Top New Tracks

5) Water From Your Eyes – It’s A Beautiful Place (2025)

New York-based band Water From Your Eyes is composed of vocalist Rachel Brown and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Nate Amos. The group formed in 2016, pulling their name from synth pop band New Order. Their writing style is a combination of art rock, indie pop, and shoegaze, bringing in influences from artists such as Ween and Scott Walker. To date, they’ve released seven full-length albums and toured across North America and Europe this year, concluding earlier this month.

This week’s highlighted track, “Born 2” is dominated by heavily strumming guitar textures, featuring lyrics delivered lightly though they pack a punch.

4) The Beths – Straight Line Was A Lie (2025)

Hailing from New Zealand, indie pop group The Beths have spent their past eleven years exploring the ins and outs of joyful alternative rock. Current members include lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Elizabeth Stokes, lead guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and Tristan Deck on percussion. On their journey for collective peace, the quartet utilizes serene harmonies and catchy guitar licks.

This week’s selected track, “Mosquitoes” is a tender and upbeat look back at a place remembered as the lyrics revisit a place the artist once found home.

3) Yukimi – Yume (2025)

Most well known as the vocalist for Little Dragon, Swedish songwriter and vocalist Yukimi Nagano released her “Yume” EP earlier this month. Her career began with her collaboration with Swedish jazz duo Koop, working with them on their tracks and their tour in the early-2000s. She formed Little Dragon in 1996, which focused on electronica and trip-hop, releasing seven albums altogether throughout the 2000s and 2010s. Many listeners may recognize her vocals from her work on Gorillaz’s Plastic Beach album, in which she sang on “Empire Ants” and “To Binge”. This latest EP comes after her first solo album, “For You” which was released in March of this year.

This week’s chosen track, “Get It Over” is groovy and piano-centric with a soulful chord progression featuring delicate vocals.

2) Runnner – A Welcome Kind of Weakness (2025)

Alternative indie rock artist Noah Weinman’s project Runnner began in 2017 with his first full-length album “Awash”. This release came as he spent years as a producer in Los Angeles, working on albums for artists like Odie Leigh and Horsepower. His musical style has a DIY bedroom studio vibe, flourished with heartfelt vocals, banjos, and guitars. His sophomore album released earlier this year, “A Welcome Kind of Weakness” was written as he was bedridden due to a broken Achilles tendon and recovering from a breakup. The album explores the fragility and resilience of the rebuilding process after a sharp change.

This week’s highlighted track “Coinstar” is mellow and expansive featuring the pedal steel and vocals exploring burnout and a breakup’s aftermath.

1) Justin Karas – Flowers Wild Abound (2025)

Multi-instrumentalist Justin Karas hails from Montreal and has found his niche creating gentle but resilient poetic folk. His style blends chamber folk sensibilities with 60s and 70s-leaning arrangements. His earlier work includes his composition of the soundtrack for the acclaimed video game “A Little To the Left”. His work has been compared to Joanna Newsom and Joni Mitchell, with his newest release focused on the natural world. “Flowers Wild Abound” features song titles and lyrics reminiscent of various Earth processes, most prominently the blooming of flowers.

This week’s selected track “Ode” is a love song to the natural world, accompanied by an intricate and almost medieval guitar line and Karas’s own gentle vocals.

Top Tracks of the Week

5) Curtis Harding – Departures & Arrivals: Adventures of Captain Curt (2025)

Raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Curtis Harding has been a prominent name in the soul music scene since the early 2000s. Originally entering the music world through singing and drumming in church with his mother in the gospel, his adult career began as a part of a small Atlanta hip-hop group. Harding then made his way to perform on CeeLo Green’s 2002 and 2010 albums as well as touring. Over the years he has worked with Outkast, The Growlers, Danger Mouse, Lauryn Hill, and countless other hip-hop and modern soul greats. By far his most successful album, his second release “Face Your Fear” in 2017 made it to the top of the Billboard Heatseeker charts. His most recent album “Departures & Arrivals” blends soul music with influences of psychedelic rock and baroque pop in a space-age environment.

This week’s highlighted track “I’m With You” is sophisticated and sweeping with mellow keyboard textures and elegant strings.

4) Braxton Cook – Not Everyone Can Go (2025)

Here with his sixth LP, Braxton Cook’s unique take on a jazz and soul fusion creates a good-natured sonic ecosystem. Spanning across more modern R&B style beats and pulling from earlier smooth soul artists. Cook has been releasing music since 2014, originally learning how to play the alto saxophone while growing up in Washington D.C. He attended Juilliard in 2011 and studied jazz saxophone, eventually touring and releasing his own compositions. Cook worked on the soundtrack for “Soul”, Pixar Studio’s 2019 release, for which he won an Academy Award.

This week’s chosen track “Harboring Feelings” is elegant, downtempo, and layered, with Cook’s saxophone sliding into a solo in the middle.

3) Wisp – If Not Winter (2025)

San Francisco based shoegaze artist Wisp is back with her debut album. In 2023 her single “Your Face” gained immense popularity on Tiktok which got the artist a large fan base from the start of her career. She began touring and playing at festivals where her light and breathy vocals contrasting with her guitar’s wall of sound captivated audiences. Performing under the Wisp name, Californian Natalie Lu has cultivated a sound that blends her delicate vocals with crushing shoegaze/nu gaze instrumentation.

This week’s selected track “Black swan” has a hard and steely guitar sound with a speaking interlude before diving back into delicate vocals.

2) Wednesday – Bleeds (2025)

Forming in 2017 in North Carolina, Wednesday has since been carefully honing their craft with a blend of country, alternative rock, and punk. The group began with guitarist Karly Hartzman’s solo project of the same name, adding both Daniel Gorham and MJ Lenderman and releasing their first EP “How Do You Let the Love Into the Heart That Isn’t Split Wide Open”. Wednesday pulls inspiration from bands like The Sundays and Hartzman’s own Southern upbringing. The current lineup now consists of Alan Miller, Xandy Chelmis, and Ethan Baechtold, with MJ Lenderman no longer touring but remaining a creative member behind the scenes

This week’s highlighted track “Gary’s II” starts slow, setting the scene of a bar with trouble brewing, jumping into a barfight as the tempo starts up into a bluegrass ballad.

1) Venna – MALIK (2025)

Debuting with his first ever studio album, saxophonist Venna presents a collection of soulfully crafted R&B soundscapes. The London-based artist started experimenting with music at age 12 when he started playing the saxophone. His first big recognition was a Grammy nomination for Burna Boy’s album “African Giant” in 2020, to which Venna contributed. This was followed by the award of a Grammy for Burna Boy’s 2021 album “Twice as Tall”, which Venna also worked on. His music finds influence from artists such as Terrace Martin and Kendrick Lamar.

Our Gem of the Week is “Indigo”, a fully instrumental and meditative track that explores the bounds of downtempo jazz and bass-infused reflection.