Every Friday, Atwood Magazine’s staff share what they’ve been listening to that week – a song, an album, an artist – whatever’s been having an impact on them, in the moment.
This week’s weekly roundup features music by BAILEN, Ashe, Valley, Alexander Gallant, Evan Honer, Sakai, John Wood, Tomás del Real, Talon, Conor Furlong, Yasmina Cherelle, Riley Max, Mechanical Wonders, Sledding, Alisan Porter, Alyssa Gallarneau, overtonight, and MERCE!
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:: “Kansas Tornado” – BAILEN ::
Mitch Mosk, Beacon, New York
Sometimes the best thing you can do is let yourself get swept away.
Gentle, dreamy, and achingly tender, BAILEN’s “Kansas Tornado” begins with someone suddenly appearing in the porch light and builds – from that instant – into a breathtakingly sweet folk serenade about surrender. The song casts love as a tornado: Sudden, sweeping, and powerful enough to carry you away. BAILEN give themselves over to that wonder completely, capturing the rare, beautiful connection that makes the very act of being overwhelmed feel like bliss.
You caught me by surprise
Suddenly appearing in the porch light
Busting out my window
Blowing like a Kansas tornado
You never needed time
You found what you wanted on the first try
You took me when you tore through
Nothing no nothing like getting swept up by you
Released August 5, “Kansas Tornado” is a graceful, honeyed, radiant folk ballad, and the gorgeous second taste of BAILEN’s new era following last month’s brash, full-throttle “SWIM!!!.” Ten years into their run, the New York City sibling trio are building toward their third album, SWIM!!!, due September 25 – their first fully independent record and, by their own account, one of the truest expressions of BAILEN yet.
If you’ve ever heard BAILEN stop a room cold with their live rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain,” “Kansas Tornado” taps into that same elemental magic from the opposite direction. This is their “Landslide,” with a healthy heaping dose of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Helplessly Hoping” woven into its DNA – acoustic bliss built around hand-plucked guitar and the kind of three-part harmonies only siblings who have spent their lives singing together can summon. Julia, Daniel, and David Bailen gather their voices until they seem to breathe as one, every rise and fall carrying an intimacy that sends shivers straight through the body.
Daniel Bailen’s lyric matches that closeness with wonderfully vivid imagery. “You caught me by surprise / Suddenly appearing in the porch light / Busting out my window / Blowing like a Kansas tornado,” he sings, letting love enter first as disruption before embracing the rush that follows. By the chorus, resistance has disappeared entirely: “I’ll stand under your skies / Just to feel what it’s like,” followed by the simple, soaring surrender of “You carry me away.” The tornado becomes less a threat than an invitation – the exhilaration of meeting someone whose presence pulls you outside yourself.
I’ll stand under your skies,
Just to feel what’s it like
When you smile in the doorway
I feel you spinning sideways
Every day
In all of your fury
Your wild heart won’t hurt me
I’ll hold on forever
maybe that’s better
Anyway
You carry me away
You carry me away
You carry me away
“If you were to ask me what my favorite song I’ve ever written is, lately my answer has been ‘Kansas Tornado,’” Daniel shares. “Singing this song takes me to the place I’m always searching for as an artist. These days it sometimes feels like the word artist has become interchangeable with content creator. In a world of endless social media posts, emails, news, messages, and the constant stream of information thrown at us every day, it’s easy to get swept away by other people’s lives and distractions. They pull us away from noticing the cicadas humming at dusk in Fort Green park, a hummingbird tapping at the window, the smell of rain rolling in… or even a tornado on the horizon.”
He continues, “To me, ‘Kansas Tornado’ is about surrendering to something bigger than yourself. Sometimes that’s the whirlwind of nature. Sometimes it’s the whirlwind of falling in love with someone who suddenly appears in the porch light and carries you away. Either way, it’s about letting yourself be overwhelmed by wonder instead of noise.”
That distinction between wonder and noise gets to the song’s core. BAILEN have spent much of this new chapter reclaiming instinct – trusting their ears, their chemistry, and the musical language they’ve built together over the past decade. Recorded with longtime friend Lee Falco at his Hudson Valley studio The Building, “Kansas Tornado” captures the trio gathered around a single microphone, allowing their harmonies to meet in real space before reaching us. The simplicity suits them beautifully. After the scorched-earth (and burnt bridge) liberation of “SWIM!!!,” this second glimpse of the band’s third album shows just how wide their emotional and dynamic range has become.
That range has always been central to BAILEN. Their songs can roar, whisper, crack open, and heal, but their three voices remain the gravitational center – the point where Julia, Daniel, and David stop sounding like three remarkable singers and become BAILEN. Their new record, due September 25, finds the newly independent trio embracing that identity with renewed confidence, and “Kansas Tornado” may be one of its purest expressions yet.
You never needed love
You’d bear up against the sun on your own
Bending blues before you
Nothing no nothing like
getting swept up by you
By the time those voices return once more to “You carry me away,” surrender has become an act of wonder – giving yourself fully to a moment and trusting where it takes you. “Kansas Tornado” is BAILEN at their most spellbinding – intimate enough to sound like three siblings singing inches apart, yet expansive enough to sweep an entire room away.
The storm on the horizon has never sounded so inviting.
:: “Stop the Wedding!” – Ashe ::
Olivia Martinez, Boston, MA
Despite my algorithm recommending that I listen to “Stop The Wedding!” by Ashe for the past two days across every streaming platform that has ever been downloaded onto my phone, I inexplicably ignored my device’s advice until half an hour ago. Thank you, Youtube Homepage, for finally getting through to my close-minded music listening ears. I am not sure why I never got into Ashe until now, but consider me converted. The song begins by pairing spiccato strings with vocals that reflect a calm before the storm, describing the quiet dread of a woman who might be about to stop her own wedding. My attention was officially caught when the brief pre-chorus, during which Ashe simply sings, “The voices in my head are screaming ‘no, don’t,’” transitioned to the first chorus, ushered by a retro drum fill which sets the tone for the rest of the song.
The chorus itself feels like a classic ABBA tune, a triumphantly tragic vocal melody mirroring colorful piano chords underneath, combined with a “Benny and the Jets”-esque half-time groove. “Even though the table’s set, the guests are waiting, you can burn the dress and run away,” Ashe encourages her listeners, like a maid-of-honor looking out for a panicked bride-to-be. My favorite detail of the song is when she adds lyrical depth to the last chorus, changing the lyrics from, “You don’t have to waste your night and wear your heart out,” to “You don’t have to waste your life and wear your heart out.” It’s such a good reminder that marriage is about more than a single celebration that only lasts for one night. She continues altering the lyrics: “Even though your heart was set on never breaking, you can burn the dress and run away.” The wedding party imagery transformed into real, heartstring-pulling aphorisms provides such a perfect escalation of emotion that I can’t believe I haven’t heard another song that utilizes the same trope before.
I’m prescribing our Atwood readers to turn on “Stop The Wedding!” and dance around their respective bedrooms immediately, if they haven’t done so already.
:: “Someday” – Valley ::
Mitch Mosk, Beacon, New York
We spend so much of our lives saving the good stuff for later. The bottle stays corked, the outfit stays in the closet, the call gets pushed to tomorrow – until one day we look around and realize the people, places, and versions of ourselves we were saving them for have already moved on. Valley stare straight into that cruel little trick of time on “Someday,” an emotionally charged outpouring that asks what happens when we spend our lives waiting for life to properly begin.
Coming just weeks after the wonderfully unruly “Vending Machine” heralded their spectacular return, “Someday” pushes the Toronto trio’s new era somewhere bigger, bolder, and even more dramatic. Rob Laska, Alex Dimauro, and Karah James build from intimate reflection into a full-bodied indie rock eruption, guitars swelling and drums crashing as Laska’s voice reaches for the rafters. The scale is arena-ready, but the feeling stays close enough to touch. Valley sound like a band in their prime here – playing with the confidence to let a song simmer, surge, and finally break wide open.
The verses are restless with the realization that motion and meaning aren’t always the same thing. Laska sings, “I’ve been climbing waterfalls / Blurring blood in alcohol / Tired of talking to the walls / And all you wanted was a call,” capturing the absurd distance we can travel while neglecting the simple act that mattered most. Later, “Climbed a ladder to the sky / And poked a hole in paradise” lands like the darker reflection of the same impulse: always reaching higher, always chasing the next thing, then wondering why satisfaction keeps slipping further away.
The chorus stops all that striving cold. “Champagne down to the drop / Waited for it like a holiday / Everyone’s here, then one day they’re not / But the clouds still part the same.” Valley give those words enormous lift, letting the music roar around a devastatingly ordinary truth: the world keeps moving after people leave. Faces change. Names change. The sky opens anyway. And when Laska repeats, “Someday, you’re gonna wonder where it all went,” the line lands less like nostalgia than a warning to pay attention now.
“We tend to live like life has a ‘special occasion’ setting,” Valley share. “We save the good bottle, the money, the cologne, the outfit we love, waiting for the right moment to justify it. But more often than not, that moment never comes, and the life we were saving them for quietly passes us by. In the meantime, we fill the space with whatever’s easy. Wonderbread, quick hits, things that get us through the day but don’t really nourish us. Always like we’re holding out for a perfect experience.”
“There’s an irony in saving something meaningful for ‘later’ while starving yourself of it now.”
That idea gives the seemingly throwaway “stomach full of Wonder Bread” line real weight. It’s the cheap substitute, the thing that fills you up while the champagne waits unopened – and Valley turn that contrast into a larger question about how easily convenience can replace presence. Even “Take me off this carousel / ‘cause I’m starting to scare myself” catches the exhaustion of living in perpetual anticipation, spinning fast enough to mistake repetition for progress.
Two songs into whatever Valley are building after Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden, the picture is getting thrillingly clear. “Vending Machine” demanded relationships rooted in real connection; “Someday” extends that urgency to time itself, asking us to stop saving our lives for some imagined future worthy of them. Valley give that realization all the heat it deserves, letting intimacy swell into a massive, stirring release.
Someday will come either way. “Someday” makes a hell of a case for opening the bottle now.
:: The Prince of Birchy Head – Alexander Gallant ::
Emily Weatherhead, Toronto, Canada
In a time when it’s become increasingly difficult to distinguish the authentic from the artificial, Alexander Gallant’s The Prince of Birchy Head is a breath of fresh air. A folk singer/songwriter from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Gallant is equally skilled at plucking heartstrings and guitar strings. The purity of Gallant’s soulful vocals and intricate fingerpicked guitar unfold in a lilting duet, with the occasional support from a wayward banjo or violin.
On the surface, The Prince of Birchy Head is an easy listen, the perfect companion for a porch coffee on an early morning. When you listen more closely to Gallant’s lyrics, you realize the depth of his poetry. “Fishes for the Seabirds” is one standout track that Gallant has described as “an attempt at prayer from a frightened agnostic.” Its lyrics weave an existential pondering of the man-made horrors we watch unfold through our phone screens, exploring what we’re facing in this life and what might come next: “If my prayers have been heard / I’ll come back as a small seabird / I don’t know where they go in the storm / But they seem alright / Come the morning light.”
The Prince of Birchy Head strikes the complex balance between acknowledging life’s hardships and sheer gratitude for its small, beautiful moments. Tracks like “Since I Started” are laced with romantic lyrics in an ode to love: “Come back home with me and we’ll / Laugh in the face of death / The ocean looks fine and extra blue / Since I started something up with you.” It’s an album worth listening to, whether to experience the atmosphere of an East Coast summer or to simply appreciate the reverence Gallant has for his craft.
:: 4 Songs EP – Evan Honer ::
Ashley Littlefield, California
Honest, hopeful songwriting tethers every fingerpicked and strummed note as Evan Honer delivers an emotive EP, 4 Songs. Honer best captures the enduring twists and turns of life through his acoustic-signature guitar. Released on August 7 via his imprint at Cloverdale Records, the EP features the singles “say anything” and “if you wanna know” together with “blackout Wednesday” and “pull me out” (ft. Medium Build). Each song is a raw, hopeful journey about the desire to persevere despite the lows, with an earnest affection for reality.
The first track, “say anything,” of the 4 Songs EP, delivers hope: “Well baby, it’s bad, but I bet it gets better / We’ll make it through this week / Then we’ll make it through November, December, remember.” The song acknowledges the lows in the moment yet uplifts anticipation of a positive outcome around the corner. The EP is a reminder to keep going, no matter the outcome, as listeners can resonate deeply with the strength of Honer’s real and reflective ballad across the 4 Songs EP, offering hope for navigating life’s challenges.
:: Do You Like Me Now? – Sakai ::
Danielle Holian, Galway, Ireland
For a debut, Do You Like Me Now? arrives with remarkable confidence. Sakai resist the temptation to define themselves through a single genre, instead weaving together indie rock, soul, jazz, funk, blues and traditional Japanese influences into something that feels genuinely personal rather than calculated. Across four songs, the EP circles themes of longing, grief, self doubt and fractured identity with an emotional honesty that never slips into melodrama. Marié Sakai’s voice sits at the heart of every arrangement, shifting effortlessly between smoky restraint and cathartic release, while the band’s intricate musicianship gives each track a distinct emotional landscape. It is an introduction that feels less like a collection of songs and more like a carefully mapped emotional journey.
The EP’s greatest strength lies in its willingness to embrace contradiction. “Orange Tree” is perhaps its most fascinating moment, inspired by an eighth century Japanese poem and further shaped by a shamisen and koto recital in San Francisco. Built around the Hirajoshi scale and featuring Sakai’s return to the flute, the track transforms literary and cultural influences into something intimate and contemporary, exploring love as both a blessing and a source of quiet regret. Lead single “Out” trades delicate introspection for restless urgency, capturing the exhausting cycle of existential anxiety and avoidance through expansive indie rock textures and searching lyrics. “Wanted” follows with bruised vulnerability, elevated by Conner Currie’s shimmering guitar harmonics that echo the song’s aching uncertainty, while the title track closes the record with an unflinching examination of people pleasing and the slow erosion of identity. Each song stands confidently on its own, yet together they create a striking portrait of emotional contradiction.
There are obvious touchstones here, from the theatrical sweep of Florence + The Machine to Amy Winehouse’s soulful honesty, Hozier’s spiritual warmth and Radiohead’s restless experimentation, but Sakai never sound like a band chasing influences. Instead, they filter those inspirations through a perspective shaped by Japanese musical traditions and fearless songwriting that values vulnerability over polish. Do You Like Me Now? succeeds because it understands that emotional complexity rarely offers clean resolutions. It leaves questions unanswered, wounds partially healed and feelings unresolved, making it all the more compelling. As debuts go, this is an arresting first statement that introduces Sakai as one of alternative music’s most intriguing new voices, with ambition that stretches far beyond the boundaries of a four track EP
:: “Into The Light” – John Wood Band ::
Julius Robinson, California
Wilmington’s John Wood Band is ushering a new era with their single, “Into the Light.” This soulful serenade brings together the group’s distinctive mix of rock, Americana, and jam-band energy, capturing a dynamic connection that shines through. The song highlights silky, butter-smooth vocals à la Bruno Mars and Charlie Puth, gliding effortlessly over the track’s warm instrumentation. The jazzy horns woven throughout the piece enhance its laid-back feel, giving the song a breezy, atmospheric quality. The title “Into the Light” perfectly captures the release’s light as a feather aura. With each layer working in harmony, the band creates a sound that feels both effortlessly cool and undeniably inviting.
Hailing from North Carolina, the six-member ensemble first came together in 2025 while attending university. The boys quickly clicked over their collective love of music and shared desire to put it out into the world. Rounding out the lineup are Brody Folkers on lead guitar, TJ Roy on saxophone, Grant Harward on keys, Jay Eades on bass, and Caleb Dulin on drums. Now the band diligently builds on their mutual passion through continuous recording and touring. “Into the Light” is a true testament to their hard work.
:: “Algún Día” – Tomás del Real ::
Mitch Mosk, Beacon, New York
“Algún día” begins at the end of everything. Tomás del Real imagines a distant day when our souls might erode, evaporate, and take another form, then gently pulls himself back toward the only place any of us can actually live: Here. The Chilean singer/songwriter’s latest is a dreamy indie folk serenade about mortality that gradually reveals itself as a song about presence – about noticing the life passing through our hands while we still have the chance to hold it.
Its music moves with the same unhurried attention. Del Real settles into a sweetly stirring reverie, his voice floating through an intimate arrangement that gives every phrase room to linger. The gentleness matters because his opening thought is enormous: “Algún día de erosión / Nuestras almas se evaporarán” – someday, through erosion, our souls will evaporate. From there, the lyric shrinks the frame from eternity to the traces we leave behind, with del Real singing of “los destellos de nuestra estela,” the glimmers of our trail. Death becomes the doorway into a far more immediate question: What are we doing with the time before it arrives?
“I realized that while diving into that topic, I was really talking about life, how sacred it is, how lucky we are, basically the importance of witnessing it,” del Real explains. “By that I mean not doing everything else, but actually just being there…. Here. Why would I be lost in my thoughts, in my hundred ‘open tabs,’ when I can be here with you, present, which is already such an incredibly unique opportunity?”
That idea of witnessing gives “Algún día” its center. The chorus leaves philosophy behind for touch: “Envuélveme con tus dedos / Será suficiente estar / Si duermo trenzado en ellos / Puedo descansar” – wrap me with your fingers; being there will be enough; if I sleep entwined in them, I can rest. Presence becomes physical here. A hand, a body, another person nearby – del Real finds refuge in intimacy precisely because his mind can carry him so far away from it.
The second half of the refrain makes that tension explicit: “Envuélveme que hoy mis miedos / Abundan y puedo estar / Perdido en mis pensamientos o / Presente en tu actuar.” His fears are abundant; he can disappear into his thoughts or stay present in another person’s actions. Del Real has described much of his life as being governed by to-do lists, and “Algún día” pushes back against that mode of existence. He wants to notice things. He wants, as he puts it, to remain “the kid who wants to look at the clouds more than at the screens.”
That focus on ordinary experience also opens the world of del Real’s forthcoming album Jakobsoni. Now based in Estonia, the Viña del Mar-born, Santiago-raised songwriter recorded the project between Viljandi and Santiago, moving beyond the folk-fusion palette of his previous work toward more intimate indie textures, electric guitars, and dreamy synths. At the album’s core are the everyday moments that quietly shape memory, relationships, and belonging – a natural extension of a career spent carrying Latin American songwriting traditions across continents.
“Algún día” makes that philosophy sound wonderfully simple. We will disappear someday; del Real has no answer for what happens then, and he doesn’t pretend to. What he offers instead is a hand to hold, a trail worth noticing, and the possibility that being fully present might already be enough. In his gentle, hypnotic hands, mortality becomes an invitation to look around.
:: “Britney Spears” – Talon ::
Mitch Mosk, Beacon, New York
Growing up has a funny way of teaching you to second-guess the kid who knew exactly what she wanted. On “Britney Spears,” Brooklyn’s Talon stare down all the jobs, clothes, personas, and expectations they’ve tried on along the way, then rip straight through them in pursuit of the person who was there from the beginning.
The song comes out swinging. A hypnotic bass line locks into Mara Stolzenbach’s nagging guitar riff while lead singer MK Charron’s clipped, conversational vocal recounts her childhood obsession with Britney Spears and the supposedly sensible adulthood that followed: “when I grew up / I was easily convinced / to act more serious / and pick a career.” Talon’s post-punk attack has a vicious streak to it, all churning guitars, hard-driving drums, and mounting abrasion, with every pass through the refrain ratcheting the pressure higher.
The joke lands because the crisis underneath it is real. Charron runs through careers, clothes, underwear, personalities, masturbation, meditation – a whole adulthood spent testing possible selves – before arriving at the wonderfully blunt conclusion, “Everytime I try to be somebody that I’m not / I end up finding out I like the person that I was.” Talon pack that self-searching into music that refuses to sit still, their cheekiness sharpening the song instead of blunting its stakes.
Born in Brooklyn’s DIY scene, Talon are lead singer MK Charron, guitarist Mara Stolzenbach, bassist Zena Spratley, and drummer Lauren Kleiman – four best friends who released their debut album Codes last fall and have since become a fixture of the city’s live circuit. “Britney Spears” opens their next chapter with a harder post-punk edge, channeling the group’s passions into the grunge-pop foundation they’ve built together.
“‘Britney Spears’ is our first single from a new chapter of songs we’ve been writing this year. Since we released our debut album in September 2025, we’ve spent a lot of time getting more inspired by punky talk rockers like Amyl and the Sniffers and Dry Cleaning. We started writing this song in rehearsal (which is pretty typical for us, most of our songs are written as a group effort in our nasty studio called Cheese City), coming up with the driving bass line and itchy guitar riff in one practice and then building the groove, the lyrical flow, and the structure of the song on top of that,” Charron tells Atwood Magazine.
“I think the lyrics for this song are some of the best I’ve ever written. I’ve been calling it the ‘thesis statement of my life’ song. It was a Monday morning (we rehearse on Monday nights) and I knew I needed to have something to show the band that evening. When I sat down to write, I had one of those mythical experiences artists talk about, where it all poured out more or less in one piece in the time it took me to drink my coffee.”
“I had a lot swirling inside me at the time – as I’d just decided to quit my corporate job to pursue music more seriously – a lot of fear, excitement, questions. A whole lot of not knowing – hence the refrain: ‘I can’t tell you who I am, I can only tell you who I’m not.’ The lyrics are my meditation on having big dreams as a kid (I was obsessed with Britney Spears and wanted to be her in every way) and pushing them down in pursuit of a more ‘normal’ life path. I’m starting to realize now: you can’t quiet that little kid forever. Eventually you have to listen and honor what she knew was right for you all along, even if that comes with infinite uncertainty.”
That refrain becomes increasingly combustible as the track goes on. “I can’t tell you who I am / I can only tell you who I’m not” starts as an admission and grows into a rallying cry, repeated against guitars that get more caustic, turbulent, and untethered with every round. By the final stretch, Talon sound like a pressure cooker blowing its lid – raucous, roaring punk carrying years of self-doubt out with it.
The revelation arrives in the last verse, where Charron imagines her life as a circle returning to its “original plot.” Her younger self becomes “the thread in the piece of art” holding the whole thing together, and suddenly Britney Spears means far more than childhood nostalgia: she represents the instinct that existed before adulthood taught Charron to edit herself.
“Britney Spears” opens Talon’s new era, and it does so with one hell of a statement of purpose. The harder the band churn, the clearer Charron becomes. She may still be figuring out exactly who she is, but Talon make knowing who you aren’t sound viciously freeing.
:: “You Won’t Break Me” – Conor Furlong ::
Charlie Recksieck, San Diego, CA
Who’s up for a blend of Jeff Buckley guitar and Thom Yorke vocals and aesthetic? My hand is raised. “You Won’t Break Me” is simultaneously moody, pretty, and big – with the intro and verses standing out due to two surprising and unusual arpeggiated chords alternating back and forth as the basis of the song. This hypnotic song is incredibly patient, staying languid for a full 90 seconds until a chorus bubbles up to take control, before later receding back to the atmospheric void.
The Dublin singer/songwriter here, Conor Furlong, has only been on the scene for 5 or 6 years but already produced a catalog at a prodigious yearly pace. And credit due for making one of my favorite-named albums of all time: A Richard Linklater Film. If there’s justice in the music industry, Furlong should become a breakout star soon, so try sampling this from the ground floor.
:: “Liberate Me” – Yasmina Cherelle ::
Joe Beer, Surrey, UK
Yasmina Cherelle’s latest single, “Liberate Me,” is a reminder that healing doesn’t always have to sound heavy. The Irish singer-songwriter leans into themes of self-trust and renewal, turning a difficult chapter into something bright and uplifting. Written as a reflection on finding confidence after uncertainty, the track carries a message of reclaiming your own voice. As Cherelle explains, “The story is about going through the healing process, trusting your intuition and regaining confidence. It’s about reaching a place where you feel liberated.”
Sonically, “Liberate Me” balances soulful pop with an infectious melody. Cherelle’s rich, expressive vocals soar over a vibrant rhythm and shiny production that gradually builds its feel-good energy. It’s a track that encourages listeners to let go of self-doubt and embrace what’s next, delivering its message through an uplifting pop sound that’s as empowering as its lyrics.
:: “Pockets” – Riley Max ::
Chloe Robinson, California
Colorado native singer/songwriter Riley Max’s music enchants with cozy folk-inspired character and instantly catchy hooks. Her latest release “Pockets” is no different, showcasing earthy sonics and a warm gravelly voice that makes you feel cared for and comforted. The track encapsulates the bittersweet reality of drifting away from someone who once meant so much, accepting that the moment has passed and showing gratitude for a life filled with tenderness. Lines in the chorus include, “I’ll sing for my supper, but I’ll never yearn for home. Cause I always seem to stumble on pockets of love wherever I may roam.” These enlightening lyrics remind us with change comes new adventures and love is never truly lost. Her video depicts her running through different nature scenes representing life’s many phases and the beauty all around us.
Recorded when she was 18, her debut album ROY G BIV earned extensive praise, with her anticipated sophomore album arriving this fall. Now a senior at Harvard University, Max is pursuing a degree in Art, Film, and Visual Studies. Alongside her role as music director of The Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, she remains active in a variety of musical theater productions. Her adoration for romantic comedies, coupled with her love of theater, fuels the passionate storytelling at the heart of her artistry. That can be greatly sensed throughout “Pockets.”
:: “Instead of Alone” – Mechanical Wonders ::
Mitch Mosk, Beacon, New York
Loneliness can make the wrong person look like shelter. Mechanical Wonders take that painfully familiar impulse head-on with “Instead of Alone,” a spirited indie rocker about watching someone trade solitude for a relationship that keeps letting them down.
The Dublin five-piece give that frustration plenty of momentum. Jangling guitars race over a hard-driving rhythm section while Richie McGrath’s vocal carries the urgency of someone who has watched this story play out before and already knows how it ends. There’s real heat in the arrangement, especially when the chorus opens up around its title phrase, giving the song the communal lift of the guitar bands Mechanical Wonders grew up loving. The energy keeps surging even as the lyrics stare straight into an ugly cycle.
“He’s good for nothing when he’s high / But you didn’t realise / That he’s gonna break your heart / But man I knew it from the start,” McGrath sings, addressing someone whose need for connection has clouded their judgment. The chorus distills the whole song into one brutal choice: “You think you need somebody like him / But you don’t / You’d rather have somebody like him instead of alone.” Mechanical Wonders understand how fear can shrink the distance between companionship and self-abandonment, and their plainspoken writing gives that realization nowhere to hide.
“It’s about how when people go through a break up and sometimes end up with someone that isn’t the right person for them, it’s about unhealthy relationships and how we feel the need to constantly try to make a connection with someone , it’s about how we always wanna be someone else , anyone but ourselves and be with the wrong person , instead of alone,” Mechanical Wonders tell Atwood Magazine.
“Instead of Alone” arrives as the second single from Mechanical Wonders’ forthcoming four-track EP, recorded with producer Gavin Glass at Orphan Studios in Wexford. McGrath, guitarists Keith McLoughlin and Brian Wolohan, bassist Stephen Caulfield, and drummer Carl O’Connor grew up together in the same working-class part of Dublin, and that shared history runs through a band whose music has steadily shifted from the folk roots of their former project Good Time Villains toward bigger, more electric territory.
“We’re a band that’s in it for the love of music with an old school approach to making music and a great band chemistry,” Mechanical Wonders tell Atwood Magazine. “We all grew up in the same working class part of Dublin so have a great connection and sense of camaraderie, reminiscing about times growing up and bringing that feeling into our music, With melodies and harmonies and jangling guitars we’re trying to replicate bands like Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis, Stereophonics, and the like to create that live show that everyone can get involved in.”
“We’ve developed our sound over the last 10 years forming out of folk band Good Time Villains and moving on from the folky sound to a more driving indie rock sound with more electric guitars and some heavier drum beats. We’re as much as we love recording we’re in it for the live shows so try to make each one special.”
That live-minded approach gives “Instead of Alone” its undeniable, irresistible bite. Mechanical Wonders take loneliness, heartbreak, and the compromises people make in pursuit of connection and give them a chorus meant to fill a room. The song’s message lands with equal force: being by yourself can hurt, but losing yourself to keep somebody close cuts deeper.
:: “My Golden Tempo” – Sledding ::
Mitch Mosk, Beacon, New York
Brooklyn froze over last winter, and Sledding answered by getting loud. Formed in a Ridgewood basement during the city’s back-to-back blizzards, the indie rock four-piece arrive with “My Golden Tempo,” a hard-hitting debut single crackling with raw heat and the pent-up energy of a band ready to break out.
The entrance alone is enough to make you lean in. A fiery electric guitar comes churning out of the gate, all searing leads, slashing melodies, and raging overdrive, pulling from the sweatier end of the post-punk revival while carrying plenty of pop-punk muscle. Sledding keep pressing forward until the chorus hits and the whole thing erupts, the guitars roaring and soaring around a hook built to be shouted back from the floor. There’s bravado here, but the playing earns every ounce of it.
Underneath all that force, “My Golden Tempo” is tangled up in a relationship that never quite found its footing. Brooklyn is “way too far,” a summer has left both sides confused, and goodbyes keep going unsaid. The song’s most revealing tension comes when the narrator insists, “trust me I’m doing fine not one day past 25 / can’t tell you where I sleep at night but I heard you wanted to know.” The harder that confidence pushes, the easier it becomes to hear everything still rattling underneath it.
That push and pull gives the chorus its charge. “It’s not true if it’s not you / sing that song to me,” Sledding repeat, letting longing crash straight into the song’s restless momentum. Even the clipped invitation “let’s start the rough play” adds to the sense that desire, confusion, ego, and unfinished business are all getting thrown into the same sweaty room together. The guitars churn because the relationship does too.
“We started playing earlier this year out of a need to escape a long, harsh New York City winter,” the band tell Atwood Magazine. “Our namesake is inspired by the two blizzards that closed our city this past year. We are only interested in playing loud music and drinking with beautiful people. The isolation brought about by the Blizzard of ‘26 drew us together and now serves as a distant memory. ‘My Golden Tempo’ was written because we needed a fast song with a big hook to close our live set…and we’re just trying to have fun.”
That origin story fits the song perfectly. Singer/guitarists Aidan Drouse and Khadija “Deej” Aslam, bassist Kelsey Kussman, and guitarist/keyboardist Woods Prewitt came together after years spent crossing paths in Brooklyn bands and DIY spaces, then moved almost immediately from basement rehearsals to Baby’s All Right, Night Club 101, Sugar Hill, and Le Bain. A debut EP is due this fall, but “My Golden Tempo” already captures the live-wire chemistry at the center of the project.
For a first single, it’s one hell of an entrance. “My Golden Tempo” is sweaty, supercharged indie rock music with its nerves exposed, a song that keeps accelerating even as its narrator circles the same unresolved goodbye. Sledding wanted a fast song with a big hook to close their set; they ended up with a debut that sounds built to start a whole lot more.
:: “Man Out Of You” – Alisan Porter ::
Julius Robinson, California
Most of us have heard someone say at some point, “I swear he can change,” when talking about their man. It’s the all-too-familiar song and dance of believing you can love, nurture, and reshape someone deeply flawed into the partner you wish they could be. Alisan Porter’s new release “Man Out Of You” is at its core about recognizing when it’s time to let go and reclaim your sense of worth. Porter shares, “ ‘Man Out of You’ is the story of one of your best girlfriends telling you, once again, how a man let her down. This time, I realized I needed to write about it.” The track also brings in Broadway powerhouse Shoshana Bean, whose accolades include a Tony Award win and a Grammy Award nomination. The piece’s strong, velvety vocals allow the emotive message to truly take life.
Porter is a woman who wears many hats. A singer, songwriter, actress and vocal coach she formed a deep joy for the arts early on in life. She won the first season of the popular show Star Search at just 5-years-old. Ever since her career has continued to flourish and her reality show journey did not end there. In 2016 alongside her coach Christina Aguilera, she won season ten. Her previous single “Race To Nowhere” gained some traction and this offering is equally as compelling. A dedicated wife and mother, she channels the love she has for her family into her music. That kind of passion is what makes her work resonate with listeners so profoundly.
:: For The Record – Alyssa Gallarneau ::
Joe Beer, Surrey, UK
Alyssa Gallarneau’s debut album For The Record, is a collection that blends polished pop with the intimacy of folk and singer-songwriter storytelling. The release feels deeply personal without becoming overly literal, weaving together themes of love, faith, longing and finding your place through vivid imagery and carefully crafted lyrics. As Gallarneau explains, “I approached many songs as if they were a scene in a film. I wanted the album to reward repeated listens, and hopefully reveal new details each time through.”
For The Record balances warm, organic songwriting with a modern sheen. The focus track, “I Don’t Want To Think About You,” written alongside Gallarneau’s sister Brittany, captures the frustration of trying to move on from someone who refuses to leave your thoughts. The songwriter shares, “It’s the song you listen to as your flight takes off, except the person you wanted to show up for you arrives at the gate too late.” Sonically, it opens with gentle ukulele strums contrasting against the foot-stomping percussion, gradually expanding into a rich, layered arrangement that builds towards a satisfying crescendo before dropping back to its delicate melody. Gallarneau’s vocals remain effortlessly clear throughout, soaring above the instrumentation with warmth and power. The same attention to detail can be seen through the rest of the album, with songs including “Willow Tree,” “Ocean Air” and “All’s Fair in Love & War” highlighting her ability to pair memorable melodies with thoughtful, emotionally grounded songwriting.
:: “uncle sam” – overtonight ::
Mitch Mosk, Beacon, New York
“uncle sam” begins with an escape plan: Japan, a minivan, anywhere that puts distance between overtonight and the life he’s trying to outrun. The Boston artist’s fourth single of 2026 carries that restless impulse from its opening seconds, winding forward with the scrappy immediacy of a thought that has already started running before anyone can catch it.
The guitar work itself irresistible. A roaring electric lead tears through the track with full pop-punk force, soaring over lo-fi, chord-heavy production as “uncle sam” erupts into a spirited fever dream by the chorus. overtonight’s delivery rises with it, pushing the song’s hard-hitting energy against lyrics drawn from a far darker place.
“This song is the finished version of a draft I released on SoundCloud a while ago,” overtonight shares. “In this version, I fully express what I’m going through at the moment and it is very meaningful to me.”
The escape fantasy eventually reveals the pain underneath it, culminating in the devastating plea, “I really need someone else to say I’m not alone.” That line gives all the distortion and motion around it a deeper purpose: “uncle sam” sounds like a person trying to outrun his own thoughts, only to discover that what he needs most is another voice beside his own. As overtonight builds toward his forthcoming sophomore album ghostland forever, this bruising, energized single makes connection sound urgent.
:: “My Guy” – MERCE ::
Mitch Mosk, Beacon, New York
Grief rarely moves in a straight line, and neither does “My Guy.” Merce’s latest single circles its central realization with the patience of someone learning to trust it: the person who slipped away was never hers to keep, and the life waiting beyond that loss still belongs to her. A hypnotic and enchanting brood, “My Guy” drifts through atmospheric electronics, layered harmonies, and a steady, march-like pulse, each repetition of “There’s no need to cry” sinking a little deeper until reassurance begins to sound like conviction.
That self-reassurance carries extra weight in the context of ALIVE, Merce’s forthcoming debut solo album, written after the loss of her partner in life and music, Richard Nichols. A founding member of neo-soul pioneers The Jazzyfatnastees who has collaborated with The Roots, Stevie Wonder, and De La Soul, the Los Angeles singer/songwriter and producer enters this new chapter with decades of musical history behind her and a deeply personal process of rebuilding at its center.
“‘MY GUY’ is less about a guy I didn’t align with and more about reassuring myself that there’s no need to cry. Who or what is meant for me will not pass me by,” Merce tells Atwood Magazine. “The music is atmospheric and moody with a march-like quality that feels like the path I’m on, the twisting, winding road to my highest good.”
Restraint gives “My Guy” its intoxicating pull. Merce allows hope to emerge by degrees, moving from “I’ll soar and fly” toward the beautifully plainspoken “I’ll be fine.” By the final refrain, those words land less like a prediction than a practice – a soft, stirring act of choosing herself again and again until she believes it.
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