today’s indie picks slow down and dig in: a swedish-brazilian band revisiting an old song as a stripped-back acoustic session, a self-produced arena-scaled pop-rock anthem about watching someone slip away, a minimalist folk meditation on staying hopeful after two decades on the road and a theatrical bit of tragi-comic existential indie. four tracks that all know exactly what they’re trying to say.
fernanda (mato sessions) – elephant run
elephant run serve up ‘fernanda’ – a genuinely beautifully stripped-back acoustic rework of one of their own singles
fernanda (mato sessions) swaps the original’s studio sheen for acoustic guitars, mandolin and upright bass, and it suits the song beautifully. the jazz and tarantella touches give it a loose, live-in-the-room warmth the 2017 original never had. karin älverbrandt’s guest guitar and backing vocals add just enough extra texture without crowding things. but it’s the vocals which make this track standout; it’s dripping of character, restraint and warmth. and i love the ‘i’ll be waiting for you’ refrain. beautiful.
elephant run are a swedish-brazilian band built on a genuinely unlikely origin story, amanda wahlström plantin moved from malmö to são paulo in 2014, met drummer ladislau kardos by chance at a festival, and the pair built out the rest of the lineup from there. the band survived years of physical separation, including the pandemic, before reuniting in brazil to record their second album, leftover land. their next album, infrared, is due this october or november. that kind of staying power says a lot about how much this band actually means to each other. and after discovering this single, we’re along for the ride now too.
thank u for making this elephant run 🐘
for you – noah bates
noah bates builds for you into a genuinely widescreen slice of 80s tinged pop-rock
for you leans hard into widescreen, 80s shimmer and modern pop-rock energy, all built for flashing lights and smoke machines even if you’re just listening on headphones. the hooks are enormous without feeling try-hard, and the production has that self-produced, hands-on quality that keeps it from sounding over-polished. lyrically it sits in that uneasy space of feeling someone slip away without quite being ready to let go. it’s a genuinely huge sounding single for something made entirely by one guy in a home studio.
noah bates is a brisbane based artist blending indie-pop hooks with arena-rock scale, chasing that stadium haze sound almost entirely on his own. his debut single, coffee in japan, picked up more than 57,000 spotify streams and international airplay, and 2024’s gotta go kept that momentum going. it’s easy to imagine this one soundtracking way bigger rooms than he’s currently playing.
thank u for making this noah bates 🌇
“over” – orit shimoni
orit shimoni proves less is more with the quietly devastating “over”
“over” strips everything back to acoustic guitar and a tranquil, unhurried vocal, and that restraint is exactly what makes it land. it distills the tension between sincerity and isolation, the good and the bad and the ugly living side by side, into a handful of refrains that really stick with you. there’s a tired, plea-like quality to lines like “come on then, now, let’s just change the tune,” and it never once tips into melodrama. it’s a genuinely moving piece of songwriting, the kind that trusts silence as much as sound.
orit shimoni is a winnipeg based singer-songwriter who’s spent more than two decades touring canada, europe and the united states in search of genuine connection rather than fame, and that road-worn sincerity is all over “over.” her album winnipeg earned a best solo artist nomination at the canadian folk music awards, and the calgary herald has called her one of the nation’s most alluring vocalists. she’s currently working on her fourteenth album while touring alongside dan bern. after this many albums, she still sounds like she has something left to prove, quietly and on her own terms.
thank u for making this orit shimoni 🕊️
bureau of change – tom minor
tom minor spins tragi-comic chaos into a genuinely sharp slice of existential indie
bureau of change is a restless little riot of a track, sliding from indie rock into two-tone, tango and bolero with a strange, theatrical confidence that never once feels like a gimmick. that constant shape-shifting mirrors the song’s satirical bite, all about being short-changed, chasing progress and getting pushed around by power, so the chaos feels earned rather than random. it’s genuinely witty without undercutting how sharp the writing is underneath. we’re properly dancing along to this one.
tom minor is a london n1 based singer-songwriter working in what he calls existential indie, pulling from indie rock, new wave, punk, power pop, psychedelic sounds, garage rock, soul and r&b all at once. bureau of change was written and arranged by minor and produced by teaboy palmer, and it follows his wonderfully titled album ten new toe-toppers for shoplifting & self-mutilation. an album title that blunt deserves an artist willing to back it up, and this one does.
thank u for making this tom minor 🎭
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