Delachute and Madrid Exit (L-R), photo by Orhan Aydin
The music video for Madrid Exit’s “July” (featuring Delachute, courtesy videographer Orhan Aydin) is a little like watching a strange found footage horror short. The song itself his ethereal and hazy yet beat driven. A human figure (Madrid Exit) is in the first part of the video and when he walks off screen we see another with some kind of white mask and what looks like a baseball bat (this is Delachute in the usual garb). Both are walking along a path flanked by lush greenery and the song with elements of background drone and slow, heavy processed percussion is simultaneously haunting and soothing. Think pop music for a Curry Baker film. Watch the video for “July” on YouTube and follow Madrid Exit at the links below. Look out for his debut album out in Fall 2026.
Keith Carne is perhaps most prominently known as the drummer for indie rock trio We Are Scientists which he joined in 2013. Carne’s background in the studio with the band and in the jazz program at Rutger’s University as well as the tri-state DIY scene seems to have given him plenty of chops, the skill set and the cultivated creativity for his debut solo album Magenta Light which released on April 20, 2026. The record isn’t a giant leap sideways from his music with We Are Scientists yet it is distinctively different. The songs are often cinematic in their close attention to atmospherics, mood and pacing. You can hear the underpinnings of an organic jazz structure but Carne allows the songs to breathe and expand as they will drawing the listener in with the music’s imaginative arrangements and gentle touch. It often sounds like what would have happened had chillwave matured more into a more sophisticated dream pop (as many of those artists have). The whole set of songs feel like the perfect music to soothe the mind on a long plane flight or other journey as it explores themes of connection, mortality and existential introspection.
Listen to our interview with Keith Carne on Bandcamp and follow him at the links below.
Kid Sistr look exuberant in the music video for “Maniac.” And the song itself has that kind of cathartic energy that feels like a cause for celebration. While the band sings and plays in a field and play about in the shade of a graffiti-covered underpass it’s instantly easy to get caught up in the song’s infectious, fuzzy melody. The lyrics are about finally breaking it off with the person that seems to gaslight you every chance they get initially drawing you in with flattering words but repelling you with emotionally abusive and manipulative behavior and when you have a normal if dramatic response you get to be the “crazy” person and the villain in their story. And that’s what it too often is, you’re a character in their story and not someone whose own feelings actually matter. Fans of Bully and Weakened Friends will appreciate how Kid Sistr draws from both 90s grunge and emo. Watch the video for “Maniac” on YouTube and follow Kid Sistr at the links below. The trio’s new EP American Teenage Prophecy is due May 13, 2026 via Giant Music.
Macro/mico has a new album A.fter I.ntelligence out June 23, 2026. Ahead of the occasion of its release you can give a listen to “Paperclip Maximizer.” The title alone might resonate widely in meaning and references with various listeners. The song itself sounds like the soundtrack to a retro, dystopian science fiction thriller. Its deeply textural beat with mechanical sounds, layered percussive sounds and what hits the ears like cybernetic beings communicating with one another in rapid bursts and echoing in a giant, darkened space whether in dimensions humans can experience directly or those of digital networks connecting. There is just a palpable sense of menace that in the brain unites the feelings one got from watching the intro credits to Seven and a darker Squarepusher track. Listen to “Paperclip Maximizer” on YouTube and follow Macro/micro at the links below.
La Sécurité’s video for new single “Snack City” looks like a fast-paced collage of the kind of food one might pick up at a convenience store or sneak away from a buffet or leftovers from a dinner or lunch from earlier in the week. The urgency of the bass line is infectious and the spidery guitar paired with the almost anxiety-inducing synth sounds enhances the mood of the song with vocals that rapidly sketches situations in which snacks cleverly symbolize various forms of personal and economic exploitation with end lyrics en Français that mentions often being hungry and being hungry all the time. Because so much of life under late capitalism leaves one unsatisfied in a way that descends to so many areas of life. When the elite are given everything and far more and everyone else has to settle for what they can get there is a generalized anxiety that leads to revolution. This song is just a fun and playful way to put out there that bread and circuses isn’t enough anymore. Watch the video for “Snack City” on YouTube and follow La Sécurité at the links provided. The band’s new album Bingo! is due out June 12, 2026 via Mothland (CA, US) and Bella Union (Rest of the World) on vinyl, digital download and streaming.
The title of Susurrus Station’s “Meshes of the Afterlife” is a nod to Maya Derren’s 1943 short experimental/psychological film Meshes of the Afternoon. While not the proto noir of Deren’s film, the music video for the song involves masked figures reminiscent of a mix of the masks worn by the Brutal Exterminators in Zardoz and Japanese classical theater masks. The song itself has a playful energy rooted in rhythms and textures lending its melodies an otherworldly feel at times as the song explores themes of mortality and struggle and taking a chance on doing something with your time that brings you some joy and psychological freedom from the heaviness of the times we’re living through right now that no one asked for but psychotic greed and power mongers are imposing on us all at great cost to human society, psychology and the rest of the world, often dismissed as incidental to human experience, with it. Susurrus Station leans into the whimsy without losing sight of the reality that makes that more necessary than ever to indulge. While the elements of songwriting and its tools for effecting its unique sound the mood is reminiscent of late 2000s Deerhunter but more utilizing synth and piano more than guitar to achieve a dreamlike quality that draws out one’s capacity to connect with a realm of the imagination and dreams where more seems possible and nurturing rather than limiting and destructive. In that way the song, perhaps hinting with the title at seeing a future free from mundane mortal existence, fees like a gateway to a better time. Watch the video for “Meshes of the Afterlife” on YouTube and follow Susurrus Station at the links below. Look out for the group’s new album Mythomania due out later in 2026.
Melbourne’s Velatine returns with the more industrial-tinged single “Whisper Park.” In the music video the band looks like they’re hanging out in an Australian equivalent hideout that Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston from Only Lovers Left Alive would have fled to for a sequel. The guitars are darkly gritty and the slight echo on the vocals lend them a haunting and haunted quality even as they bridge moods introspective and declarative in its words about being trapped by your own personal demons and inner monologue, an experience that anyone with any sensitivity and ability to reflect deeply has likely had.. It’s like the band took the industrial darkness and moody attitude of Sisters of Mercy, mixed it with a touch of the griminess of The Birthday Party and infused that into a unique flavor of modern post-punk. It’s an update of the original 2022 iteration of the song that was more darkwave to give it more presence and physicality and a truly inspired rework. Watch the video for “Whisper Park” on YouTube and follow Velatine at the links below.
Downtown Denver by Night from Comedy Works Before the Phil Hanley Gig April 10, 2026, image by Tom Murphy
The year 2025 was abundant with compelling music from Denver and Colorado and of all the people I, Tom Murphy, talked to about local music the most avid listener was Vail from the band Monkey Man. As an active musician and someone who has hosted shows at a house venue, Vail has also explored well beyond immediate experiences as well as deep in the underground. So I asked Vail to select several and I would too and there was bound to be some overlap but I think what we were able to cover before it got too late to push the list further is a good slice of the current active underground that anyone would be able to track down and give a listen. Included below is a short playlist of what we talk about in a format that might be easiest for most people to access. A few artists either never had or pulled from Spotify, a decision which we respect. Hope you enjoy listening.
Listening to “A Pufferfish About to Pop” by Booma Bitz is like taking a departure from expected musical constructions and aesthetics and allowing oneself to follow a more intuitive path where music and storytelling intermingle completely. The vivid images of the lyrics and the sounds that accompany each line are like the sound effects that perfectly fit that moment from sound design pieces to evolving melodies that don’t get stuck into a set theme or tempo. Yet it’s accessible and doesn’t immediately strike you as something trying to be experimental. It just is a unique piece that coaxes you into its particular creative universe with an appeal akin to a Dash Shaw or Miranda July film where just going along with the idiosyncratic aesthetic is part of how it works and how doing so is what makes the experience rewarding in the end. Musically one might compare it to late 90s UK electronic pop or some underground techno thing from the 2000s or soundtrack work for a truly left field indie movie but whatever resonances, the song stands on its own as a slice of life you want to lean into. It seems to be about someone giving into daydreams while hospital bed bound in that world where time seems to go on forever and every moment seems intense at the same time. Listen to “A Pufferfish About to Pop” on Spotify and follow Booma Bitz on Bandcamp.
The Poor Luckies have been at it since 2008 when they formed in San Francisco. After a 2012 debut EP the band was on a bit of a hiatus, though not a breakup, while frrontman Danny Cuts focused on raising his son and finally in 2025 the band recorded its debut album Wrong Way which dropped on March 20, 2026. Lead single “Time’s Not Your Friend” is just one of the ten stories on the record and one that seems to tell an overarching theme for the band’s existence and music about striving through adversity and meeting it with some attitude and maybe sometimes just through sheer inertia. The line “Just keep on living, just keep on burning the candle” might sound quaint but sometimes that’s all you can do to get through to the times in life that don’t feel completely devoid of inspiration and like too much static is coming down on you. Musically it’s reminiscent of the kind of garage punk of the 90s like maybe The Fluid, New Bomb Turks and Murder City Devils—emotionally often rough around the edges but honest and imbued with a rebellious spirit and willingness to break with narrow conventions. The record itself has plenty of ACAB rhetoric that comes out of being on the delivery end of abuse for looking and being different and, well, not presenting like some middle class or rich person. It may sound like borderline unhinged garage rock from another era but doesn’t come off like it’s worshiping at the altar of another band and that makes a big difference. Listen to “Time’s Not Your Friend” on Spotify.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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