“Lead Me Not Into Penn Station” - BLOCK
The backstory only adds to its charm. Block, newly arrived in the East Village from Chapel Hill, lived above a record store, running around with fellow dreamers at 3 a.m., soaking in a city alive with painters, filmmakers, and misfits. That energy bleeds into every track. The album is the sound of someone catching a wave they didn’t even know they’d been waiting for.
“Suffocating Swan” - Melting Phase
Every now and then, a song comes along that doesn’t just ask to be heard—it demands you stop, sit in silence, and let it take you somewhere uncomfortable. Suffocating Swan, the latest single from Istanbul’s rising experimentalist Melting Phase, is exactly that kind of track. It’s not background music. It’s not Spotify fodder. It’s a fierce, allegorical meditation on life’s crushing weight, dressed in sonic textures that are as suffocating as they are strangely beautiful.
“Maybe It's You” - Lemon
If there’s one thing Lemon know how to do, it’s wrap big truths in even bigger grooves. Their ninth single of 2025, Maybe It’s You, is technically a breakup song—but don’t expect some weepy ballad or bitter scorched-earth rant. Instead, the Amsterdam outfit lean hard into their self-coined “Nedchester” sound—a swirl of indie rock, funked-up soul, and those baggy, blissed-out grooves that defined the Madchester scene. Think Stone Roses shaking hands with The Charlatans, but through a distinctly Dutch filter.
“Welcome To The Sharktank” - DOPAMINE FIX
There’s debut singles, and then there’s statements. Welcome to the Sharktank, the first offering from Dopamine Fix, feels like the latter—a sonic gut punch that throws you into a world of shadows and teeth and doesn’t let you surface for air. This isn’t the kind of song you casually hum along to. It’s the kind of song that stares you dead in the eye and dares you to keep listening.
“Dark Days” - J.Mar
Every now and then, a new voice comes along that feels less like an introduction and more like a reckoning. J.mar’s debut single Dark Days is exactly that kind of statement piece. Born in Madagascar, raised in Perth, and now stepping boldly into the Australian hip hop scene, J.mar arrives with a track that’s raw, personal, and impossible to ignore.
“Marzanna” - Marianne Nowottny
Some albums feel like projects, and others feel like pilgrimages. Marianne Nowottny’s Marzanna is definitely the latter. Long whispered about, nearly derailed by broken hard drives and lost files, and stretched across a five-year haze of stops and starts, the record has finally surfaced—and it’s worth every ounce of the struggle that went into making it. This isn’t just a covers album; it’s a séance. With Marzanna, Nowottny resurrects her longtime alter ego and reanimates songs by Kate Bush, Bowie, Joni, and Siouxsie—not as nostalgia pieces, but as living, breathing works reimagined in her singular voice.
“Yabadabadooda” - Taylor Lally
Taylor Lally isn’t afraid to make a song title that sounds like it wandered straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon. “Yabadabadooda” lands like a wink and a grin, but don’t let the playful name fool you. This single is a clever little trip through lo-fi textures, hip-hop grooves, and dreamy alt-pop haze, with lyrics that walk the tightrope between tongue-in-cheek humor and unexpected vulnerability.
“Do You Miss Me?” - Adrienne Levay
Adrienne Levay’s “Do You Miss Me?” is the kind of song that feels like it’s happening in the quiet just after midnight—the fire’s dying down, there’s a glass half-full on the table, and the air is heavy with words that haven’t been spoken yet. It’s not a flashy track, and that’s exactly what makes it so disarming.
“L'Ombra della Terra” - Giuseppe Bonaccorso
Giuseppe Bonaccorso’s new single L'Ombra della Terra (“The Shadow of the Earth”) doesn’t just sound like a song—it feels like a manifesto. Following the stark and provocative Playground in Gaza, Bonaccorso doubles down on his identity as a composer who isn’t afraid to make art that’s both intellectually rigorous and emotionally raw. At just over four minutes, the track is sprawling and theatrical, packing in more ideas, textures, and tension than most artists manage across an entire record.
“Ripples of the Past” - Ray Curenton
Ray Curenton’s Ripples of the Past is one of those rare albums that sneaks up on you—not with bombast or flashy production, but with a quiet kind of gravity. It’s an intimate project that feels less like an album you press play on and more like a conversation you fall into with an old friend who’s suddenly willing to tell you the real story. Out September 12, this is Curenton’s first full-length foray into indie folk, and it already feels like a defining moment in his career.
'EURO-COUNTRY’ - CMAT
CMAT’s EURO-COUNTRY is the sort of album that walks a tightrope between glittery pop escapism and gritty, soul-stirring commentary—and somehow, CMAT (Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson) doesn’t slip once. Her third LP feels like her most fully realised work yet: she leans into her personality, her heritage, and her politics with sharpened lyrics, bombastic hooks, and emotional undercurrents that you can’t ignore.
“Your Eyes Don't See” - Highet
If you’ve been craving a rock track that doesn’t pull punches, Highet’s “Your Eyes Don’t See” is about to become your new obsession. Bursting with high-octane energy, the Vancouver-based father-son duo deliver a song that feels like it was built for blasting out of car windows and shaking the walls of a dive bar stage.