Formed in 2009 by longtime collaborators Katie Haley (Holiday Flyer, California Oranges) and brothers Ross and Matt Levine (Welt, The Tank, California Oranges), the group was later joined by partners Tony and Becky Cale (English Singles, Arts & Leisure), and Hans Munz. With alluring vocals, two 12-string guitars, bass, drums, and synthesizers, the ensemble layers copious melodies, celestial harmonies, and propulsive rhythms with lush electronic soundscapes to create “a sound built to outlast trends“. Previous Soft Science recordings include LPs Maps (2018), Detour (2013), and Highs and Lows (2011), a few singles, including a split 7″ with The Luxembourg Signal (2015), and covers of House of Love’s“I Don’t Know Why I Love You” and Northern Picture Library’s“Paris” (both 2018). Soft Science began working on their recently completed album Lines in 2019, forging the record in their home studios together and at times in isolation from each other during the height of the pandemic, swapping tracks and making adjustments from a distance for what felt like an eternity. Reuniting in person to finalize the mix created a palpable excitement, an energy that can be felt throughout the record. Lines addresses living and loving within the complexities and challenges of everyday life in our fast-paced digital world. Their new fourth album will be out tomorrow, September 8th, on Shelflife / Spinout Nuggets / Fastcut Records. 

Weaving tapestries of sparse, melancholic compositions, swelt meld influences of folk, Americana and post-rock. The four-piece, composed of members of Talons, Repo Man and Iceman Furniss Quintet, formed in Bristol in 2020 and spent the next two years writing and playing intimate shows around the city. Delicate melody and vulnerability form the core of the band’s atmospheric arrangements, using voices and strings to create open harmony.
swelt’s debut release, Red Mountain EP was released by Candlepin Records on the 28th October 2022. The release was followed up by a new single, My Only Reflection, on 18th May 2023. swelt have recently recorded a new EP with Euan Hinshelwood (Cate Le Bon, H Hawkline, Younghusband), due to be released later in 2023.Tomorrow their new single, I Thought This Winter Would Never End, will be out everywhere. But, for today, you can listen to it only on TRISTE©!

Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Freda D’Souza is an artist who contentedly creates at snail’s pace. Her world is small; simplicity reveals detail and, in turn, detail reveals infinity. Her songs place the unspeakable intensity of love and life within a warm and shimmering sonic world, filled with layered vocals, lush strings and dynamic arrangements. Out June 2023 on demo records and Crossness Records, her debut EP Windowledge, performed, recorded and mixed at home by Freda and mastered by Jake Reynolds, explores the trials of intimacy and the value of introspection and forging space for reflection. Freda cherishes space. In space, there is tenderness.
Drawing from classic and contemporary folk and experimental reference points (as much Vashti Bunyan and Joni Mitchell as Aldous Harding and Jenny Hval), Windowledge is a spacious and shimmering introduction to a singular emerging talent.