• 08 Nov, 2025 *

Hello everyone! November started with me in bed feeling horridly ill so everything is a little delayed and derailed now, including the monthly music update. But I can vaguely think once more, so time to put down some words on what’s been happening.

New Music Immediate Impressions

Bright Eyes - Kids Table EP (BC)

You know things are right when Bright Eyes follow up an album with an EP (even though not on CD this time). And for a companion EP it’s quite hefty, 8 songs and 30 minutes in length. It’s also a really exciting, varied and fun little detour, going everywhere from intimate ballads to irreverent ska take-offs. The same sense of freewheeling amusement that was on the last album is all over this collection as well, but perhaps taken even further - I dare say if any of these songs were written and recorded when they were making the album, they should’ve included some of them there. Despite being such a piecework, it does hold surprisingly well together as well, all in all making this a really good extra slice of the latest Bright Eyes vibe. A must for the fans, I’d say.

Great Lake Swimmers - Caught Light (BC)

The latest Great Lake Swimmers album is a Great Lake Swimmers album - and that’s a high positive. Canada’s finest folk-rockers haven’t changed one bit over the course of their multi-decade lifetime, with small tweaks in the sound across albums at most, and for once it’s something you can genuinely praise as consistent rather than repetitive. Their warm, personal and immediately embracing pastoral sound - rich in acoustic melodies, vocal harmonies and lush arrangements that make simple band setups sound like orchestral flourishes - is a place of pure comfort and convalescence, welcoming you with open arms every time.

Caught Light is a leaner album than its predecessor, 2023’s sprawling and sonically a little more untethered Uncertain Country: recorded with a core band unit with minimal guests, embracing the close-knit intimacy of friends recording gentle songs in a room and making it magical. It’s emotional and resonant without ever sounding like it’s making a big deal about it. It offers nothing new really if you’re into this kind of log cabin indie rock sound at all, but what it does it excels in and I lap it up. Great Lake Swimmers make me feel like I’m safe and able to rest, accompanied by Tony Dekker’s gentle voice and sincere lyrics that make it feel like you’re close friends with him. It’s a Great Lake Swimmers album and if you know what you’re into by this point, you’re going to like it. If you haven’t heard them before, this is as good a point to jump in as any.

Could be one of 2025’s big surprises, simply due to how rich its charm is.

Neiti Olga - Nuku vain yön yli (BC)

Well this was a plot twist. Neiti Olga, the studio-only shoegaze/dream pop/indie rock trio from Finland released their excellent debut Minä, aina in 2020 and then nothing was heard from them again. I thought, that’s a classic Finndie trick: the Finnish indie rock history is full of shooting stars who released a great debut full of promise (or a scrappy debut and a great sophomore full of promise) and then simply disappeared, never to be heard again. But five years later, they’ve suddenly returned and I didn’t even realise it until RYM suddenly threw their new single into my ‘new upcoming releases’ list.

Nuku vain yön yli could have just as well been released a year after the debut - it doesn’t sound like a day has gone by. The band haven’t changed their sound in any significant way; perhaps slightly toning off the most textural shoegaze elements and aiming for a more melodically clearer sound in places, but in no manner that would betray what made the debut so good. Indeed, this is basically Minä, aina Part 2 - and given the absence and lack of material, I’m fine with it. Their songwriting still stands, and the way they create their dream-like, ethereal atmospheres is enchanting - even the interludes are arresting.

Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait another five years for more.

(obligatory yearning for there to be a CD version... )

Youth Group - Big Whoop

Another comeback here - Australia’s Youth Group were quiet for a long time after 2019’s Australian Halloween (itself an album that came out 11 years after the last one), but suddenly sprung to life last year with the release of the post-millennial post-punk throwback “Siberia” single. The members are stretched across the globe these days which explains the long absences, but also means that when they do make the time to get together to play music, there’s some meaning to it, you know?

Just like with the last two acts (making this a bit of a theme for October), Big Whoop doesn’t stray too far away from Youth Group’s core sound that’s still rooted in that classic mid-2000s indie rock vibe. The electronic flourishes that appeared in “Siberia” and which have been decisively promoted in the PR blurbs only make a few fleeting appearances, and generally speaking the group pick up where they left off: emotive, earnest rock songs with a world-weary smile on their face and a hint of melancholy in their heart. And like with all their other work, it’s endlessly replayable - something about this sound and Toby Martin’s voice just strikes a huge chord in me. Nowhere more evident than in the big centrepiece stream-of-consciousness torchlight anthem “Don’t Turn Your Back on the Moon”, where Martin reflects on aging and the changes in his life while the band plays a beautifully wistful, gently growing melody behind him. I could easily be stuck in that world for hours.

(again, no CD, TRAGIC)

Hoard Updates

CD

• Bałtyk - Self-Help Pt. 1 (2019; 2025 reissue)
• Great Lake Swimmers - Caught Light (2025)
• Little Kid - Flowers (2016)
• Sonic - Sonic Adventure Remix (1998)
• Sonic - Seven Rings in Hand: Sonic and the Secret Rings Original Soundtrack (2007)

Digital

• Bright Eyes - Kids Table EP
• Pete Frogs - Sonic & Chill 2 (BC)
• Sorbet Sheepdog & The Antropomorphic Sound System - Pacers EP (BC)
• Super Piano 64 - Sonic & Sleep
• V/A - Fistful of Flowers: Furry Music for Trans Health (BC)

So yes, it’s a bunch of Sonic stuff both physically and digitally - blame the hype-up ramp-up for Sonic Con for that. But also I’ve just generally been in the mood for various Sonic remixes and re-interpolations, and so stumbling onto the piano variations of favourites across the franchise by Super Piano 64 and the sequel to last year’s Sonic & Chill future funk/chillwave selection (this time headed by Pete Frogs) have hit the spot (collating a list of all these remix/reworks is a potential blog topic). Meanwhile, I’m just always on the lookout for snags on the physical stuff. It’s an obsession.

Little Kid’s Flowers on CD was a very limited run (two runs of 50 issues each, I understand), so this appearing on Discogs for an affordable price was an immediate grab so I can satisfy my physical cravings. It’s also been nice to see that Bałtyk is reissuing his back catalogue on CD one at a time, though unfortunately my copy seems to be a misprint: it’s a data CD, rather than an audio one. I’ve let the label know but I’m not sure anything will come of that. Ah well.

Music reviews

Not too many reviews this month either. Continuing on the Chumbawamba trajectory, and then starting a short discography run-through of the Finnish pop/rock group PMMP’s albums.

• Chumbawamba - Shhh (1992)
• PMMP - Kuulkaas enot! (2003)
• PMMP - Kovemmat kädet (2005)

Most played song of the month according to Last.FM

If you look at my stats alone, it’s all pretty predictable in terms of the month’s most played songs. It’s a lot of Great Lake Swimmers, followed by Chumbawamba and PMMP for reasons detailed above. Some other random tracks then start surfacing among them and... oh, who are we kidding, there’s only one song that ought to be here, courtesy of how much it’s been playing in my head.

WE’RE SONIC RAAA-CIIIIIIING, ALL AROUND THE WORLD~

#music