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A Sunlit Walk in The Underground Forest - April 2026

Welcome to A Sunlit Walk in The Underground Forest - a series where I handpick new music I love!

Featuring: Wooden Overcoat, Cashier, Haylie Davis, The Brudi Brothers, Anna Smyrk, some fear, Frog, Forest & NIMF.

By Eimear O SullivanMusicngear Editor

This edition features: a grungey 1990s song that the rest of the student body in 1995’s ‘The Brady Bunch Movie’ would be listening to while smoking or throwing trash at each other; a song that the Halliwell sisters from Charmed would have had on while performing a spell; a folk song that deals with the awe of the cosmos; a song that has the lyric “I was passionate, bald, and enthralled”; a song that has a ‘sitting on the porch looking out at the prairie’ Woody Guterhie quality to it; a song that sounds like a memory of the 1990s; a song that I think Ursula Le Guin would like, and more!

A Sunlit Walk In The Underground Forest ☀️ Light Pop  •  Folk   • Electronica  •  Calm

Wooden Overcoat - Home 

I saw the words ‘Portland’ and  ‘alt-pop’ used to describe Wooden Overcoat, and I immediately had to listen. This is mostly because I will always and forever associate Portland with the kitsch coziness of the sketch show ‘Portlandia’, and also because one of my favourite podcasters, Aubrey Gordon (co-host of the show Maintenance Phase), resides there. 

I was most certainly not disappointed, as ‘Home’ is a truly delightful blend of indie-rock, shoegaze, and some dream pop, the latter really becoming all the more heavenly once the vocals come in (think Tame Impala and The Beach Boys levels of whipped -cream delight).  This feels like it belongs in the opening scene of an indie movie, driving down the main street of brownstone buildings, returning to the town you grew up in. 

On the song Brant Hajek (the brainchild of Wooden Overcoat), "When I wrote "Home", it kind of poured out of me, and I think I'm still interpreting it. But to me, it's about acknowledging something beautiful, even if it can't last. Two people who feel naturally paired, like elements of nature, slowly decomposing and self-destructing. It's about the inevitable demise of anything, and ultimately, that we need to appreciate what is here right now and live in that magical existence. It's about having the capacity to admire even when things are burning out."

Connect with Wooden Overcoat
Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook | X | YouTube 

Cashier - Like I Do

This is taken from the Louisiana band Cashier’s debut EP, ‘The Weight’ (which is out via Julia’s War Recordings). This is so 1990s, it sounds like the sort of song Jane from the MTV animated series ‘Daria’ would blare while driving, or what the rest of the student body in 1995’s ‘The Brady Bunch Movie’ would be listening to while smoking or throwing trash at each other. 

The grungey 1990s quality to this is not a gimmick - there is a DIY, unclean flair to this that gives it substance and teeth; this being made all the more real by the sense of chaos at the core of ‘Like I Do’, a feeling you lean into while listening, allowing it to unlock something within you.

Connect with Cashier
Instagram

some fear - I Don't Want To Spend My Money

This is a new song from the Oklahoma City-based band Some Fear, on which the band leader Branden “Bran” Palesano says, “This song is about the evil billionaires and companies living off of us like the blood-sucking vampires they are. While we live paycheck to paycheck, they get to live lavishly and abundantly. Makes you want to stay inside and not spend a dime.”

It is funny that I came across this song today, as for some reason this morning, it dawned on me the sheer volume of entities/companies/corporations that are constantly and relentlessly trying to drain you financially by trying to get you to buy products/subscriptions/fake courses and so forth, at all times. Perhaps this was set off by Instagram offering me a €5.99 subscription to not see any ads, and something broke in my brain! The opening to ‘I Don't Want to Spend My Money’ reminded me of the Foo Fighters’ song ‘Everlong’, a very solid start, only ascending in its powers as the song continues. This feels like it could have been in the soundtrack of the TV show Smallville; there is something in the fabric of the music that feels like the sound of time passed, of a memory of the 1990s, resulting in it sounding hauntingly beautiful, in a way that takes your breath away. It also makes me want to never buy anything again out of pure and utter spite. 10/10.

Connect with some fear
X / Instagram

Anna Smyrk - This is Going to Get Worse

I was drawn to this song title as it is very in-line with the Netflix show ‘Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen’ which I watched over the past week and highly recommend. Taken from the album ‘Spectacular Denial’ which was produced and mixed by Anna Laverty (Courtney Barnett, Nick Cave), this has a witchy, purple quality to it - (perhaps the Halliwell sisters from Charmed would have this on while performing a spell).

‘This is Going to Get Worse’ has a quality to it that is both calming and yet has something throbbing underneath the surface like a volcano ready to erupt, an element the artist references with the lyrics “I’ve been looking for the sweet spot, baby/ Where I can push it underwater, keep it out of sight/But I can feel it rising up to take me/My personal Leviathan, moving towards the light.”

The artist turned to writing music after her father passed away, the album dealing with the complex process of grief head-on. The artist shares, "Music is tightly woven through my memories of my dad. When I was 13, he taught me to play a couple of chords on his old acoustic guitar, and that week I wrote my first song. I've played some of these songs live and it feels like a balm. I've loved hearing how they've helped people remember, feel, and be seen. The album doesn't go in a straight line from grief to acceptance, because that has not been my experience at all. It's more like waves of big feelings, positive and negative, over time. So I wanted to record to reflect that. The songs range from hopeful to thoughtful to despairing and back again."

Connect with Anna Smyrk
Facebook / X / Instagram

Frog - Je Ne Sais Pas

Frog’s album ‘THE COUNT’ was one of my favorite albums and EPs of 2025, a strange and wonderful album focused on a fictitious character known only as The Count. I was delighted to see they announced their eighth studio album, ‘Frog for Sale’, on which Frog’s Daniel Bateman says “This is an album about how money sometimes gets in the way of love.”

‘Je Ne Sais Pas’ is one of the first singles from this album; the lyrics “Jen I’m appalled that you never called/I was passionate, bald, and enthralled” (maybe the podcast The Bald and The Beautiful might rename itself to the latter) and “Now you got your hair like Anna Wintour except poor” almost killed me.

This is a very odd song indeed, which I love, a quality that is getting more difficult to achieve due to the sheer volume of music being released every second of every day, yet somehow, Frog manages to exist in their own dimension, creating something truly new and interesting, something that cannot be defined. 

Connect with Frog
Facebook / X / Instagram

Horns of Time - Haylie Davis

Photo Credit: Angela Betancourt

There is no greater feeling than being under the night sky in the countryside, the stars stretching endlessly above you, as you take in the magnificence of this world, and of life itself. This new song from LA artist Haylie Davis blends this awe of the cosmos with the storytelling element of folk lyrics, resulting in something magical. There is something timeless about ‘Horns of Time’, something mysterious, something gentle, something quiet.

On the song the artist says “I’ve been going to a woman’s gathering in Northern California since I was a young kid,” says Haylie Davis. “There’s a woman there who goes by ‘Stargazer Lee’ and she holds group stargazing out in the field at night where she teaches astrology and astronomy. She’s truly a genius in her storytelling and knowledge of the cosmos. One thing she taught us is that when you hold your fingers in a ‘rock on’ form against the sky, the distance in between your pointer finger and pinky accounts for about an hour of time on earth and it can help you tell how long it will take for a star to set below the horizon. This measure is called ‘Horns of Time’ because your fingers look like little horns and they keep time. But I think it stuck with me because it also points to how tiny we really are under all those stars.”

Connect with Haylie Davis
Instagram

NIMF - A Ballad For Looking Into Time

NIMF is back, and I am very pleased indeed. This is taken from the artist’s new album ‘Sirenoscape’, which is out via Cursed Monk Records.

This feels like stepping into a magical forest in a pagan folk-horror movie or a fantasy science fiction book. This automatically signals to you that it is nighttime, opening with the sounds of crickets, the lush sounds of a forest, with gentle humming in the distance, moving around you as the owner of the ethereal voice forages in the forest. It makes me think of the forest scene in Ari Aster’s 2023 movie Beau is Afraid, of the pagan elements of Love Witch, and also, for some reason, I feel like Ursula Le Guin would be into this? 

Connect with NIMF
Facebook / Instagram

Forest - Whore & Savior

This new song from the LA-based artist Forest is reminiscent of late 1990s/ early 00s alt-rock - in that there is something destructive and all-consuming in the wall of sound that comes to greet you. This isn’t a coincidence, as on the song the artist says “I really drew on experiences of first love, and teenagehood. I wanted it to feel like looking back on a memory that was beautiful at the time, but has been overshadowed by sadness or loneliness. There’s also a sense of juxtaposition in womanhood I wanted to explore. The dichotomy between being pure and sexual, naïve and all knowing, and of course whore and savior. For a formative part of my life, I felt in the middle of it all, in a tug of war trying to be everything all at once.”

This brings to mind limerance, something I have most definitely had the displeasure of feeling, but did not learn what the official term for this was until recently, whilst watching a video on Emerald Fennel’s 2026 adaptation of ‘Wuthering Heights.’ The production in this is absolutely colossal; an industrial soundscape that threatens to destroy - I can imagine that this would sound incredible experienced live. 

Connect with Forest
Instagram

The Brudi Brothers - Dark & Stormy

Photo courtesy of Mom&Pop

This song is taken from the band’s upcoming EP of the same name, which is due for release via Mom+Pop (a label that is home to one of my all-time favourite artists, Magdelena Bay) on April 17th.

This feels like sitting on the porch on the prairie, looking out across the plains - the whole song has a Woody Guthrie quality to it that I love. The lyrics feel like a cautionary folk tale that is being passed by word of mouth through an old town in the wild west:

“Does he drill for oil in El Dorado

Does he still hop trains through Shoshone

Well I heard a propane truck ran him over

After he got jumped in New Orleans”

Connect with The Brudi Brothers
Facebook / Instagram

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About Eimear O Sullivan

Eimear Ann O Sullivan is a multi-genre music producer, audio engineer and vocalist. After receiving a Masters in Music Technology from the CIT Cork School of Music, she went on to operate as a producer under the name Blakkheart. Her releases have received critical acclaim from Ireland's biggest music publications, such as District Magazine and Nialler9, alongside receiving heavy commercial radio airplay. She currently works in Cork recording studio Flashpoint CC. Previous clients of hers include the likes of Comedy Central’s Dragony Aunt star Candy Warhol, rapper Darce and Outsider YP. (Photo credit @Fabian Boros)

Contact Eimear O Sullivan at eimear.o.sullivan@musicngear.com

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