Tomoyoshi Date + Stijn Hüwels - Tatemono (2026)

Another year, another great release from the Brazilian-Japanese artist Tomoyoshi Date. This time, again, a collaboration with Stijn Hüwels from Belgium. Together, the two gentlemen cast a musical enchantment on their listeners cause how else can this sonic beauty be explained?

The music here is very slow. Actually, you can barely hear it move. But it does, in the tiniest of waves, like a lake in the darkness before dawn. There are other small proofs of the fact that life is somewhere there, living on the edge of the compositions. It's the soft, intimate piano key sounds, not entirely providing you with melodies, but also not entirely lacking those. I feel like this album is about nature, but, in fact, it's the exact opposite. The title means "a building" and the tracks further confirm that. So, I guess, it's an office building at night? I don't know, cause office buildings and what they're about at night may be one of those unsolved mysteries of the reality around us. 

But one thing is sure: it's just one of the most melancholic but also comforting albums these days.

Tatemono costs 7 EUR.

Check: Corridor / Rouka / 廊下

Country: Brazil/Japan/Belgium

Genre: piano ambient

Label: LAAPS

Tomoyoshi Date - 438Hz As It Is, As You Are [​あ​る​が​ま​ま​、​あ​な​た​の​ま​ま​に​] (2022)

Stijn Hüwels + Tomoyoshi Date - 遠き火、遠き雲’ ​(​A Distant Fire​,​ A Distant Cloud) (2021)

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Din of Celestial Birds - Takeoffs & Landings (2026)

Three years after their highly appreciated debut album, the post-rock society is thrilled to receive a sophomore release from the Leeds-based outfit Din of Celestial Birds. They artists are proud about their fast and energetic, but also meaningful instrumental music. And rightly so, as the new album follows the (quick) steps of its predecessor.

As the title suggests, the album is "all about adventure, travel, and the journey of life" with everything that follows: the challenges, the failures but also the every day victories. Judging by the pace of most of the compositions, the artists have a similar feeling as I do: life runs forward so fucking fast. The guitar melodies reflect that very well, at least in most parts. The guitar melodies are the focus point for the band which goes very well with the very much genre-specific ways of employing the narrative and the emotional side of music.

The downside of the album, for me, is fewer moments devoted to atmosphere-building. The balance is shifted certainly towards the catchy and the dance-inducing side. Which has to be awesome at the live gigs too. I'm saying that because in my books this is usually a hard pass for me, but in this case, I feel like it works very well. I'd love to see those guys live at one point.

Takeoffs & Landings costs 10.5 EUR (9 GBP).

Check: Second Star To The Right, and Straight On 'Til Morning

Country: UK

Genre: guitar post-rock

Label: Big Scary Monsters

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Drawing Hills - Lueurs (2026)

I can't believe I already posted about the French band of Drawing Hills... almost 10 years ago. This reminds me that very, very soon, this blog will have its very significant birthday. But this can wait as the short EP released in June and filled to the brim with quality post-rock is worth a story of its own.

Since 2017, the band released only 3 EPs so it's not the most fruitful music career I've seen. HOWEVER, for a small and relatively unknown band, the quality of the music they create is staggering. I love when guitar post-rock finds this balance between being catchy and melodic and noisy and overwhelming. And Lueurs showcases just that: the guitars play blissful melodies only to become aggressively loud and math-rock-like random (in my favourite track here, Inferno). This doesn't mean that there is no continuity here as the whole album feels very well-thought-through and coherently atmospheric.

So the EP may be short, but there is A LOT going on from the beginning to the finish. I just wish the Frenchmen won't wait another 4 years with another three tracks. It's time for an LP I think.

Lueurs costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Inferno

Country: France

Genre: guitar post-rock

Drawing Hills - Bunch of Bushes (2017)

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The Dreamtoday - We Won't Survive the Comet (2026)

Hailing from Pennsylvania, The Dreamtoday brings us some of noisy and coarse-sounding shoegaze, a subgenre that doesn't always work right, but this time it certainly does. They released their second album called We Won't Survive the Comet and it's such an interesting read (I'd say if that was a book)!

A second album or "a story of delusional grandeur and apocalyptic bliss" as they advertise it. And I'm kinda perplexed by the description. If anything, I'd say the sound is more garage-like or small-stage-big-party-esque than equipped with grandeur. As well as bringing the crunchy sounds than the blissful, synth-heavy shoegaze. I was hesitant to call it grunge as I never know what it means exactly, but I see the band themselves use this tag so, yeah, it's grungey shoegaze. Grugaze. 

I particularly like when the band tries adding something else to the slate like when the soothing vocals finally give up lighting up the compositions and get overwhelmed by the noisy guitar sounds as it is the case in Crystal Sky or in my favourite Our Beacon. Or the sort of an interludium but also kinda a cool and dreamy song in through fog. Or the wild Saxophone appearing on Breathe. There is a lot going on in here, probably just as it would be in the final moments before the not surviving the comet situation. Oh, also, the vocalist's called Violet Nowak so cheers to my fellow Polish person!

We Won't Survive the Comet costs 9.99 USD.

Check: Our Beacon

Country: Massachusetts, US

Genre: grugaze (grungey shoegaze)

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Arvid Holst - Fjer (2026)

Arvid Holst comes from Denmark and brings with him the most beautiful soundscapes. His new EP called Fjer is built on the slow and calm sounds of piano keys. But there is something more in those compositions, something just barely audible, yet quite profound.

I love when a good neoclassical work has some electronica hidden somewhere in the backgrounds. Holst chose the extreme version: the electronic additions are really barely audible, sitting somewhere in the background but still influencing the listeners like some sort of subliminal messages aimed at the audience to make their lives slightly more special. The 6 short compositions are subtle and calm, there is no place for hurry or releasing an overflow of energy. This is music for quiet relaxations, but one with a hint of mystery and darkness. 

Fjer costs 4 EUR (6 CAD).

Check: Frigear

Country: Denmark

Genre: piano soundscapes

Label: Moderna Records

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Arches - 4 (2026)

So it seems that this blog can hardly exist without some fantastic discovery from Hong Kong these days. After David Boring and Lucid Express, it's time for the debut album (of course titled 4, duh!) album from the young people of Arches. Dream pop, shoegaze and some very East Asian vibes make some great work here.

The band plays with the whispering vocals and noisy guitars balance so well, I can't believe this is only their first LP. And by writing whispering, I really mean it. It's not a slightly dreamy pop vocal, it's very dream pop-like... yeah, whispering. I love it. And somehow the vocals don't get overwhelmed by the energetic guitars (even if they are not particularly wall-of-sound-esque, they can be pretty loud). But coming back to the silence/noise juxtaposition, I love when a band stops the guitar machine suddenly so the silence sounds more poignantly and, in a very Nothing-esque way, Arches do that a lot, Drowning or Hate are great examples on 4.

4 costs 9 USD.

Check: Drowning

Country: Hong Kong

Genre: dreamy shoegaze

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Blueneck - Moonlighting (2026)

"10 years in the making, forged through chaos, illness and persistence", yes, Blueneck's new album is gonna be the second of the comebacks after a decade since the last album was released this week. Possible one of the albums I'd waited the most this year as The Outpost was really a highlight of 2016. The now-duo overcame the challenges and finally gave us their 8th album and I can safely say that it lived up to the hype.

Heavier dependency on the electronic sounds, come back after years, changes in the line-up. Some time ago Piano Magic came back as Theory of Ghosts and I can hear some similarities in what is happening to Blueneck right now. The sound is slightly different, but the core is there: just as it was on The Outpost and before, the British artist are capable of creating phenomenal atmosphere sitting somewhere between slowcore, post-rock and art pop styles. Based on the beautiful vocals and sad lyrics, formed with synthetic beats and electronica and finally underlined with the guitar noise finishes, most of the compositions on Moonlighting follow the pattern and it works like a gem.

Return to Cadiz ends with hypnotic guitar-focused section that makes you transcendent yourself for a while, Goliath charms with its melodies, but my favourite piece here has to be the title song, Moonlighting. The vocals and the piano keys lead through the first part of the track and its cosy ambiance only to be slowly transformed into a beautifully chaotic mix of sounds and back into an atmospheric ballad. This is going to be one of the most important albums of the year for me.

Moonlighting costs 11 EUR (9 GBP).

Check: Moonlighting 

Country: UK

Genre: electronic slowcore

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Downfall of Nur - And the Firmament will Burn to Quench the Pain of this Earth (2026)

There's been some meaningful comebacks recently and so it happens that all of them came back after a decade of hiatus. And Antonio Sanna's project is no different here. It'd been already 10 years since the last album signed by Downfall of Nur, EP with Selvans was released. The Italian artist currently living in Argentina brought back his music that is located somewhere between instrumental ambient and black metal and made it worth waiting for.

If you take the notion of atmospheric (black) metal and concentrate it over and over again, you'll get Downfall of Nur's soundscapes. Because this is music that may have came from the realm of angry guitars and powerful screams but there's little that reminds us of the genre's origins at the moment. It's a soundscape. Almost ambient music in a way. The album is long which makes the tracks long, almost all of them being their own wholes, their own albums. Slowly developing, reaching unbelievable places, coming back and again, like a nice evening stroll. It happens that the stroll brings you around hell that our world is turning into, but nevertheless, it's a stroll.

The atmosphere on thsi album is phenomenal. No wonder, as this album treats about the way the suffering and the grief of women shaped the history of humankind. This and the undoubted ties to the Mediterranean culture must bring the recent cinematic mega-production to one's mind, especially that the album "is not a linear or conclusive narrative, but a fragmented ritual space that opens the way to multiple layers of interpretation, where history, mythology, and human mourning converge". Non-linear, huh? Just like a certain American director likes doing stuff. I'm happy to say that And the Firmament will Burn to Quench the Pain of this Earth is my favourite piece of non-linear storytelling set in the Mediterranean world this summer.

And the Firmament will Burn to Quench the Pain of this Earth costs 7 EUR.

Check: Underground Halls of the Oldest Goddess’s Stronghold

Country: Italy/Argentina

Genre: black metal soundscape

Label: Avantgarde Music

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Million Moons - You Be Good, I Love You (2026)

Another one of the post-rock "everything will be alright" entitled albums is here courtesy to the British outfit Million Moons. But unlike Lost in Kyiv's sweet and melodic synthpop of post-rock music from the last post, here we have guitar music with some real gravity to it. This is the kind of sounds you feel with your whole body when the artists want this.

And they want it very early on. My favourite track in here is actually the opening one: Titan of the Deep. Massive walls of sound waltz into the picture like the title's titans, giving away the feeling of grandeur and importance. It's not the darkest music though, the subtle but unmistakable keyboard balances the weight when needed, adding to the beauty of the release. And this balance is maintained throughout the album with some tracks getting closer to the melancholic side of things while others impressing with the sheer loudness of the guitars. 

The artists point out that the music on the album should be paired with experiencing nature, listening to this kind of post-rock in some kind of monumental environment (like... mountains I guess) should indeed be spectacular. Indeed, the monumentality of the music is perhaps the most important aspect of the new release. I still have the guitar blizzard of Secret Histories playing sweetly in my ears (and that makes me forgive them the jazzy passages in Memories of a Past Life;)).

You Be Good, I Love You costs 11 EUR (9 GBP).

Check: Titan of the Deep

Country: UK

Genre: guitar post-rock

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Lost in Kyiv - We're All Going to Be Fine (2026)

The release of the 5th album from the French band turned out to be the perfect occasion, in the artists' eyes, to have a small lifting to their name. Small but significant, as the outfit, closely tied with the Ukrainian nation's struggles and war effort, decided to honour this and from now on use the Ukrainian way of spelling the country's capital's name. Consequently, the new album kind of got lost (sic!) in this commotion. And it shouldn't be the case, cause they band never disappoints.

Lost in Kyiv are almost perfect when it comes to making "modern" post-rock. One that is both melodic and impactful, with heavy use of synths and some unorthodox elements to the compositions. Within this subgenre, they manage to be very exciting while always delivering what is supposed of them. This post-rock is heavy, but not too heavy, it's melodic, but not too melodic, modern-sounding, but also not deprived of emotions. I love Burst with its synthy flow, Eclipse for its glitchy moments and Euphoria for its... well, euphoric vibes. This is not going to be THE best post-rock album of the year for me, but it certainly will be one I'll be coming back to a lot. But not to the track with Rebecca Need-Menear's vocals. Sorry, it just doesn't agree with me.

Interestingly, the album's title really fits the trend of hopeful and warm messages sent by post-rock(ish) artists. Suffice it to say, only this year we had Million Moon's You Be Good, I Love You or VLMV's There Will Come Soft Rains. I guess this is ONE way of responding to today's world, especially when you are (like LiK and like me) emotionally invested in a brutal war we have here, in Europe. Cheers to the trend then.

We're All Going to Be Fine costs 5 EUR.

Check: Burst

Country: France

Genre: modern post-rock

Label: Pelagic Records

Lost in Kiev - Rupture (2022)

Lost in Kiev - Persona (2019)

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Sara Parkman - Aster, atlas (2026)

I know her from 2022 Funeral Folk album where she created, well, some funeral-feeling folk with her compatriot Maria W Horn. But I have never heard her solo works and this has, fortunately, changed with the release of this beautiful record. Artful pop inspired as much by folk as by the trademark Scandinavian sensibility.

The 6th album in the Swedish artist's discography is a treat for artistic folk lovers. The inspirations are pretty clear: the energetic but also mysterious vocals, the violins like from Midsommar, the choir singing as if it was recorded in a small church somewhere in the Saami country. This is Scandinavian folk. But there is so much more on Aster, atlas. In Paradiset we have some real dark notes, finally conquered by the hopeful ending. There is some spoken word, very lyric-heavy vocals thrown around through the album's landscape. And finally, my favourite (of course) song, Salikons rosor, that starts slow but successively gets more nervous and louder, up to the crescendoing, orchestral finish that resonates in your ears for a long time. Yeah, well, I'm a post-rock fan.

But I like the slower parts of the album equally much. Those melancholic, but soothing seconds of an intensive one-on-one with Parkman's voice are there to enchant the sadder parts of your souls. Also: the fact that everything is in Swedish, I language I don't speak but I recognize a lot of words, but there are also parts in Latin, is always a great sign too.

Aster, atlas costs 8 EUR (90 SEK).

Check: Salikons rosor

Country: Sweden

Genre: art folk pop

Label: Supertraditional Records

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Mike Lazarev - Gradiscence (2026)

Born in Ukraine, living in UK, this ambient producer with the looks of a hermit and the music sensibility of a poet made some more magic and enchanted it onto a short EP entitled Gradiscence.  His unhurried piano-based soundscapes create this kind of atmosphere that is as cozy as it is beautiful.

Not everything he makes gets to me, but this year's EP is another release after 2023's Sacred Tonalities that touched my spiritual side. There is something in the quality of those key sounds accompanied by next to nothing else that strikes me throughout the album. Every one of them feels like a finger touch on my spine, bringing an overwhelming feeling of warm if nostalgic embrace. The minimalism of the compositions really brings the piano sounds out so that they can charm the audience freely. Still, my favourite part of the EP is the one where the piano finally gives up and submerges into the moody, omnipresent electronic drone. Love it.

Gradiscence costs 6 EUR (5 GBP).

Check: Gradiscent

Country: Ukraine/UK

Genre: piano soundscape

Label: Bigo and Twigetti

Mike Lazarev - Sacred Tonalities (2023)

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The Haunted Youth - Boys Cry Too (2026)

The Haunted Youth from Belgium may be one of the most interesting bands making a tasty, modern blend of various gazey genres that can't be directly connected to any of them, but works fantastically as a whole. The dream poppy synthwavey shoegazey emo rock or whatnot outfit released their second album and it's as good as their debut from 2022.

What is great about their music is the sheer catchiness of each and every song on the album. You can go through the list of tracks and tick every position in the Am I going to Sing it With the Band column. The short and sweet one-liner chorus in In My Head or the chanting-like vocals in Deathwish or the almost r'n'b electronica in Wake Up. But when the music deepens and swallows, when the synths are layered until they fill out all the available space and when the compositions reach the euphoric optimum, this is where I feel the album the most. No wonder that Emo Song seems to be the most popular out of the whole release, it does the perfect job of drawing the audience in blissful noise. And so does the ballad-like Falling to Pieces. 

It seems that Joachim Liebens' outfit gains a lot of recognition in Western Europe, I'd love to see them live one day. My only hope is that they won't decide to change their music to please the broader audience and will stay true to the dreamy/shoegazey music that made me notice them in the first place.

Boys Cry Too costs 11 EUR (8.99 GBP).

Check: Emo Song

Country: Belgium

Genre: shoegazey indie rock

Label: Anti-Pop/PIAS

The Haunted Youth - Dawn of the Freak (2022)

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Tokyo Shoegazer - Remains (2026)

I love how certain Japanese projects use their names to clearly state what to expect from their music. Tokyo Shoegazer play shoegaze. And are from Tokyo. 'nuff said. This makes it all about music and the classic noisy but airy gaze here proves it can work so well on its own. Also, somehow this is another Japanese band with a song about flowers, but unlike MONO, they stick to one track only.

Founded by Hiroshi Sasabuchi in 2010, the band has a rich history that includes a hiatus period and a comeback, 6 albums with two critically acclaimed at RateYourMusic database and many live gigs in Asia. The sound of their music is something most of us would call a "classic shoegaze": the noisy and the fuzzy are indeed noisy and fuzzy, the sound quality is not as important as the loudness and, finally, Kyoko Sahara's vocals are extremely, soothingly airy. What else do you want from a shoegaze album?

Well, I guess you could expect some catchy melodies, but the Japanese deliver here as well: the ear-catching riffs in Wisteria are cool but my favourite track has to be Vega with its dreamy melodies meeting the heaviest guitars of the album at the end and this kind of contrast is what does it for me. What a beauty.

Remains costs 12 USD.

Check: Vega

Country: Japan

Genre: classic shoegaze

Label: HigherHell Records

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Kielichy - SAWANT (2026)

Kielichy were featured on the blog already this year, but it was BEFORE. Back then, the Punkty płonące EP heralded a change and now we can already witness where the artist's discovery voyage landed them. SAWANT, called after the French for "scholar", but also a medical condition which is basically how autistic people are presented in media, album makes a huge impression from the beautiful cover art up to the lyrical and musical parts of the compositions.

I can see some similarities with one of my favourite albums of the recent times: Pothamus' Abur with similar weight put on the atmosphere and spirituality that comes from some kind of religion but ultimately is more than that. And when the psychedelic and sacral atmosphere is set up, here with the unhurried pace, dense guitars and characteristic vocals, the post-rock wall of sound appears out of nowhere to make the compositions' gravity even more emphasized. I have already said it a couple of times this year, but this is a good time for Polish dark psychedelic projects and this album is another prove to support the claim.

I've seen their music being described as "gothic post-rock" now and I can see why: it's not only the slow and moody music, it's also the themes. The band's name being the Polish word for "chalices" (which I read now in a very religious, perhaps ironic way) is one thing, but the lyrics all over SAWANT are very strongly leaning towards the mysterious and the religious with references to the importance of blood (Pieśń robaków), heavens (Puste niebo) or an entity hanging from a tree (Wisielec). But, judging from tracks like Puste niebo (which means "empty skies" but also could mean "Empty Heaven"), the religious here is just a decor, but if you employ it, you become part of it. Hence "gothic post-rock".

SAWANT costs 5 EUR (20 PLN).

Check: Puste niebo

Country: Poland

Genre: gothic post-rock

Kielichy - Punkty płonące (2026)

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Band photo by Daria Izworska.

Martyna Basta - Winged in Collapse (2026)

When you are called a "sonic alchemist", you know there is something special in your music. Martyna Basta, Polish composer and singer/songwriter based in the city of Kraków (my neighbour I presume) released her third album (but first under the acclaimed 7k records) filled with ambitious electronica turned ambient pop music.

The signature sound of this album focuses on the artful electronic samples sewn together into a sonic canvas on which beautiful though enigmatic vocals are displayed. This is not an easy kind of neoclassical electronica, it requires attention and brain power to process everything that is happening around you. But it's satisfying if enjoyed properly. I love the vocals, even if they are used sparingly, they show the range of the artist's voice and add to the mysterious atmosphere of the release. 

I love that Basta invited some interesting guests, especially the harp-electronic duo LEYA (which, coincidentally, has also some Polish roots) in Laid and the British experimental rapper Rainy Miller in 2674. This is a beautiful, airy and ambitious electronic soundscape with elements of chamber pop appearing here and there that only make it more engaging to listen to.

Winged in Collapse costs 11 EUR.

Check: Laid 

Country: Poland

Genre: experimental ambient pop

Label: 7k

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Lune - Into Eternal Sleep (2026)

A mysterious project from the mountains of Austria (or the Danube's valley of Austria possibly, but I wanted to be as epic as the music here). The artist known only as M with no social media as far as I know, released what seems to be his 4th album and filled it with very, very very cinematic, if not pompous metal music.

I have little idea on the divisions between metal genres and, frankly, I rarely care. I usually listen only to the atmospheric ones that border post-metal as close as possible. You can safely say that Lune's two-track album is one of those exceptions. Atmospheric to the core, sounding like a soundtrack to an epic, possible viking-themed (probably because of the title) cinematic production, even if slightly lacking on the quality front, Into Eternal Sleep sounds more like a movie score than a metal album which I count as a big plus. The compositions are interestingly complicated and beautifully unhurried, the more metal passages really seem to underline something important, a pinnacle point that really matters.

The rest of the compositions are more ethereal than heavy, more like a dream played with guitars and keys. The valleys. But when the cinematic ecstasy kicks in, you certainly know it.

Into Eternal Sleep costs 8 EUR.

Check: The Silent Departure

Country: Austria

Genre: cinematic black metal

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LYR - Dark Sky Reservation (2026)

The combination of spoken word poetry and alternative music is something that appeals to me a lot: so this year's BIG SPECIAL will be LYR - similarly hailing from UK but besides that, extremely different: instead of the post-punk spirit, LYR combines the unique vocals with artsy and pretty minimalist electronica and neoclassical music. This is LYR's fourth album and I'm very excited to discover the rest of their discography.

The lyrics here are, of course, the clue. And I already love some of the phrases/sentences coined for the album (especially the chorus in Blah! Blah! Blah! with the actual medical condition choice blindness embraced and used in a lyrical way) as well as particularly clever and sometimes hilarious word craftsmanship. Again, Blah! Blah! Blah! is a great example here: a song I'm genuinely as invested in the "plot" of the song as in the song as a musical entity in general. As could be expected (I knew, there is a post-punky element to this music), the album is very much a commentary about the world we live in as the artists describe themselves as "navigating towards sightings of hopefulness and constancy in an increasingly bewildering and storm-battered world".

The album title as well as a number of songs on it reference also the changing climate which is a) as interesting a topic as it is terrifying and b) not that much touch upon in music. Yet. But it has to be said that the band create a perfectly catchy songs as well. And with ease too. Eclipse is a perfect example of a song that steals the chorus from some kind of radio hit and repurposes it to accompany another brillant sheet of lyrics.

Dark Sky Reservation costs 11 EUR (9 GBP).

Check: Blah! Blah! Blah!

Country: UK

Genre: spoken word art rock

Label: Real World Records

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VLMV - There Will Come Soft Rains (2026)

Pete Lambrou is now the whole VLMV and he just released his new album with Pelagic Records. The "ambient-ish post-something" of his is as spiritual and tasteful as ever with a very heavy focus on the "singer/songwriter" part of the music, making me think of Raised by Swans a lot, not only because of how beautiful his vocals are.

This is this kind of post music that should be closer to post-pop or post-singer/songwriter than anything else: the core of the compositions here IS the lyrics and the vocals combo and the song's gravity is built by their presence. The sensible, lyrical songs don't care about the melodies that much, their role is to catch the listener and guide them from the chaotic reality of today's world into a safe place of beauty and calm. Even if in a very bitter fashion: "Robins will wear their feathery fire/Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire/And not one will know of the war, not one/Will care at last when it is done" reminds me very much of the post-war songwriting in Poland with a modern, pessimistic twist.

And this highly artistic sensibility of VLMV is noticeable also in the visual side of the project with one of the most striking cover art examples I know. Musically speaking, the artist's cheeky self-description is exactly spot on: the music here certainly feels ambientish with soundscapes made of soft electronica, moody violins and delicate guitars as well post-something-ish as the whole thing took off from the Scandinavia-esque dark pop and landed somewhere else. 

There Will Come Soft Rains costs 7 EUR.

Check: Bodies Grown, Pt.2

Country: UK

Genre: ambient singer/songwriter

Label: Pelagic Records

VLMV - Sing With Abandon (2022)

VLMV - Stranded, Not Lost (2018)

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Päfgens - Westend (2026)

The Slovakian couple who has been releasing their music for some time now as Päfgens already appeared on this blog with two albums. But I couldn't ignore the 6th one in their discography either: a beautiful but also utterly melancholic, hopeful but dark like an autumn day ambient pop for emotional people.

As the artists say, this album was born "when we bought a drum machine with the intention of making pop songs", which can hardly be further from what eventually happen. The slow ambient pop ballads made with acoustic guitar, whispering voice and various field recordings, fill out the air with never-hurried atmosphere of wistfulness. And when I wrote that the album was "born", it's not a coincidence as it is dedicated to the couple's baby, as they summarize it: it "is a memory of those who are no longer with us, but also a celebration of new life".

And you can hear it both in the lo-fi, fuzzy sound that makes the songs so much more intimate, as well as in the lyrics with the poignant "everyone you know will leave" sentiment repeated endlessly in Poprad that for me became the focal point of the whole album already at its beginning.

Westend costs 7 EUR.

Check: Poprad

Country: Slovakia

Genre: lo-fi ambient pop

Päfgens - Der Regen (2022)

Päfgens - Der Sturm (2019)

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