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 Gordi, Mt. Joy, Carla Aakre, Father John Misty, Jensen McRae, and Sam Fender!

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There’s a sweetness to Gordi’s latest release that makes it at once irresistible and undeniable – like you can’t help but betray a smile, and surrender to this magical expression of another person’s pure, unbridled joy. Released February 19^th, “Peripheral Lover” is the intimate and long-awaited embrace of something special – be it a love, sexuality, or some part of your own inner truth. Musically, it’s Gordi by-way-of Robyn – a dynamic dance- and electro-pop anthem made through a folktronica lens, with the goals of cathartic release, visceral self-expression, and radiant celebration.

I’m in your backstage
I’m on your sideline
I’m looking your way
So won’t you put me in your sight lines

I want it I want it I want it all right now
I want it I want it I want it all right now

“I wrote ‘Peripheral Lover’ in Nashville – honestly a long time ago,” Gordi (née Sophie Payten) tells Atwood Magazine. “When I first wrote it, I imagined someone else singing it. And years after the fact, I was messing around with the song in Melbourne and I changed some of the chords in the chorus and the song just totally unlocked for me.”

“I could suddenly feel the yearning that had been the initial intention in the lyrics – about being wounded that you’re not getting all the love you deserve. I was thinking about the beginnings of queer relationships… I’m talking real early, like so early that at least one person is still in the closet. Accepting the available love instead of it orbiting around you. There comes a breaking point, a demand, a pleading for honesty – and the relationship either explodes into the open, or melts from the periphery away into nothing. From these thoughts, ‘Peripheral Lover’ was born. It exploded into being in about three hours.”

Don’t you make me your peripheral lover, no
I want to be there in the middle
You need to give me something visceral, baby
I want to be there in the middle

I’m not your peripheral lover
I’m not your peripheral
I’m not your peripheral lover
I’m not your peripheral

Aside from being the bold, celebratory queer pop anthem 2025 didn’t know it needed, “Peripheral Lover” is also the beginning of an exciting new chapter in Gordi’s career – kicking off the campaign for her upcoming third studio album, Like Plasticine (out May 30^th).

“The song felt like the boldest choice on the album, so that’s why it earned its place as the lead single,” Gordi explains. “And the spirit of this record feels bold to me. It’s an album about the agony and ecstasy of change – and ‘Peripheral Lover’ is ultimately a joyful moment on the record (which feels new for me…)”

“Peripheral Lover” basks in a state of bliss, soaking up the heat, the sweat, and the raw joy of a special moment. It’s sentimental in real time, zooming out while zooming in at the same time.

You take me for a ride
You’re playing unfair
Can you make up your mind
Because you give me
the impression you care
Do you care, do you care
Do you care

For her part, Gordi hopes listeners come away from the song with a feeling of ecstasy. “The ecstasy that comes with change, with love, with bending until you nearly break,” she smiles. “I want the side chained bass to thump in your chest, and chorus to rise up in you like a wave. I love the proud defiance of this song – that’s what I feel when I listen to it.”

It’s been nearly ten years since we were first introduced to Gordi (her debut single, “Avant Gardener,” came out in February 2016), and to say the artist herself has evolved over the past decade would be more than an understatement, but a complete disservice to her artistry and humanity. I’ll note here that, beyond her art, Payten is also a trained and licensed medical doctor, and she spent COVID working in hospitals as an emergency first responder; in my eyes, she’s also a hero.

Don’t you make me your peripheral lover, no
I want to be there in the middle
You need to give me something visceral, baby
I want to be there in the middle

I’m not your peripheral lover
I’m not your peripheral
I’m not your peripheral lover
I’m not your peripheral

Gordi’s music has transformed tremendously since her earliest days, and the journey from her debut album Reservoir, through her sophomore LP Our Two Skins, now to this third record, feels as though it is one of self-discovery; self-acceptance; and self-love.

“The music of Like Plasticine has the richness of Reservoir with the clarity of Our Two Skins,” she adds, offering her own two cents on the comparison. “It feels heavy but spacious, raw but elaborate.”

“Peripheral Lover” is just a glimpse into this latest ‘era’ of Gordi, and it is most certainly one to be elevated and celebrated. Perhaps the first party-ready Gordi song ever released, “Peripheral Lover” is a synthy seduction ready to consume our bodies, our heats, and ultimately, our souls.

Don’t you make me your peripheral lover
Don’t you make me your peripheral lover, no
I want to be there in the middle
You need to give me something visceral, baby
I want to be there in the middle

Don’t you make me your peripheral lover
I want to be there in the middle
You need to give me something visceral, baby
I want to be there in the middle

I’m not your peripheral lover
I’m not your peripheral

As the world around me seemingly descends into darkness, I find I’m drawn more and more to music imbued with a certain kind of light. Several of those songs show up on today’s Editor’s Picks – namely, Sam Fender’s “Chin Up” and Father John Misty’s “Screamland” – and the same holds true for Mt. Joy’s latest release. With a message of looking forward (or rather, “don’t look back”) and persisting at all costs, “More More More” is an anthem that meets the moment: A reminder that we can’t let our anxieties, whether real or imagined, consume us.

Got to give you something you can keep
Something before my good soul leaves
I’ve been stumbling down
Pine in this city of mine
Got the falling feeling of falling behind
And I got hands like an animal
I’m crushing everything I own

And I’ll tell you one thing
that’s gonna kick your ass
If you look, don’t look back

“The song was born from an anxiety-riddled walk through Philadelphia,” lead singer Matt Quinn recently told American Songwriter. “We sort of just landed on this ambling ending that ultimately erupts into a crescendo, which hopefully feels like a person walking off an anxiety attack and coming to an epiphany. The end is one of our most rocking moments on the record, the band really killed it. It’s a good lesson in not giving up on songs!”

Understanding this song as the spiral into, and out of, an anxiety attack makes for all-too perfect metaphor; Quinn’s imagery is at once physical, emotional, and metaphysical, as he experiences moments both in his body and looking down at himself from above. The more you zoom out, the more you get the sense that, whatever the situation, ‘this too shall pass.’ Perhaps these words feel too naive given the current state of things – as the past five, let alone nine, years have been far from normal; even so, “More More More” urges us to keep going, to push on, and to get out of our own way, if we have to.

‘Cause I got to give you something you can keep
Before my blue ocean tears me underneath
Yes, and I know you’ll say that I’m losing my way
And I know my mistakes, I can see all the pain
As they flash into me when I’m falling asleep
And I’m wondering where the hell it would lead

And I’ll tell you one thing
that’s gonna kick your ass
If you look, don’t look back

Later in that same interview, Quinn expressed how his own advice to listeners would be to do just that: “Keep going. Seems like every truly great feeling I’ve ever achieved has come from doubling down when things get shitty and finding a way to stay the course. Music is such a great way to zoom out and connect with something outside of your head. I would hope that somehow our music gives people the comfort they need to keep moving when things get shitty, and a few songs to rejoice in good times too!”

“More More More” is not a celebration; in fact, it’s far from it. Just because you escape one doom spiral, doesn’t mean you’re suddenly Scot-free. Likewise, anxiety itself is not a one-time demon, but a companion we’ll be dealing with our entire lives – and it’s better we learn to navigate life with it, than ignore it or fall prey to its grasp. Case in point: Our worries will not be over, even if there is a dawn after all this darkness.

So, do yourself a favor, and let Mt. Joy help you find a little light in the moment, and a little strength to keep going. Ultimately, “More More More” truly does shine.

Always morе, more, more
Always more, morе, more
Give you more, more, more
Give me more, more, more

I got all I want, I got all I want
I got all I want,
gotta keep on stumbling home
I got all I want, I got all I want
I got all I want,
gotta keep on stumbling home

I have been enamored with this song ever since I first heard it over a month ago. Between Carla Aakre’s radiant, roaring guitars, her gentle, tender voice, and her intimate, spiritual lyricism, the aptly titled “life” is an earnest, intimate ode to life itself. The Helsinki-based indie folk artist’s first song of the year, released on Valentine’s Day, is a dreamy outpouring of real joie de vivre – not blithe happiness, but true appreciation for the state of being alive, awake, and embedded in this present moment. As we all know, life is far from perfect – but it is, without a shadow of a doubt, magical.

And over the course of three minutes’ time, Carla Aakre reminds us of that magic’s beauty.

remember those summer nights?
we cycled around while the breeze
flew hair into your eyes
thought we knew everything about life
we were cool and so wise
that was life

i climbed above the clouds
to see what’s behind this all
to look if the heaven’s a place worth waiting for
saw my old friends and family members
and green green green fields
there was the light,
the light that shines in us all

feel how it flows
it comes and it goes

“‘life’ is a celebration of the small moments that make us human,” Aakre tells Atwood Magazine. “It’s about embracing the highs and lows with grace and finding hope in the most unexpected places.”

“In all living beings, the energy of life flows as a continuous stream. Sometimes it may change its shape or direction. Yet it is always there.”

The lead single off her upcoming debut album things i forgot to tell you, “life” is a passionate, heartfelt, smoldering seduction. Aakre pours the highs and lows – the wistful warmth of nostalgia, and the exhilarating release of the present – into her words, reminding us to enjoy what we have; to surrender, in a sense, to here and now, for as long as it lasts.

who can tell what is right and what is wrong?
who has the power to control?
this planet we’re living on is no man’s land

there are so many questions on my mind
and so many answers from people around me
i can’t keep up with them all

feel how it flows
it comes and it goes
keep on running
through our veins, life

I will never be ready for “Screamland”’s chorus.

No matter how many times I listen to Father John Misty’s latest 7-minute epic, it hits every time like a feverish punch to gut; like a knockout blow to my emotional solar plexus. Hearing it performed live, this past week, only hammered home the song’s raw, unbridled intensity, and led to my conclusion that “Screamland” is a 21^st Century millennial existential crisis – and catharsis – manifest in one wrecking ball of a song.

Later that same evening, Josh Tillman affectionately described “Mental Health,” another brooding banger off his recently released sixth studio album Mahashmashana, as a “beautiful ballad about getting gaslit by capitalism constantly… which could describe half a dozen of these things.” That same sentiment flows throughout “Screamland” as Father John Misty poignantly and poetically evokes his own inner reckoning, aching inside and out as he seemingly reasons with life itself, and all these forces outside our mortal, corporeal control. “It’s always the darkest right before the end,” he sings in the first verse; the end, not the dawn. There’s no hope here. His candid prose reveals a man struggling for meaning and purpose, for strength and guidance in a world that, all too often, feels devoid of those things. “And you could say that no one here really believes in the future, in perfection, that things aren’t what they seem. Like a sucker with a scratcher, like a f* up with a dream, stabbing at the ashtray like it might give up the truth; like it might finally confess who else you’re nearly faithful to…”

His chorus comes crashing down on the ears, and on the soul – an anthem for the disillusioned, a mantra for the jaded, for the world-weary and skeptics in the crowd.

Stay young
Get numb
Keep dreaming
Screamland

A burst of light and combustive passion in an otherwise dimly lit, brutally heavy space, Misty’s musical and emotional climax isn’t a request, but a demand. “Stay young! Get numb! Keep dreaming! Screamland!” All this, as if to say, don’t let the weight of the world bring you down or burn you out; don’t let it consume you, to the point where there’s nothing left.

The human will to survive, to go on, might be the strongest thing we’ve got, and in this song, Tillman harnesses that primal urge, channeling that individual energy into a collective upheaval. It’s a beautiful explosion; a visceral outpouring; a soul-stirring reprieve.

Picked me up and drove by the light of the moon
Four hours to the desert from the drawing room
This year’s wine tasted suspicious but just enough like love
God must be with the outcasts ’cause when I call, you come

And at this late hour
Won’t have to beg mercy for defeat
Just drop your hands the way love taught you
Ash white and voodooed
Deathless as a weed
Since I lied to keep you, I’m starting to feel
Like how long can you love someone
for the weakness they conceal

Stay young
Get numb
Keep dreaming
Screamland

Screaming is, after all, the ultimate catharsis.

The more I listen to Mahashmashana, the more I appreciate Father John Misty as the storyteller he’s always been. For as disenchanted and cynical as Tillman is – the man clearly rejected much of our capitalist society well over a decade ago – his music is an anchor for those like-minded listeners searching for a home; for a space of understand and truth; for a place where they can belong, in a world that so seldom feels warm, welcoming, comforting, or just.

And yet, “love must find a way.” And yet, “After every desperate measure, just a miracle will take.” I think Father John Misty wishes he were an optimist; I think he wishes he fully bought-in and believed in his own chorus and its message of lingering hope and possibility. Maybe with time comes a sense of humility; maybe it’s all performance art.

Either way, I will never, ever be ready for “Screamland.

Love must find a way, love must find a way
After every desperate measure, just a miracle will take
Love must find a way, our love must find a way
After every desperate measure, just a miracle will take

Roll the stone away, I want to go
Where everyone is perfect beneath their robes
Honey, take me down to the water’s edge
Mama said that we could get my hip brace wet
Maybe we are living in a state of grace returned
Maybe faith like this has at least one practitioner
Rings up to the knuckles, sutures in the bath
Here lie the born losers, God won’t take them back

Stay young
Get numb
Keep dreaming, oh
Screamland, oh

Few artists color their closure as plainly, as poetically, and as powerfully as Jensen McRae does in her latest single. Released February 19^th via Dead Oceans, “Praying for Your Downfall” is a cathartic, emotionally charged exhale of raw feeling and folk-pop warmth. It’s a sweetly soul-stirring marriage of acceptance’s tender touch and anger’s unfiltered, unfettered inner tension, all channeled into a song that ultimately says it all right there in the title.

You still get stoned to make a phone call
You’re still a bachelor with those blank walls
Keep telling people you’re six feet tall
I’m finished praying for your downfall

Can’t go on thinking it was my fault
And pushing pins into a cursed doll
Keep draining Stellas and blaming your mom
I’m finished praying for your downfall

“The title of ‘Praying for Your Downfall’ was actually inspired by a friend of my older brother’s,” McRae tells Atwood Magazine. “Our family was introduced to the slang at their basketball games, when his friend would shake hands with the opposing team and say, with every handshake and smile, ‘I’m praying for your downfall.’ We thought it was the funniest thing.”

“It came back to me unbidden when I was in the studio with Sam DeJong. I started playing this keys part and then he added guitar over it, and I was humming this melody I loved, and that phrase just kept coming to mind. I thought it was too silly to use in a song, but then I realized what I wanted to say with it – this really unique framing of post-breakup grief, where you finally surrender your need for the other person to fail. You don’t wish them well, but you stop wishing them ill. I figured if it felt so good to sing, I should follow the impulse.”

“These lyrics came pretty quickly, and they were wildly satisfying to write. I’m especially proud of the end of the second verse: ‘keep whistling, boy / I was never your dog.’ One of my favorite lines I’ve ever written.”

McRae reaches her climax in a confessional, achingly expressive chorus:

So many hours putting words in your mouth
To think I thought I almost figured you out
I can’t make nice
but I can make it make sense now
I don’t need to see you fall down
I don’t need to see you fall down

The latest single off McRae’s forthcoming sophomore album I Don’t Know How But They Found Me! (out April 25^th), “Praying for Your Downfall” is unflinchingly honest and unapologetically candid – a charming, churning flood of all-too familiar feelings that admits what so many of us are afraid to admit: That there’s a (not-so) little piece of us wishing ill on our exes, on our ‘enemies,’ and all those who have scorned or burned us in some way. McRae captures that human instinct in a song that, for all its darkness, shines a sunny, radiant light.

There’s nothing like the power of ‘hope’ – that intimate, emotional sunlight that shines from within. It’s intoxicating, it’s energizing, and it’s what makes Sam Fender’s “Chin Up” as irresistible as it is inspirational. The third track off his recently released third album People Watching is raw hope manifest in song: A rousing, spirited, emotionally charged anthem of passion and perseverance, unfiltered determination and limitless drive. It’s a song that acknowledges life’s real hardships and the importance of introspection, all while soldiering on, no matter what. You might even say it’s the embedment of that famous wartime Britishism, “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

I’m rising up with the Sun
No time to victimise myself
Two steps, I’m walking to the rhythm of it
Sometimes it’s healthier to wallow in it
I’m cashing out on my loss
I’m going all in on a dead horse
Two steps, I’m walking to the rhythm of it
I feel the changes when I wallow in it
Entitled, idle and dumb
Twenty-eight, still sucking my thumb
Hard truth’s I’m dancing to the rhythm of it
Scarred youth, but now I’m actually going through it

Because even when things are at their darkest, we must all try to keep our chin up – or as another famous rocker once sang, “no retreat, baby, no surrender.” He’s channeled Springsteen’s sound one or twice before, yet on “Chin Up,” Fender comes into his own with a personal affirmation to walk tall and hold his head high, even when it’s “bent on bringing me down.”

I will try to keep my chin up
Oh, my head is bent on bringing me down
Under the floorboards of this broken home
This one-horse town

Of course, it’s one thing to talk the talk, and another to walk the walk; Sam Fender’s relentless optimism does not come without a heavy side-dose of realism, as his lyrics recognize those less fortunate than himself, facing demons and problems and challenges of their own. “My friends at home are in pain. Chucky debt, God, I hate cocaine,” he sings. “I keep moving to the rhythm of it; can’t be responsible for everybody.”

Yet while he’s not letting the world’s disorder and fracture break him and take him down, he still displays enormous empathy for all that those around him are going through. “The marred streets put fire in my bones, people turfed right out of their homes. Our Jackie navigates through the penury; he lost his job again in January…“

The promise to “keep my chin up” takes on more and more meaning as the weight of the world barrels down, a heavy drag on even the most positive, driven persona. The key, Fender reasons, is balance: He will keep his chin up, all the while acknowledging the suffering of his loved ones and beyond, carrying them and their hurt with him.

All told, Sam Fender’s lyrics prove to be wise – and prescient – words at this juncture in 2025, when dark times only seem to be getting darker. We could all stand to learn a lesson from “Chin Up” as we move through life, one day, one step, at a time.

I will try to keep my chin up
Oh, my head is bent on bringing me down
Under the floorboards of this broken home
This one-horse town

Chin up, I’m dancing to the rhythm of it
Sometimes it’s healthier to wallow in it
Chin up, I’m dancing to the rhythm of it
Sometimes it’s healthier to wallow in it

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