Philadelphia cult favorites Nyxy Nyx are excited to share the latest preview of their first proper studio record, Cult Classics Vol. 1, due out September 12, 2025, via Julia’s War Recordings. Out today is “Ashtray,” an intensely noisy track that insulates contemplative lyricism in layers of fuzzed-out guitars. The almost six-minute-long song breaks down into a cacophony of noise, before melting into an interlude of silence, a hurricane of riffs, and then a calming array of instrumentals.
After more than a decade away, beloved punk trio Good Luck returns with “Into the Void,” the first single from their forthcoming album Big Dreams, Mister, out October 17 via Lauren Records and Specialist Subject in the UK. “Into the Void” is about showing up for a friend in need, even when you’re not sure how. “It’s a song about not knowing how to comfort someone who’s going through it, other than to say, let’s keep doing things and being here,” explains vocalist/guitarist Ginger Alford. “But also it’s about driving across the country and drinking coffee, and is full of lots of silly puns. I had played this song solo and with other folks before, but it didn’t really click until we got back together and everybody added their magic.”
Big Dreams, Mister is the sound of a band rediscovering its joy. Made purely for the love of playing together again, the album is equal parts highly-concentrated effort, pressure-free creativity and the thirst to settle unfinished business after the band stopped making music together in 2012.
In 2023, low-key texts started popping up in the band’s group chat, and plans were made to hang out at a borrowed practice space in Cleveland just to see if making music together still felt good. The secret reunion was surprisingly comfortable and everything clicked back into place. After two weekends of jamming, a few loose ideas evolved into songs and were recorded with fellow noodlepunk Joe Reinhart (Hop Along, Joyce Manor, Modern Baseball), as the garden continued to grow around them. Half a year passed, and after a few more weekend-long bursts of songwriting, the band returned to Reinhart to finish what will become their (classic) third record – Big Dreams, Mister. Good Luck is back, just like that.
“We always felt like we might write music together again,” the band shares. “And once we did, these songs felt exactly like what we would write.”
“While [previous solo album] Manu largely improvised on the story of my Colombian mother, evoking the texture and feel of the Andes, I wanted La Marea to speak to the story of my father and those like him who emigrated from Cuba to the US from 1959-1960, forever inhabiting the memory of a homeland that no longer existed,” Bryan Senti explains.
This is the backdrop for critically acclaimed composer Bryan Senti‘s upcoming album La Marea, announced today for an October 10th release via The state51 Conspiracy.
Weaving ambient electronic and baroque music influences with the world of his previous album Manu, Bryan Senti’s follow up album La Mareais a modern and epic string orchestra cycle that takes us on a mediative nautical journey. Out today is the new track “Saloma (Tierra en Movimiento),” featuring Grammy award winning baritone and Andrea Bocelli collaborator Edward Parks, who was a classmate of Senti’s at The Yale School of Music. The track was recorded in ATMOS, with each part recorded individually and then placed in ATMOS to create a completely distinct immersive experience.
When Senti came around to this project, it was clear that immigration was the subject matter, and he felt that the specific topic of Latino immigration could one day be the subject of an opera. His father himself was an opera singer, and a minister, so his own story felt operatic. This aria became an opportunity to tie all of this together, and Parks was the natural fit with the personal connection.
“The image that repeatedly came to mind was that of the proverbial raft, which many used to emigrate to the US, adrift at sea,” Senti describes. “I can imagine the struggle of anchoring one’s identity to the memory of Cuba while desperately hoping to find refuge and renewed purpose in a new country. There’s a singular combination of grief and faith that brings someone to surrender to the idea of leaving their country. It’s the story of migration and transformation.”
As one of Ireland’s most exciting electronic artists, Elaine Mai returns with People Pleaser (Elaine Mai Remix) out on Aug 29th. A bold reimagining of the fan-favourite track from indie trailblazers Soda Blonde. Arriving ahead of Mai’s hotly anticipated sophomore album For Us, out September 26th, the remix offers a striking glimpse into her evolving sonic world.
The collaboration between Mai and Soda Blonde’s Faye O’Rourke was sparked during a special live studio session on RTÉ 2FM, where the pair performed Aim, the latest single from For Us. Since its release, Aim has made waves across Irish radio, reaching No. 6 on the Irish Radio Breakers Chart and racking up over two million impressions.
Originally featured on Soda Blonde’s People Pleaser EP—which debuted at No. 2 on the Irish Independent Album Charts—the original version of People Pleaser has fast become a fan favourite. In July, the band celebrated the EP’s arrival on crimson red vinyl with a sold-out show at Dublin’s Button Factory. Hot Press praised the night as “glistening and infinitely memorable”, applauding the band’s “inimitable charisma and hypnotising performances.”
This remix arrives amid a wave of momentum for both artists. Elaine Mai will headline the Button Factory on October 25th, with tickets available now via Eventbrite. Meanwhile, Soda Blonde’s star continues to rise, with their music recently shared by legendary game designer Hideo Kojima to over 4 million Instagram followers. Previous support from BBC Radio 6 Music, RTÉ 2FM, and Today FM, alongside editorial playlisting across New Music Friday UK & IE, Fresh Finds, and Alternative Ireland, reflects their growing international reach.
Your favorite Indianapolis-based “fake emo” band, Summerbruise, just put out a brand new single, “Man! I Feel Like A Dumbass!” This track is part of their new full-length record, Infinity Guise, coming out September 19th via SideOneDummy Records. With the news, they also just announced a handful of shows this Fall as part of the Fake Emo Fight Night Tour with friends dear Maryanne and MooseCreek Park. Tickets will be on-sale this Friday, August 22nd at 11AM EST.
Kansas City duo Katy Guillen & The Drive – led by music + life partners Katy Guillen (vocals/guitar) and Stephanie Williams (drums) – prides itself on fostering empowered spaces for women in music both onstage and off, and their performances showcase the group’s signature all-female powerhouse formation, technical prowess, and electrifying chemistry. This core value heavily influenced the band’s second full-length effort Make That Sound, produced by Megan McCormick (Allison Russell, Amythyst Kiah), due October 17, 2025 via Are and Be Recordings.
“Enough Lord” by Bronze Nazareth and Apollo Brown is a powerful reflection on society’s turbulence, delivered with the urgency of frontline reporting.
Bronze weaves together a litany of global and personal struggles, channeling the voice of a street-level newscaster confronting the weight of the world. His raw, unflinching lyricism rides over Apollo Brown’s haunting production, built on a hypnotic guitar riff and soaring choral textures.
The result is a classic, hard-hitting anthem that captures both the chaos of our times and the relentless resilience of those enduring it.
Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Patrick Shiroishi (The Armed, Fuubutsushi) shares his new single, “Mountains that Take Wing,” ahead of his fourth solo album, Forgetting Is Violent, out September 19 via American Dreams. Part of the album’s opening suite, the track features Shiroishi’s close collaborators Gemma Thompson (Savages) and Aaron Turner (Sumac), who launch a wall of dual-guitar feedback at the outset. It settles into a hushed drift before gradually erupting into a transcendent cacophony of coruscating guitars, swirling saxophone, layered vocal harmonies, and flickering electronics.
Describing the piece, Patrick explains: “It is filled with lament, but also serves as a reminder that it is okay to feel this way, that we are not alone in that feeling… that even though there are awful people at work in these present times, together & in community, we can & must fight back – just like how Gemma & Aaron help lift me up in this music, our collective hope in a better place can lift us up. that in times where things seem impossible, mountains can still take flight.”
Following lead single “There is no moment in my life in which this is not happening,” which featured otay::onii, “Mountains that take wing” offers the second and final preview of Shiroishi’s first album to feature guest collaborators—one where his roots in heavy music enter into closer dialogue with free improvisation than ever before. Whether soft or raucous, spacious or dense, Shiroishi brings the fire; his collaborators, the ice.
Where his past releases on American Dreams reckoned with racism against Japanese Americans or presented Shiroishi’s saxophone as heard in a parking garage, Forgetting is Violent considers racism as a whole, historical and ongoing, with the urgency it deserves. “Stemming back to my ancestors, and the stolen land that we live on—there’s just so much of this racism that is so alive and well, and so apparent, and continues to be apparent in our country and around the world,” Shiroishi says. “Something that cannot be forgotten.”
Atmosphere, the iconic hip-hop duo consisting of Slug and Ant, have announced their upcoming album Jestures, set for release on September 19th via Rhymesayers Entertainment. Today, they’ve shared two new singles, “Yearning,” featuring Yoni Wolf of WHY?, and “Daley.” The single, “Yearning”, is accompanied by a new music video directed by Evidence, showcasing Slug amid the urban backdrop of Minneapolis, MN and leans into a crackling, soulful dimension of the duo’s sound. On the track, Slug shares stories involving themes of social experiences and personal identity, grappling with the addictive nature of the human need for external validation.
Alongside the album announcement, Atmosphere released singles and accompanying videos for “Really” and “Velour.” The video for “Really,” directed by Melby, features Slug performing a series of daredevil stunts, landing somewhere between John Wick, The Rehearsal, and Jackass. Meanwhile, the “Velour” video, shot and edited by ZooDeVille, combines dreamlike melodies with lighthearted lyrics to embody euphoric love in an everyday setting.
Montclair, NJ-based singer/songwriter Lily Vakili has announced a special performance at Montclair Story Salon on September 18, 2025, as she drops the new single, “Hold On They Say,” from her forthcoming album, Oceans of Kansas. Releasing October 17, 2025, Oceans of Kansas is Vakili’s most intimate, collaborative, and expansive work yet: A collection shaped by lived experience, artistic risk, and restless curiosity. It’s music born not of image or pretense, but of will – a record that embraces improvisation, vulnerability, and the raw pleasure of creation.
The songs on Oceans of Kansas are, as Vakili calls them, her “orphan songs”: Melodies she couldn’t let go of, lyrics that stayed with her long after others faded. “For whatever reason, these songs didn’t stick before, but I would not give up on them because I know they’re compelling,” she shares. The theme of not knowing if or when to let go was also the catalyst for “Hold On They Say,” written about the realization that she’d drifted apart from an old friend.
“When I think of that time, it seems we were in a kind of stasis during our visits, neither in the past nor fully in the present. I could still see her dreams and my dreams, but I didn’t know if one of us, or both of us, would hold on,” Vakili recalls, adding, “Chris St. Hilaire’s piano creates a perfect setting for this song’s lyrics, warm and elegiac.”
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