The Underground Forest - Volume 41
Welcome to The Underground Forest! 🌿
Featuring Mel 4Ever, Orca, Elaine Mai, Faye O’Rourke. Morgana, Elle Barbara, La Reine Garçon, Cristóvam, Boy & Bear, Quinton Barnes & Maiden King
Follow The Underground Forest playlist on Spotify
This month's edition of The Underground Forest features; a folk song that feels like it was plucked from the shimmering world of A Midsummer Night's Dream; a song that sounds like you heard it over the radio on a dreamy 1970s summer afternoon in the garden; a song that blends the melancholy of mid 00s electronic with lush trance pads; a song that oozes glamour; a song that feels like a lucid dream in the desert; a lavish synth song that will set you free, and more!
Brand New - Mel 4Ever
One of the most unrivalled acts in pop is back. Brand New opens with a few seconds of a string section that sounds like Destiny’s Child Survivor, this expanding into a luxurious orchestral section that entices you into the world of the song; before hitting you with candy-coated vocals that flow over a glittering, obsidian bassline.
This sounds like something you came across on a hot pink mid-00s MySpace page - another hit from Mel 4Ever.
Connect with Mel 4Ever
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Elle Barbara - Hitler, Satan & Associates LLP
Credit: Art by Oily Chi & Coco Khan aka Felino Studio
I came across this on Bandcamp; and it is a masterpiece. The song itself is a luxurious experience, the music video, set in a bridal store, is done in a home video style (it also kind of reminds me of early-mid 00s reality tv), a choice that makes the whole thing seem all the more glamorous, while also making it all the more surreal due to the dystopian lyrical content.
This was written, composed, arranged, and produced by Elle Barbara (with recording and engineering by Renny Wilson) - and is taken from the upcoming album Word On The Street.
I am getting cult classic vibes from this already.
Connect with Elle Barbara
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Natural - Orca
The band's best song yet - Natural feels like it came out on a dreamy 1970s afternoon, floating over the flowers and meadows, ascending over the green mountains and into the endless blue sky.
The instrumental is lush and heavenly, with truly sublime vocals - utterly gorgeous.
Connect with Orca
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La Reine Garçon - Différente
I came across this on Bandcamp; I was drawn in by the shimmering A Midsummer Night's Dream style of the visuals. Différente is taken from the queer folk duo’s album Tout Renaîtra Différente; opening with gentle shimmering textures, making you feel like you are sitting in a meadow in a lucid dream, the sparkling vocals gently whispering over the blades of grass from somewhere in the forest.
This is absolutely gorgeous.
Connect with La Reine Garçon
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Aim - Elaine Mai, Faye O’Rourke
Elaine Mai is one of Ireland’s best electronic music producers - I first became aware of her with the luxurious 2019 song Butterflies; a song that subsequently became an obsession.
Aim has an old-school trance vibe to it, with an underlying melancholy found in a lot of early to mid 00s running throughout. It features the vocals of Soda Blonde’s Faye O’Rourke, who delivers a vocal performance that hits you with its sheer raw, emotional and primal power, this is a fusion of two musical forces.
Connect with Elaine Mai
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Power Cuts - Morgana
Photo credit: @ narryphotographyvids
There is a 1980s vibe running throughout this that I absolutely love; there is also something so freeing in Morgana’s music, as it deals head on with defying and erupting out of the stuffy, subdued norms that can be imposed on us and doing something different.
The synths are lavish, the lyrics witty and heartbreaking, the results being something truly bewitching.
Connect with Morgana
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Movement 7 - Quinton Barnes
A new song from the Montreal-based artist, the first from the upcoming album Black Noise (more information here), who I only recently came across as a result of his glorious 2025 album CODE NOIR.
Movement 7 flows over a piano piece by Edward Enman, it has a raw, stream of consciousness vibe to it, the emotion building and building, the instrumental becoming more eerie and experimental, twisting into something completely different as the song reaches its end (on Bandcamp it says that the music was “spontaneously composed by the Black Noise Ensemble”) - the results being a true work of art.
Connect with Quinton Barnes
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CristĂłvam feat. Boy & Bear - Fever
Haunting vocals float to your ears, matching the eerie, vaguely uneasy aesthetic of the visuals. Cristóvam’s vocals are fantastic, flowing over the warm instrumentals, making you feel like you are suspended mid-air. The world of the video and the song blend together perfectly.
Connect with CristĂłvam
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Connect with Boy & Bear
YouTube / Spotify / Instagram / X
Piece of Mine - Maiden King
This kaleidoscopic song from the Chicago musician and producer Maiden King is very soothing; the music glides gently over your ears; the vocals that feel like they have come from the warm earth.
This is a song that very much shimmers with life; this will allow you to just take a moment, pause, and reflect.
On the song the artist says the single is “"ultimately about letting go of the need to have the answer and the realization I had that sometimes the answers are a salve that keeps me from facing a bigger feeling underneath. The (hopefully not too) heavy-handed pun in the title comes from the yearning I had not for 'peace of mind' but for a 'piece of (something) mine' that felt like ground I could stand on and grow from."
Connect with Maiden King
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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
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