Raised by a photojournalist and a musician on the islands of Canada’s Pacific coast, Canadian experimental singer-songwriter Ora Cogan shaped her approach to music far from big-city scenes. Her childhood home played host to a constant stream of artists as it served as a professional recording studio. Cogan absorbed a myriad of influences growing up, from Ladino and Rumbetico to American country blues and outsider art all feeding into her glacial and cinematic yet tinglingly intimate sound. Cogan has been crafting critically acclaimed records for years, earning her festival slots throughout Europe and North America, residencies in Italy and France, and shows with Mazzy Star and Grouper. Prolific and experimental, she’s collaborated with the likes of Frazey Ford, Skeena Reece and members of Big Brave. Her latest record, Formless, out in august 2023, took form in the abyss of grief and pandemic isolation. The result is an outpouring of ruminations on awkward love, pain, internal struggles, and a fight to find ways to feel good when everything goes bad. Formless finds beauty, absurdity, humour, and unlikely joy in the bleakest of times. Cogan’s smoky, psychedelic approach to gothic country and hazy folk merges with post-punk, groove, psych rock, and traditional balladry. With a singular voice as much sensation as sound, Ora Cogan seeks out new realities within the smoke-and-mirrors labyrinth of our cruel society. Cogan and her close-knit band are supporting Formless with stateside touring as well as EU and UK dates in 2024. Her performances offer a vital antidote to the dystopian alienation of modern life, drawing overlapping audiences of folk, goth, pop, experimental, and even noise and punk fans together.

For just over a year, Dermabrasion have peddled their fleshy post-punk in and around their home town of Toronto, with a deceptively ferocious live show that has landed them supporting slots for the likes of Lydia Lunch Retrovirus, Special Interest, Pixel Grip, Nox Novacula and Front 242’s Patrick Codenys. The duo 2021 demo EP Lunate marked a return to form for members Adam Bernhardt and Kat McGouran, who started writing and performing together in 2015 with defunct Toronto punk band WLMRT. The five tracks on Lunate with a low-fi production that smacks of early Sisters of Mercy recordings offered only a haunting, shadowy outline of what the pair now bring forward with their full-length debut, Pain Behaviour. Released on Toronto-based Hand Drawn Dracula, Pain Behaviour pieces together a collection of influences reflecting the years both musicians have spent skulking around their city’s nightlife. Produced by Josh Korody (Fucked Up, Nailbiter, Breeze, Beliefs, Vallens) and mastered by Noah Mintz, Pain Behaviour completes the baleful statement Dermabrasion first uttered with Lunate. Korody’s experience with electronic music helped hone the band’s sound to a menacing edge they call “death rock and roll,” swinging equally in the directions of first wave and contemporary post-punk, industrial, NWOBHM and meathead rock.

Mac/Corlevich is an Italian duo born from the encounter between Davide Corlevich and Cristiano Mecchi, two musicians from Verona with different musical backgrounds converging into a new project. Corlevich has one foot in the world of classical guitar and constant artistic activity in this field but has always explored very different genres with bands like Anteo and Galaverna, accumulating extensive live and studio experience. Mecchi, an expressive singer and versatile drummer, has been part of many bands associated with the rock and underground scene, such asneXus,3tons,Poseydon,Supergonzo, and Oui The North, with numerous recordings and hundreds of concerts throughout Italy. A successful fusion of experiences and complementary talents. Drawing from folk, Americana, country, and grunge, Mac/Corlevich distil these sounds and blends them, embracing a sensibility free from nostalgia but infused with intensity. Rain Or Shine, their debut album out for XO La Factory on May 10th, combines those two sonic worlds in an intense and authentic journey that smells of America.

Multi-instrumentalist Eric Loveland Heath, better known as E.L. Heath, is a songwriter from the borderlands of Shropshire and Powys. Founder of Plenty Wenlock Records, member of Wayside and Woodland Recordings and occasionally affiliated with epic45, he has six album and many singles and EPs under his belt, mostly linked to the nature surrounding him, the Shropshire countryside and its quiet villages. Back in 2013 his Welsh language psychedelic pop album Tŷ was named album of the week on both BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio Foyle. His return to Wayside and Woodland is called Cambrian, a collection of songs inspired by the scenic Cambrian Coast Railway line (Llinell y Cambrian). The route has been a constant though much of Heath’s life, often ferrying him to and from the seaside or hearing the sound of its trains crossing the other side of the valley from his home. Through the years Heath observed how its route leaves the narrow valleys of mid-wales and sweeps out onto the seemingly endless curve of Cardigan Bay, or watched the paling lights of its trains melt into the horizon from the platforms of rural stations. Heath had planned initially to write about the experiences of journeying on it, the lives of the people who live along its reach. The trains which operate on this route, the soon to be retired Class 158 DMUs, have been a steady and unchanging presence throughout his adult life. A sound and sight so familiar to him and many others will soon be just a memory.

Ray Seraphin is a Bay Area  songwriter and musician who builds “raucous, large-scale rock songs, then hushes them to ghostliness around intimate, murmuring vocals that tickle the inside of your ear”. He was part of Talkies, Mean Jolene, Glitz, Lenz and Impediments before going (almost) solo as R.E. Seraphin. His debut album was Tiny Shapes (Paisley Shirt Records/Mt.St.Mtn.) in 2020 and a couple of EPs preceded and followed it: A Room Forever EP (Paisley Shirt Records/Mt.St.Mtn.), in 2020 and Swingshift EP (Mt.St.Mtn./Dandy Boy Records/Safe Suburban Home) in 2022. Fool’s Mate is Seraphin’s second-full length under his own name. It was recorded with Jason Quever of the Papercuts at his home studio in Crockett, California. Seraphin had been playing with a full band as the lockdown eased, and this album reflects the live chemistry that he’s developed with his crew: guitarist Joel Cusumano (Sob Stories, Body Double), drummer Daniel Pearce (Al Harper, Reds, Pinks, & Purples), bass player Josh Miller (Chime School, Extra Classic), and keyboardist Luke Robbins. Seraphin, Pearce and Miller recorded the basic tracks live, then added Robbins’ keyboards in overdubs. In addition, Seraphin’s frequent collaborator Owen Adair Kelley of Sleepy Sun contributed acoustic and slide guitars, while his wife Hannah Moriah sang background harmonies. “The lyrics are meant to evoke a sense of corporeality — there are references to skin, sweat, teeth, and breath throughout the album, which I intended to unsettle the listener,” says Seraphin. “On the surface, they are love songs but there’s a suggestion of something more ominous.”