(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 229: Micah P. Hinson

Micah P. Hinson (©Lina Castellanos)

Everybody knows (or must know!) Micah P. Hinson, a cult figure in American alt-folk, born in Memphis, Tennessee and raised in Texas in a religious family of Chickasaw origins. After a difficult adolescence and years of instability, he debuted in 2004 with Micah P. Hinson and the Gospel of Progress, which received critical acclaim, especially in Europe. Since then, Hinson has built a distinctive career marked by raw honesty, literary lyricism, and a timeless blend of folk and country, with a hint of psychedelia. His following records — Micah P. Hinson and the Opera Circuit (2006), Micah P. Hinson and the Red Empire Orchestra (2008), and Micah P. Hinson and the Pioneer Saboteurs (2010) — expanded his sound and deepened his reputation as a singular storyteller with a bruised soul. Later works like Micah P. Hinson and the Nothing (2014), Micah P. Hinson Presents: The Holy Strangers (2017), and When I Shoot at You with Arrows, I Will Shoot to Destroy You (2018) confirmed his status as one of the most authentic voices in contemporary Americana, exploring themes of faith, heartbreak, and redemption with cinematic intensity. After ten albums, including the most recent, I Lie to You (produced in Italy by Asso Stefana), he went through a profound creative crisis in 2020. The turning point came again with Stefana: together they recorded The Tomorrow Man, written between Texas and Spain. Despite personal struggles and periods of silence, Hinson continues to be a restless creative force, a modern troubadour whose songs echo the ghosts and grace of a timeless America.
The Tomorrow Man will be out next October 31st, via Ponderosa Music Records.

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(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 228: Hectorine 2nd Mixtape

Hectorine

In 2016, San Francisco-based Sarah Gagnon formed Hectorine. TEARS, the band’s second album, followed up Hectorine’s 2019 debut with sketches of 70s soft rock production, folk melodies, and deeply lyrical songs that explore love, loss, nature, and the cosmos. For Arrow of Love, her third full-length album, which was released this spring on Take A Turn Records, Sarah Gagnon calls up the spirit of the Sumerian warrior goddess Inanna to explain the tumult that surrounded the making of it. In Mesopotamian myth, the goddess travels to the underworld to learn what there is to know about death and dies there. Though Inanna is rescued and reborn, she is forced to choose someone to take her place, and when she learns her lover Dumuzi has not mourned her, she condemns him. Hectorine’s latest album tells a lower key tale of death and rebirth, encompassing a period in which Gagnon lost a job and ended a relationship under the shadow of a modern plague and raging wildfires, retreating into enforced solitude until it was possible to emerge again. Arrow of Love recounts this process in chronological order, from the marimba-clinking opener “Is Love an Illusion” through the whispery desolation of Joan of Arc-themed “No Hallelujah” to the bubbling, resilient joy of the title track, near the end, as life and love reassert their pull. And yet, though the subject matter is heavy, the music is not. Gagnon’s velvety contralto — if you think she sounds a bit like Christine McVie, you’re not the first — weaves with assurance among trance-like dream pop architectures. For the album she worked with Geoff Saba of East Oakland’s Itinerant Home studio; he co-produced, engineered and mixed the album, while J.J. Golden mastered it. 
Arrow Of Love was out May 23th on Take A Turn Records.

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(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 227: Tulpa (+ video premiere)

Tulpa

Since their debut single came out earlier in Spetember, we fell in love with Tulpa. They are a Leeds-based four-piece whose sharp melodic instincts and restless creative energy make them one of the most exciting new names in UK indie music. The band consists of Josie Kirk (vocals, bass), Daniel Hyndman (guitar), Myles Kirk (guitar), and Mike Ainsley (drums). Guitarist Daniel Hyndman was previously the lead guitarist and songwriter in the post-punk outfit Mush, but Tulpa take a very different path. Their songs are driven by melody, invention, and a kind of pop exuberance that transforms their experimental impulses into hook-filled, emotionally direct anthems. The raw energy, ambition, and intelligence of Mush remain—but here they’re channelled into something brighter, more immediate, and gloriously tuneful. Their debut digital single, Let’s Make a Tulpa!, is an upbeat, crunchy pop song that bursts into a colossal chorus, recalling the ecstatic energy of The Breeders. Transfixed Gaze, their second single, out today, is another perfect noise-pop song, demonstrating that their debut album has many great songs in store. It is about a world where everywhere you look people seem to be brainwashed, combining zombie-movie paranoia, fizzing guitar energy and Josie’s hyper-melodic vocal.
Tulpa’s debut album, Monster of the Week, will be released on November 28th via Skep Wax, with a series of headline shows throughout October and November 2025.

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(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 226: Giant Day (+ video premiere)

Giant Day

Giant Day is the latest musical project by multi-instrumentalist Derek Almstead and singer Emily Growden, bringing together their pop and psychedelic influences from years in the vibrant Athens, Georgia music scene. Almstead (Circulatory System, The Olivia Tremor Control, The Glands, Elf Power, of Montreal), is known for his work with the storied The Elephant 6 Collective, and has established himself as a respected song-writer, producer and recording engineer. Growden (Marshmallow Coast, Faster Circuits, The New Sound of Numbers), with her background in vocal studies at the University of Georgia, has lent her voice to various recordings and live performances in the indie music scene. Giant Day’s debut album, Glass Narcissus,out in 2024 bore a unique weight — it wasn’t just a debut album, it was the debut album by the first official Elephant 6 band in more than 15 years. With the 2023 wide-release of the documentary The Elephant 6 Recording Co. codifying the E6 “sound” for some and introducing it to others, what Giant Day conjured into being on Glass Narcissus was, if not against type, notably darker than the lysergic, sun-drenched pop associated with their former Athens, Georgia home. On October 10, 2025, The Elephant 6 Recording Company will release Alarm, their second full-length album.

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Chantal Acda – The Whale

Suonare insieme per lungo tempo, condividendo il palco e il continuo viaggiare, instaura rapporti profondi ed una comunanza che va ben oltre il mero stare insieme. Se ne è ben resa conto Chantal Acda dopo dieci anni in tour con lo stesso ensemble, tanto da decidere di affidarsi ad una composizione corale per dare forma al suo quinto lavoro, solista ma non troppo.

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