Remy

With I Will Make a Baby in this Damn Economy, Fat Tony embodies the kind of quixotic figure he would rap about; a singular entity who’s motivated, confident, and hungry; a perpetual-motion-machine locked in a staring contest with his country. Ever since 2020’s Wake Up and Exotica, he’s demonstrated he is in his own lane as a professional rapper with the mind of a magician, as quick to conjure an image as pull it out from under you, deftly maneuvering through so many details and references a listener feels as if they have witnessed the work of an illusionist. He paints these canvases inside of songs that are pocket-sized diaries replete with acute observations, character studies, microdoses of storytelling, and single-minded ruminations on a topic that bud, blossom, and fade before too long. Make a Baby cements Tony’s status as someone whose albums are not so much lyrically-lyrical as they are picaresque.

In the quiet surrounding the pandemic, Madeline Kenney made sonic sketches in the basement studio she shared with her then-partner. In 2022, he left suddenly, and in the wake of that seismic shift she revisited the ideas that became the foundation for her fourth record. Rather than reckoning with love lost, A New Reality Mind grapples with the self that chose to fall, accepting that we’re all doomed to repetitive, ordinary heartbreaks, but not without agency to build new realities for ourselves.

Anchored by a hypnotizing bass line, "Etc"–Foyer Red's latest single and first for Carpark Records–unfolds with off-kilter call-and-response vocals with stilted deliveries bouncing around the mix. The track is searching but discontent with the algorithmic and claustrophobic realities of daily life. While there’s paranoia and cynicism undergirding the lyrics, the song itself is a thrilling and playful listen.

The Search for God is a wake-up call for a troubled world that’s still worth saving, animated by a belief in the power of small connections to add up to big changes. Jimmy Whispers’ sophomore album was created mostly with two vintage synths, a drum machine, and a busted karaoke machine. It channels Midwestern emo, the Beach Boys’ Smile, subtle nods at hyper-pop production and forgotten jewel-box era college radio of the early aughts into a pure pop sound that transcends easy categorization.

The music of Melati ESP aka Melati Malay is a euphoric vision of megacity rhythm and rainforest escape, club breaks and weightless pop, mapping new dreams from the sound of futures passed: hipernatural.

Anchored by a hypnotizing bass line, "Etc"–Foyer Red's latest single and first for Carpark Records–unfolds with off-kilter call-and-response vocals with stilted deliveries bouncing around the mix. The track is searching but discontent with the algorithmic and claustrophobic realities of daily life. While there’s paranoia and cynicism undergirding the lyrics, the song itself is a thrilling and playful listen.

@ is composed of Philadelphia guitarist Victoria Rose and Baltimore producer/musician Stone Filipczak. They named their band @ (pronounced “At”) — a symbol that calls to mind the detachment of an email exchange or a Twitter mention. The folk-pop duo created their debut album Mind Palace Music almost entirely remotely from, sending each other recordings over iMessage from their respective cities throughout fall/winter 2020.

Wellington, New Zealand four-piece Hans Pucket writes nervy but effortlessly danceable rock songs about feeling bad. Their second full-length album, No Drama, which is out November 4th via Carpark Records, gleefully captures the all-too-common twenty-something anxieties of talking too much and then being unable to find the right words to say. Recorded with the band’s good friend and former tour mate Jonathan Pearce of The Beths at his Auckland studio, No Drama is full of big leaps, immaculate arrangements, and a ton of immediate grooves. The result is Hans Pucket’s most sparkling and confident collection yet. While it’s danceable and fun, it’s also a thoughtful exploration of anxiety, a call for empathy in a turbulent time, and a relatable reminder that it’s hard to figure things out.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Cloud Nothings' seminal album, Attack On Memory, the band has announced a very special limited edition vinyl pressing. Pressed on sky blue vinyl and housed in a foil jacket with all new colorized artwork, the anniversary edition includes two bonus flexi 7"s featuring two never-before-released tracks, "You Will Turn" and "Jambalaya", lifted from the original studio sessions at Steve Albini's Electrical Audio.

On The Beths’ new album Expert In A Dying Field, Elizabeth Stokes’ songwriting positions her somewhere between being a novelist and a documentarian. The songs collected here are autobiographical, but they’re also character sketches of relationships and more importantly, their aftermaths. The question that hangs in the air: what do you do with how intimately versed you’ve become in a person, once they’re gone from your life? The third LP from the New Zealand quartet houses 12 jewels of tight, guitar-heavy songs that worm their way into your head, an incandescent collision of power-pop and skuzz. The album’s title track “Expert In A Dying Field” introduces the thesis for the record: “How does it feel to be an expert in a dying field? How do you know it’s over when you can’t let go?” Stokes asks. “Love is learned over time ‘til you’re an expert in a dying field.”

Naomi Alligator generally houses her narratives in beds of minimal, home-tracked instrumentation. For Double Knot, Naomi wanted a fuller, more dynamic sound. Here she continues to hone the winning combination of guitar and banjo, while peppering in computer-generated synths. If anything, Double Knot is a reminder that you can always pack up your bags, try something new, and change your life. As for Naomi Alligator herself? She moved to California.

"I’m very much a maximalist when it comes to production. I like vast landscapes. I like a stratosphere and a core -- I want the bass to be beneath the floor," Erin says. "This record is, in a lot of ways, a collection of some of the first moments that I was technologically able to achieve accurate renderings of how I hear my own emotional world."

The track is an exciting collaboration between both bands, showcasing the bright guitar tones and hooks that are signature to Ducks Ltd. and the powerful, pop backing vocals of Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties. By itself, the cover further establishes the song as a true anthem that ascends with tension and bursts with warmth. And lucky for us, there are more covers from Ducks Ltd. and co. to come.

The Beths are back in full force with a new single called “A Real Thing”, their first new song since the release of their acclaimed album Jump Rope Gazers in 2020. “This song is a kind of anxiety dream. It's a bit muddled, a bit frantic, a bit sinister” says lead singer Liz Stokes. Stokes wrote this song in late 2020, following the election in New Zealand and the U.S, attempting to reach for optimism about the future, but ultimately playing more apocalyptic scenarios of climate change in her head. The upbeat urgency in the song is palpable from the very start and paired with the band’s signature bright, raucous guitar hooks and cooing harmonies, the song races and soars, much like an increasing heart rate. The Beths' infectious and insightful songwriting on “A Real Thing” is an exciting marker of more excellent work to come.

Deer Scout’s debut full length Woodpecker is a record about memory and the subconscious. And like an unforgettable dream that keeps you puzzling over its riddles for days, it’s as packed with direct symbols as it is with ruminative haze. It’s a culminating collection of the project’s many sounds and influences to date, from Philly’s punk cooperatives to Oberlin’s conservatory experimentalism to New York’s DIY history. At the center is Dena Miller’s assured guitar fingerpicking and boldly clear voice, firmly grounded even as it gently probes uncertain emotional and musical terrain. Though Woodpecker is a record about uncertainty and the unknown, it’s also about compassion and connection—as Miller was able to find over the course of writing and recording this next chapter for Deer Scout and first release for Carpark, which she’s excited to at last share with the world.

On “Sheets of Grey” lead singer and guitarist, Tom McGreevy writes about one of his dearest topics; the liminal space between the inertia of depression. The ebb and flow of these feelings are evidenced in the rather monotone verses which are swept into the uptempo choruses in high register.

The record transports the listener from speaker-side at a club, to wandering a party, to sitting at an open window with a pianist nearby. It shifts effortlessly from expansive sold-out-show sound to ethereal, twinkling detail. The writing on Soft Spot outwits even its clever, resourceful production, the lyrics a testament to the multi award-winning songwriter’s belief in the pop format as a venue for prose. 

On Nightclub Daydreaming, menace teems just below the surface as propulsive, stark arrangements leave space that Schrader fills with strident, reverb-soaked narration.

Speedy’s first songs glowed within the contrast of noisiness and intimacy, raw sonic elements that came with closely processing vulnerabilities and Dupuis’ insistence on performing and recording each instrument alone. As the new project fielded show offers from favorite show spaces like Death By Audio and Shea Stadium, these early tracks became the springboard for the playfully melodic and cleverly distorted style for which Speedy Ortiz as a full band is celebrated.

In a way not previously captured, this album expertly combines the group’s pummeling, aggressive approach with singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi’s extraordinary talent for perfect pop.

“Ain't for Me" is the latest single from Houston artist Fat Tony. It’s about a Black American family who leaves home for another country. Producer GLDNEYE's composition is anthemic and minimalist, with Gershwin-inspired movements accompanying our future expat throughout the track.

Toronto’s Ducks Ltd., the bright jangle-pop duo of Tom McGreevy and Evan Lewis, accomplish the impossible. The pair craft songs that play to very specific inspirations without drowning underneath them—immediately evidenced on their critically acclaimed EP, Get Bleak, and sharpened on Modern Fiction, their debut LP.

"The Beths have recorded and filmed one of the pivotal events of the year, their concert at the Auckland Town Hall. Its high energy pop music for the ages."

This fall, five years since her first upload and over a dozen releases later, Naomi Alligator will share her new four-track EP, Concession Stand Girl, while making her debut on Carpark.

Toronto’s Ducks Ltd. will release an expanded re-issue of their debut EP, Get Bleak on May 21, 2021 via Carpark Records.

Almost Nothing Is Nearly Enough includes remixes of six tracks from All Things Being Equal and two tracks previously released exclusively in Japan. The album opens just like the original, with “Just Imagine”in its remixed form.

In her first release since 2019's "massive and far-reaching" album, Only You Can See It, Emily Reo returns with a new single, "One Eye On The Sky."

Originally released as a free download in early 2019 as a cassette tape bounce. This release features the same songs but presented in a more hi-fi setting.

Only You Can See It is a devastatingly beautiful collection of prismatic pop songs reckoning with the complexity of self-possession.