Hilary Woods - Night CRIÚ (2025)

Another female voice from Dublin this week, but it couldn't be more different than the energetic post-punk of SPRINTS. Five years after the fantastic Birthmarks, the ambient pop slash drone soundscapes artist Hilary Woods comes back with a surprising change in her music, shifting the style towards artistic slowcore sounds.

As the description of the album suggests, Woods focuses a lot on her voice here. But I can't say the vocals really feel like the main focus when they are joined by some beautiful instrumental slowcore-like instrumental sections. I can't NOT feel like the ambient/drone element was traded for the artsy and I quite appreciate it. The atmosphere doesn't change though: the music is as moody and intimate as ever, it's like listening to whispers of a loved one but there are also violins.

The description of the album says a lot of things, I'm not gonna try to understand the more contrived fragments, but I'm sure smarter people may find it inspiring. I will stick to the music as it feels strangely straight-forward, even when Woods is joined by a child choir (actually, I really like Taper), and artistically satisfying.

Night CRIÚ costs 9 USD.

Check: Taper

Country: Ireland

Genre: experimental pop

Label: Sacred Bones

Hilary Woods - Birthmarks (2020)

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Yndling - Time Time Time (I'm in the Palm of Your Hand) (2025)

A few months after this year's EP, Silje Espevik known as Yndling, released her sophomore album filled with the signature cute and dreamy pop music. She used the songs we already know and love and built an LP around them, making it one of the best dream pop albums of the second half of the year.

You can't help but smile when you hear Espevik's voice sounding like the summer evening sun touching your skin feels like. A bit dreamy, very melodic and soft. You don't need much more, it's enough to have hazy indie pop sounds around it and a perfect dream/indie pop music is being born. Especially that songs like Even if it's a Lie (I Don't Mind) and (especially!) As Fast As I Can are already imprinted onto my music mind since the June EP.

I like how the light and swift songs can, when it's necessary, be weighed down with some sweet guitar noise in the background, adding to the atmosphere and balancing the twee/tropical fragments (like in the trip-hop-esque title song) so well. The album is finished with two strong candidates for the best track at the album: the extremely catchy Falling Behind and the most artsy Some Things You Don't Get. There is a lot to choose from on this release, that's for sure.

Time Time Time (I'm in the Palm of Your Hand) costs 10 USD.

Check: As Fast As I Can

Country: Norway

Genre: soft dream pop

Label: Spirit Goth Records

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Feral Atom - Przestrzenie (2025)

Finally the time has come. After a series of great singles, a brilliant EP and a series of collaborations, Ola Beręsewicz aka Feral Atom, one of the most talented dreamy artists of the new generation in Poland, released her debut album. The artist continues her style of creating soft songs, hazy atmosphere and catchy melodies, all in one.

Coming from one of the wildest and most desolated regions of the country, Beręsewicz managed to catch attention of the dreamy music lovers with her almost perfect EP I Dream in Blue, performed at festivals all around the country and secured two extremely interesting collaborations with Tomasz Mreńca and with Kryowake. Especially the former is of interest to me as I value Mreńca's music sensitivity and because he joins Feral Atom at the debut album on my favourite track Visions. This song stand out at the album with its louder, almost shoegazey vibes.

Otherwise, songs are written in more minimalist style, based mostly on Beręsewicz airy vocals and solitary guitar riffs. The structure is completed with electronic beats taken from more mainstream indie music but maintaining the dreamy, unhurried atmosphere (so well done in Cold as Ice). This hazy, spacious atmosphere is so important that the artist entitled the whole album "spaces" with three interludes directly referencing the notion. Interestingly, on the album, we have songs both in English and in Polish and somehow, this doesn't happen very often, I prefer the artist's lyrics in the foreign language. Nevertheless, a really well-done and well-rounded debut.

Przestrzenie costs 7 EUR (30 PLN).

Check: Visions

Country: Poland

Genre: hazy dream pop

Label: Seszele Records

Feral Atom - I Dream in Blue (2021)

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SPRINTS - All That Is Over (2025)

Give me Irish post-punk any time of a day and I will gladly accept it. Especially after last year's abundance of great releases within the genre. But if you add a deal of guitar noise to the picture, I'm immediately sold. This is the case of the sophomore album from the Dubliners of SPRINTS where the spirit is post-punk, but the music provides a significantly loud experience.

The band acknowledges a slight shift in their music by saying that the new release "pushes the dynamics of the band into richer territory, finding new space and nuance but also going harder than ever". And so the songs here are fast and short, hitting like some well-addressed punk punches with energy fueled by aggressive guitar sounds and extremely catchy melodies. But underneath it all, the artists incorporated meaty and noisy layers of guitars, a real and rarely found treat for the fans of noise rock.

I feel like the structure of most of the tracks is also richer and more interesting than at your obvious post-punkers. It's more the IDLES-like songwriting with changes in pace and volume (so great in Something's Gonna Happen) and other clever little tricks that make the album stand out. Also, I love how in Pieces, the guitar riff is so similar to... one from the Polish legendary post-punk band Klaus Mitffoch (from their song Muł pancerny), but I know it's a special thing only for me and a handful other people worldwide.

All That Is Over costs 10 EUR.

Check: To the Bone

Country: Ireland

Genre: noisy post-punk

Label: City Slang

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Desolate Horizons - October Noise (2025)

This is one of the artists who produce tons of ambient music but also every release from him I come across, makes me feel in a very special way. This heavy, overwhelming ambient soundscapes are something you can feel more than hear.

Even if this is not an album, it's just 4 relatively short tracks, it is no different. The sound here feels strange and unnerving, dangerous and overwhelming, but also there is a lot of this airy hope and ethereal pleasure. So it is not a surprise that the musician states the following:"Through this release, I am trying to make sense of life again, and to come to terms with the grief and horror that reality has brought in recent years". What is life if not exactly what the music here evokes?

October Noise costs 4 USD.

Check: An Ongoing Heartbreak

Genre: ethereal soundscape

Desolate Horizons - The Vague and Terrible Uncertainty (2019)

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Hand to Earth - Ŋurru Wäŋa (2025)

This is a special project, you can see it in the album title in Wáglilak language, you can see it in the multi-ethnic line-up and the music itself. The latter can be only described as world music meeting dark ambient and this thought alone would make me very excited to try these sounds.

There is a lot to read about the album (and I recommend doing so on the project's Bandcamp page), but the main things are that sense of belonging and the notion of home are the main themes here. This cannot be a surprise since the members of the projects come from very different places. However, whenever this happens, people very soon discover that it doesn't matter at all as their home can easily encompass entire planet.

There are Korean poems and singing in one of the native Australian tongues that represent the folk/world music part and the minimalist, dark but also quite surprisingly uplifting and soothing backgrounds that add up to the ambient part of the music. The effects are mesmerizing, especially that they are fueled by the use of various (and so different from each other) instrument as the music here is "written in the scribble of electronics, in the sighs of the clarinet and trumpet, in the broad brush strokes of the yidaki, and the snap of the bilma" (kudos to those of you who know what those are, I didn't). 

Ŋurru Wäŋa costs 9 USD.

Check: Gaḏayka

Country: Australia, South Korea

Genre: dark world music

Label: Room40

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Orsak:Oslo - Silt and Static (2025)

The Norwegian (but moved to Sweden I think?) band's 4th album (or tracks 82 to 90 as they kindly inform in the tracks' titles) showcases three things about the artists: the prog's love for highlighting guitar riffs, the psychedelia's love for long and mesmerizing passages and the post-rock's atmosphere building. And it makes a really interesting concoction.

There is not too much of either of those. Even if I don't love prog, I still enjoy the riffs here because they are skillfully used to build up an interesting and rather heavy atmosphere. I don't particularly like melodic post-rock but in here it's the best dose of the melodies and guitar catchiness. There is also a good touch of noisy parts so what not to love? The guitar-based instrumental music that is both genre-bending and quite simply very well-written, creating loundscapes that are as diverse as they are of the same, wild and moody nature.

My favourite track here must be 089 Break and Sink, most certainly because its beginning I associated (first subconsciously and later quite consciously) with my favourite track from Cult of Luna to which it's sort of not too far from. I feel like it's the perfect example of what the artists mean when they say that they "[have] taken several steps into deepening their expression, but still each track carries a foundation and core feel that will spark knowing nods from those who’ve followed the band for a long time".

Silt and Static costs 10.5 EUR (120 NOK).

Check: 089 Break and Sink

Country: Norway/Sweden

Genre: psych prog post-rock

Label: Vinter Records

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