Indiepop fans of the WORLD, unite!
Today we have the honor and opportunity to introduce you to a wonderful German duo: The Simple Present. They are an indie pop band from Stuttgart, in southwestern Germany, composed of Cathrin and Sabine. They met at university, where they were both studying to become English teachers. Their love for pop, and indie pop in particular, is evident in the two songs that make up their first single, available for a long time only as a limited physical 7″ lathe cut (KUS-LC 01) exclusively available at Cologne Popfest 2025.
One of the tracks included on the 7″, the first version of Summer Triangle, was released on all streaming platforms on June 22, 2025, and now, exclusively on TRISTE©, you can also listen to the second track, I’ll Take That with Me, which will soon also be available on the band’s Bandcamp page.
Their debut mini-album, which is currently being recorded, will be released on Germany’s top indiepop label, Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten, in late 2025 or early 2026.

Kristin Hersh is a pivotal character in American indie music scene and the undisputed leader of Throwing Muses: her stance against the exploitation of female imagery and her music, which never indulges in the pursuit of easy hooks, and the angry roar with which she declaims difficult and scathing lyrics made her one of the most influential artists in the past forty years. With twelve solo records (from Hips And Makers in 1993 to Clear Pond Road in 2024) and twelve Throwing Muses records (the latest, Moonlight Concessions, out earlier this year via Fire Records), Hersh could be considered a real rockstar. Yet, she is a wonderful person and a truly music lover: upon meeting her, what strikes first is her open smile and refreshing, sincere laugh. She’s a genuine artist, eager to convey her overwhelming love for music to everyone she meets. Her eyes light up with enthusiasm and sparkle whenever she’s asked to talk about her songs, which she considers, more than works of her own intellect, to be true living organisms. Children to be cuddled, raised, and released into the world. That’s why she was so happy to give us a magnificent TRISTE© Mixtape that now we can share with you all. Enjoy!

Lukas Creswell-Rost’s third album (after Go Dream in 2014 and Gone Dreamin’ in 2018) is Weight Away and was out on Friday 4th of July via Wayside & Woodland Records. It was mostly written in Berlin and finished in the UK. We, at TRISTE©, were given the honour and the opportunity to have More Jam Than Bread, the third song from the album, as an exclusive premiere and now that his new album is finally out we can tell you that his music is fantastic and highly original. It shows a profound sensibility and melancholy, and endless influences and sounds, crossing – as Stuart Maconie of BBC 6 Music said- all sorts of genres: a bit pastoral-psych, a bit prog, a bit folk, a bit cinematic. His songs clearly come from the heart and the fact that they are the result of a combination of delicate psychedelia, dream pop and folk gives them a particular charm and a scent of rural England that makes them right at home at Wayside & Woodland Records.

Emerging from London’s underground music scene, The Sick Man Of Europe is distinctly monochrome in its outlook. Each note counts in this climate – economical but played with absolute precision and conviction. Propelled forward by machines and seeking solace in repetition. The same fears. Looking for answers or something to believe in, but finding more questions in an age of absolutes. The Sick Man Of Europe demo tape arrived in a brown manila envelope accompanied by a short typewritten letter. Information was limited but what was clear, from the name, the imagery and typography, right through to the music – the project arrived almost fully formed. Minimal, but with a strong eye for the right detail. On the eponymous debut album, out now on The Leaf Label, that eye is focussed firmly on the battle between the internal and the external; the tensions between human identity, technological advancement and the pursuit of meaning in the modern world. The Sick Man Of Europe name connects the current post-Brexit landscape to the austerity of Thatcherite Britain and the social conditions that shaped the likes of Bauhaus and Joy Division. These are touchstones for TSMOE, but the influence and discipline of Neu!, Suicide and Swans are just as intrinsic to the sound. Produced as a reaction to previous musical projects, TSMOE was looking for clarity and complete control in its creative endeavours. It’s consciously anti-rock in its recorded approach – no low-end bass guitar, minimal effects and no live drums. Dedication to the craft of focussed song writing rather than attempting to follow current production trends.

Producer and genre-melting songwriter Christopher Hatfield fifth Love Axe’s album, Optimism Paranoia Desperation Abolition was released on June 19th. Love Axe’s early releases (Phenomenomenons, 2011, and South Dakota, 2015) were peppered with indie rock and power pop influences, The Food (2021) was a sort of funky, Prince-meets-Weezer album, while the instrumental Linear Valley (2022) was dominated by futuristic synths. The new album is something more intimate: a softly strummed nylon-string guitar and carefully placed adornments (clarinet, piano, pedal steel, some bass and drums here and there) lead the way, making room for Hatfield’s baritone to be front and center, allowing his wary words to wash over listeners with the kind of vulnerability heard on records by Bill Callahan, David Berman, and Nick Drake. “I wrote this record as a way of processing and grieving all of the terrible things I learned about what humanity and this country are capable of during the first Trump administration. And I could only really do that because it was over with – I don’t think you’re really able to process trauma and grief without the benefit of time or psychological distance,” Hatifield said. But it’s 2025, and here we are, once again, in the clutches of fascist billionaires, hellbent on revenge and destroying the planet. Hatifeld continues, “So this now feels, very sadly, much more relevant to our world than it did when I finished it.” OPDA is a record that is delivered in four parts: quite literally, it considers the trajectory from optimism to paranoia to desperation to abolition.