Hello! This is one of those weeks, at least for this column, where there are a lot of great records out, but nothing that is super attention-grabbing; no huge names or buzzy newcomers. Just a lot of stuff you should really listen to. I review nine albums this week and hopefully you’ll find something new and exciting.

Over in Notable Releases there are even more, 12 to be specific, including Portrayal of Guilt, Friko, Miss Grit, OOIOO / Lightning Bolt, Failure, and more.

On this week’s episode of BV Interviews, I talk with Chandler Levack who made great new indie coming-of-age film, Mile End Kicks (set against Montreal’s music scene of the early 2010s) as well as comedy Roommates which is currently topping the Netflix chart.

In other news: last week we got new Massive Attack, and this week new album from Tricky and Boards of Canada. 2026: what a time to be alive. Did I just write that?

Head below for this week’s reviews…

The Reds Pinks & Purples – Acknowledge Kindness (Fire)
Glenn Donaldson ups the fidelity and sings more from the heart than ever before on his latest as RPPs

For the better part of a decade, Bay Area indie vet Glenn Donaldson has been making mopey janglepop as The Reds, Pinks & Purples at an incredible pace — especially when you consider the project’s persona envisions someone who would rather stay in bed. RPPs’ sound owes a lot to Sarah Records bands like The Field Mice, and of course The Smiths, with lyrical themes that vacillate between Charlie Brown–style sad-sack missives and cautionary tales about the music industry, all delivered with a mordant sense of humor. Song titles have included “The World Doesn’t Need Another Band,” “What’s Going on with Ordinary People,” and “Your Worst Song Is Your Greatest Hit.”

I wouldn’t say it’s all a joke, either — and I don’t know Glenn and haven’t read many interviews with him — but I’ve always taken this to be more of a character than a direct portal into his soul. Acknowledge Kindness, his first non-compilation album for Fire Records, drops the façade just a little. “This album is probably about learning to live with your ghosts and trying to be alive in the present,” he says. At the same time, Donaldson has upped the fidelity, moving things firmly into mid-fi territory with real drums and piano, and dialing back the reverb a notch or two. He’s not changing what you like about the band, but it snaps everything into sharper focus.

“I swear this world is haunted by you, I whisper through the wall,” is a line worthy of Robert Smith, maintaining the RPPs vibe while making more of a connection with the listener. That’s from “Heaven of Love,” which epitomizes the expanded, refined style of the album with its shuffle beat, guitar haze, and icy keyboards. (Definitely some Disintegration here.) Similarly, there’s the aching title track, the swaying “Houses” — which ties into RPPs’ established cover art style of facades and flowers — and the pretty “Worthy of Love,” which feels like it could’ve been a hit somewhere in 1990.

For those who miss Donaldson’s music-biz diatribes, there’s “Emo Band,” which I think is about groups from the recent past reuniting. “Another show, can you still pretend,” he sings, “to have feelings inside again?” He could’ve made the same point if it were titled “Reunion Band,” but Glenn knows this will get more listens — enraging some, getting affirmative nods from others. There’s also “Doubt in Vain,” about an artist who sells out and loses their entire audience in the process. These songs would fit on other Reds, Pinks & Purples albums, but within Acknowledge Kindness’ more welcoming style, they’re bitter cherries in an otherwise satisfying bunch.

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Gia Margaret – Singing (Jagjaguwar)
After years of silence, Gia Margaret returns with a hushed, beautifully layered vocal comeback

“There was a time when I really didn’t know if I would sing again,” Gia Margaret says, discussing the vocal injury that kept her voice off record for eight years. She continued to make albums — lovely instrumental records like 2023’s Romantic Piano — while taking care of her voice, though that process brought its own hurdles. “Once I healed, there was a lot of internal pressure to come back strong,” Margaret adds. “I didn’t know who I was anymore. So it felt like beginning again, and reconnecting with these very old, old parts of myself.”

However you define it, the appropriately titled Singing is a gorgeous return — a record unbound from time, modern and classic at once, with Gia’s voice firmly at the center. The album was made in London with Frou Frou’s Guy Sigsworth, as well as in Eau Claire and Chicago, with contributions from Kurt Vile, Amy Milan (Stars), David Bazan, Sean Carey (Bon Iver), Deb Talan (The Weepies), and longtime collaborator Doug Saltzman. She surrounds her voice with multilayered, atmospheric production colored by warm piano (both electric and acoustic), glitchy electronics, choral voices, pedal steel, and waves of synthesizers. (And, on “Phone Screen,” the sound of a vintage modem booting up.)

An album that rewards with every listen, Singing would be a perfect comedown record for your next rave in a forest, and my only real criticism is that it might be too short.

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Carla dal Forno – Confession (Kallista)
Fourth solo album from this minimalist Australian post-punk artist is her hookiest and most darkly revealing yet

“This wasn’t the album I intended to make,” says Carla dal Forno of her fourth solo album. “I originally wanted something veiled and abstract, but I realised I couldn’t hide behind abstraction — the songs only worked when I leaned into emotional truth.” Confession is right, and at times it can be a little squirmy as she explores love, lust, jealousy, obsession, and loneliness in a small town where there aren’t the options a city affords.

If Confession is sometimes uncomfortable in its emotional honesty, dal Forno balances it with her friendliest melodies and arrangements to date. She remains in a spare post-punk world — Young Marble Giants is a clear touchstone — but the spacey arrangements stack hooks masterfully across the stereo field, making for a surprisingly filling meal in a lean 41 minutes.

The best songs lean into dub, often built on the rarely failing combo of loping basslines and melodica leads. It’s there, on tracks like “Nighttime,” that the groove most fully matches the album’s darker themes.

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White Fence – Orange (Drag City)
Tim Presley mixes love, loss, and jangly melody on his first White Fence album in seven years

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Tim Presley. Orange is the first album from White Fence — the group whose membership is almost as revolving as The Fall (a band he was once a member of) — in seven years, and the first since his musical/romantic relationship with Cate Le Bon ended. I’m not sure what he’s been up to in that time, but he seems in especially fine form on these 11 tracks, which pull from his usual mix of ’60s psych and ’80s UK anorak indie influences.

Helping out this time is old friend Ty Segall, who plays drums on most of the tracks, mixed the album, and offered up his Harmonizer II studio to record it. Presley says his inspirations this time were “love/loss, addiction/rehabilitation, and a good long look in the mirror (by way of a shop window reflection in San Francisco). But also the absurdity of life….. I wanted to sing my little heart out. Sing life.”

If you like jangly 12-string guitars and melancholic pop — whether it’s The Byrds and The Kinks or The Smiths and Echo & The Bunnymen — check out “Reflection In a Shop Window On Polk,” which plays like “I See No Evil” by way of “Only a Shadow.” Orange is probably your color.

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WIDGET – CLASSY HITS VOL.2 (Peach Records)
London indie supergroup/side project mix ’80s shambolic disco with our turbulent modern times

This week’s awesome record you didn’t know you needed: the debut album from London’s WIDGET, which features members of Big Joanie, all cats are beautiful, Junodef, and Zahra Haji Fath Ali Tehrani. It’s titled CLASSY HITS VOL. 2, which is pretty funny but also accurate, as all seven songs could be singles.

We’re firmly in indie disco territory here, recalling everything from Orange Juice and The Style Council to Pulp and both Ian and Baxter Dury. As light, fun, and funky as the music is, WIDGET are dancing their way through dark times. “Sometimes I get the overwhelming feeling that everything is completely fucked,” Ky Acab intones on “Chamois Leather” in a breathy baritone over a killer groove that might have you throwing in a “Bad Girls”-style “beep beep!”

WIDGET may not be offering solutions to the world’s many problems, but CLASSY HITS VOL. 2 makes it clear you’ll at least feel better dancing through them.

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Doug Gillard – Parallel Stride (Dromedary)
One of indie rock’s great sidemen makes a case for frontman status on his terrific fourth solo album

Doug Gillard has been in a lot of very different bands over the last 30+ years, including Guided by Voices, Bambi Kino, Cobra Verde, Nada Surf, and My Dad Is Dead, to name just five — and you can hear a little bit of all of them on his new solo album. He plays just about everything except drums on Parallel Stride, which slides easily between ultra-melodic power pop and wiry post-punk.

That might sound like an odd mix on paper, but it feels effortless on songs like “Faces of Smiles,” “Yes She Loves Me,” “My Friends,” “Cannons,” and “Until I See You Again.” Gillard may be best known as a sideman, but Parallel Stride makes a strong case that he’s a star in his own right.

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Season 2 – The Power of Now (Upset the Rhythm)
The debut album from this Melbourne band featuring members of Parsnip and The Stroppies is jangly, scrappy, and loaded with earworms

I liked the debut album from Season 2 before I knew who they were, but it turns out the band are made up of current and former members of a lot of Melbourne, Australia bands I already liked, including Parsnip and The Stroppies. The Power of Now sounds like a lost album from 1980, full of fiercely strummed guitars, effects-laden leads, jumble-sale keyboards, driving melodic bass, and the kind of drum compression you can only get when it’s recorded on a cassette four-track.

Do you like The Feelies, Kleenex/Liliput, and other early post-punk mutant pop? This album, loaded with ultra-catchy, off-kilter earworms, ticks most of those boxes.

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CAVS – Sojourn (PDOOM)
With help from Mildlife’s Jim Rindfleish, King Gizzard drummer Michael Cavanaugh delivers breezy, tropical instrumentals

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are one of the most prolific groups of the last decade, and even more so if you factor in the members’ solo projects. Here we have drummer Michael Cavanagh, whose 2021 debut as CAVS was “100% PERCUSSION,” but his sophomore album heads in a very different direction: jazzy, tropical instrumental music.

The wider scope makes sense when you realize he teamed up with Jim Rindfleish of Aussie disco-prog band Mildlife, and brought in a number of other players wielding a variety of exotic instruments. Do you like flutes? Lots of flutes? What about congas? Are you open to song titles like “Victoria Amazonica” and “Death Bat”? Sojourn is a vivid trip through the rainforest.

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Maxwell Farrington & Le Superhomard – Window Tax (Talitres)
Lush orchestral pop with a knowing wink — it’s this duo’s strongest set yet

Australian singer Maxwell Farrington and French producer Le Superhomard are back with another serving of lush, trippy orchestral pop. This is their third album together, and like the first two, the inspirations are obvious to some: Scott Walker, Lee Hazlewood, Leonard Cohen, by way of Stereolab and Air.

Le Superhomard’s Christophe Vaillant has the magic touch for these sweeping, playful arrangements full of vintage equipment — he gets some help from Tuung’s Mike Lindsay in the keyboard department — and Farrington brings just the right mix of melodrama and whimsy to the vocals. Window Tax is their best album yet, and gourmands will especially savor the title track, which features lines like “Normally I dine alone but for you I’ll make an exception,” “Will you eat that or just use it to seduce me out of my cologne,” and may be the only (English-language) song to ever rhyme the phrase “mise en place.” Delightful and delicious.

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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: The Divine Comedy – Casanova (Setanta, 1996)
The Divine Comedy’s grandest, cheekiest, and most enduring statement 

Neil Hannon has been making delightfully witty, baroque, and decidedly British pop as The Divine Comedy for 37 years, scoring a number of UK hits in the ’90s and ’00s while remaining largely unknown in the United States. After debuting with the R.E.M.-esque Fanfare for the Comic Muse, Hannon turned The Divine Comedy into a solo project, embraced the harpsichord, and in quick succession made the wonderful, modestly budgeted Liberation in 1993 and Promenade in 1994. But with Britpop in full swing, Hannon saw his moment and seized it with 1996’s Casanova, which is arguably his masterwork.

Backed by an orchestra, Casanova is an embrace of classic British culture by way of Scott Walker and Jacques Brel, with Hannon’s droll songs dressed in knowingly over-the-top arrangements. He also adopts a character for much of the album — an overeducated cad who uses his charms to woo as many women as possible. If you aren’t opposed to pomp, circumstance, and a little light, ironic cheekiness, Casanova is hard to resist, from opener “Something for the Weekend” to the Michael Caine ode “Becoming More Like Alfie,” the Breakfast at Tiffany’s-inspired “The Woman of the World,” and “Songs of Love,” which doubled as the theme to British sitcom Father Ted.

Falling outside the concept is the album’s best song — arguably Hannon’s finest, too — “The Dogs and the Horses,” a devastating meditation on death that will leave no pet lover dry-eyed. All those strings and harpsichords have helped Casanova age like fine wine, and it still tastes great at 30.

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THE MOON & THE MELODIES: 12 SONGS FEATURING ELIZABETH FRASER

This Mortal Coil – “A Song to the Siren”

Most people want Elizabeth Fraser for her voice’s more angelic qualities, but she’s got quite the range, and her lower register can be just as transportive, as this spine-tingling cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” proves. This Mortal Coil was the recording project of 4AD Records founder Ivo Watts-Russell and producer John Fryer, and “Song to the Siren” — Ivo’s favorite song of all time — was TMC’s debut single in 1983. With guitar from Robin Guthrie, it remains one of the most unforgettable showcases for Fraser’s emotive pipes. This Mortal Coil’s version has touched a lot of people over the years, perhaps none more so than filmmaker David Lynch, who has called it his favorite piece of music ever. He was obsessed with “Song to the Siren” during the making of Blue Velvet, and wanted Fraser and Guthrie to perform it in the film, but usage rights were out of the film’s budget. Lynch eventually got to use it 10 years later in Lost Highway. “That song does something to me, for sure,” Lynch told The Guardian.

Jeff Buckley & Elizabeth Fraser – “All Flowers in Time (Bend Toward the Sun)” (demo)

Jeff Buckley loved This Mortal Coil’s cover of his father’s “Song to the Siren,” and the musical admiration was mutual, as Fraser was enamored with Jeff Buckley’s album Grace. Their mutual admiration grew into a short but passionate love affair somewhere around 1994, which was not long after her relationship with Robin Guthrie ended. (Cocteau Twins continued till 1997.) “I just couldn’t help falling in love with him,” she said in BBC documentary Jeff Buckley – Everybody Here Wants You. “I read his diaries, he read mine. We’d just swap…I’ve never done that with anybody else.” While it didn’t last, at least one song was written during their relationship. “All the Flowers in Time (Bend Toward the Sun)” is a gorgeous duet between Buckley and Fraser, with Jeff singing the chorus of “Oh, all flowers in time bend towards the sun / I know you say that there’s no-one for you / But here is one.” It’s a rough demo that has never been commercially released, but you don’t really need much more than their voices to have you wondering what could have been.

Elizabeth Fraser w/ Massive Attack at Radio City Music Hall, 2019 (photo by P Squared)

Massive Attack – “Teardrop”

Elizabeth Fraser’s most popular song, Cocteau Twins or otherwise, is probably “Teardrop,” one of three songs she sings on Massive Attack’s 1998 album Mezzanine. It is the trip hop group’s biggest UK hit, reaching #10, and it went to #1 in Iceland, and in the ’00s became known as the theme song to TV show House. Liz says she learned of Jeff Buckley’s death while recording it which influenced her lyrics. “I’d got letters out and I was thinking about him,” Fraser told The Guardian. “That song’s kind of about him – that’s how it feels to me anyway.” Interestingly, the track was almost given to Madonna. Massive Attack’s Mushroom sent Madonna the instrumental and she really wanted to make it a single of her own. No disrespect to Madge but we’re glad 3D and Daddy G won out. She can still belt it out, too.

Felt – “Primitive Painters”

One of the great UK indie singles — and duets — of the mid-’80s came about through happenstance. Felt, the cult band led by the iconoclastic Lawrence, hired Robin Guthrie to produce their 1985 album Ignite the Seven Cannons, the centerpiece of which was “Primitive Painters,” with its hypnotic, cyclical riff. (You’re right, it does sound a little like Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City.”) Liz Fraser came to visit Guthrie in the studio while Felt were working on the song, and he had the idea to have her sing on it. Lawrence told Uncut: “He just played her the end section. I wrote the lyrics out for her on a piece of paper, she went in, listened to it once on headphones, and then just improvised around it. It was as real as that. It was a remarkable moment. When you listen back to something like that, we knew we’d got it.” A classic was born.

photo by Barnaby Roper

Jónsi – “Cannibal”

One wonders if The Cocteau Twins didn’t inspire all of what we think of as “Icelandic music” — the kind that sounds like glaciers and waterfalls — even if just through osmosis. Sigur Ros certainly got compared to the Cocteaus a lot when they first started, though the band always claimed they’d never listened to them. (Never?) “I really didn’t like that,” says Sigur Ros’ Jónsi of the comparisons. “I hated being compared to anybody. Then I got really into Cocteau Twins like two or three years ago. They’re so good. I understood the comparison then.” Thankfully he came around as it’s given us “Cannibal” from Jónsi’s new solo album. It’s the sound of two one-of-a-kind, unearthly voices meeting in the heavens.

Dif Juz – “Love Insane”

Dif Juz were one of 4AD’s early signings, an instrumental post-punk group whose sound fell somewhere between Cocteau Twins’ ethereal wash and Dead Can Dance’s baroque orchestrations. (The mix proved influential on the ’90s post-rock scene.) Their 1985 album Extractions features this beautiful collaboration with Fraser that pairs her voice with delicate piano and saxophone. The group’s Richard Thomas would return the favor by playing saxophone on Cocteau Twins’ 1986 album Victorialand.

Ian McCulloch – “Candleland”

Here’s another case of two iconic ’80s voices coming together to make magic. Echo & the Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch brought in Fraser to sing on the title track of his 1989 solo debut. “Candleland” has a bit of a Cocteau Twins sound to it, with a gentle melody and treated, arpeggiated guitars, and would probably be considered a pleasant but less impressive song without her. What really makes “Candleland” soar is the alchemy of McCulloch’s smoky croon and Fraser, who is at her most angelic here. The call-and-response at the end of the song could go on twice as long — three times — and would not get old. McCulloch & Fraser worked similar magic on “Heaven’s Gate” from his second solo album, Mysterio.

Medicine – “Time Baby 3”

Los Angeles shoegaze band Medicine were kind of America’s My Bloody Valentine, not afraid to mix harsh noise, ethereal beauty and electronica in new and cool ways. The band appeared in the 1993 film The Crow, performing a rocking version of Time Baby II” in a club scene. The Crow soundtrack, however, featured a dreamy remix of the song by Robin Guthrie, dubbed “Time Baby III.” Guthrie added some of his signature guitar stylings and brought in Liz Fraser for backing vocals. Most of what Fraser does is subtle, but then she unleashes her full power on some “no no nos,” sending things into the stratosphere.

Elizabeth Fraser – “Moses”

Fraser hasn’t made much music under her own name since the Cocteau Twins disbanded. She released a limited edition single, “Underwater,” in 2000 (only 200 pressed); contributed a cover of Chic’s “At Last I Am Free” to Rough Trade’s 25th anniversary cover comp Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before; and she put out this 2009 single which she released as a tribute to her friend and Echo & The Bunnymen collaborator Jake Drake-Brockman, who died that year. Made with her partner, drummer Damien Reese (Lupine Howl, Massive Attack, EATB), “Moses” rides a trip hop vibe by way of the French Riviera, but Fraser’s voice is really the main instrument, with layer upon layer of gorgeous harmonies.

Howard Shore – “Lothlorien (feat. Gandalf’s Lament)” (from Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)

When you’re making movies out of some of the most beloved fantasy novels of all time — say, The Lord of the Rings series — it’s good to have access to a “Voice of God” who is used to singing in invented languages. Director Peter Jackson and composer Howard Shore brought in Fraser for The Fellowship of the Ring scene where the Fellowship rests in Lothlórien, while the elves sing a lament for Gandalf. Needless to say, her Elvish is impeccable (skip to around 2:30 mark on the track to for Fraser’s entrance). They brought Fraser back for The Two Towers’“Isengaard Uleashed” sequence. Speaking of heavenly voices: Fellowship of the Ring‘s soundtrack also featured Enya.

Yann Tiersen – “Kala”

Composer Yann Tiersen, who gained fame in 2001 for his Amelie score, released Les Retrouvailles in 2005 which found him collaborating with a number of great vocalists, including Jane Birkin, Tindersticks frontman Stuart Staples and Fraser, who contributed to two songs on the album. “I was a huge fan of [Cocteau Twins] and of her voice,” Tiersen told The Beijinger. They wrote the fanciful, swooping and dramatic “Kala” together. “It’s like a very good moment in the studio we spent together…to see her working and see her ideas coming from nowhere. It was great.”

The Wolfgang Press – “Respect”

Chances are you’ve never heard Liz Fraser like this before. Certainly not since, either. The Wolfgang Press were a dark and brooding band signed to 4AD, cut from the same cloth as The Birthday Party but with an interest in funk, dub and drum machines. Having become fast friends with Liz and Robin of the Cocteau Twins, TWP asked Liz to sing on their debut EP…for a cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” It’s true. Liz provides the “Just a little bit!” backing vocals in the chorus. “Our version was too rigid,” Wolfgang Press frontman Mark Allen said in 4AD chronicle Facing the Other Way. “It should have been thrashier, heavy, more tribal. It was almost comical by the end.” It’s probably the most comical song 4AD released in the ’80s, and more of a curio than anything else, but it’s nonetheless interesting to hear Fraser so outside her wheelhouse.