A Night Walk in The Underground Forest - February 2026
Welcome to A Night Walk in the Underground Forest - a series where I traverse the depths of the internet for some of the best new music.
Featuring: Anuk Schmelcher, Ecce Shnak, Agnes, DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ, Katie Tupper, Julia Minkin, Draag, PVA & Avery Cochrane.
This month’s edition features: a song that will remind of a early 00s beach holiday where you laced yourself in that tropical beach-themed line of perfumes from Jean Paul Gaultier; a song that simultaneously sounds like it is from a cable news show that was lost to the sands of time and also plucked directly from the grunge scene of 1990s Seattle; a song with vocals that are as smooth as coffee pouring from a cafetiere on a summer’s day in the garden; a music video that is Adult Swim levels of bizarre; a song that sounds like it was made on a 1980s toy synthesizer and more!
A Night Walk in The Underground Forest 🌙 Synth Pop • Electronic Pop • Alt Pop & Electronic
Anuk Schmelcher - You In The Days
Taken from the album ‘Something Else’ from Swiss artist Anuk Schmelcher; an album where all of the music is written, played and recorded by the artist (with the exception of ‘Conclusions’, with vocals being written, performed and played by Rozi Plain) [via Bandcamp].
‘You In The Days’ soars to your ears on a breeze in a tangerine-soaked dream; the opening reminds me slightly of the Stereophonics song ‘Maybe Tomorrow’. The vocals are sublime, breaking in all the right places; the arrangement of the double-tracked vocals are the work of an expert.
This feels like driving under the pink and blue haze of the evening skies, passing endless fields, making you feel hopeful and melancholy at the same time. One of my favourite releases of the year so far.
Connect with Anuk Schmelcher
Bandcamp / Instagram
Avery Cochrane - Griever
The music video for this is presented via a webcam, with Avery Cochrane opening the video with a performance that can only be described as Sarah Paulson being pushed to the absolute brink of her sanity in American Horror Story (complimentary). This is another hit from the Seattle-based singer-songwriter - it has a distinctly 2010s pop vibe, blended with a vocal melody that falls fully into earworm territory.
There is real rage and bite to this, with lyrics such as ‘You can go to hell and take her with you/Sorry, didn't think that would stir up such an issue/She's taking pictures in my swimsuit’ and ‘3 years gone, but I'm 10 years weaker/How dare you think to bring her?/How dare you think to linger?’
Connect with Avery Cochrane
YouTube / Instagram / X
Agnes - UTERUS & UNIVERSE
I was first introduced to Agnes’s music by a friend I produce music for - they played me the 2021 song ‘24 Hours’, and I was blown away by the sheer glamour and glory of the song, from the luxurious electronic textures right down to the divine visuals.
‘UTERUS & UNIVERSE’ is the closing song of Agnes’ new album ‘BEAUTIFUL MADNESS’, and it has a very different vibe to it than the rest of the album. It almost has a bit of a bedroom pop quality, with a chorus that has cloud-like dreamy synths blended with transcendent, heavenly vocals that will unlock something within you.
Connect with Agnes
Instagram / X / Facebook
All These Years - DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ
I somehow missed this in December, which is insane, seeing as it is taken from an album that is a prolific 40 songs in length. ‘All These Years’ opens the album, and I cannot tell you the indescribable joy that the waves of warm, shimmering textures that can only be attributed to the nostalgic mashup style of DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ brought me on this brutally cold January.
‘All These Years’ feels like a burst of glittering lavender wind in the desert, it feels like the line of tropical beach-themed Jean Paul Gaultier perfumes from the 2000s, it feels like the delight you felt as a tween as you gazed upon your plastic jewelry collection from Claire’s Accessories. There is something about DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ’s music that has preserved a core element of what made the old internet so special and fun, and that is much needed in the bleak AI and corporation-infested internet landscape of today.
Connect with DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ
Bandcamp / Website / Instagram / X / Facebook
Disappear - Katie Tupper (Live)
Press photo by Nathan Lau
‘Disappear’ is taken from the artists debut album ‘Greyhound’, out via Arts & Crafts, and it is utterly sublime. Although they have different styles, there is a quality to Katie’s music that brings to mind Nadine Shah (Dreary Town was the first song of hers I came across, and remains one of my favourites); in that it has an alluring dark quality, with something else rippling underneath the surface that you can’t quite put your finger on, mesmerizing you instantly. The vocals in this are just on another level in terms of smoothness; they sound like coffee pouring from a cafetiere on a summer's day.
On the song the artist shared, "I wrote this song about a relationship I was in that was progressing way faster than I felt comfortable. I didn't speak up for myself because I was worried I would hurt this person's feelings and as a result I could feel myself quietly shrinking over the course of it."
Connect with Katie Tupper
Website / Instagram / X
Julia Minkin - Clouds
This is some seriously fun indie pop - with an opening that brings to mind College and Electric Youth’s 2014 release ‘A Real Hero’. The vocals in this feel like they are coming to you from the room next door, to such a degree that it sort of feels like you are eavesdropping. The song itself is sparkling, pink and slightly haunting - the synths from the chorus feel like sugary clouds, like they are being played on a 1980s toy synthesizer.
Connect with Julia Minkin
Website / Instagram / Facebook
PVA - Boyface
This induced the same reaction that I had when I first heard Fontaines D.C’s song ‘Starburster’; in that I was immediately hypnotized by the alluring soundscape and mesmerizing vocals chanting (in this case) ‘you got a boy’s face/you got a boy’s face’, and as the haunting landscape of the song unfolded before me, I became aware that I was listening to something wholly alive and original.
I love the trip-hop adjacent drum beat with the samples existing at the periphery of your ears; even just listening to this feels cathartic, it makes you feel like you are letting go of something you have kept clenched for too long.
Connect with PVA
Website / Instagram / Facebook
Draag - NSPS
I came across this on YouTube and was immediately entranced by the surreal nightmarish-cable-show adjacent vibe to the image.
‘NSPS’ opens with what sounds like the theme song to a defunct, unknown cable news show lost to the sands of time, which feels vaguely eerie, before grungey guitars come in with a vocal melody that is as addictive as nicotine.
This sounds like it was plucked directly from Seattle in the late 1990s - in that it has texture, it feels raw, unclean and unusual, elements that made that era of music so enticing in the first place - in other words, Draag gets it.
Connect with Draag
Website / Instagram / X / Facebook
Ecce Shnak - Katy's Wart
This music video for this is absolutely off the wall, descending into a fully kaleidoscopic nightmare as it progresses - and I love every second of it. It follows a truly unpleasant caucasian male who is terrorizing twins in what looks like a suburb, who then gets sent to a dimension where five purple goddesses of vengeance rip him to absolute shreds, while the music thuds in the background, with disjointed eerie vocals saying things like “A girl should know it in her heart that her fella abides her always. Never chiding, always providing, she should delight in things that are commensurate to her”.
The animation is the work of Titmouse Productions and it is a feast for the eyes and the imagination.
Connect with Ecce Shnak
Instagram / X / Facebook
Spotify Playlist
About Eimear O Sullivan
Eimear Ann O Sullivan is a multi-genre music producer, audio engineer and vocalist. After receiving a Masters in Music Technology from the CIT Cork School of Music, she went on to operate as a producer under the name Blakkheart. Her releases have received critical acclaim from Ireland's biggest music publications, such as District Magazine and Nialler9, alongside receiving heavy commercial radio airplay. She currently works in Cork recording studio Flashpoint CC. Previous clients of hers include the likes of Comedy Central’s Dragony Aunt star Candy Warhol, rapper Darce and Outsider YP. (Photo credit @Fabian Boros)
Contact Eimear O Sullivan at eimear.o.sullivan@musicngear.com
In this blog section we host new music releases, artist features and handpicked playlists by the Musicngear staff.
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