A Sunlit Walk in The Underground Forest: New Pop, Folk , Rock and Indie Music We Loved
Welcome to A Sunlit Walk in The Underground Forest: a series where I hand-pick music I love.
Featuring Desperately Seeking Suki, Beatrix, Maria Taylor, How I Became A Wave, Joan As Police Woman, The Melancholy Kings, The Reds, Pinks & Purples, Loah & Julia Minkin.
This edition features a song with glittering electronic textures and vocals that are reminiscent of The Streets; a song that will transport you to a warm, lamp-lit bookshop on a seaside cove; a song whose artwork looks like a mysterious photo a visitor finds in a drawer while visiting long-lost relatives in a creaking wooden house; a song that will instantly put you at ease; a song with blissful vocals that are straight out of the 1960s; a dream pop song that invites you to look in places you may not have looked before, resulting in you seeing the whole world differently; a song that is a a hushed, ornate wonder and more!
A Sunlit Walk In The Underground Forest ☀️ Light Pop • Folk • Electronica • Calm
How I Became A Wave - Sea Swell
I saw posters for How I Became A Wave on the walk up the hill to my house - I most likely would not have been aware of the album had it not been for these posters. I think advertising and being visible in the area you live in is actually very effective - an endeavor that can at times get overlooked in favour of online campaigns (which are getting increasingly more difficult as everything seems to be getting buried under endless celebrity press tours, which, I’m going to say it, are at this point almost as guilty of destroying the internet as AI).
How I Became A Wave is the multidisciplinary creative project of songwriter, singer, and guitarist Pat Carey, ‘Sea Swell’ being taken from the new album. It features vocals that break ever so slightly in all the right places; the instrumental is gentle, like the ocean lapping over seashells, giving rise to a song that is beautifully understated and shimmering with life. This will transport you to a warm, lamp-lit bookshop on a seaside cove.
Connect with How I Became A Wave
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Desperately Seeking Suki - Suki
I would imagine this duo’s name (consisting of siblings Natassa Zoë and SIG SALI) is paying homage to the 1985 movie ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’, starring Madonna in her breakout movie role (a flawless movie in my opinion). ‘Suki’ opens with glittering electronic textures, with a vocal delivery that is reminiscent of The Streets, a style of delivery I have not heard in quite some time, and I find very refreshing.
On the song, Natassa says: "Suki is about embracing the light and dark in yourself and finding love that holds through the chaos."
Connect with Desperately Seeking Suki
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Beatrix - My Angel
The artwork for this is like a mysterious photo a visitor finds in a drawer while visiting long-lost relatives in a creaking wooden house, a photo that no one seems to want to talk about, leading the visitor down a path to unearth the mystery behind it. ‘My Angel’ sounds like an old Americana folk classic that is playing through the halls; it has a warmth running throughout that feels like the ease and acceptance that comes with time.
On the song, the artist says, “This one was recorded completely live — I played guitar and sang in a booth and the whole band played with me in separate rooms. Right before we hit record, my producer Philip Etherington said, ‘Are you ready? Your whole life has led up to this moment. I was crying when I heard it back for the first time. The guitar solo Harrison Whitford takes at the end does it for me every time. This was really a synergy of some of my favorite musicians ever all in one room. We didn’t rehearse before this day — they just had a demo of me playing it on guitar and unlike most of the other songs which took meticulous arranging and tweaking, this one felt like lightning in a bottle. We barely touched it and just tried to preserve what really happened in the room for those few minutes.”
Connect with Beatrix
Website | Instagram
Maria Taylor - Never Thought I'd Feel New
This was a YouTube recommendation (I saw a comment under a video recently that said ‘I built this algorithm brick by brick’ and this pretty much sums things up). There is something magical about Maria Taylor; her music bewitching you instantly. The music video for ‘Never Thought I'd Feel New’ feels familiar and warm, kind of like the feeling you get when you are in your element at home in your living room, surrounded by your books and crafting projects.
The song is a burst of glittering indie folk with slightly haunting undertones; the chorus is plush, dreamy, and sublime; it feels like a rush of nostalgia - I just love everything about it.
‘Never Thought I'd Feel New’ is taken from the album ‘Story's End’, which you can purchase via Bandcamp here.
Connect with Maria Taylor
Website | Instagram | Facebook | X
Loah - Intimacy
This new song from Loah is a hushed, ornate wonder. Co-written with Eoin French (Talos, who sadly passed away in 2024), the opening vocals are delivered almost in a whisper, ascending into icy, shimmering vocals that are straight from the heavens, all against a plush, rich, haunting soundscape that only gets more breathtakingly beautiful as the song progresses.
Connect with Loah
Website | Instagram | Facebook | X
Joan As Police Woman - The Ride (Real Life Evolution version)
photo credit - Judi Rosen
I first discovered Joan As Police Woman’s music the summer of 2019, when I saw a poster for a show she was doing at a church near my house (Live at St. Luke's), and upon looking her up, I realized that I had come across something wonderful.
This song is taken from the ‘Real Life Evolution’ album, which consists of reworks of the songs from the 2006 album ‘Real Life’ (out June 12 via Reveal Records). This new version of ‘The Ride’ is quiet and gentle, with its alchemy running like a golden thread underneath the surface. There is something deeply peaceful about this that instantly put me at ease.
Connect with Joan As Police Woman
Instagram | Facebook | X
Julia Minkin - Not Ready
Finally, someone is making indie-pop interesting again, and that someone is Julia Minkin. I love the hypnotic, yet slightly menacing opening to ‘Not Ready’, which ends ominously with the phrase “every caress/is a threat”. The effortlessly chic, slightly blasé quality of the vocals flowing over the kitsch beat makes me imagine someone performing this in full glam as the apocalypse unfolds behind them. Magical.
Connect with Julia Minkin
Instagram
The Melancholy Kings - New Girl
This is a new song from New Jersey's The Melancholy Kings. ‘New Girl’ (which is taken from the album ‘Her Favorite Disguise’) has the quality of being from another time, with blissful vocals that are straight out of the 1960s. This is absolutely gorgeous - igniting feelings of longing and the almost overwhelming sense of memory, the music video, which channels film noir romance, adding to this.
Connect with The Melancholy Kings
Instagram | Facebook | X
The Reds, Pinks & Purples - Houses
Photo Credit: Samara Dun
This new song from the San Francisco-based The Reds, Pinks & Purples has a delightfully melancholic dream-pop/indie quality to it, a quality that makes it sound like it was part of the soundtrack of your favorite 00s indie movie.
On the song the artist says “This song is atypical for me in that it’s in 6/8 time and also because it’s not directly about people. It’s about the places in-between houses, where plants grow, and objects accumulate. They maybe have a life too. My friend Steven R. Smith plays the baritone guitar in the left channel, and the video is by Katiana Mashikian, who plays bass in The Reds, Pinks & Purples live band and is a member of April Magazine.”
I love it when art invites you to look in places you may not have looked before, resulting in you seeing the whole world differently.
Connect with The Reds, Pinks & Purples
Bluesky | Instagram
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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