Radio Free Alice team up with Rachel Brown, St. Digue and Tommy Lefroy preview October albums, SIENNÁ finds songs on her walks, and Tear Dungeon take Squirm on tour.

IN THIS EDITION
01 Radio Free Alice · 02 St. Digue · 03 SIENNÁ · 04 Tommy Lefroy · 05 Tear Dungeon

01 / Radio Free Alice find a second voice for ‘Big Ideas’

Melbourne’s Radio Free Alice have shared ‘Big Ideas’, featuring Rachel Brown of Water From Your Eyes. It previews their debut album, What’s In Between, due October 30 through Atlantic. The song began during a frustrating stretch of writing in the band’s storage-unit rehearsal space: ‘The riff came first and then the bass line,’ singer Noah Learmonth recalls.

They’d wanted a second voice early on, with a call-and-response part in mind. After years of following Water From Your Eyes and catching their Melbourne show, they asked Brown to join them. ‘We felt like Rachel would be perfect, they have such an interesting, distinctive voice,’ Learmonth says in the label’s announcement. The video comes from Radio Free Alice’s free pop-up show outside NOON Projects in Los Angeles’ Chinatown.

02 / St. Digue previews Secret Language with ‘Relapse’

Copenhagen singer and producer Kasper Deichmann, who records as St. Digue, has shared ‘Relapse’ ahead of his third album, Secret Language. The nine-track record arrives October 16 through Over The Under Records. Deichmann wrote, recorded and produced it over two years, working through the difficulties of love and relationships.

‘Relapse’ concerns the damage caused by recurring toxic patterns, according to the release announcement. Oliver Nehammer mixed the album, Marcus Ferreira mastered it, and Mariam Zakarian supplied the artwork and photography. St. Digue celebrates the release at Copenhagen’s Loppen on October 17, joined by She Can’t Afford Mascara and Phoenix Down.

03 / SIENNÁ turns walks in Kyoto and Ischia into EMA

Kyoto-born, Oslo-based composer and electronic artist SIENNÁ released EMA on September 23 through Anneis Records. Its nine tracks grew from walks in Kyoto’s Kibune valley and on the Italian island of Ischia. In an interview with Iggy Magazine, she jokes that she’s bad at drawing, so the images became music instead.

She also tells the magazine that time outdoors helped her through a personal transition while she was making the album. Now that it’s finished, she’s curious about what happens when listeners turn those sounds back into pictures of their own. ‘Be A Seeker, Believer’, the record’s first single, grew around resilience and self-belief.

04 / Tommy Lefroy look back at starting out together on ‘Vacuum’

Tommy Lefroy have released ‘Vacuum’, the final preview of their debut album, The Precariat, due October 23 through Thirty Tigers. Tessa Mouzourakis and Wynter Bethel return to their early days in London, when they knew almost nobody outside each other and were putting everything into a band that might not work out.

‘There was a blind faith we had in each other early on,’ they say in the announcement. The duo describe ‘Vacuum’ as an unusually direct song about their shared experiences. Written over six years across Britain and North America, The Precariat also includes ‘Angel in the House’, ‘Thief’ and ‘Slush Puppy’. They’ll mark its release with a show at Stone Circle Theatre in Queens on October 23, followed by an in-store performance at Rough Trade NYC the next day.

05 / Tear Dungeon take Squirm on a North American tour

Austin punk band Tear Dungeon released Squirm on October 2 through TODO Records and will begin their North American tour with an album-release show at 29th Street Ballroom on October 9. ‘Red Flag’ was the final advance single, following ‘I’m Not Dead Yet’ and ‘Freak Flag’.

The announced run includes Toronto and Montreal on November 4 and 5, with a final stop at Houston’s White Oak Upstairs on November 22. Stuart Sikes tracked the album, John Michael Landon mixed it at Estuary Recording, and Greg Obis mastered it at Chicago Mastering Service.

Previously: Daily Undertone No. 005 — Test Dept revisit Gododdin →