(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 195: The Pennys

The Pennys

Self-described “occult heartbreak pop” band, The Pennys are the result of a budding friendship between songwriters Mike Ramos (Flowertown, Tony Jay, Cindy) and R.E. Seraphin (solo, Talkies, Glitz). Their self-titled debut combines Ramos’ signature slowness with Seraphin’s dynamic power pop, perfectly unifying their disparate yet complementary styles. Following a 2022 West Coast tour with Ramos’ project, Tony Jay, Seraphin approached Ramos to record his next solo record. Ultimately, they took a fully collaborative approach. Sessions took place over the summer of 2024 at Ramos’ idyllic Bernal Heights apartment; overdubs by Yea-Ming Chen (Ryli, Yea-Ming & The Rumours), Owen Kelley (ex-Sleepy Sun), and Luke Robbins (Ryli, ex-Latitude) came later. The music itself is simultaneously light and dark, unhurried yet feverish, tender but coarse. The recordings are rough-hewn, riddled with tape hiss and harmonies just out of sync. However, this homely presentation of the songs belies real pop aspirations. Ramos and Seraphin don’t hide their desire to conquer the airwaves. Still, they make sure not to take themselves too seriously. When asked what he’d like listeners to take away from The Pennys, Ramos half-jokingly replied: “how hard we worked on this.
The Pennys’ self-titled EP will be released by Mt.St.Mtn on May 1st 2025.

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(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 194: Weaving

Weaving

Brooklyn singer-songwriter Derek Weaving’s debut album as Weaving, Webs, is a vulnerable and generous work that buzzes like nature surrounding you on a summer night. The musician, known for his work with Tiny Hazard, as well as with Stephen Becker, Lip Talk and a wide collection of other inventive NYC acts, steps out here with his first collection of original songs as a guitarist and singer. Accompanying him are his former Tiny Hazard bandmates Alena Spanger (vocals, keyboards), Ryan Weiner (drums, guitar, banjo) and Ronald Stockwell (drums), plus James Woodall (pedal steel), Lip Talk’s Sarah Pedenotti (vocals, keyboards) and Little Mystery’s Ivy Meissner (vocals). Webs’ lyrics pay gentle tribute to family and friends, and celebrate the flourishing of the natural world while also mourning its degradation. These songs are both psychedelic and grounded, abstract and filled with personal details, and always look inwards and outwards at the same time. They invite listeners to turn and really see one another, as well as the natural landscapes surrounding them. Webs is a heart-warming, multi-faceted first statement, bridging the cosmic and the intimate in an effort to trace the webs of meaning and sensation that link us all.

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(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 193: Will Stratton

Will Stratton (©Anna Victoria in Catskill, NY)

Born in Woodland, California, and having spent portions of his childhood in the Pacific Northwest and the mid-Atlantic, singer/songwriter and guitarist Will Stratton debuted with his first full-length album, What the Night Said, in 2007, at only 18. No Wonder followed in 2009 and New Vanguard Blues arrived one year later. The magnificent Post-Empire, Will Stratton’s fourth full-length record, was recorded in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and came out in 2012, released by French label Talitres Records, focussing, again, on Stratton’s insistent fingerstyle guitar playing, descended as much from British folk icons like Bert Jansch and Davy Graham as from American avant-gardists like John Fahey and Robbie Basho, but with a newfound urgency to his lyrics and his singing and an increasing dissonance in his harmonic sensibility. This was the turning point of his musical careeer, and, after another great and introspective record, Gray Lodge Wisdom,  out in 2014, again on Talitres, Stratton debuted for Bella Union label in 2017 with Rosewood Almanac. Stratton’s seventh album, The Changing Wilderness, out in 2021, saw him shift focus from inward-looking to outward-examining, an approach he stuck with for the first-person character sketches that populated 2025’s Points of Origin, released on Ruination Records (U.S.) and Bella Union (in the rest of the world) in March 2025.

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(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 192: simmcat

simmcat

simmcat is the project of Italian, but Copenhagen based, visual artist and songwriter Simona Catalani. Her world is a homage to the natural melancholy forged by memories, creating an ethereal imagery between sound and visual boundaries. After the release of the EP Soy Milk in 2020, characterized by and intimate bedroom pop and more slacker sounds akin of Frankie Cosmos, or the lo-fi vibes of Karen O.’s solo’s debut, simmcat came out in 2023 with the debut full length I Thought I Was Dreaming, via We Were Never Being Boring Collective, expanding her inspiration to a suspended visionary state, typical of a dream-pop reminiscent of Mazzy Star. simmcat sophomore album, I heard she lost you, recorded in California during spring 2024, will be released tomorrow, March 7th, 2025, again via WWNBB.

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(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 191: Expose

Expose

Los Angeles’ Expose were born in 2019, as the brainchild of vocalist and drummer Trent Rivas, but since its embryonic stages as Rivas’ solo outlet, the experimental noise rock collective has expanded, taking on guitarists Jeff Stephens and Duke Guisness, synthesizer James Novick, bassist Jake Getz, viola player Coleman Sawyer, and saxophonist Brian Bartus alongside contributions from Ray Monde of the experimental psych-pop duo Monde UFO. Expose’s debut album, E., was released in 2019, while their second full-length, ETC., was released in January this year via the magnificent Italian label Quindi Records, based in Florence. On this second release, the LA outfit double-down on a unique blend of bloated guitar fuzz and grimy analogue synths, and come out with a curiously cosmic kind of kick-ass.

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