It's Bandcamp Friday so here's what I picked up in no particular order
Saved by Now, Now
Now, Now's song Enda got thrown into one of my Spotify recommendations and immediately stuck to the inside of my skull. I played it on repeat for weeks. Afterwards, I went to go listen to the rest of their stuff but bounced off of Saved hard because it's pretty different from Enda. Months later I gave Saved a second chance and it quickly became one of my faves.
Digital Pacific by Luna Shadows
Another Spotify recommendation but this time it was an immediate fave. Digital Pacific has a deep melancholy winding through it but the thing that hit me hard was that so much of this album seems to be about how fucked up millennials and zoomers are because of the internet. How it has penetrated our minds and how profit-seeking and metric-seeking web design has deeply broken us, and how we continue those behaviours even though we know they're bad for us. An album for other Twitter refugees like me.
there when you need it by Johnny Foreigner
An older EP by one of my all-time faves, there when you need it is quiet and emotionally devastating in the way that only Johnny Foreigner can do. Tracks about letting go, about not being ready to let go, about being a stupid teenager, about missing chances.
Black Projects by Youth Team
I came across Youth Team via Spotify when putting together background music for a scifi tabletop campaign I ran and this whole album is full of great, slightly scifi-ish tunes that work well as ambience or background music, though there's a couple of certified headbangers thrown in. I was actually surprised to find out that this is a bunch of offcuts for Youth Team's most recent album, since this felt like a whole album that flowed well.
Swish by Omaloma
I speak Welsh and love synthwave, so when I discovered a band that made synthwave in Welsh I was fucking smitten immediately. I haven't listened to Swish for a while because it's a certified summer album – lazy, flowing, languid tunes for falling asleep in the shade with your hat over your eyes, or for speeding through Eryri on a sunny day beneath infinite blue skies. The album is bilingual, so non-Welsh speakers will get some lyrics too.