Atwood Journal is happy 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’s a lot unimaginable music on the market simply ready to be heard, and all it takes from us is an open thoughts and a willingness to hear. By means of our Editor’s Picks, we hope to shine a lightweight on our personal music discoveries and showcase a various array of recent 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 number of the most anthemic indie rock I’ve heard in years. That very same ardour and starvation you’re feeling from The Killers’ Scorching Fuss and The Strokes’ Is This It – two really plain classics – is current all through Dancer’s daring and boisterous sophomore EP all my greatest mates (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 plain 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 attempt it
I’m somewhat bit glorious
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’ type of music – the musical launch of rigidity and feelings which have been build up 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 music got here as my means of telling these voices to f* off; that they weren’t welcome and fully not true. They have 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 bought a sick music – and I’m fairly proud to have written it.”
Quinton and his bandmates attain a sonic and emotional climax within the music’s feverish refrain, his phrases a sound rejection of previous statements and a spirited embrace of his personal inside reality.
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 music reminding us not simply of our personal potential, but additionally of our energy – that we are able to reclaim and outline our personal narratives, and we shouldn’t let anybody make us suppose in any other case.
I’m not nothing
Been telling myself for years
Cease that feeling
That you just made me so consider
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 greatest mates and “not nothing” specifically, Dancer have crafted a cathartic and charming coming-of-age report – one which captures the messiness of progress, 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 precisely the type of hearth indie rock was made for.
I can stand by myself two toes
No man on the mercy seat
Discover spirit in dawn
No distress to hold now
I could make my very own excessive
Not residing along 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 Automotive”; and simply as Noah Kahan did with “Stick Season”; Adam Melchor has now carried out with “Room on Your Shoulder” – contributing his personal timeless, heartfelt, and achingly stunning entry to the good American people 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 pals
I assumed I’d know by now
in the event you and me have 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 data 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 trustworthy plea for assist and emotional assist, all wrapped into one soul-baring, sweetly stirring serenade. The lead single off his forthcoming third studio album The Diary of Dwelling (out Might 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 music: It’s a protected house, a sanctuary, and a testomony to the quiet energy present in merely exhibiting up for each other.
Proof that the very best issues take time, Melchor reveals that this music 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 music about friendship, longevity, and the true testomony of the inventive course of – and it lastly bought completed this previous yr after I was recording The Diary of Dwelling,” he smiles. “This music meant a lot to me and a lot to us that it actually took a very long time to get the manufacturing proper. After 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 without doubt one of the first bands that ever let me open for them on tour, and it actually led to me loving the highway life a lot. So, this music 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
in the event you had some like to lend
And in the event 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 methods 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 stage to have that type of deep love and emotional mild in our lives. Melchor’s light lilt meets Matt Quinn’s raspier grit in a fragile concord that looks like a dialog between outdated mates – bruised however not damaged, weak but full of affection.
“It has taken many twists and turns, however all the time the music nonetheless remained close to and expensive to our hearts,” Melchor tells Atwood Journal. “This music is supposed to be a music 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 have 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 arduous to go to sleep when nobody out right here will get mе
‘Trigger you have 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 newest addition to the pantheon of basic people songs, “Room on Your Shoulder” aches inside and outside within the sweetest and warmest of the way. It’s breathtaking summation of the human expertise; the type of music 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 want to 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 methods 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
“Operating/Planning”
by CMAT
A radiant unraveling wrapped in shimmer and strife, CMAT’s “Operating/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 girls. 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.
“‘Operating/Planning’ is about having to chase your individual tail to be ok to exist,” CMAT explains. “It’s an abstracted view of societal strain on girls – particularly by way of a relationship lens: You begin courting somebody, you get engaged, you get married, you may have children, and many others. and many others. and many others… the whole lot has to comply with this linear sample.”
That push-pull dynamic is written everywhere in the music, 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 “commonplace” path laid out for ladies (date, marry, have youngsters); it exposes the emotional toll of deviating from that script, and the way rapidly love, autonomy, and even household assist can really feel conditional the second you step astray.
“That slender path that everybody is meant to be on… the minute you get exterior 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) isn’t any stranger to tackling arduous matters head-on; her critically acclaimed sophomore album Crazymad, For Me discovered her unpacking a large, life-changing breakup six years after the very fact, bringing perspective, critique, and pure ardour to songs full of 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 report as charming, churning, and charged.
Launched March 25th through CMATBABY / AWAL, “Operating/Planning” is the lead single off CMAT’s forthcoming third album, EURO-COUNTRY (out August 29th) – which she calls her most vital report to this point.
We really feel that weight on this music, too: What makes “Operating/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 music stuffed with motion and melancholy, rigidity and tenderness – all coexisting in the identical breathless, stunning house. For anybody who’s ever questioned their value, resisted expectations, or struggled with the quiet guilt of selecting their very own path, “Operating/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 music shimmers with urgency and heat – the sound of wide-eyed twenty-somethings studying to reside with uncertainty, to giggle by way of the rising pains, and to lean into the chaos with hearts broad 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
Effectively all his mates bought the itch as nicely
Some misplaced, some can’t inform, nicely, nicely
We’re too younger to be working
And too outdated 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 unquestionably had the longest journey,” Mateyunas tells Atwood Journal. “The music all the time embodied the power of individuals of their early 20s. I wrote the primary verse/pre-chorus after I was 21 years outdated, nearing commencement and nonetheless feeling insecure about changing into an grownup/beginning a profession.”
He continues, “The traces ‘Too younger to be working, and too outdated to be bitching,’ I actually appreciated on the time. They highlighted these ideas of uncertainty in a cool blue collar type of means. It additionally rolls into the pre-chorus nicely 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 know the way, and we’ll by no means not care,’ admitting and accepting these emotions of insecurity in a naïve and carefree means. I appreciated what the verse needed to say and the path of the music usually. 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 music, 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 music some reality and vulnerability. I made a decision to pick a selected second from our first tour. It’s a humorous little story of the band sneaking right into a resort and consuming the continental breakfast. We have been younger and actually on the peak of our youthful rascalyness. I really like the carry it offers and suppose it actually offers the music weight.”
Nonetheless, the refrain didn’t click on till they have been within the studio. “It really took me till the studio to lastly discover the proper refrain for the music. And I bear in mind having a smile whereas recording the music 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 means of me telling my youthful self to loosen up and that it’s all going to be okay… type 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 glad 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 know the way
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 glad as hell
Ultimately, “The Itch” is a coming-of-age anthem constructed on reality, rigidity, and time. From Mateyunas’ emotionally uncooked vocals to the band’s sun-soaked, full-throttle instrumentation, Arcy Drive strike a strong chord between chaos and readability – capturing what it feels prefer to not have the solutions, however to maintain going anyway. It’s a reminder that we develop within the mess, and typically, it takes just a few years – and perhaps a stolen resort breakfast – to appreciate you’re doing simply effective.
A rained out present and a borrowed van
Off to an affordable resort
We bought stoned simply to sneak in
They left fruit within the kitchen
And all my mates bought the itch as nicely
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 know the way
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 glad as hell
“Truthful Area”
by Sydney Sprague
A disorienting fever dream soaked in vulnerability, anxiousness, and warped actuality, Sydney Sprague’s “Truthful Area” captures the surreal, spiraling chaos of a nasty journey in a resort 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 highway. Equal components playful and panic-inducing, “Truthful Area” seems like spiraling out — in actual time.
Too excessive on the honest subject
Going quick as f* on a ferris wheel
It’s a great distance right down to the 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 bought 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 results?
“I wrote ‘Truthful Area’ final summer time after a full-blown panic assault on tour, triggered by an edible in a resort room in Hays, Kansas,” Sprague shares. “The music carries this underlying rigidity—nearly playful, but additionally unsettling—that initially captured the chaos of life on the highway. Recently, although, it looks like a mirrored image of the world at massive, the whole lot unraveling in actual time.”
That sense of unraveling is palpable from the leap: “I’m too excessive on the honest subject / 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 guilty
Guess the presidеnts on the town for presidents’ day
Now that that’s carried out, and all out of thе means
I can sit on this chair, and take into consideration your face
It’ll most likely move in a few days
However I gained’t ever know
In the event you ever felt the best way that I did
I ought to most likely die of embarrassment
You gained’t ever felt the best way that I did
I believe I’m gonna cry
Sprague recorded “Truthful Area” at dwelling alongside her band — Chuck Morriss, Sébastien Deramat, and Matt Storto. Following a break up from Impolite Data, the observe marks her first absolutely unbiased launch. “Reclaiming full inventive management has been extremely liberating,” she says. “It’s all about making music I really like, by myself phrases, and simply having enjoyable with it once more.”
However whilst she finds freedom in creation, “Truthful Area” doesn’t shrink back from discomfort. It’s a brutally trustworthy 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 music 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 sluggish movement – a smoldering, soul-stirring breakup anthem that lingers within the ruins of a love that was by no means going to final. Equal components weak and self-aware, the observe finds the British singer/songwriter (née Charlotte Mary O’Connor) proudly owning her grief, her messiness, and the plain great thing about making an attempt, even when the top feels inevitable. “God, we tried, didn’t we? Nothing lasts eternally, particularly you and me… We simply must bleed,” she sings within the haunting, slow-burning refrain — her voice aching with equal components ache, grace, and resignation.
I made a scene on the occasion
I drank an excessive amount of
You mentioned we’ll speak within the morning
We didn’t contact
If I don’t giggle
I’ll most likely 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, for the reason that launch of her sophomore album Right here Comes Hassle in 2021. “I began penning this music the day after a failed relationship,” she tells Atwood Journal. “A relationship I bought into straight into after my dad’s demise in hopes to fill a void.”
What adopted was one in every of her most unfiltered and liberating inventive periods to this point.
“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 recollects. “Total, it was fairly embarrassing, and for somebody who overthinks the whole lot… at that second… I simply didn’t give a shit about how tragic I used to be being.”
That uncooked, unguarded power pulses by way of each notice of “God, We Tried,” from the hushed piano traces to the aching vocal harmonies. It’s a music 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 eternally
Particularly you and me
They are saying time is all we’d like
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, encumbered 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 recollects 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 music to occur,” she says. “It was maybe probably the most pleasurable writing expertise I’ve had, and for somebody like me who can get too accustomed to co-writing, which frequently leads me to second-guess my concepts, I didn’t query something in any respect.”
There’s a placing confidence that comes by way of within the music’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 music jogged my memory that I can really write. It additionally made it clear how inconceivable it was for anybody to be with me presently in my life, therefore the title ‘God, We Tried.’”
Oh, I’ve a mouth like a sailor
That’s my insecurities shining by way of
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 eternally
Particularly you and me
They are saying time is all we’d like
I’m sick of listening to time’s a healer
We simply must bleed
Greater than a breakup music, “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 inconceivable it was for anybody to be with me presently 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 eternally
Particularly you and me
They are saying time is all we’d like
I’m sick of listening to time’s a healer
We simply must bleed
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