A Sunlit Walk in The Underground Forest - October 2025
Welcome to A Sunlit Walk in The Underground Forest - a series where we explore the depths of the internet for new music ☀️
Featuring: Radderall & Muzzy Fossa, Avery Cochrane, Swimming Pools And Movie Stars, Halley Neal, Tiberius, Benjamin Shaw, Nep, Tessa Rose Jackson, and Maggie Andrew.
This week’s edition features; a song that sounds like it is from the 1970s, with a synth running throughout that brings to mind Mort Garson’s Mother Earth’s Plantasia; a song that will bring to mind Sixpence None the Richer’s - Kiss Me; a stripped back pop song that sounds like the singer is whispering the lyrics to herself on her bedroom floor; a song that sounds kind of like a snowstorm; a song that sounds like a forest drive from childhood; an alt-pop song with lyrics that bite; an experimental song that will protect you from the void, and more!
A Sunlit Walk In The Underground Forest ☀️ Light Pop • Folk • Electronica • RnB
Radderall & Muzzy Fossa - 'Planted'
Photo credit: Isaac Bixel
This sounds like a psychedelic dream from the 1970s, floating down to your ears from a shimmering cloud in the kaleidoscopic sky. This is a blend of lush analog textures with trippy vocals (it genuinely sounds like it was recorded to tape, it is absolutely divine). The synth running in the background brings to mind Mort Garson’s Mother Earth’s Plantasia.
Radderall's Zach Taneyhill explains, "The message in the track is from the Earth, letting someone know how disappointed it is in how the earth is treated. The metaphor here is that the earth is you, we are all one with everything, the song is about realizing how disappointed you are in how you treat yourself, or let others treat you. This results in a need to return to your roots and center."
Connect with Radderall
Website / YouTube / Bandcamp / Instagram / Facebook
Connect with MUZZY FOSSA
Website / YouTube / Bandcamp / Instagram / X
Nep - Florida Girl
This was a gift from the YouTube algorithm; Florida Girl is a blend of 1990s feel-good pop (the guitar chords reminiscent of Sixpence None the Richer’s - Kiss Me) with some country and Cowgirl Clue elements.
Florida Girl features some Must Be The Money style call and response vocals, which makes the song all the more addictive - I think this might be one of my favourite releases of this year.
Connect with Nep
Website / Instagram / Spotify
Avery Cochrane - Shapeshifting on a Saturday Night (Alone in My Bedroom Version)
A stripped-back version of this year's earlier pop powerhouse release, this is operating at Kacey Musgraves' levels of warmth, gentleness, and masterful arrangement.
The vocals are almost whispered to you, as if the artist is singing to herself in her bedroom while looking out the window at the night sky. I believe Avery Cochrane to be a genius.
Connect with Avery Cochrane
YouTube / Spotify / Instagram / X
Swimming Pools And Movie Stars - Distant Sky
This is taken from the new album Airspace from the band Swimming Pools And Movie Stars. The image for this made me think of the icy, Alaskan plains where the research facility in True Detective Season 04 was set in. The vocals in this feel icy and chilly, the instrumental possessing some warm shoegaze vibes, all swirling together like a Winter snowstorm.
I love the vaguely haunting vocals that come in at @ 1:12.
Connect with Swimming Pools And Movie Stars
Facebook / Bandcamp
Tiberius - Moab
This feels like something you heard in childhood; driving down a pine tree-lined country road in an old Ford. The warm swell that comes into the song with the line She said it gives her hope is goosebump-inducing. This is one of my favorite songs from the band so far.
Songwriter Brendan Wright says, “Moab was a song I wrote about trying to let go. At the time I was defining myself by expectations of a strained relationship. I was feeling pretty insane - like the kind of insane you feel back in 8th grade where you come home crying all of the time because you have absolutely no sense of self. Writing ‘Moab’ offered catharsis. Looking back, I feel a lot of embarrassment around those feelings, - but it was how I felt at the time and that was the place I was in. I wish I had acted differently, and I strive to now.”
Connect with Tiberius
Bandcamp / Spotify / Instagram / Facebook / Threads
Letter For a Friend - Halley Neal
The final song from the newly released album of the same name; Letter For a Friend feels like relaxation, it feels like being home, being warm, having hot chocolate by lamplight (I get a bit of a Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me vibe from this).
On the album, the artist says, "Though deeply personal, the album is universally human, a reminder that connection transforms both the giver and the receiver. Letter For a Friend is an invitation to reach out, to honor the people who’ve changed us, and to never wait for the perfect moment to say what’s in your heart — to just say it now."
Connect with Halley Neal
Facebook / Website / Spotify / Instagram / Facebook
A Hum! A Constant Hum! | Benjamin Shaw
This is taken from Melbourne-based Benjamin Shaw’s collection of experimental releases ‘Strange Feelings in Nervous Business’, which you can purchase here.
The title of this track, A Hum! A Constant Hum! reminds me of something a character from a Lemony Snicket or Roald Dahl book would exclaim, the song itself a tapestry of luxurious textures that loop to create a cloudy sonic bed that will make you feel safe, preventing you from falling into the abyss.
In fact, on this, the artist says the following “Things have been a bit awful recently (plus ça change), so in an attempt to try and escape my flailing brain I wanted to find a way of playing and improvising in a live way - using pedals and loopers and all that - so that whenever I needed to I could disappear into sound for a while and avoid The Horrors”.
Connect with Benjamin Shaw
Instagram
Tessa Rose Jackson - The Bricks That Make The Building
This is gentle, slightly haunting, with a cold breeze running throughout. The instrumentation shimmers with life, flowing behind the vocals, like a country stream over pebbles, lulling you into a sense of familiarity and acceptance. This moves and breathes as one, it will sooth your soul.
On the song, the artist says, “It’s a musing on the blood that runs through us all. A sense of gratitude towards the lives that shaped ours.”
Connect with Tessa Rose Jackson
Facebook / Website / Instagram
MAGGIE ANDREW - How to Sing for Money
Taken from the newly released EP of the same name; Maggie Andrew has an ear for pop songwriting that not only hooks you, but cuts deep.
There is a raw vulnerability throughout "How To Sing For Money”, the lyrics that hit the hardest being “When the walls of your one bedroom/ Are closing in on you fast/ Could show you how to take that pain / And turn it into gold and cold hard cash”. The chorus is a luxurious powerhouse, with Maggie’s layered vocals hypnotizing you.
Connect with MAGGIE ANDREW
Facebook / YouTube / Website / Spotify / Instagram
Spotify Playlist
If you would like to be featured in the next edition please email eimear.o.sullivan@musicngear.com.
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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