Keeley Forsyth is a composer, singer and actor from Oldham in the north-west of England. Debut album Debris, Written in collaboration with pianist and composer Matthew Bourne, was released in January 2020 via The Leaf Label. Debris was followed up with the Photograph EP in November 2020, which continued Forsyth’s working relationship with Matthew Bourne, and brought Ross Downes into the fray.
The second album, Limbs was released on February 2022. Where Debris was composed and recorded in close proximity to instrumentalist and arranger Matthew Bourne, Limbs deploys a more expansive palette. With Forsyth at the centre, collaborator Ross Downes acts as another limb, remotely producing the pulses and drones which feed back into the voice. Bourne this time is enlisted to “Bring some of the soil of Debris” into Limbs. A collection of four remixes entitled Phantom Limbs, featuring brand new reworks by Ben Frost, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Yann Tiersen and Simon Fisher Turner Phantom Limbs was released digitally on September 30th.

Mamalarky formed in 2016, growing out of the house show scene in Austin, TX that surrounded their cooperative student housing. But their roots as friends run even deeper: Bennett and Hill met in middle school band, and they’ve played in bands with Hunter since high school (single You Know I Know nods to the big music dreams of their Texas upbringing). When the band moved to LA after the release of their first record, they met Khan. Pocket Fantasy follows their 2020 self-titled full-length debut, the 2018 EP Fundamental Thrive Hive, and support tours with Slow Pulp, Jerry Paper, and Ginger Root, among others. When they’re off the road, Mamalarky now jokingly calls itself “tri-coastal,” with Bennett and Hunter back in LA, Hill in Austin, and Khan in Atlanta.
Six months into the pandemic, three-fourths of the band plunged into a new experiment and moved in together. Guitarist-vocalist Livvy Bennett and keyboardist Michael Hunter drove across the country, decamping from Los Angeles to bassist Noor Khan’s hometown, Atlanta. In September 2020, the trio rented a giant old house with vaulted ceilings, a tire swing, and a bare-bones little studio room. There, the band made its largely home-recorded new album.
The resulting album, Pocket Fantasy is a perfect sunny-day record – imaginative and introspective, an enveloping listen of sky-high hooks and keyboards that soar with joyful abandon. Its twelve kaleidoscopic tracks shape-shift aesthetically and thematically, through ideas about death and impermanence; love and gratitude; nature and technology; humour and hope.

Field School is the new solo project of Charles Bert, who made his mark in Math and Physics Club, the Seattle indie pop combo that set the bar for sugar rush melodies and chiming guitar perfection. After three Eps made available on Bandcamp, Field School’s debut LP When Summer Comes will be out on November 18th on Bobo Integral and Small Craft Advisory. When Summer Comes is a self-made tableau of vivid guitars, eclair-rich vocals, and proactive wondering. It is a treasury of reflections on happiness and loss, and how, like seasons, they pass and return.

Rapt is the alias of Jacob Ware, a musician based in London, England. After 8 years of
involvement in the extreme metal scene and co-founding the death metal band Enslavement, Rapt is an exploration of his other musical passions.
Spanning folk, slowcore, classical and ambient music, the moniker’s name is intended to be fluid and loose, allowing the project to explore a range of genres. The blog Tome to the Weather Machine succinctly described Rapt as ‘Categorically Autumnal Music’.
Rapt’s last album None Of This Will Matter sold out of two tape presses and a limited edition
vinyl run, gaining positive reviews from critics and fans. Rapt new album Wayward Faith is out now on ZTapes.

Acclaimed Glasgow band The Orchids made sophisticated pop music right back in the early 1990s for cult independent label Sarah Records. Formed in 1987, the five-piece recorded a string of singles as well as three excellent albums, Lyceum (1989),  Unholy Soul (1991) and Striving For the Lazy Perfection (1994). Their songs were as emotionally pure as anything else on that label, but they were always a step ahead of their peers in terms of song arrangements and musical ambition. With a casual, unpretentious air they made writing perfect pop songs seem easy, almost accidental, and several great releases followed. The Orchids gained a passionate following.
From Glasgow, and proudly Scottish, the band shares a musical lineage with other great groups from that city, from Aztec Camera to Orange Juice, Lloyd Cole to Teenage Fanclub. All bands that specialize in song-writing that can tell big stories through small fragments, that can make the ordinary extraordinary. The band split in 1995 at the height of their powers. Most of their records were produced by Ian Carmichael of One Dove. They reformed in 2004, and have since released three more albums: Good to be a Stranger (2007), The Lost Star (2010), Beatitude#9 (2014).
Produced once again by Ian Carmichael, who has helped the band create a perfectly-crafted masterpiece, Dreaming Kind is their new album, eight years after their previous one, and it’s out now on Skep Wax Records, the label run by Rob Pursey and Amelia Fletcher.