives. We hope this track, and this interview, can proceed to increase that to others too.”
Can we keep right here?
Pause this second like
we don’t get to take it ’spherical a second time
Can we keep right here
on this blinding gentle?
I’m wakeful,
I’m wakeful, I’m wakeful right here
(That’s once I felt love)
I’m wakeful right here
The track’s manufacturing mirrors its emotional breadth: Lush, natural, and subtly experimental. Produced by Harvey Carter (aka Tutara Peak), “SUN EYES” incorporates subject recordings, clapping CD circumstances, and even out of doors vocal takes, blurring the traces between artwork and environment.
“Harvey requested us sure questions on us and the track that no one else had come near, which confirmed to us how deeply he wished to immerse himself and the way in a different way his thoughts works. One other piece was that we had been all very eager on experimenting sonically to try to improve the songs. You’ll hear a few of this in ‘SUN EYES – a recording of a automobile passing by a tunnel at across the 30 second mark, backing up snares with clapping CD circumstances collectively, recording vocals outdoors and so on. The entire means of experimenting and the thought of no concepts being off limits was actually thrilling and actually simply made us love writing and enjoying music once more.”
That collaborative power extends to the gorgeous brief movie accompanying the one, created by UK director Olly Fawcett.
“We actually wished the track to accompany the video and never the opposite manner spherical; we predict Olly and the remainder of the workforce did an incredible job. It seems gorgeous. Initially of OSLO SLOW we all the time stated we wished to make sure that we get to work with a small set of fascinating and revolutionary creatives alongside the best way. Creatives which might be genuinely good to spend time with and discover artistically with; ones that you simply really feel utterly assured in to know will add incremental worth to what you’re engaged on. Each Harvey and Olly are emblematic of that. We’re transferring into a brand new world now, and it’s by no means been extra vital that creatives proceed to assist different creatives the place they’ll.”
In each spirit and sound, “SUN EYES” is a luminous debut: A heartfelt meditation on presence, perspective, and the emotional readability that arrives like a sudden beam of sunshine. OSLO SLOW don’t simply make you are feeling; they make you are feeling alive. What’s extra, this track is a inventive marvel — the results of daring experimentation, radical honesty, and a deep dedication to capturing life’s micro-moments in all their vivid, fleeting magnificence. “SUN EYES” explores what the band name “optimistic photokeratitis of the center and soul”: That sudden, blinding readability that comes when every little thing — love, loss, gentle, that means — falls into place, even when just for a second.
“SUN EYES” isn’t only a track — it’s a snapshot of the elegant, and the beginning of one thing really particular.
“Whatever you do, I wanna do it with you gently. I’ll observe you wherever you go when you let me.” Wafia hits like a heat breeze to the chest on “Background,” the third observe off her long-awaited debut album Promised Land. A sun-kissed, quietly radiant love track, it embraces the great thing about selflessness in relationships — of loving somebody so deeply that you simply’re content material to face beside them, not in entrance. Smooth synths and breezy acoustic strums swirl round Wafia’s tender vocals as she sings from the sidelines with grace, vulnerability, and devotion.
Final evening, I made out with you
in your sofa within the attic
Felt all the celebrities in my eyes flip to static
Perhaps I bought too excessive or perhaps it hit good
However I held your hand
as we watched the world shatter
Soften into blackness, then, again into matter
I discovered the brighter aspect
proper once I misplaced my thoughts
No matter you do, I wanna do it with you gently
I’ll observe you wherever you go when you let me
Preserve me nearer at your fingertips
And when you want me now
Child, I’ll be within the background
“Traditionally, I’ve fallen in love with individuals who labored ‘behind the scenes’ and would finally develop disdain for a way a lot I cherished what I did. And until my present relationship, I’d by no means been with anybody that felt the identical manner,” says Wafia. “We’re each these huge, dramatic, applause-loving artists, however with that comes a stability we each must navigate, taking turns within the limelight so this partnership can work. It was the primary time I felt what my exes had felt being backstage at my reveals, solely being somebody’s companion to another person. And actually, it was humbling. I feel any good relationship has to have that push and pull. This track is about desirous to observe somebody by it and seeing it from the opposite aspect.”
And it’s no secret you’re keen on my ego
No stealing the present
‘Trigger we’re good with taking turns
You make it straightforward to really feel so comfy
I like doing each
It’s simply the best way I like you
That emotional shift — from heart stage to accompaniment — is strictly what makes “Background” so transferring. There’s one thing so refreshing a couple of love track that doesn’t beg to be seen, however as a substitute presents regular presence and assist. “Background” is strictly that: A mild, earnest ode to being part of another person’s life — not the primary character of their story, however a chapter they’ll all the time depend on. Wafia’s supply is gentle however resolute, filling the track with emotional weight whereas protecting its environment easy. It’s the heartfelt recognition that love isn’t all the time about main, however realizing when to observe. It’s love with out ego, and in its softness lies its energy.
No matter you do, I wanna do it with you gently
I’ll observe you wherever you go when you let me
Preserve me nearer at your fingertips
And when you want me now
Child, I’ll be within the background
“It is Superb to Be Younger”
by Fontaines D.C.
“It’s the price that brings you down, nevertheless it’s wonderful to be younger.” That line hits like a punch to the chest — sharp, aching, and profoundly true.
Fontaines D.C. have all the time dealt in uncooked truths, however “It’s Superb to Be Younger,” the Irish indie rock band’s February single (a part of ROMANCE’s recently-released deluxe version), is one thing else fully: Visceral and susceptible, brutal and blissful . It seems like a slow-burning catharsis, a post-punk lullaby with battle scars. Because the band trades snarl for tenderness, they discover energy not in rage, however in resolve — within the choice to nonetheless consider in magnificence, in youth, in one thing price defending.
Typically I get up and it’s darkish
Carry out the ritual that places me within the half
However I sang them each phrase I had
Looks like they’re by no means gonna perceive
“‘It’s Superb to Be Younger’ is a track that was written within the presence of a new child baby — Carlos’ baby,” bassist Conor Deegan III shares. “It sounded extra like a lullaby or a music field then, however with the identical lyric — ‘it’s wonderful to be younger.’ The sensation of hope a toddler can provide is profound and transferring, particularly for younger males like us. That sense of desirous to create a world for them to develop up in fortunately. It’s a sense that fights towards the cynicism that may typically overtake us within the fashionable world. So we wished to declare which aspect we had been on — it truly is wonderful to be younger. We’re nonetheless free, and wish to make that feeling unfold. We wish to defend it for the others round us, and perhaps in doing that, can even assist defend it for ourselves.”
That the price
Brings you down
But it surely’s wonderful
To be younger
Typically I get up and it’s darkish
Carry out the ritual that places me within the half
However I sang them each phrase I had
Looks like they’re by no means gonna perceive
That declaration turns into the soul of the track – an intense, immersive, aching anthem for resilience in an age of disillusionment. It’s not a denial of darkness, however a refusal to offer in to it. There’s existential angst woven into each line — a quiet confrontation with the burden of being alive, the price of merely transferring ahead — however Fontaines D.C. don’t give up to it. As a substitute, they attain for gentle, nonetheless fleeting, and maintain it shut. Fontaines D.C. nonetheless consider in surprise, in youth, in hope. And on this second, so do I.
That the price
Brings you down
But it surely’s wonderful
To be younger
— — — —
Hook up with us on
Fb, Twitter, Instagram
Uncover new music on Atwood Journal
observe EDITOR’S PICKS on Spotify