The Underground Forest - Volume 39
Welcome back to The Underground Forest, a place where we travel into the lush wilderness of the internet to find some of the most wonderful and unusual music out there.
Featuring: Sabriel, Levi Robin, Sparks, Suzie Ungerleider, Heather Mae, Red Sky July, Steel Wool, Naz Hejaz, Tennis, Kairvina & Fake Dad.
Follow The Underground Forest playlist on Spotify
This week’s edition features: a luxurious song that sounds like it is from a pastel-tinted movie from the 1990s that takes place on a luxury cruise liner; a hauntingly beautiful Americana folk song that sounds like it is from an abandoned desert town; a very sad and dramatic song in which the subject is a JanSport backpack; a song that is the very definition of dream pop and could be from the hazy world of MTV’s Downtown; a song that feels like sitting in the porch of a wooden cabin by candlelight and more!
espressomartinis - Sabriel
One of my favourite artists is back - espressomartini opens with sultry ominous drums, rising like a surreal underground nightclub scene from a Neon movie, where reality is warped and slightly off, the artificial lighting throwing everything off, the results being kind of like a hallucination.
This song is dark, seductive, and will beckon you into a mesmerizing night-time world.
Connect with Sabriel
YouTube / Spotify / Instagram / Website
Levi Robin - Whole As A Broken Heart
This song floats to your ears from the last house standing in an abandoned desert town. The vocals and instrumentation ricochet off the items left behind in the wasteland, giving the eerie sense of time passing, the specific kind that exists in a place that used to have a lot of life, but is now deserted and silent.
On the song the artist says “There's nothing so whole as a broken heart’ and ‘there is no light like that which comes from great darkness’. In my life, I've seen that when I allow myself to take on the bitter and broken, letting the walls of my heart break in humble surrender, then the bitter turns to sweet, and the brokenness turns into fertile soil, in which ‘those who sow in tears will reap in joy’. Consider this an invitation, to come as you are, whole as a broken heart.”
Connect with Levi Robin
YouTube / Spotify / Instagram / Facebook
JanSport Backpack - Sparks
This is the second track from the duo's upcoming album MAD!. Emotional turmoil and impending devastation being linked to such an inoffensive, sexless intimate object such as the Jansport backpack, is a work of genius.
One of my favourite things about Sparks’ songs is their ability to pick a random item and build an entire art pop song around it that brings a whole dimension of life to this object. (I am thinking of 2020’s Lawnmower, one of my favorite Sparks’ songs).
Dramatic synths, melancholy vocals that rise into a euphoric epic choral arrangement - JanSport Backpack is absolutely incredible.
Connect with Sparks
YouTube / Spotify / Instagram / Website / X
Real Estate - Suzie Ungerleider
Taken from the three track release, which serves as a taste of the artist's upcoming album, Real Estate is a rush of warmth, the chorus feels like sitting by candlelight in the porch of a rustic wooden cabin at night time, it is tender, it is wonderful, it feels like relaxing, it feels like a community, and most of all it feels alive with experience and memory.
Connect with Suzie Ungerleider
YouTube / Bandcamp / Spotify / Instagram / Website
At the End of the World - Heather Mae
Taken from the artist's outstanding new album What They Hid From Me (which was produced entirely by women and nonbinary music makers in Nashville), this has gentle touches of Americana, with lyrics that draw you into the world of the artist straight away “I water my plants / I try and try /But it's all got me worried about the end of time” floating into a heavenly chorus.
The whole album is great, I also love The Fight featuring Crys Matthews.
Connect with Heather Mae
YouTube / Spotify / Instagram / Website
Utah - Red Sky July, Joe Hammill
Taken from their new album Misty Morning, this is a lush blend of folk with dreamy Americana.
This song feels like memory and it feels like acceptance; “you’re not the same person you left home as” the melancholy vocals sweeping over you; escalating into a chorus that is nothing short of celestial in its raw, cloud-like beauty - this is a true work of art.
Connect with Red Sky July
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Connect with Joe Hammill
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Fading - Steel Wool
Dreampop and shoegaze from a lucid dream in 1990s USA - this new song from Steel Wool weaves a lush, nostalgic, achingly beautiful tapestry filled with DIY analog flavor.
This kind of feels like it could be from the hazy animated world of MTV’s Downtown; this is, put quite simply, absolutely gorgeous.
Connect with Steel Wool
YouTube / Bandcamp / Spotify / Instagram
Incurable Dreams - Naz Hejaz
Dark, delicious, and wonderful - this is hypnotizing electronic pop, with an experimental Italian disco flavour, the vocals are mesmerizing, this song unusual - it feels a bit gothic, which I love. This song feels like it takes place at night time and it is nothing short of entrancing.
On the new single the creator shares, "Teeing off the cycle of addiction is the seductive and surreptitious longing for that which ruins your life. Like the long lost lover you could never quite relinquish, it tugs at your sleeve and itches your brain until you give in. An “Incurable Dream”, if you will."
Connect with Naz Hejaz
Bandcamp / Instagram / Website
At The Wedding - Tennis
I started listening to Tennis after their appearance on one of my favorite podcasts (Crooked Media’s Keep It), and I was very happy that I did.
They opened the year with the utterly luxurious Weight of Desire; At The Wedding is equally as divine, opening with a glamorous string section, shimmering textures, and gorgeous vocals. This song feels like it takes place in a 1990s movie with a marzipan pastel-tinted color scheme, one set on a glamorous cruise liner.
This is divine.
Connect with Tennis
Facebook / YouTube / Spotify / Instagram / X / Website
Kairvina - Eternal
It honestly does feel like the world is crumbling; especially in the last few weeks, this new song from Mumbai-based singer-songwriter Kairvina is an organic oasis of peace and stillness, the vocals in this are soothing, everything ascending into a beautifully lush arrangement.
Connect with Kairvina
YouTube / Spotify / Instagram / X
Odyssey to Venice - Fake Dad
Taken from the duo's new album Holly Wholesome and The Slut Machine; the drums in this song are fantastic, giving DIY drum machine vibes which I absolutely love, the pads rise ominously in the background as the song progresses, Andrea’s droll vocals are spellbinding, this is great.
Connect with Fake Dad
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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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