Atwood Magazine is excited to share our Editor’s Picks column, written and curated by Editor-in-Chief Mitch Mosk. Every week, Mitch will share a collection of songs, albums, and artists who have caught his ears, eyes, and heart. There is so much incredible music out there just waiting to be heard, and all it takes from us is an open mind and a willingness to listen. Through our Editor’s Picks, we hope to shine a light on our own music discoveries and showcase a diverse array of new and recent releases.

This week’s Editor’s Picks features Attention Bird Utopia, Your Smith, Bo Staloch, Matilda Mann, Courting, and ESKA!

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There’s a warmth and weightlessness to Attention Bird Utopia’s debut single; a dreamy unraveling that drifts between wonder and existential longing. Wasting no time with introductions, the duo of Harrison Whitford and Eli Hirsch dive straight into the heart of it all – what it means to be alive, to exist in a moment, in a collection of moments, and nowhere at all. Released on February 21^st, “Infinity Inside a Shopping Cart” is a kiss on the cheek and a cry into the dark. It’s an intimate reckoning with life, time, identity, and the irreconcilable complexities of our shared human experience – all stitched together through a patchwork of tender sounds and sentiments that defies strict structure yet never loses its shape. The end result is a mix of comforting indie folk catharsis and provocative upheaval; a stream-of-consciousness reflection turned poetic mirror to our own macro and micro worlds.

I’m the killer on your tv screen
I’m the buzzer in your laundry machine
All this evil’s gonna break your heart
Infinity inside a shopping cart
What’s the point in even trying to laugh?
The punch line is just a shotgun blast

Hit a car when I was 17
But I tell everyone my record is clean
Cause nothing matters, it never did
But I don’t wanna die a nihilist
What’s the point in even trying to quit
No matter what you just get sucked back in

“This song is a collage,” Whitford – best known as a member of Phoebe Bridgers’ band, whose sophomore album received its own Atwood feature in 2021, explains. “It’s about trying to make sense of things that don’t make sense, and the non-linear nature of lived experience in spite of the construct of linear time. It’s also about whatever you want it to be. Eli and I set up a few mics, I recorded the piano and then he jumped on the drums. From there, we did everything else. The guitar solo has vertigo.” That embrace of uncertainty and spontaneity is what ultimately led to the formation of Attention Bird Utopia in the first place.

Oh Emma had a dream
About the fungus at the root of everything
Guess it could be god
I guess it could be Jesus baby
I guess it could be Buddha
I guess it could be the blood in my veins
I guess it could be the rain
I guess I could be insane

The duo’s story begins in Los Angeles, where Hirsch was executive producing Suki Waterhouse’s 2024 LP Memoir of A Sparklemuffin at his studio. One afternoon, Whitford dropped in on a session, and the two quickly connected. What started as a chance meeting soon evolved into something more as the two found common ground over a shared love of The Beatles, Jackson Browne, and Paul Simon, and eventually, to a band of their very own.

That natural camaraderie carried over into their musical process. “Eli and I set up a few mics, I recorded the piano, and then he jumped on the drums. From there, we did everything else. The guitar solo has vertigo,” Whitford recalls. There was no rigid plan, just a mutual understanding of sound and space.

“This was one of the first ideas Harry showed me,” Hirsch adds. “We recorded piano and Harry singing and then drums. It’s sort of a dream sequence.” They leaned into an old-school, analog aesthetic, tracking almost everything on vintage RCA ribbon microphones. “Harry is a super visual person and a great photographer, and I love how he paints with words. It feels like an image.”

From an impromptu connection to a full-fledged creative partnership, Attention Bird Utopia’s music reflects the essence of their beginnings – instinctual, immersive, and guided by the feeling rather than formula. Such is the beauty of “Infinity Inside a Shopping Cart” – a song that soothes as it stirs, that comforts as it caresses the soul. The lead single off Attention Bird Utopia’s forthcoming debut album Best of Kings (out June 6 via here, here recordings) is catchy, cozy, and cryptic – a blanket of beautiful, spellbinding songcraft for all who listen.

I’m the killer on your tv screen
I’m the buzzer in your laundry machine
All this evil’s gonna break your heart
Infinity inside a shopping cart

What first attracted me to Your Smith’s music, some six-plus years ago now, was her wholehearted embrace of big, bold melodies together with unflinching, confessional lyricism. Tracks like “Bad Habit” and “In Between Plans” hit hard and left a lasting mark not just because of their insanely catchy hooks, but because they had depths and color; you could sing them out loud with the car top down, while feeling something deep inside.

Picking a fight again
Isn’t it wearin’ thin
It’s getting hard to tell
It’s getting hard to call

Maybe the reason
We’re falling apart
Why we’re falling apart

The same can easily be said of “Change of Heart,” Your Smith’s bouncy ‘return’ to the music world after a prolonged hiatus – one that saw her move from LA back home to Minnesota, go back to school, get married, have a baby, and open a bar on her hometown’s main street. From the lows of pandemic-era 2020 to the highs 2025, the past five years have been a true rollercoaster for Caroline Smith, and her new music breathes with the electric energy of her ongoing ride. Released on January 3^rd, the indie pop artist’s first single since 2019 is a sweet, deep exhale – of a relationship, and of the past.

“This song is about the loss of love rather than the loss of a relationship,” she explains. “Sometimes relationships crash and burn, they leave you spun out for years, writing songs about heartbreak and picking up the pieces. But as you age, sometimes relationships just turn to lukewarm bath water, and the scariest part isn’t heart break, it’s disentangling yourself from comfort and habit.”

“I also liked writing from an air of indifference, like ‘I’ve had a change of heart, it’s really not that deep.’ I feel putting space between the emotion and the action has been wildly transformative for me in life, so it kind of honors that if that makes sense!”

Isn’t my sister
Or you crashing my car
It’s change of heart

It’s a whiff of a feeling that grows in your sleep
Keeping you up til the dawn
How many phones can you throw at a wall?
It’s a change, it’s a change of heart

Smith sings hot on the mic, her voice front and center as glistening piano chords and buoyant bass guitar lines fill the air with ease and wonder. It’s a soft, yet stirring ‘hello’ to fans new and old, even as she cuts ties in the lyrics.

Both “Change of Heart” and February’s single “Peaches” offer a glimpse at what Smith calls a reinvention of her career, on her terms. They’re also the first two singles off her upcoming, long-awaited debut album as Your Smith, set to release later this year.

“To me, it feels more like a de-invention because I decided to strip back any kind of image that was put-on or wrought with effort,” Smith admits. “Your Smith was pure invention. I created a character, I picked out a uniform she wore, I wrote songs that I felt were cool. I needed armor after a particularly sensitive time in my life and in my career, and Your Smith offered me that protection and distance from the industry and listenership.”

“But these days I feel much more comfortable, like I’m ready to reconnect my personal self with the work I make again. I don’t need a uniform or an airtight sound. I feel most myself being a little underdressed, a teeny bit sloppy, the production a little looser, realer, and human.”

You keep the sofa
Just keep it all
And start walking it off

Why do we keep on
Making it hard
It’s a change of heart

It’s a shift of some weight that builds on your back
Catching your balance off guard
How many feelings can you throw to the dogs
It’s a change, it’s a change of heart

Time may sour some relationships, but my admiration of Your Smith and love for her music remains as strong as ever. “Change of Heart” is the perfect reintroduction – an intimate, groovy, enchanting, and assertive song that is as captivating as it is cathartic and comforting. Welcome back.

Here I am
It’s 10:00 AM
I’m putting you back in my phone again
I never claimed
I was good at clean breaks
Or spending the night alone, but damn

(Maybe the reason)
(We’re falling apart)
Why we’re falling apart

Why we’re falling apart
I may be the reason
I may be the reason
Why we’re falling apart

The name of the game is release – emotional and physical – and “Give It a Break” has both in spades. Bo Staloch’s first song of the year – and the opening track to his brand-new EP, The Garden – is a charged and churning folk-rock fever dream driven by raw feelings on- and off-stage.

I called you honey, called you funny
Who the hell are you to cry?
If love is funny, take my money
Set the joke on fire

Give it a break now
Give it a break now

“The concept of ‘Give It a Break’ was originated on my first ever tour this past fall,” the Capitol Records-signed singer/songwriter tells Atwood Magazine. “I feel like my subconscious holds a lot of power over my writing, and I think this song is a prime example of that. I was obviously inspired by the energy and emotions of tour, which you can hear with the instrumentations and energetic sounds throughout the song. I was also inspired by some relationships in my life that had either just ended or just begun.”

“I don’t think I would ever have thought of making a song like this a year ago, but it just felt so right. I really needed to get that type of sad and heavy energy out of my system, whether that’s because I was holding some energy back in me from this relationship, or I was just super inspired by the live music of our tour. Honestly, I think it was a bit of both. This song feels significant to me because I feel like it marks a new chapter.”

Now you’re crying, I don’t buy it
Call it being sad last
If peace is silence, call it balance
I’m barely getting you

Was I let down?
Was I let down?

Wading through heavy riffs and a sticky beat, Staloch rises gracefully from softer verses to all-consuming choruses, maintaining a candid, confessional air throughout. “I think the last, anthemic section of this song is my favorite,” he says. “‘Someday, I’ll be fine’ is a really strong and important line to me, and I hope others can resonate with it as much as I do. It kind of serves as a reminder to myself that as much as things might suck or hurt in the moment, you will find peace eventually with it and yourself.”

“I hope people can use this song to release of whatever energy they need to get rid of,” he adds. “That is exactly what it did for me, as it is definitely one of my more energetic songs. Writing songs always ends up being some sort of therapy for me, especially with this song.”

Thought your mind in Arizona
Please, the sky was on fire
I saw you drinking whilst you’re thinking
Somehow calling me a liar

Give it a break now
Give it a break now

It’s truly remarkable, the real weight one can convey through their art. “Give It a Break” is an intimate upheaval unleashed through an impassioned and electric performance, with the goal of having as massive an impact as possible.

To his credit, Staloch overachieves – delivering an intense and instantly memorable reverie. While he already made a massive impression with last year’s songs like “Santa Fe” and “Your Eyes Tell Stories,” it’s with “Give It a Break” (and its parent EP) that the Austin-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter cements himself as part of folk rock’s ‘next generation’ – and a definitive Atwood artist-to-watch.

Someday I’ll be fine
I’ll go on home where nothing’s wrong
And I’ll see the orange light
Someday I’ll be fine
I’ll say my name and I’ll find it’s place
And I’ll wake up with a smile
Someday I’ll be alright
Some f*ing God

Singer/songwriter Matilda Mann has been a personal favorite ever since she debuted some five-plus years ago; from the intimacy and wonder of 2021’s “Bloom” to the dreamy, delicate bliss of 2023’s “In Plain Sight” (also an Editor’s Pick!) and its parent EP You Look Like You Can’t Swim, the London-based artist has emerged as one of the most enchanting songwriters and storytellers of her time. Her recently released debut album Roxwell cements this truth in stone as Mann takes listeners on a soul-stirring fourteen-track journey through her own innermost depths, exposing and leaning into the cracks she finds along the way.

One of those ‘cracks’ is unrequited love, and nowhere does Mann say it better than on “Say It Back,” the album’s spirited second track (and lead single). As exhilarating as it is emotional, “Say It Back” captures the interminable angst and anxiety of having those three special words hanging in the air, acknowledged yet unreciprocated. It’s a pop song with punk sensibilities – a powerhouse of both passion and frustration that channels the narrator’s very real pain into a rallying cry – an anthem for the hopeless romantics in all of us.

There isn’t much I wouldn’t do
To show you how much I love you
I’d jump off of a cliff then get back up
I’d quit my job to stay with you
I’d vote for who you’d tell me to
I’d wear whatever you decide is hot

Why don’t you want me like that?
Why don’t you want to know what we could have?
Why don’t you say it, say it back?
Why don’t you feel the way I feel?
How can you think this isn’t real?
Why don’t you say it, say it back?

“‘Say It Back’ is that frustrating confusion of why, if you love someone so much and do everything you can, do they still not love you back?” Mann shared upon her song’s release  last year. “Unrequited love hurts the most because there’s that feeling of ‘the chase’ and it never being reciprocated. Are you just not their type? Smart enough? Cool enough? It can make you overthink so much you’d do crazy things for them.”

I’m no stranger to said overthinking, and thankfully I’ve found the person who ‘said it back’ to me, but that doesn’t make this song any less real, raw, or relatable. Mann holds nothing back in “Say It Back,” embracing her heavy heart and weary soul with an inspiring intensity that makes this song an instantly memorable and achingly meaningful standout in a catalog that is, quite frankly, full of hits.

Courting’s third studio album is sure to instill all who listen with a certain ‘lust for life,’ and then some. The Liverpool indie rockers have been quite open and honest about their goal of keeping “everything incredibly direct – to hit everyone in the face and leave” with this record. So it goes that the eight-track Lust for Life, Or: ‘How to Thread the Needle and Come Out the Other Side to Tell the Story’ is a mouthful in name, but a tight package in practice – rushing in with the curious “Rollback Intro” and “Stealth Rollback,” hitting its stride with lead single “Pause at You,” and ultimately phasing out with the angular, accentuated, and feverish “Likely place for them to be,” which closes with a literal twenty-second onslaught of banging drums.

It’s a singular record with a lot to love, and for me that love starts with “Pause at You,” the hard-hitting fireball with a seductive strut, a roaring chorus, and the kind of attitude that puts the ‘sleaze’ in ‘indie sleaze.’

I see the building lights, I see signs in the street signs
Somebody’s watching, somebody stop me
Exit stage left, billboard right
I see God in the city, I don’t believe it
And I see girls tonight, typeset in white neon lights
I see somebody’s watching, somebody stop me
Exit stage left, billboard right
I see God in the city, I don’t believe it
I don’t believe it

“‘Pause at You’ is a culmination of everything we’ve been working on over the last few years – an observation on nighttime paranoia mixed about with night out ecstasy. Light outing, floor filling, tie undressing, rock,” vocalist Sean Murphy-O’Neill tells Atwood Magazine.

“It’s meant to be nervy, it was lyrically inspired by the contrast between big city paranoia and also a celebration of city nightlife. Musically, it was mainly inspired by Berlin era Bowie, using big rock piano, e-bows, and walls of percussion. It’s meant to feel seedy, strange, and energetic.”

I see you sometimes with a glass eye
You only see me with the lights down
See you around
I always see you around
Streetwalking cheater in the nighttime
New York City, call me, I got bright eyes
I’ll see you around
I always see you around

Charged, churning, and charming, “Pause at You” is a tight three minutes of sonic revelry and emotional unraveling. The song’s urgency and intensity make it an undeniable headbanger, but what truly stands out is how Courting deliver a rallying cry in the refrain – a moment for artist and audience to come together in a moment of mutual connection, reckoning, and release.

I see you sometimes with a glass eye
You only see me with the lights down
See you around
I always see you around
Streetwalking cheater in the nighttime
New York City, call me, I got bright eyes, honey
I’ll see you around
I always see you around

I thought I’d married a big, big star
Yeah, baby call me, I got bright eyes
I’ll see you around
I always see you around
I got this city in surround sound
Living like it’s the last day of my life
I’ll see you around
I always see you around
I always see you

I can’t go ’til
I can’t go until the show is over

It’s amazing how one song can make up for a ten-year drought. At least, that was my first thought when I heard “Down Here,” the lead single off ESKA’s forthcoming sophomore album. Arriving nearly a full decade after her Mercury Prize-nominated debut album put her on the map, the Zimbabwe born, South London raised artist’s return to the spotlight is fierce, dramatic, and definitive: A breathtakingly bold display of Eska Mtungwazi’s singular talents behind the microphone.

Caught in the rush, bones aching
Out of control, these sounds I’m making
Leave me alone, down here
Say what you want but I prefer it down here
When I’m sleeping
Oh Lord, down here
Said, you know that I prefer it down here
Down here
Down here. Oh Lord, down here
Please don’t wake me now, down here

I prefer it down here in the sleeping zone
In the sleeping zone
Hope that I never wake
Please don’t stir me
Let me sleep some more
Or I’ll awake to sadness
Hey, or I’ll awake to sadness

Where the music’s
Runnin’ through my veins
Music runnin’ through my veins

Drums pulse polyrhythmic beats as ESKA pours her heart out in song. “Caught in the rush, bones aching,” she sings, her achingly expressive voice hot on the mic. “Out of control, these sounds I’m making. Leave me alone, down here.” She reckons and roars her way up to a triumphant, emotionally charged refrain where she declares, “Music runnin’ through my veins!” – as much a visceral mantra as it is a passionate mission statement.

As the lead single off ESKA’s upcoming sophomore album The Ordinary Life of a Magic Woman, “Down Here” is an instantly memorable, head-turning reintroduction – one that stuns and stirs through a performance that ostensibly reaffirms ESKA’s place as a vocal virtuoso and an inimitable, undeniable creative force.

Music!
It’s like hearing but with so many
different levels of sound
Music runnin’ thru my veins
Music!
It’s like hearing
Runnin thru my veins
Music runnin’ thru my veins

Please don’t wake me now
I prefer it down here in the sleeping zone
In the sleeping zone
Hope that I never wake
Hope that I never wake
Please don’t stir me
Now, why can’t I get thru to you?
Let me sleep some more
Oh! Let me, let me sleep some more
Or I’ll awake to sadness
Wake to sadness, wake to, wake to…
Or I’ll awake to sadness
To madness this sadness
It’s madness, this sadness

Give me music
Music runnin’ thru my veins
Runnin thru my veins
Music runnin’ thru my…

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