LYR - Dark Sky Reservation (2026)

The combination of spoken word poetry and alternative music is something that appeals to me a lot: so this year's BIG SPECIAL will be LYR - similarly hailing from UK but besides that, extremely different: instead of the post-punk spirit, LYR combines the unique vocals with artsy and pretty minimalist electronica and neoclassical music. This is LYR's fourth album and I'm very excited to discover the rest of their discography.

The lyrics here are, of course, the clue. And I already love some of the phrases/sentences coined for the album (especially the chorus in Blah! Blah! Blah! with the actual medical condition choice blindness embraced and used in a lyrical way) as well as particularly clever and sometimes hilarious word craftsmanship. Again, Blah! Blah! Blah! is a great example here: a song I'm genuinely as invested in the "plot" of the song as in the song as a musical entity in general. As could be expected (I knew, there is a post-punky element to this music), the album is very much a commentary about the world we live in as the artists describe themselves as "navigating towards sightings of hopefulness and constancy in an increasingly bewildering and storm-battered world".

The album title as well as a number of songs on it reference also the changing climate which is a) as interesting a topic as it is terrifying and b) not that much touch upon in music. Yet. But it has to be said that the band create a perfectly catchy songs as well. And with ease too. Eclipse is a perfect example of a song that steals the chorus from some kind of radio hit and repurposes it to accompany another brillant sheet of lyrics.

Dark Sky Reservation costs 11 EUR (9 GBP).

Check: Blah! Blah! Blah!

Country: UK

Genre: spoken word art rock

Label: Real World Records

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Ilajan - Villes de Papier (2023)

Ilajan is a debuting singer-songwriter who keeps her music in a very dreamy atmosphere. This is the first EP ever in her discography and Villes de Papier promises a lot for future.

Released by Hummus Records, album is made by Ilajan and her sister, Indiana, who "shape their own delicately oneiric atmospheres, mixing guitars, voices and electronic experimentations". Their compositions are as dreamy as they can be with slow and cozy music drowning the audience with its beauty and calming abilities. The singer/songwriter component is very strongly present here with the artist's soft vocals as well as emotional and particularly poetic lyrics being the focal point of each song (especially mysteriously appealing when sang in French!). I'm reluctant in making comparisons here as I'm not an expert in these genres, but if I was to make a guess, I'd say it's what Tori Amos would sound like if she decided to venture to the dream pop music territories. 

Villes de Papier costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Mad

Country: Switzerland

Genre: dreamy singer/songwriter

Label: Hummus Records

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Ghostly Kisses - Heaven, Wait (2022)

After making me fall in love with her first album The City Holds My Heart and live gig in Poland and after a fantastic release Never Let Me Go, Margaux Sauvé and her band Ghostly Kisses is back with, what she calls her true debut album, Heaven, Wait. Her ghostly presence is felt perfectly all over it so I can't help but be awe-struck yet again.

But it has to be said that while her previous recordings were all about beautiful melodies and ghostly atmosphere, on Heaven, Wait, the artist flirts with (synth)pop music more openly. There's still a lot of her fantastically ethereal and dreamy vocals and a great deal of art-rich taste in creating compositions, but she doesn't shy away from faster pace and clear electronic beats in some places and also in general, the album feels catchier. As a result, we are presented with a high quality art pop that is both melodic, catchy and moody at the same time. Especially in the parts that rely heavily on the piano key sounds.

And it's only right that her music is all about love with its beautiful ("Cause everyday/ You’re on my mind/ In every way/ You’re in my heart from Heaven, Wait) and difficult sides (as in "Don't know why/ I could never make it alright/ Don't know why from Don't Know Why). Still, my very favourite song here is the one that reminds me the most of the previous releases as Clay can easily be among my favourites together with Never Let Me Go, The City Holds My Heart or Touch. This means I can't wait for Ghostly Kisses' Europe and Poland tour next spring even more now!

Heaven, Wait costs 8.5 EUR (7 GBP). 

Ghostly Kisses - Never Let Me Go (2020)

Ghostly Kisses - The City Holds My Heart EP (2018)

Check: Clay

Country: Canada

Genre: art dream pop

Label: Akira Records

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Oka Sun - Twin Flame (2021)

Oka Sun is a musical duo (or "the love child between two long time friends" as they adorably state on their Bandcamp page) from California. Previously known as The New Tenants, the band consists of Yoshi and Mandy and a lot of lovely, artistic pop released on their debut album Twin Flame.

As the intro in The Storm suggests, the album is all about beautiful compositions on piano and violin. Their chamber pop or art pop songs are based on melancholic vocals that sometimes sound more dream-pop-like, sometimes like some kind of indie folk. And so the lyrics they write are very fittingly about finding home, feeling lost in life and tons of melancholia ("Endless seasons/ Growing weakness/ Somewhere I’m sleepless/ Reckless and restless") - a perfect marriage of indie pop/rock/folk and the dreamy genres. And so is the music in the backgrounds with the sad guitar/violin/piano combination that is so moody and atmospheric. But the artists prove they can navigate through various music genres like in the album's finish in Twin Flame where their music turns into very moody post-rock, and, I have to add, I dig this ending.

Twin Flame costs 7 USD.

Check: Twin Flame

Country: California, US

Genre: dreamy indie folk

Label: Old Press Records

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Mariuk - Blue Days (2021)

Mariuca García-Lomas is best known as the vocalist in Northwest, the London-based experimental and artsy project I posted about almost three years ago. At the end of the last year, the Spanish artist released her solo album Blue Days and it's a real dose of ambient pop magic.

The story of this album is very inspiring. Back in 2020, García-Lomas made a public declaration to learn how to play guitar and prove it by releasing a single every month. This album consists of 12 tracks so the artist proved to be successful in her challenge. And although the songs are not recorded in brilliant quality, they create unique, very intimate atmosphere; nothing brings an artist to their audience so much as small mistakes and imperfections that have to be battled with. This resulted in an ambient pop and quite noisy album that makes me think of Grouper or Midwife but with some of Northwest's very artistic vibes.

When describing the process of creating this album, García-Lomas mentions how difficult 2020 was and how she faced existential crises and it's well visible on the release. It's no coincidence that the first song's title is literally Sad and the artist doesn't shy away from singing about the most traumatizing things ("How could you not feel sad?/I'm afraid of dying all the time" or the one of being Almost 30 (that's depressing, I'm already past that)). But this sadness gradually gives place to very much more hopeful tones with The World Is Yours as their pinnacle. It just shows that the album portrays more than just one evolution of the artist.

Blue Days costs 3 EUR.

Northwest - II (2019)

Check: Hunger

Country: Spain/UK

Genre: noisy ambient pop

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Allison Lorenzen - Tender (2021)

The Colorado-based artist Allison Lorenzen is better known as half of the School Dance duo, but this November she launched her solo career with an album called Tender. And just like the title suggests, she gave up her band's darkwave for a gentler and cosier pop tunes.

The album is filled with slowcore/art pop compositions that borrow something from the post-punk and synthwave genres, but the balance surely is tilted towards the warmth of dreamy pop. The compositions are usually strongly based on the moody and never-hurried piano keys and Lorenzen's soft but haunting vocals. This results in an extremely intimate and reflection-fuelling experience that is only deepened by what is going on in the backgrounds. This is the realm of the subtlest guitar noise (so touching in Afterthought!) and ethereal backing vocals, taking what's best from the noise pop and dream pop's catalogue. 

She's not alone in this either; the album features help by her fellow slowcore/ambient pop star Madeline Johnston a.k.a. Midwife (especially well-provided in the single track Vale) as well as Daniel Patrick Henry, better known as Memory Tapes. The music's intimate sadness is not a coincidence here. The whole album is very much focused on the problems of the heart, the emotional changes one has to go through, as Lorenzen is said to be "nursing old wounds from the end of a relationship and her musical project School Dance" and dealing with those in the form of music. And this is something that can be felt on the album particularly well.

Tender costs 7 USD.

Check: Vale

Country: Colorado, US

Genre: piano-based ambient pop

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Haunts - Mayfly (2020) EN

The British project projekt Haunts is one of those post-rock bands that it's not super loud about while it definitely should be. That's what I thought three years ago when I posted about their debut EP A Lack of Empathy and that's exactly what I think now when they released another one, called Mayfly.

The instrumental line up of the band includes not only guitars but also saxophone, violins and cello, what's more, the compositions are so artsy and guitars not pushy so the band's music can safely be called chamber/art post-rock. A lot of neoclassicism, moody fragments (fantastic in Eyes Wide), melancholy. This is no post-rock to headbang and inspire monumental awe but one to contemplate during a rainy day.

In Where We Divide the artists make the pace faster and thanks to the saxophone, their music soundss more and more jazzy. And the further into the album, the more surprises with some electronics and atmospheric post-rock for example.

Mayfly costs 3 GBP.

Haunts - A Lack of Empathy (2017) EN

Check: Eyes Wide

Country: UK

Genre: chamber post-rock
Label: Truthseeker Music

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Haunts - Mayfly (2020) PL

Brytyjski projekt Haunts to jeden z tych post-rockowych zespołów, o których nie jest głośno, a zdecydowanie powinno być. Takie miałem wrażenie trzy lata temu, gdy pisałem o ich debiutanckiej EP-ce A Lack of Empathy i tak samo myślę teraz, gdy wydali kolejną, zatytułowaną Mayfly.

W instrumentalny skład zespołu wchodzą nie tylko gitary ale również saksofon, skrzypce i wiolonczela, a że przy okazji kompozycje są bardzo artsy, a gitary w żaden sposób nie zawłaszczają sobie czołowych ról, muzyka na EP-ce mogłaby być określona jako chamber/art post-rock. Sporo neoklasyki, spokojna, nastrojowe fragmenty (fantastyczne w Eyes Wide), melancholia. To nie jest post-rock do headbangowania i podniebnych zachwytów, a taki do kontemplacji deszczowego dnia.

W Where We Divide artyści podkręcają tempo, a dzięki obecności saksofonu ich muzyka brzmi coraz bardziej jazzowo. A im dalej w płytę tym więcej niespodzianek z drobną elektroniką i nastrojowym post-rockiem na czele.

Mayfly kosztuje 15 złotych (3 GBP).

Haunts - A Lack of Empathy (2017) PL

Sprawdź: Eyes Wide

Kraj: UK

Szufladka: chamber post-rock
Label: Truthseeker Music

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Ljos - A Foreword (2020) PL

Duet Ola Budzyńska - Patryk Banach, który przybrał sobie skandynawsko brzmiącą nazwę (ljós to po islandzku światło), to kolejny znakomity zespół ze stajni wytwórni Opus Elefantum. 

Płyta to w zasadzie zbiór wydanych w zeszłym roku EP-ek, nawet na Spotify figuruje jako playlista. I tak jak należało się spodziewać po nazwie, muzyka Ljos to ambitny, obudowany neoklasyką chamber pop z ewidentnie skandynawskim klimatem. Łagodne, nienarzucające się melodie, akompaniament na pianino i altówkę, subtelna ale dodajaca dodatkowego wymiaru i nowoczesnego sznytu elektronika (Frakkur!), to właśnie jej definicja.

Tak jak wszyscy, którzy inspirują swoją muzykę daleką północą, duet zdecydowanie stawia na atmosferę, tak potęgowaną ciepłym, delikatnym wokalem Budzyńskiej. 

A Foreword kosztuje 10 złotych.

Sprawdź: Frakkur

Kraj: Polska

Szufladka: neoclassical chamber pop
Label: Opus Elefantum

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Ljos - A Foreword (2020) EN

The Ola Budzyńska - Patryk Banach duo that embraced a Scandinavian-sounding name (in Icelandic ljós means light) make another great band from the Opus Elefantum label. 

The album is actually a collection of last year's EPs, even on Spotify it's labelled as playlist. And as could be expected from the name, Ljos' music is ambitious, neoclassicism-derived chamber pop with evident Scandinavian atmosphere. Delicate, non-overwhelming melodies and the accompaniment of piano and viola plus electronic sounds that are subtle but adding to the whole's multidimensionality and modern vibes  (Frakkur!), this is its definition. 

As everybody who is inspired by the Far Norths's music, the duo clearly puts the atmosphere first, one that is even greater thanks to Budzyńska's warm vocals.

A Foreword costs 2 EUR (10 PLN).

Check: Frakkur

Country: Poland

Genre: neoclassical chamber pop
Label: Opus Elefantum

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