A Sunlit Walk in The Underground Forest - March 2026
Welcome to this month’s edition of A Sunlit Walk in the Underground Forest. This is a curated selection of new music I love, hand-selected by me!
Featuring: Ivor Game, Satya, Monster Rally, Valley Boy, Magoo, Charlotte Sands, negro impacto, Foxtide, and Gitika Partington.
This week's edition features: a song with some Imogen Heap touches that will be a healing listening experience for you if you struggle to express how you feel; a song that sounds like a kaleidoscopic summertime dream in the garden; a song that conjures up the warm, saturated colors of home, and an empty dollhouse; a song that captures the raw euphoria you feel when on the bus in the morning or early afternoon, when the sun is beaming down, the smell of coffee is in the air, and the day feels like it holds endless possibilities; a song that has the easy glamour of the 1960s; and more!
A Sunlit Walk In The Underground Forest ☀️ Light Pop • Folk • Electronica • Calm
Satya - Yellow House
Press photo by Natalya Crawford
‘Yellow House’ opens with a sparse arrangement, over which a warm, honeyed vocal sings, “I’m not going home again.” There is something about the song that immediately evokes the rich, warm colors you associate with home, while simultaneously giving the devastating sense of leaving something familiar behind. The glowing yellow from the artwork weaves its way into the fabric of the music and the vocals, making it feel like it exists in a memory.
On the song Satya says: "I left home under really hard circumstances. This song is about the anger I carried, the fear I lived with, and the strength I had to build for myself when no one else could do it for me. To believe you deserve something better even when you don't fully know what you're letting go of, or what better looks like for yourself."
The lyrics are beautiful and eerie; the lyrics “yellow house/lemon trees/wooden floors/she lay face down” conjuring up an image of an abandoned dollhouse frozen in time.
Connect with Satya
Website / Instagram
Ivor Game - Highbury
Ivor Game captures the raw euphoria you feel when on the bus in the morning or early afternoon, when the sun is beaming down, the smell of coffee is in the air, and the day feels like it holds endless possibilities.
The London-based artist has captured this orange-flavoured joy in a bottle with ‘Highbury’ - a recording originally from 1998, perhaps the fact that it was recorded back then that makes it sound so special and warm. There are songs that fill you with Joie de vivre, one of those being ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ - ‘Highbury’ has that same quality running throughout. Here’s to a wonderful summer.
Connect with Ivor Game
Facebook / Website
Monster Rally - Flight to Capri (feat. Henry Mancini)
This opens with strings that play to your ears from an abandoned pastel pink beach motel. ‘Flight to Capri’ feels like the opening strains of the orchestral score of your favourite childhood movie - which may be as a result of the song sampling the 1961 track ‘Lujon’by the prolific composer Henry Mancini.
On the song, the artist says, “Getting to work with Manicini, especially with ‘Lujon,’ is a dream for me. One of the first songs I remember loving as a kid was the Pink Panther theme. As an adult, I have a collection of Mancini records and soundtracks. He was truly the master of making cinematic music. For ‘Flight to Capri,’ I was hoping to create something familiar but unexpected. I wanted my instrumentation to complement the lush strings and guide it in a different cinematic direction. The finished track is my version of the opening credits of a 60s tropical spy movie set in a sun-soaked location.”
‘Flight to Capri’ has an easy glamour to it, the kind found in 1960s movies - let this make your day a bit more fabulous.
Connect with Monster Rally
Bandcamp / Website / Instagram / Facebook
Sunday - Charlotte Sands
This can only be described as dreamy pop that has an addictive substance.
‘Sunday’ is taken from the LA-based artist’s new album ‘Satellite’, on which the artist says, "Satellite' was born from a search for meaning, identity, and self-worth. It's a collection of moments from the last two years of my life—the highs and the lows, the joy and the grief. It's about drifting, discovering, questioning your purpose, and learning to trust the quiet pull that brings you back to yourself.”
‘Sunday’ has the ephemeral, plush, melancholic quality I found present in Hilary Duff’s new music and also in Lily Allen’s. It ignites the feeling of longing and euphoria you would experience on summer evenings as a teenager - and it feels like a song people would have playing in the background of their memories. This really does deserve to be a hit.
Connect with Charlotte Sands
Website / Instagram / X / Facebook
Valley Boy - Diana gets an email
A blend of Bossa Nova adjacent guitars with a vocal melody that has a blissfully smooth 1990s RnB quality to it - in other words, you are in for a pretty luxurious good time.
I like how ‘Diana gets an email’ is understated, in that it allows everything to flow in its own time, the mixing is gentle, preserving the almost stream of consciousness quality to the song. This feels like a quiet summer evening in front of the computer, and it is bliss.
On the song, the artist says, “Diana gets an email’ is the compassionate eye of adulthood turned towards the author of some of my most cruel childhood memories — my first girlfriend. As much as everyone’s story deserves its due, something about remembering the single email a year she got just broke my heart even after a year of writing these stories, so it had to be on the record. I have no idea where she is now but I hope she's well, and if she ever hears this, I hope she likes it.”
Connect with Valley Boy
YouTube / Website / Instagram / Χ
Magoo - Ohio Blues
Photo credit: Jeff Fasano
As a child who grew up in rural Ireland, my first exposure to Bluegrass was through ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’, and I became thoroughly obsessed with the soundtrack and the genre as a whole (as I imagine most people did). I think I associate the genre with rivers, lush green forests, the rich storytelling element of songwriting, and the joy of community.
This song is the opening number from the Denver-based quartet Magoo’s album ‘What A Life.’ It can only be described as an explosion of euphoric energy; it feels like coming home, it feels slightly tongue-in-cheek - the high energy of this would be a treat to see live.
Connect with Magoo
Bandcamp / Website / Instagram / Facebook
Foxtide - Live by the Sun
This is taken from the band’s upcoming album ‘Entropy’, which you can pre-save here.
I listened to this once, and the song was immediately stuck in my head - it kind of feels like a hit from a blue-skied, dead-hot summer during the 1990s.
I really like the arrangement - when it reaches the chorus, the drums drop out, leaving the vocals and instruments swell, making it feel all the more dreamy. The chorus is massive with some serious Soundgarden vibes.
Connect with Foxtide
Website / Instagram
negro impacto - soft fruit
This is what a kaleidoscopic summertime dream in the garden would sound like.
‘soft fruit’ is the newest song from the Dundalk duo, and it is a blissful blend of shoegaze textures and neo-soul, with an expertly shifting soundscape shimmering behind the vocals. I absolutely love the music video; it features the melodic elements of the music being played on what I believe to be felt replicas of guitars (glorious) - a testament to the creativity and vision of the artists.
Connect with negro impacto
Facebook / Bandcamp /Instagram
Gitika Partington - Going Round in Circles
This is one of the songs from the artist’s release of 13 albums simultaneously, breaking the current world record for the number of albums released in one day, with all songs created as part of the iheartsongwritingclub.com community.
‘Going Round in Circles’ opens with clear vocals, set against a light background of percussion and keys (the percussion made me think of Omi’s 2014 hit ‘Cheerleader’(Felix Jaehn Remix)), the vocals getting more layered as time goes on, the layered harmonies bringing to mind Imogen Heap.
The song deals with learning to express how you feel - as “when we were young, no one ever asked us how we felt, we just did what we were told, so it took a lot of work to learn not to just keep going round in circles and effort to learn to learn to say how we felt.”
If this is something you are struggling with, as a lot of us do, this will be a healing listening experience.
Connect with Gitika Partington
Website / 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.
Interested in a music feature, writing a story as a guest or joining the Musicngear team as a Contributing Author? Contact us at info+blog@musicngear.com
