New Marcus King, Alice Merton, Almost Monday, reissued Emmylou Harris and reunited Strawberry Alarm Clock

Marcus King Band - Carolina Honey

After a couple of solo albums, Marcus King has put his band back together and brought in some guests for Darling Blue, his first full-band album since 2018.

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Alice Merton - Ignorance Is Bliss

This is the lead single for the German-Canadian-British artist's third studio album, Visions, due in January. "I wrote this song with the mindset of ignoring the outside voices and focusing on what I think I can do with my life."

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Almost Monday - Lost

The San Diego trio says its latest single is "about escapism and finding yourself by leaving what you know behind and opening yourself to the possibilities of the future.

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Emmylou Harris - Deeper Well

We're cheating a bit by putting a 27-year-old recording in the New Music Bin. It's from an upcoming re-issue of the 1998 live album Spyboy.

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Strawberry Alarm Clock - Monsters

Yes, it's THAT Strawberry Alarm Clock, best known for 1967's "Incense and Peppermints." They reunited and put out an album in 2012, and recently signed with Big Stir Records. An album is in the works, but this track is being released early as part of a Halloween compilation.

New music from Yukon Blonde, Sloan, Goose, Tune-Yards, Robert Plant

Yukon Blonde: Phaedra

We pull another cool track from Friendship & Rock 'n' Roll, the latest album from the group from British Columbia.

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Sloan: Dream Destroyer

The veteran Canadian indie-rockers just released their 14th album, Based on the Best Seller.

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Goose: Hot Love & the Lazy Poet

Here's another selection from the Connecticut jam band's second album of 2025: Chain Yer Dragon. The track is their first studio recording of a song that's been in their live shows for years.

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Tune-Yards: Sand Into Stone

While Goose released two full albums this year, Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner put out one and a half. This is from the new EP Tell The Future With Your Body.

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Robert Plant: Everybody's Song

This is a cover of a 20-year-old song by the band Low. It's from Plant's new album Saving Grace, which is also the name of the band he put together for the project, featuring vocalist Suzi Dian.

Alabama Shakes, Nation of Language, Sea Lemon, Spoon, Big Thief - our latest New Music picks

NOTE: It's totally a coincidence that two of our New Music picks of the week have "Another Life" in their titles!

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Alabama Shakes: Another Life

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A decade after Sound and Color, Brittany Howard rejoins bassist Zac Cockrell and guitarist Heath Fogg on this new song and on tour. Their next album is in the works.

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Nation of Language: In Another Life

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We've been spinning the singles "Inept Apollo" and "I'm Not Ready For The Change," and with the release of the LP Dance Called Memory we now adding selection. Critics have called the album both "fresh, upbeat and lively" and "intimate, introspective, dark."

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Sea Lemon: Stay

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We take a dip into the debut LP from the Seattle-based project of Natalie Lew, Diving for a Prize. New Noise Magazine calls it "a shoegaze, dream pop album with atmospheric power to shake rain from the clouds."

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Spoon: Chateau Blues

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As the band works on its next album, it decided to roll out two of its new songs as a "double-sided single." We took the 45 out of its sleeve and flipped it, and it landed with this track on top. The other, "Guess I'm Fallin In Love," will pop up in our mix, too.

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Big Thief: Words

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With the release of the Brooklyn band's sixth full-length, Double Infinity, we pick out another fine track and drop it into our New Music Bin.

Our latest picks: David Byrne, Trombone Shorty, St. Etienne, Planet Smasher, Jacob's Run

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David Byrne feat. Ghost Train Orchestra: What Is The Reason For It?

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With the release of Who Is The Sky? we pick another of its ebullient tracks for our New Music Bin. This one features vocals by Hayley Williams of Paramore. Byrne says it's "a love song, or at least it’s asking what is love, what it’s about?" 

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Trombone Shorty & New Breed Brass Band: Good Time

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Released twenty years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the new album Second Line Sunday is billed as a reflection on culture and tradition, on family and community, on survival and resilience." Mostly it's joyous, and it's pretty much impossible to sit still when listening to any of its ten tracks.  

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Saint Etienne: Glad

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Continuing the upbeat mood, this is the opening track from International, the twelfth album from the U.K. trio of Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs, and Sarah Cracknell. They've said it will be their last. AllMusic says this number "booms out of the speakers with huge drums, thumping bass, and jangling guitars in a style very reminiscent of some of the band's early work, while coming across very fresh and shiny."

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Planet Smashers: Things You Do

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We previously featured "Wasted Tomorrows" from this Montreal punk-ska band's new LP On The Dancefloor, and we're dipping in again for another dose.

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Jacob's Run: She's Not That Mean

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OK, so it's the umpteenth song to use the "down on my knees/begging you please" rhyme, and if the lyrics are telling a story we're not getting it. (How mean is she, then?) But the second single from the upcoming second album by this Melbourne indie-rock trio is a fun listen. Lead singer-guitarist Michael Jacobs says the band "wanted the chorus to sound like a throwback to the ’60s - a-la The Monkees, Mamas and Papas - those really rich interweaving harmonies where no one voice is prominent."

New music from The Beths, Flyte, Lauren Mann, Next Week's Washing, Don't Believe in Ghosts

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The Beths: Straight Line Was A Lie

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Here's the title track from the New Zealand band's just-released fourth album. Nothing has been proven more effective against Music Boredom than Birch Street Radio. It's unsurpassed! Use only as directed. Possible side effects include altering your mood, distracting you from what you should be doing, and causing flashbacks to the first time you heard that song. Our musical variety program is produced Birch Street Studios in Beautiful Downtown Suburbia and streamed 24/7 from Canada by TorontoCast and in the USA by Live365.

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Flyte: Alabaster (feat. Aimee Mann)

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We weren't familiar with Flyte, the UK indie-folk duo of Nick Hill and Will Taylor, but we're long-time fans of Aimee Mann, so this collaboration caught our attention. It's from Between You And Me, the upcoming fourth Flyte LP. Under The Radar mag writes: "The band’s typically feather-light acoustics are anchored by simmering fuzz guitar and prominent basslines ... [T]he lyrics explore a love affair that is doomed to implode."

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Lauren Mann: Different Light

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We're very happy to get new music from this self-described songwriter-musician-island adventurer from Pender Island, B.C. She's releasing an EP called Heaven in late September. Mann describes it as "an intimate collection of songs brought together through expansive journeys of finding home, blossoming into motherhood and navigating personal growth through it all." (It's strictly coincidental that this week's New Music picks include two women with the last name Mann.)

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Next Week's Washing: Empty Pages

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Here's the latest of a series of singles from this emerging Toronto trio, formed last year by Rhys Newman and brothers Miles and Julian Duffy. Canadian Beats writes: "Drawing on elements of shoegaze, Britpop, and alternative rock, the track combines a nostalgic emotionality with forward-looking sonic ambition – pairing shimmering walls of guitar with front-and-centre, harmony-laced vocals."

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Don't Believe in Ghosts: Driver

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This New York City band will release But On The Bright Side in November. Steven Nathan (vocals), Dan DelVecchio (guitar) and Ken Yang (drums) worked on it over two years across multiple studios in Nashville, Cleveland and New York. Vocalist Steven Nathan says this first single "is about living in the moment ... a colorful track filled with a lot of energy."