Little Mystery is the project of soulful NYC singer-songwriter Ivy Meissner. She sublimates elements of folk, ‘60s pop, early R&B, ’70s rock, grunge, and more into a timeless-sounding, commanding musical vision. Her resonant, blues-inflected singing is always at the center of the action, deriving its power from alluring contrasts—smoky and crystalline, inviting and defiant, wry and vulnerable. It is invested with the same warmth and grit as her songwriting, which combines the erudition of Tom Waits and Joni Mitchell and the unrepentant attitude of Bonnie Raitt and Chrissie Hynde. She has been recording and performing original music for most of her life. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Meissner began her cultural education at an early age, absorbing classic rock and Motown before she was a teenager and eventually performing her own songs as part of a duo with her sister. At the turn of her twenties, she began carving out a niche in the NYC indie scene, playing under her own name and broadening her musical horizons through collaboration. Upon meeting Julian Cubillos in the mid-2010s, Meissner found clear kinship in terms of taste and approach—a confidant who encouraged her to follow musical instincts that were outside of the norm. Her debut album, Little Mystery, was out on June 26 on Ruination Records Co.. Little Mystery was tracked at Meissner’s apartment, with a backing band featuring Brooklyn ringers Adam Brisbin (Buck Meek, Cassandra Jenkins, Indigo Sparke) on guitar, Connor Parks (Cafuné) on drums, Ian Davis (Relatives) on bass, and co-producer Julian Cubillos (Julian Cubillos, Alena Spanger) as multi-instrumentalist and arranger.  

Leicester, UK based Neil Hill and his Shopfires project emerged in December 2023 with the single Summer Bruises which drew the attention of Subjangle boss Darrin Lee, the doyen of all things jangly, who offered the outlier Hill the opportunity to release an album. Buoyed by the success of his eponymous debut album, which was released on Subjangle in March 2024, and maybe even beginning to wonder whether the gloriously self-effacing Bandcamp tagline of ‘DIY pop recorded directly into a cheap laptop’ is entirely appropriate, Shopfires returned in July with Holding On To Let Go, again on Subjangle. As Lee himself says, in essence the second album is essentially more of the same, a fact worthy of celebration in the case of this emerging artist. Shopfires truly excel when it moves within the various ambits of beautiful jangly guitar pop in the vein of Brighter, Field Mice, Heavenly or Television Personalities. Often described as cascading, shimmering, rippling, chiming, fluttering, etc., Neil has somehow managed to achieve an accessible sound of harmonious complexity from a single acoustic guitar with the most basic of set ups. Embellished by warm keys and introspective lyrics, Neil has been able to capture an intelligent 80s pop aesthetic in a new and yet familiar way. As if this wasn’t enough, a few days ago Hill released Where We Belong, the first single taken from a forthcoming EP of songs which didn’t make it onto the last album.
It will be fascinating to see where Neil takes Shopfires next. 

With his 2021 self-titled debut, Andy Pastalaniec’s Chime School became one of the defining acts of the seemingly never-ending, prolific and multifaceted Bay Area pop scene. His sophomore LP, The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel, is set for release on August 23 on Slumberland Records. Recorded by Pastalaniec himself, in his home studio on the foggy southern edge of San Francisco, Paisley Hotel sets a moodier tone; slowed and patiently unfolding in moments that highlight an evolution in songcraft, production and arrangement–while still bouncing along with the jangling drive Chime School fans have come to adore. As its title implies, 30-plus years of UK indie pop’s deeper cuts are voraciously mined and refined on the 11-song release that fans of East Village, later Teenage Fanclub, and maybe even Northern Picture Library’s Alaska will devour. The songs on the album are also very much rooted in the Bay Area of 2024, boasting both lyrical gestures to gentrification’s destruction, beloved shuttered bars and theaters, as well as a songwriting collaboration with SF native Mike Ramos, of Tony Jay/Flowertown fame, on the album’s penultimate song.

Joanna Gemma Auguri was born in Poland and moved to Paris when she was five years old and Poland was under martial law. Her family had decided to escape and their journey ended in the German town of Göttingen. At the age of sixteen she left home and moved to Hannover and Hamburg. and then to Berlin where she attended acting school. Instead of becoming an actress though, she lost her heart to music and started writing songs. In 2008 Joanna Gemma Auguri was invited to play a strange event in London. It was called “The Saddest Music in the World”. The event was a contest. A large number of artists played one song each. After the end the performances the audience had to vote, which of the songs was the saddest. Joanna liked the concept so much, that she took the event to Berlin, where she promoted it on a regular basis in the “Rote Salon” a beautiful venue in Berlins infamous theatre “Volksbühne”. Besides, she played in bands, toured al lot and worked as program director for the legendary “Bar 25” a buzzing techno hangout and creative universe for the Berlin scene. With the start of the pandemic Joanna decided, that it was time to focus on her own music. With an accordion, a zither and her unique voice she recorded 11, her first album. She self-produced everything and started her own label “Lavender Music”. The album came out in 2021. Her second album HIRAETH was released on June 28th, 2024 on Duchess Box Records from Berlin. The Welsh word describes a blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing. One of the songs of the album features British actress and musician Keely Forsyth.