Atwood Journal is worked up to share our Editor’s Picks column, written and curated by Editor-in-Chief Mitch Mosk. Each week, Mitch will share a set of songs, albums, and artists who’ve caught his ears, eyes, and coronary heart. There may be a lot unbelievable music on the market simply ready to be heard, and all it takes from us is an open thoughts and a willingness to pay attention. By our Editor’s Picks, we hope to shine a lightweight on our personal music discoveries and showcase a various array of latest and up to date releases.
This week’s Editor’s Picks options Dancer, Adam Melchor & Mt. Pleasure, CMAT, Arcy Drive, Sydney Sprague, and Charlotte OC!
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“not nothing”
by Dancer
Dynamic, dramatic, and totally all-consuming, Dancer’s “not nothing” is an unapologetic and all-consuming eruption wrapped in a few of the most anthemic indie rock I’ve heard in years. That very same ardour and starvation you’re feeling from The Killers’ Sizzling Fuss and The Strokes’ Is This It – two really simple classics – is current all through Dancer’s daring and boisterous sophomore EP all my finest buddies (independently launched April 11th), a “uncooked tribute to resilience and connection” that sees the Newcastle, Australia-based trio pouring their hearts and souls right into a 4 breathtaking, irresistible, and simple barnburners.
I’m not nothing
I’m not something in any respect such as you
I’m not nothing
all of the lies you mentioned ain’t true
Take your vices
I don’t wanna strive it
I’m a bit bit wonderful
Now you don’t get expertise it
For Dancer’s frontman Chris Quinton, “not nothing” is each a private mission assertion and a ‘f* you’ form of track – the musical launch of rigidity and feelings which have been increase inside him and his bandmates for years.
“I grew up with an awesome narrative in my thoughts that I wasn’t value something,” he tells Atwood Journal. “It’s a crippling and painful technique to see your self. This track got here as my manner of telling these voices to f* off; that they weren’t welcome and fully not true. They had been mentioned by somebody in my life who was in ache and who was simply passing it on, making it simpler to see their narrative as simply that, a story. Yeah, it nonetheless hurts to consider, however I obtained a sick track – and I’m fairly proud to have written it.”
Quinton and his bandmates attain a sonic and emotional climax within the track’s feverish refrain, his phrases a sound rejection of previous statements and a spirited embrace of his personal inside fact.
You bought me falling
You bought me falling
However you don’t give a rattling about it
You don’t give a rattling about it
Burning shiny from a warmth deep inside, “not nothing” is a passionate, invigorating, and empowering anthem – an inspiring track reminding us not simply of our personal potential, but in addition of our energy – that we will reclaim and outline our personal narratives, and we shouldn’t let anybody make us assume in any other case.
I’m not nothing
Been telling myself for years
Cease that feeling
That you just made me so imagine
You bought me falling
You bought me falling
However you don’t give a rattling about it
Don’t give a rattling about it
With all my finest buddies and “not nothing” specifically, Dancer have crafted a cathartic and fascinating coming-of-age file – one which captures the messiness of development, the load of emotional scars, and the fun of lastly discovering your voice. They’re loud, they’re uncooked, they’re relentless — and theirs is strictly the form of hearth indie rock was made for.
I can stand alone two ft
No man on the mercy seat
Discover spirit in dawn
No distress to hold now
I could make my very own excessive
Not dwelling together with your parasites
Not believing in your junk lies
I’m not nothing, nothing, nothing
“Room on Your Shoulder”
by Adam Melchor & Mt. Pleasure
Just as Bob Dylan did with “Blowin’ within the Wind”; simply as Joni Mitchell did with “Each Sides Now”; simply as Tracy Chapman did with “Quick Automobile”; and simply as Noah Kahan did with “Stick Season”; Adam Melchor has now achieved with “Room on Your Shoulder” – contributing his personal timeless, heartfelt, and achingly lovely entry to the good American folks custom: A contemporary basic, steeped in tenderness and vulnerability, destined to endure, resonate, and be handed down from technology to technology.
I considered going out,
now I simply wanna keep in
I noticed you leaving city with your folks
I assumed I’d know by now
when you and me had been meant
And if you considered
giving this a go once more
Is there room in your shoulder?
Launched January 10th through R&R / Good Boy information and that includes Mt. Pleasure’s Matt Quinn and Sam Cooper, “Room on Your Shoulder” is Adam Melchor’s love letter to enduring friendship: An outstretched hand, a candid confession, and an sincere plea for assist and emotional help, all wrapped into one soul-baring, sweetly stirring serenade. The lead single off his forthcoming third studio album The Diary of Residing (out Could 2nd) finds the New Jersey-bred, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter reaching deep into his emotional core, providing up a second of uncooked, human connection. Melchor blends poetic lyricism with a heat, acoustic intimacy as he sings of being there for somebody of their darkest hour — and of needing that very same grace in return. With Matt Quinn’s delicate harmonies and Noah Conrad’s textured manufacturing, “Room on Your Shoulder” turns into greater than a track: It’s a protected area, a sanctuary, and a testomony to the quiet energy present in merely displaying up for each other.
Proof that the perfect issues take time, Melchor reveals that this track has been seven years within the making – having began when he was on tour with Mt. Pleasure again in 2018. “‘Room on Your Shoulder’ is a track about friendship, longevity, and the true testomony of the artistic course of – and it lastly obtained completed this previous yr after I was recording The Diary of Residing,” he smiles. “This track meant a lot to me and a lot to us that it actually took a very long time to get the manufacturing proper. Once I lastly confirmed it to Noah Conrad, the producer of the album, he actually knew what to do with it and stripped it again to its most simple type, which is principally simply the way it sounded the day we wrote it. Mt. Pleasure is likely one of the first bands that ever let me open for them on tour, and it actually led to me loving the street life a lot. So, this track is a very, actually nice reminder of how lengthy good issues can take.”
Tryna to avoid wasting your colours
whereas the partitions are caving in
Seems like rising gardens from cement
I’m simply left to marvel
when you had some like to lend
And when you thought
about giving this a go once more
Is there room in your shoulder?
Is there room in your shoulder?
I don’t know the best way to get there,
however I do know what I would like
Is there room in your shoulder?
Each intimately private and universally enduring, “Room on Your Shoulder” captures each the brutal lows and euphoric highs of our shared human situation. Thematically, Melchor and Mt. Pleasure reckon with emotions of heartache, nostalgia, grief, and craving, exploring acquainted pangs of loneliness and longing, and the way we so naturally flip to our family members in our darkest moments. It additionally captures the heat of getting these of us close by, and what it means on a visceral degree to have that form of deep love and emotional mild in our lives. Melchor’s mild lilt meets Matt Quinn’s raspier grit in a fragile concord that appears like a dialog between previous buddies – bruised however not damaged, weak but full of affection.
“It has taken many twists and turns, however all the time the track nonetheless remained close to and expensive to our hearts,” Melchor tells Atwood Journal. “This track is supposed to be a track about forgiveness and a future previous the ache you’re feeling within the current. It additionally turned out to be an ode to camaraderie and friendship, and the way the chapters of our lives would not have to outline the chapters forward.”
“The lyrics within the bridge are, ‘you had been all the time by my aspect from LA to NJ,’ and each of those locations have given me the remainder of the world. I really like NJ, I really like LA, and I really like the group that it’s given me.”
I discover it laborious to go to sleep when nobody out right here will get mе
‘Trigger you had been all the time by my sidе from L.A. to New Jersey
And if you considered giving this a go once more
If you considered giving this a go once more
The most recent addition to the pantheon of basic folks songs, “Room on Your Shoulder” aches in and out within the sweetest and warmest of the way. It’s breathtaking summation of the human expertise; the form of track that reminds us we’re not alone — that even in our heaviest moments, there’s all the time room for connection, compassion, and hope. Subsequent time you want somebody, all you should do is ask, “Is there room in your shoulder?”
Is there room in your shoulder?
Is there room in your shoulder?
I don’t know the best way to get there,
however I do know what I would like
Is there room in your shoulder?
Is there room in your shoulder?
Inform me what you want
“Working/Planning”
by CMAT
A radiant unraveling wrapped in shimmer and strife, CMAT’s “Working/Planning” aches with the load of expectation and the desperation to really feel sufficient. It’s the sound of somebody caught mid-sprint, making an attempt to maintain up with a life they by no means consciously selected — an electrifying, emotionally-charged anthem that confronts the pressures of societal conformity, particularly as they have an effect on ladies. Gliding on glistening synths and regular, hypnotic beats, the Irish singer/songwriter (and longtime Atwood favourite!) turns private turmoil into one thing surprisingly euphoric: A lament disguised as a candy singalong, a reckoning wearing glitter.
“‘Working/Planning’ is about having to chase your personal tail to be adequate to exist,” CMAT explains. “It’s an abstracted view of societal strain on ladies – particularly via a relationship lens: You begin courting somebody, you get engaged, you get married, you might have children, and so forth. and so forth. and so forth… all the pieces has to observe this linear sample.”
That push-pull dynamic is written everywhere in the track, particularly in its mesmerizingly cyclical, repeating refrain – a deliberate nod to the relentless suggestions loop of societal norms. The observe doesn’t simply query the “normal” path laid out for ladies (date, marry, have kids); it exposes the emotional toll of deviating from that script, and the way shortly love, autonomy, and even household help can really feel conditional the second you step astray.
“That slim path that everybody is meant to be on… the minute you get outdoors of that, it will get extremely nerve-racking,” CMAT confesses. “I don’t know anybody who’s like, ‘Yeah, love this!’”
CMAT (aka Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson) is not any stranger to tackling laborious subjects head-on; her critically acclaimed sophomore album Crazymad, For Me discovered her unpacking a large, life-changing breakup six years after the actual fact, bringing perspective, critique, and pure ardour to songs crammed with uncooked, unflinching emotion.
“Crazymad, For Me isn’t a lot CMAT’s revenge, as it’s her cathartic, all-consuming eruption,” we wrote on the time. “An intoxicating, impassioned musical launch channeling years’ value of pent-up feelings and uncooked, bodily rigidity and turmoil into one spellbinding, cinematic enterprise, happening to reward the file as charming, churning, and charged.
Launched March 25th through CMATBABY / AWAL, “Working/Planning” is the lead single off CMAT’s forthcoming third album, EURO-COUNTRY (out August 29th) – which she calls her most essential file up to now.
We really feel that weight on this track, too: What makes “Working/Planning” so highly effective isn’t simply its message – it’s how CMAT delivers it. Her vocals soar with vulnerability and defiance, gliding over pulsing rhythms as she captures each the strain to carry out and the quiet sorrow of not becoming in. It’s a track filled with motion and melancholy, rigidity and tenderness – all coexisting in the identical breathless, lovely area. For anybody who’s ever questioned their value, resisted expectations, or struggled with the quiet guilt of selecting their very own path, “Working/Planning” is a shocking, validating anthem of resistance.
“The Itch”
by Arcy Drive
Arcy Drive bottle lightning on their new single “The Itch,” a radiant and roaring indie rock anthem pulsing with youthful restlessness and hard-won perspective. From the jangling guitars to the regular, driving beat, each inch of this track shimmers with urgency and heat – the sound of wide-eyed twenty-somethings studying to reside with uncertainty, to giggle via the rising pains, and to lean into the chaos with hearts vast open. It’s infectious in each sense of the phrase, carried by shiny tones, irresistible power, and guitarist/vocalist Nick Mateyunas’ uncooked, passionate vocals that crackle with emotion.
Stone man days like a rolling wave
It goes on and can’t break
It′s a fats stone to be skipping
With one foot within the quicksand
Nicely all his buddies obtained the itch as effectively
Some misplaced, some can not inform, effectively, effectively
We’re too younger to be working
And too previous to be bitching
Launched March seventh, “The Itch” is the fifth single taken off Arcy Drive’s forthcoming debut album The Pit (out April 18th through AWAL). Following earlier releases like “Oak Tree (Daydream),” “Time Shrinks,” and “Depraved Styley,” “The Itch” finds the Northport, Lengthy Island-based indie rock band at their most unapologetic, uncompromising, and unrelenting.
“Of the songs that made the album, ‘The Itch’ has definitely had the longest journey,” Mateyunas tells Atwood Journal. “The track all the time embodied the power of individuals of their early 20s. I wrote the primary verse/pre-chorus after I was 21 years previous, nearing commencement and nonetheless feeling insecure about turning into an grownup/beginning a profession.”
He continues, “The traces ‘Too younger to be working, and too previous to be bitching,’ I actually favored on the time. They highlighted these ideas of uncertainty in a cool blue collar type of manner. It additionally rolls into the pre-chorus effectively with the traces, ‘And there ain’t no use in understanding what to do or when, as a result of we’ll by no means understand how, and we’ll by no means not care,’ admitting and accepting these emotions of insecurity in a naïve and carefree manner. I favored what the verse needed to say and the path of the track typically. As well as, the music was brash and carried a youthfulness that I assumed actually complimented the lyrics. However one thing was nonetheless lacking. The refrain wanted to sum up the sensation of the track, but it surely didn’t come.”
That lacking piece would take years to reach. “It took me one other yr to lastly write the second verse,” Mateyunas says. “I all the time knew that it wanted a real-life expertise that might give the track some fact and vulnerability. I made a decision to pick a particular second from our first tour. It’s a humorous little story of the band sneaking right into a lodge and consuming the continental breakfast. We had been younger and actually on the peak of our youthful rascalyness. I really like the elevate it offers and assume it actually offers the track weight.”
Nonetheless, the refrain didn’t click on till they had been within the studio. “It really took me till the studio to lastly discover the suitable refrain for the track. And I bear in mind having a smile whereas recording the track as a result of it’s nearly as if I’m speaking to my youthful self from the verses,” he displays. “The traces ‘Don’t act confused, I stand by you’ is a manner of me telling my youthful self to loosen up and that it’s all going to be okay… form of lol. The refrain nonetheless holds the sensation of uncertainty and insecurities as a result of at 24 I nonetheless don’t know what I’m doing. However now that I’m older I’ve a bit extra perspective and left the refrain with ‘We’re blissful as hell’ to point that naivety is bliss.”
And there ain′t no use
In understanding what to do or when
‘Trigger we’ll by no means understand how
And we’ll by no means not care
Began weirding me out
Are we actually all there?
However don′t act confuse, I stand by you
Tossing our youth, and we′ll by no means not care
By no means not scared, however we’re blissful as hell
Ultimately, “The Itch” is a coming-of-age anthem constructed on fact, rigidity, and time. From Mateyunas’ emotionally uncooked vocals to the band’s sun-soaked, full-throttle instrumentation, Arcy Drive strike a robust chord between chaos and readability – capturing what it feels wish to not have the solutions, however to maintain going anyway. It’s a reminder that we develop within the mess, and typically, it takes a couple of years – and perhaps a stolen lodge breakfast – to understand you’re doing simply effective.
A rained out present and a borrowed van
Off to an inexpensive lodge
We obtained stoned simply to sneak in
They left fruit within the kitchen
And all my buddies obtained the itch as effectively
Take, take, to please your self
It′s a fats stone to be skipping
With one foot as we kick
‘Trigger we’ll by no means understand how
And we′ll by no means not care
Began weirding me out
Are we actually all there?
However don’t act confused, I stand by you
Tossing our youth, and we′ll by no means not care
By no means not scared, however we’re blissful as hell
“Honest Subject”
by Sydney Sprague
A disorienting fever dream soaked in vulnerability, anxiousness, and warped actuality, Sydney Sprague’s “Honest Subject” captures the surreal, spiraling chaos of a foul journey in a lodge room — and the emotional fallout that lingers lengthy after the excessive fades. Set to a backdrop of distorted guitars and frenetic rhythms, the Arizona singer/songwriter’s newest launch is a uncooked, unfiltered reckoning with psychological well being, overstimulation, and life on the street. Equal elements playful and panic-inducing, “Honest Subject” feels like spiraling out — in actual time.
Too excessive on the honest discipline
Going quick as f* on a ferris wheel
It’s a great distance right down to the car parking zone
There’s a voice in my head, and it by no means stops
Know I misplaced time on a protracted drive
Now I obtained an excessive amount of, and I can’t determine
If I’m too turned up within the plot twist
And what if we kissed?
On the free continental breakfast
May I resist the implications?
“I wrote ‘Honest Subject’ final summer time after a full-blown panic assault on tour, triggered by an edible in a lodge room in Hays, Kansas,” Sprague shares. “The track carries this underlying rigidity—nearly playful, but in addition unsettling—that initially captured the chaos of life on the street. These days, although, it appears like a mirrored image of the world at massive, all the pieces unraveling in actual time.”
That sense of unraveling is palpable from the soar: “I’m too excessive on the honest discipline / going quick as f* on a ferris wheel,” Sprague sings, launching listeners right into a disjointed, hallucinatory headspace the place each thought spirals, and even the mundane — a continental breakfast, a passing motorcade — takes on surreal significance. The strain between humor and horror pulses all through the observe, making it as entertaining as it’s existentially crushing.
I pull up twenty minutes late
Caught in gridlock behind the motorcade
Least I’m fortunate sufficient that there’s somebody responsible
Guess the presidеnts on the town for presidents’ day
Now that that’s achieved, and all out of thе manner
I can sit on this chair, and take into consideration your face
It’ll in all probability move in a few days
However I gained’t ever know
In case you ever felt the way in which that I did
I ought to in all probability die of embarrassment
You gained’t ever felt the way in which that I did
I believe I’m gonna cry
Sprague recorded “Honest Subject” at residence alongside her band — Chuck Morriss, Sébastien Deramat, and Matt Storto. Following a break up from Impolite Information, the observe marks her first totally unbiased launch. “Reclaiming full artistic management has been extremely releasing,” she says. “It’s all about making music I really like, alone phrases, and simply having enjoyable with it once more.”
However whilst she finds freedom in creation, “Honest Subject” doesn’t shrink back from discomfort. It’s a brutally sincere depiction of tension and dissociation — and the way these moments might be simply as humorous and absurd as they’re terrifying. For longtime followers of Sprague’s emotionally sharp indie rock, this track is each a continuation and a reset: Daring, bleak, and undeniably human.
“God, We Tried”
by Charlotte OC
Charlotte OC’s “God, We Tried” is heartbreak in gradual movement – a smoldering, soul-stirring breakup anthem that lingers within the ruins of a love that was by no means going to final. Equal elements weak and self-aware, the observe finds the British singer/songwriter (née Charlotte Mary O’Connor) proudly owning her grief, her messiness, and the simple great thing about making an attempt, even when the tip feels inevitable. “God, we tried, didn’t we? Nothing lasts perpetually, particularly you and me… We simply must bleed,” she sings within the haunting, slow-burning refrain — her voice aching with equal elements ache, grace, and resignation.
I made a scene on the celebration
I drank an excessive amount of
You mentioned we’ll discuss within the morning
We didn’t contact
If I don’t giggle
I’ll in all probability cry
Who’s gonna run your tub tonight?
Launched March nineteenth through Embassy of Music, “God, We Tried” is the primary we’ve heard from Charlotte OC correctly in almost 5 years, because the launch of her sophomore album Right here Comes Hassle in 2021. “I began scripting this track the day after a failed relationship,” she tells Atwood Journal. “A relationship I obtained into straight into after my dad’s dying in hopes to fill a void.”
What adopted was one in all her most unfiltered and releasing artistic classes up to now.
“I’d by no means arrived on the studio barely tipsy earlier than, however that day was the primary time I did so in entrance of Dimi my producer and Val, whom I had by no means met earlier than,” she remembers. “Total, it was fairly embarrassing, and for somebody who overthinks all the pieces… at that second… I simply didn’t give a shit about how tragic I used to be being.”
That uncooked, unguarded power pulses via each be aware of “God, We Tried,” from the hushed piano traces to the aching vocal harmonies. It’s a track of give up – to not defeat, however to the reality. This holds very true within the observe’s brutal, emotionally charged refrain:
God, we tried
Didn’t we?
Nothing lasts perpetually
Particularly you and me
They are saying time is all we want
I’m sick of listening to it’s a healer
We simply must bleed
From the soul-shaking cries of “God, we tried” to the aching acceptance of “we simply must bleed,” O’Connor’s phrases are heavy, laden by emotional turmoil – darkish storm clouds which have but to clear up. Her passionate voice trembles, sizzling and heavy on the mic as she spills her guts.
Going again to that studio session, O’Connor remembers how readily the music and lyrics poured out of her.
“I performed the thought I had, which was the verse and refrain melody, and as I used to be doing so, the lyrics appeared. I simply allowed the track to occur,” she says. “It was maybe probably the most satisfying writing expertise I’ve had, and for somebody like me who can get too accustomed to co-writing, which regularly leads me to second-guess my concepts, I didn’t query something in any respect.”
There’s a putting confidence that comes via within the track’s simplicity — a quiet reclaiming of voice and vulnerability that transcends the heartbreak at its core.
“If something, I’m happy with myself,” she displays. “This track jogged my memory that I can really write. It additionally made it clear how unattainable it was for anybody to be with me right now in my life, therefore the title ‘God, We Tried.’”
Oh, I’ve a mouth like a sailor
That’s my insecurities shining via
You mentioned you thought that I used to be psychological
However you noticed me and I noticed you
And now we brush our enamel
We are saying goodnight
However one thing isn’t proper
God, we tried
Didn’t we?
Nothing lasts perpetually
Particularly you and me
They are saying time is all we want
I’m sick of listening to time’s a healer
We simply must bleed
Greater than a breakup track, “God, We Tried” is a mirrored image of grief, therapeutic, and self-acceptance — a quietly highly effective reminder that even in our most damaged states, there’s energy in honesty. “It additionally made it clear how unattainable it was for anybody to be with me right now in my life,” she provides, “therefore the title ‘God, We Tried.’”
If that is really the start of Charlotte OC’s subsequent chapter, then we’ll be right here — on the prepared, hearts and ears open, to obtain each aching web page of her songbook because it unfolds in actual time.
And now we brush our enamel
For the ultimate time
‘Trigger one thing isn’t proper
God, we tried
Didn’t we?
Nothing lasts perpetually
Particularly you and me
They are saying time is all we want
I’m sick of listening to time’s a healer
We simply must bleed
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