A Sunlit Walk in The Underground Forest: New Pop, Folk, Rock and Indie Music We Loved
Welcome to the new edition of A Sunlit Walk in the Underground Forest - a series where I hand-select some of the best new music releases!
Featuring Mad Honey, ISMAY, Rivkah Reyes, The Wldlfe, Shapes Like People, The Hoosiers, Beau Nectar, Josaleigh Pollett & NIDA.
This edition features: sunshine-fuelled funk; a song whose opening vocals sound like they are soaring across the fields of a festival in the 1970s; a song that brought to mind the eerie quality of Ethel Cain's ruined soundscapes; a song that will make you think of muted motel rooms off the highway; a song that has the sleaze and gorgeousness of the alt-1990s; a soundscape that will remind you of a collage; a song whose opening bleeps like the weird sound effects found on a treasured childhood educational PC Game you used in the 00s; and more!
A Sunlit Walk In The Underground Forest ☀️ Light Pop • Folk • Electronica • Calm
The Hoosiers - So High
A few years ago, I was in Waterstones, and I saw a quote from the Guardian on the front of Steve Alten's 1997 book ‘Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror’ (the book the movie ‘The Meg’ was based on) that read “Sometimes only a story about a giant murderous prehistoric shark will do.” This is a quote I think about regularly, and, in The Hoosiers’ case, sometimes only a sunshine-soaked song about the euphoria and utter joy of being alive on this planet will do.
This is taken from the new album ‘Compassion’, opening with some guitar chords that kind of remind me of some 2010s Daft Punk remixes (in YouTube’s mid-2010s remix heyday), the rest of the song being in solid indie-pop territory with some house elements, the chorus descending into full-blown sunshine-fuelled funk.
“Hey beautiful won't you tell me your name
Hope l see you again hope I get to explain
Why I'm so happy happy being alive
Got room for one more
So come along for the ride”
This makes me think of being in the ocean on weekends under endless blue skies. This is a song that will make your day better.
Connect with The Hoosiers
Instagram | Facebook
Jorge Wilson - Life Goes On
This is taken from the EP ‘JPW’. ‘Life Goes On’ opens with buttery, easy breezy guitars and drums, behind which kitsch, lo-fi synths shimmer. The opening vocals sound like they are soaring across the fields of a festival in the 1970s, possessing the awe-inducing sensation of nostalgia; the perfect rasp they have made me think of The Who’s 1971 track ‘Baba O’Riley.’
The track itself has a dreamy smoothness; it also has a quality that gives it its magnetic pull, of something I can’t quite put my finger on. ‘Life Goes On’ is the kind of song that deserves to be absolutely huge.
On the EP, the artist shares, “JPW in full is like the blueprint to my sound. Each song shows different elements of my sound in their own way yet they still all sonically link.”
Connect with Jorge Wilson
Instagram
Mad Honey - I Am a Wall, I Am a House
This is the opening track of Mad Honey’s new album ‘Bridge Over Cumberland.’ It has the eerie quality of Ethel Cain's ruined soundscapes, where you hear the desolate, decaying buildings of a forgotten town in the South (her 2025 album ‘Perverts’ is one of my all-time favorite albums).
‘I Am a Wall, I Am a House’ (and for that matter, all of ‘Bridge Over Cumberland’) fully stands on its own. The opening sounds like the rush of something familiar, like home, the vocals having a beautifully strange and analog quality to them; which makes them sound like they were recorded in a hushed attic on a 1970s evening (the vocal treatment in this is genuinely very interesting in this, and not something I hear a lot of).
It was hard to pick one song from the Oklahoma City-based band’s album. I recommend listening to the whole ghostly affair.
On the album, guitarist Lennon Bramlett says, “The album is sequenced like a road trip through the south, staring out the window, contemplating the past, and speeding forward towards an uncertain future. It’s about reflection, finding your way back to yourself, and reclaiming your life.”
Connect with Mad Honey
Bandcamp | Instagram
ISMAY - Half Truth
This is a new song from singer/songwriter Avery Hellman (ISMAY), taken from the upcoming album of the same name. This song was produced by Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Rhett Miller, Curtis Harding, Norah Jones, and Joseph Arthur), opening with an introspective blend of country and folk, which makes me think of muted motel rooms off the highway (before the lyrics even mention a motel)
One of the first things I was drawn to about this was the mystery of the visuals, how they represent something half-obscured.
A man sits behind
In a motel, not a chain that I know
I show my ID then he goes
“What brings you here?”.
On the song that artist says, “‘Half Truth’ began when I took a poetry class to improve my songwriting and presented this poem-song to my teacher. I started with the image of a person standing in a circle, a line around them, almost like chalk on pavement. The line indicates the boundary between what a person thinks and what they say. There were only certain words and ideas that this person allows to cross, and those words are painstakingly edited before becoming speech. There are parts of ourselves we show and share with others, and parts we obscure. This, to me, is the meaning of a "Half Truth" in the context of this song. Additionally, writing about this whole inner world we often conceal also sparked a memory of a time when I was traveling up to the Klamath River and stayed at a riverside motel. The front desk person asked me why I was there, and, afraid to be honest and admit I was scoping out a risky horseback trip, I lied and said "just coming up here to hang out." There are so many times in my life where I communicate partial truths to avoid conflict, intimacy, or pain.”
Connect with ISMAY
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Rivkah Reyes - Miss Congeniality
A new song from the New York City-based artist and actor. A wave of alt-1990s vocals and instruments ascend to your ears; it has the sleaze and gorgeousness of the music from that era, with little bits of bubble gum poking through in the pre-chorus. This is a cathartic, raw listen.
On the song Reyes shares, "It's like I've been shapeshifting into whatever version of myself feels the most likable in the moment. It’s that pageant energy of being everyone’s favorite but still not actually being chosen. I’m very aware of the pattern while it’s happening, which is where the humor and the sting come from."It’s bratty, high-energy alt-pop with crunchy guitars and a bit of indie sleaze, polished on the surface but kind of unraveling underneath. It lives in that space between sweet and frustrated, like I’m holding it together but barely.”
Connect with Rivkah Reyes
Instagram | Facebook | X
The Wldlfe - Heart
Photo Credit: Alex Green
Released via Nashville's Riser House Records, this nearly blew me out of my seat when I heard it for the first time, with its burst of nostalgic, warm alt-pop. It sounds like the kind of song that a lot of memories would be made to. There is something in the fabric of this that aches with longing and melancholy, a quality that bewitches you. This would sound incredible live.
Connect with The Wldlfe
Website | Instagram | Facebook | X
Shapes Like People - Crushing Silence
This is taken from the new album ‘Under The Rainbow’ from husband-and-wife duo Carl and Kat Mann (Shapes Like People). There is something about the opening guitars in this that brings to mind the sense of excited anticipation of a road trip in youth. When the vocals come in, the song turns into a blend of plush dream-pop and shoegaze that feels and sounds like it is from another time, building and building until it is a wall of sound that engulfs you.
Connect with Shapes Like People
Instagram | Facebook
Beau Nectar - Artichoke
Photo Credit: Sophie Vino 2
This is taken from the album ‘Dandy’, which you can buy via Bandcamp here. Artichoke is a very interesting song indeed, with sultry whispered vocals over an art-pop/alt-pop style beat that delves into mysterious territory prior to the chorus. I find the soundscape of this so creative and so layered, kind of like a sonic collage; with each listen, I uncover more and more layers.
On the song, the duo explains, "In 'Artichoke', Mother Nature is mad that things have gotten so heated; literally and figuratively. It's female rage at its finest. Don't mess with her, don't mess with women, because we can take the heat."
Connect with Beau Nectar
Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook
NIDA - BLAME THE OCEAN
Credit: Alizée Pourtoy (instagram: @teubilady)
This was a Bandcamp discovery, taken from the EP of the same name, which you can buy here.
The guitar chords that open this feel like they are dripping with drops of ice from the cold winds of the world in the artwork; the vocals breezing in over a beat that rushes to your ears like the ocean waves, with reverbed bursts of steel pedal-style guitars in the background, giving the folk and pop a slight country flair. This is a lullaby for cold days.
Connect with NIDA
Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook
Josaleigh Pollett - The Witness
This opening of this bleeps like the weird sound effects found on a treasured childhood educational PC Game you used in the 00s (there is a whole treasure trove on YouTube of people doing play-throughs of PC games from that era, I cannot recommend these highly enough). What greets you after this is a tangerine-soaked wall of dreamy rock and indie that pulses with the sensation of memory. This is taken from the upcoming LP ‘If I Let It Quiet’ out July 24, 2026.
On the song, the artist shares, "The Witness is a song about knowing that to be seen and held and understood, you must first see and hold and understand. It's about love, beyond limits and gender, across multiple universes. It's also a little bit about deleting my Twitter account. This album is an exploration of what it takes to quiet the noise of geographical and emotional distance in order to hear ourselves and the ones who see us. In true independent DIY fashion and similar to 2023's In The Garden, By The Weeds, If I Let It Quiet is recorded mostly at home between my Salt Lake City makeshift home studio and Jordan's apartment in Japan. The difference this time is that we're bringing in more collaborations. In particular, Andrew Goldring, who, in addition to mixing and mastering, brought deeper instrumentation to If I Let It Quiet."
Connect with Josaleigh Pollett
Instagram
Spotify Playlist
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
In this blog section we host new music releases, artist features and handpicked playlists by the Musicngear staff.
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