Ed O’Brien has always seemed slightly misfiled in the public imagination of Radiohead. Not quite the architect, not quite the figurehead, and not easily reduced to the usual guitar-hero shorthand, he has instead occupied a more atmospheric role within the band’s ecosystem: textures, counter-melodies, the slow bloom of sound rather than its sharp edge. It is a position that can look like absence from a distance, until one realises how much of Radiohead’s emotional weather depe

There are musicians who arrive carrying a tradition, and there are musicians who seem determined to test how much pressure that tradition can withstand before it changes shape. Zoh Amba belongs firmly in the second category. Born in Tennessee and emerging from the fertile contemporary jazz underground of New York, Amba has established themselves as one of the more singular voices in improvised music. A saxophonist, composer and bandleader, they arrived with a sound that drew

For much of the last decade, Julia Jacklin has occupied a curious position in contemporary songwriting. She is widely admired, frequently cited by other musicians, and yet has somehow remained slightly outside the larger narratives that tend to gather around her peers. Perhaps that is because her work resists easy categorisation. Across albums such as Don't Let the Kids Win, Crushing and Pre Pleasure, Jacklin has developed a body of songs that feel less interested in grand st

Mary in the Junkyard emerged at a moment when British guitar music seemed increasingly divided between revival and reinvention. The London trio never appeared especially interested in either category. Formed by Clari Freeman-Taylor, Saya Barbaglia and David Addison while still in their teens, the band quickly developed a reputation for music that felt difficult to reduce to a single lineage. Their early releases drew attention for combining elements of indie rock, folk, art r

Long before Yard Act became one of Britain’s most recognisable post-punk exports, they understood something many bands spend entire careers trying to learn: people are often at their most revealing when they are attempting to justify themselves.

Getdown Services occupy that peculiarly British tradition of acts who understand that absurdity and social observation are often only a few inches apart. Emerging from Bristol, the duo of Josh Law and Ben Sadler have built their reputation on a kind of wiry, deadpan confrontation with modern English life. Their music draws from post-punk, dance music, spoken-word satire and the long, slightly disreputable lineage of bands who know that comedy can often expose social unease mo

Lip Critic do not behave like a band trying to make things easier for themselves. Since forming in New York, the group have moved with the kind of deliberate excess that feels less like genre exercise and more like refusal. Their identity sits somewhere between art-rock, noise collage and something closer to performance artefact: songs as events rather than statements, built from fractured electronics, clipped vocal fragments and rhythm sections that rarely agree to stay in o

There is a particular kind of confidence in making music that never once raises its voice. For more than a decade, Widowspeak have occupied that strange and increasingly rare corner of independent music where restraint becomes its own form of authority. Since forming in Brooklyn in 2010, the duo of Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas have built a body of work that resists spectacle with almost stubborn consistency. Their songs rarely announce themselves. They arrive quietly

There are songs that arrive with a hand on your shoulder. ‘One Stop’ arrives like somebody already sitting in the room, waiting for you to notice. Aldous Harding has always had that effect. Since emerging from New Zealand with a voice that seems at once ancient and oddly amused by the present tense, she has made a habit of unsettling the familiar. Folk is the nearest available word, but it has never really fitted. Her songs do not unfold so much as tilt. A phrase appears inno

There comes an age when the mirror ceases to flatter and begins, quietly, to testify. For Lime Garden, that age is twenty-three. The Brighton quartet has spent years crafting music that grins while baring its teeth. Since their formation in 2017, Lime Garden has carved out a unique spot in the indie pop scene with what they once called ‘wonk pop’—a sly blend of dancefloor energy, wiry guitars, and a distinctly English unease. Their debut album, One More Thing, landed in 2024,

They came together like a coincidence that refused to behave like one. Two singers from different continents, both raised in towns sharing the same name, connected through the invisible threads of the internet before meeting in person at a live show. This meeting sparked the creation of Witch Post, a Scottish-American duo made up of Dylan Fraser and Alaska Reid. Their music carries the weight of this unusual origin story—small, strange, and impossible to ignore. Witch Post’s

Kim Gordon is a name that resonates far beyond the boundaries of music. Known primarily as a founding member of Sonic Youth, her artistic journey spans decades and mediums, shaping not only alternative rock but also contemporary art and fashion.

As Holy Fuck continues to evolve, tracks like "Evie" suggest a band that is not afraid to explore new territories while staying true to their roots.