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MUNA

Dancing On The Wall

    MUNA’s journey has always been about holding space for the complex, messy, ecstatic realities of life, and with their fourth album, 'Dancing On The Wall', they’ve never been sharper, darker, or more exhilarating. Emerging from the sparkly, confetti-strewn heights of their 2022 self-titled record, MUNA now channel the anxious, uncertain energy of living in a Los Angeles defined by political tension, environmental decay, and the quiet pressures of millennial precarity. The result is a record that feels both intimate and spectacular, a pop world built with teeth, wit, and emotional resonance, a soundtrack for hearts simultaneously on fire and observing the chaos around them. Across the record, MUNA explores desire, intimay, and connection against a backdrop of a world in flux. There’s a quiet reckoning throughout the album with how to keep living, loving, and reaching for one another while bearing witness to political brutality and systemic violence and how joy survives without denial. Tracks like 'Wannabeher' capture the dizzying thrill of stepping fully into someone else’s fantasy, while 'Why Do I Get A Good Feeling' lingers long after the beat ends, a meditation on fleeting joy and suspended possibilities. The album closes with 'Buzzkiller', a stark reckoning with desire and its aftermath, the ache of achieving what you wanted only to realise new questions, doubts, and hungers remain. Their previous work, including the viral hit 'Silk Chiffon', has earned hundreds of millions of streams and widespread acclaim, alongside TV appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Late Show with James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and Good Morning America. The band also maintains a devoted following across TikTok, Instagram, and Spotify.

    The record is produced by Naomi McPherson, with their trademark attention to detail blending effortlessly with bandmate Josette Maskin’s well-honed behind-the-scenes pop technique to create living, breathing worlds for lead singer Katie Gavin’s incisive lyricism and signature voice. 'Dancing On The Wall' blends euphoric sonic landscapes with sharp, human storytelling. The album reflects a fiercely self-directed creative process, one shaped by instinct, trust, and total artistic control. It feels lived-in, urgent, and cinematic, a reflection of a generation navigating uncertainty while refusing to let go of joy. With this album, MUNA proves once again that pop can be daring, intimate, and socially conscious all at once: a record that doesn’t just capture the moment, but distills it into a world you want to inhabit.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. It Gets So Hot
    2. Dancing On The Wall
    3. Eastside Girls
    4. Wannabeher
    5. On Call
    6. So What
    7. Party's Over
    8. Big Stick
    9. Mary Jane
    10. Girl's Girl
    11. ...Unless
    12. Why Do I Get A Good Feeling
    13. Buzzkiller

    Jasmine.4.t

    You Are The Morning

      You Are The Morning was formed amid personal upheaval in 2021. “I came out as trans to my nearest and dearest,” she says, “Some did not accept me, but some did.” Jasmine got divorced, and a difficult home life meant she was writing while experiencing homelessness and precarious housing, sleeping on friend’s couches and relying on community support. Despite the pain of some of its background, the record is an uplifting look at t4t love. Jasmine describes her first trans romance as the first time she experienced joy in a deep sense, because of her experience of living as a woman.

      First single ‘Skin on Skin’ explores the new joy of physical touch. Usually a quick writer, it’s a rare song that grew over time, during which a close connection with a friend began to form. “Sticking to the physical boundaries we wanted to have with each other became increasingly difficult. We were spending lots of time together, then falling in love. This song became a celebration of healing and physical catharsis found through unrepressed queer love.”

      Jasmine and her band travelled to L.A. to record at Sound City Studios. It was made across 12 days in a highly collaborative and emotional process, and because Jasmine sees her songs as fluid and ever-changing, the recordings carry that free and spontaneous spirit.jasmine.4.t is supported by an all-trans band, Phoenix Rousiamanis contributes piano and strings, with Eden O’Brien on drums and Emily Abbott on bass. With Jasmine’s voice and songwriting at the centre, the record incorporates a wider cast of voices. ‘Best Friend’s House’ features a chorus including her bandmates, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus (“the girls and the boys”), Saddest Factory Records label-mate Claud, Becca Mancari and E.R. Fightmaster. The song carries the communal spirit of the record’s creation. On the closing track, ‘Woman’, she is backed by the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, a cross-generational group of trans singers who, like Jasmine, use their voice as a source of communal power. The song blossoms from solo performance to wider group catharsis. All the while, Jasmine sings unwaveringly about the power of knowing yourself at a core level: “I am, in my soul, a woman”.

      The writing of You Are The Morning pulled from dark moments to tell its story. Surrounded by friends, the recording process was full of light. Through her performances, activism and artistry, jasmine.4.t is ushering in a new dawn.

      STAFF COMMENTS

      Barry says: I'm a massive fan of Calud, so was excited to hear the latest record from Phoebe Bridgers' Saddest Factory label. Jasmine's music thoroughly soars, nestling comfortably between the country-adjacent majesty of onetime tourmate, Lucy Dacus or the folky fingerpicking of Ryley Walker or Yasmin Williams. It's a beautifully written union of her perfectly evocative lyrical themes and the intricate, athletic instrumentation. Ace.

      TRACK LISTING

      SIDE A
      Kitchen
      Skin On Skin
      Highfield
      Breaking In Reverse
      You Are The Morning
      Best Friend’s House

      SIDE B
      Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation
      Tall Girl
      New Shoes
      Roan
      Elephant
      Transition
      Woman

      Katie Gavin

      What A Relief

        Katie Gavin’s debut What A Relief taps into the unguarded self-possession and homespun pop sensibility of singers like Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple and Ani DiFranco, and uses their tenacity as a north star for Gavin’s own trek towards self-discovery. “This record spans a lot of my life – it’s about having a really deep desire for connection, but also encountering all the obstacles that stood in my way to be able to achieve that, patterns of isolation or even boredom with the real work of love” they say.

        Written over the course of seven years, What A Relief comprises a set of songs that Gavin always loved but which “had something in them” that she and her bandmates felt didn’t quite fit within the universe they were trying to cultivate with MUNA. Many of them were written on acoustic guitar, and are rooted in “a style of music that’s very much in my blood, and natural for me,” as typified by the Women & Songs CDs that Gavin loves, which compiled music by artists like Tracy Chapman, Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan.

        That openness of spirit is the overwhelming character of What A Relief, an album that’s refreshing in its willingness to accept people as they come, even as it remains in dogged pursuit of a life that’s kinder, wiser and more loving. Gavin’s explorations of desire and intimacy feel time-worn and necessary – songs that might teach a generation if not how to live, exactly, then at least how to look within oneself for guidance about how to move forward.

        STAFF COMMENTS

        Barry says: Gorgeously evocative country-tinged ballads that are reminiscent of the joyful zest of 90's rock and jangling indie-pop of the early 00's. A wonderfully engaging selection of well written melodies and stunning instrumentals.

        TRACK LISTING

        SIDE A
        1) I Want It All
        2) Aftertaste
        3) The Baton
        4) Casual Drug Use
        5) As Good As It Gets
        6) Sanitized

        SIDE B
        7) Sketches
        8) Inconsolable
        9) Sparrow
        10) Sweet Abby Girl
        11) Keep Walking
        12) Today


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