A Night Walk in The Underground Forest - New Synth Pop, Alt Pop + Electronic Music We Loved
A Night Walk in The Underground Forest - a hand-curated selection of songs I loved.
Featuring This House is Creaking, Yazida, ROREY, Hue And Cry, Nia J, JULITH, Onra, Jessie Mazin & Lecx Stacy.
This edition features a song about trying to locate a strange smell in your apartment, an addictive pop song with visuals that pay homage to the blinged-out pink and sparkly profiles of 00s social media profiles; a song that shimmers and glitters on the wind from a meadow that exists between dimensions; a song that has the raw, unbridled joy found in 1990s electronic music; a song that sounds like it is taken from the soundtrack of a 1990s animated film where the city skyline is in shades of purple and all the people are silhouettes; a dark 1990s style song with visuals that could be a from a computer desktop in ‘The Matrix’ and more!
A Night Walk in The Underground Forest 🌙 Synth Pop • Electronic Pop • Alt Pop & Electronic
This House is Creaking - There's a Stench in the Air
I saw the strange title and was immediately interested - also, the band name ‘This House is Creaking’ gets 5 stars.
The inner world of the song reflects the delightfully odd nature of the name, opening with “The sting in my eyes/ The pain in my side/ The bugs in the corner/ The stench in the air.” The song veers from kitsch art-pop to a dreamy shoegaze adjacent chorus, flavored with bursts of twisted electronic darkness, possibly mimicking the sensation of the burst of odor that greets your face when you locate the decaying smell.
On the song, the band says, "Have you ever had a strange smell in your apartment? No? Just us? Well, we fondly wrote a song about that and other daily annoyances that we experience. Learning to love the places you exist in and making them work for you is the name of the game."
Connect with This House is Creaking
Instagram
Yazida - cha-ching
This was a most appreciated gift from the YouTube algorithm.
I am in the midst of a year-long fixation with anything early 00s shoe diva related, and some of the visuals in this kind of reminded me of that, with the zebra prints and fuchsia frames, both of which drew me to this song. The visuals pay homage to (I think) the blinged-out pink and sparkly profiles of 00s social media profiles (before everything got smothered in beige). The fun continues with the music; it is addictive, balmy pop with a sublimely smooth vocal melody - in that special way music from the early - mid 00s was. Listen to this on your pink flip phone and go to the mall.
10/10.
Connect with Yazida
Instagram | X
ROREY - Dying Fire
Photo credit: Olive Jolley
A contemplative song that shimmers and glitters on the wind from a meadow that exists between dimensions. ‘Dying Fire’ has a bit of a magical forest vibe to it, a quality that I love. This is a healing listening experience, as after listening to this song in full, you will feel yourself letting go of things you can’t control.
On the song, the artist says, “'Dying Fire' sits in this space between love and impossibility. The song doesn't blame or excuse it simply states with radical acceptance that what once was can never be again. Similar to 'Temporary Tragedy' love can only go so far when one person is left carrying it alone."
Connect with ROREY
Instagram
Hue And Cry - Make My Day
I was lucky enough to interview Greg Kane of Hue and Cry about their upcoming album ‘Everybody’ (for which he learned analogue synthesis from scratch).
‘Make My Day’ is taken from the aforementioned upcoming album, and it is a nostalgic, euphoric house anthem (I can imagine this blaring through the speakers at a festival, putting everyone in a good mood). This has the raw, unbridled joy found in 1990s electronic music, a quality we could all use more of - I love it.
Connect with Hue and Cry
Website / Facebook / Spotify / X / Instagram
Nia J - Wishing You the Best
YouTube is a treasure trove of creativity, one that is especially great for discovering indie artists, as the imagination and inner world of the songs and the artists themselves are front and center, a quality I find kind of gets lost on platforms like Spotify.
The visuals for ‘Wishing You the Best’ are sublimely elegant; this chicness fully saturating the music. The easy breezy blissful vibe initially reminded me of Laufey (who I only recently started listening to, via the song Lover Girl) however, it is fully doing its own thing, which I love. I was interested in finding out more about the song and the inspiration behind it, and on the artist’s website, it details that “the song conjures all of the energy of the 80s pop divas as she shrugs off a lover who took her for granted.”
Connect with Nia J
Instagram
Pure Spite - JULITH
Photo Credit: Emily Entz (@em1wee)
This gem is taken from the artist's debut EP ‘This Is A Kindness’ on which the artist says, "It follows my journey to where I am now—speaking on the abuse, standing in my truth, and calling on others to stand up for one another and themselves," she explains. "The title came from an episode of Doctor Who, where robots on a quarantine planet repeat the phrase 'do not be alarmed, this is a kindness' before shooting a lethal dart. The dart will save you from the plague that has ravaged the planet, but it will still kill you first. That sentiment summed up this project beautifully. It is painful, it is angry, it is cathartic—it's burning down what I knew and building something new from the ashes. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is tell the cold hard truth."
‘Pure Spite’ is gorgeously alive and unpredictable, flavoured with some fantastical sonic elements that make it all the more juicy. The lyrics are razor sharp “If you don't like it that's okay/Don't you know we're all gonna die” and “You'll come to terms with being alive/Somehow, some way, someday/Ain't nobody gonna tell me shit/Pure spite, motherf*cker, that's how I live” the vocals veering effortlessly from ethereal, heavenly singing to straight up bars - fantastic from start to finish.
Connect with JULITH
Website | Instagram
Lap Of Luxury - Onra
Photo Credit: Sonny Amerie
This sounds like it is taken from the soundtrack of a 1990s animated film where the city skyline is in shades of purple and all the people are silhouettes, slinking in and out of the alleyways and warped shops. ‘Lap Of Luxury’ is taken from the upcoming album 'After Dark' (out 28th April via All City Records), which I am very excited for.
Connect with Onra
Instagram | X
Jessie Mazin - the man with money in his hands
I make music visualizers that are almost fully in the style of 1990s computer desktops and PC games. It is a fixation, so when the YouTube algorithm recommended this, I was in. This could be a computer desktop of someone in an apartment down one of the concrete corridors in the vast industrial towers in the movie ‘The Matrix’, the only thing lighting the room being the green glow from this on the computer screen. When I hit play, I was truly blown away by the eerily beautiful vocal melodies flowing over the dark, 90s adjacent guitar chords. It is hypnotic, the lyrics ferocious, “light up the sky and then get mad when we burn” the production being nothing short of incredible.
Connect with Jessie Mazin
Instagram | X
Lecx Stacy - Hurry, Grin
Photo credit: Maxine Alo and Giselle Lopez
Nothing about this new song from Los Angeles-based artist Lecx Stacy is predictable; it exists in its own macabre sonic world, a world with things hidden in silent, shadowy corners, corners that haven't seen light in centuries. One of the first things I thought while listening to this was that this might be what Edgar Allen Poe would sound like if he made music.
On the song, the artist says ‘Hurry, Grin’ steps into a distorted reality shaped by the mental space I was in while writing the album. At the time, I was working in a psych home and witnessing firsthand how memory can take hold of someone, how a single traumatic moment can echo for decades and quietly shape behavior. It made me reflect on the patterns I carry myself or what’s been formed through experience, and what might’ve been inherited without me even realizing it”.
Connect with Lecx Stacy
Instagram | Facebook | X
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
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