Nialler9’s favourite songs of the month, all in one place.
See the playlist.
Featuring: Horsegirl, Oklou, Deep Thrills, Avalon Emerson, DJ Python, Joshua Burnside, Maria Kelly, The Vernon Spring, Puma Blue, Mamalarky and more.
Oklou
Obvious
You might call the French producer, singer and artist Oklou’s music hyperpop as it is sometimes deemed, but there is something altogether nebulous and viscose at play in the debut album choke enough.
Ambient dream pop is another way to describe it, but there’s something genuinely off-kilter and close to confounding in how the album moves between melodies and textures.
Understated yet widescreen, minimal yet somehow maximal, choke enough is thoroughly 2025 music, digital yet full of soul, heart and weirdo pop morphs. It feels like post-PC Music experimental pop, that features an AG Cook and Danny L Harle production credits though most of the record was co-produced by Oklou with producer Casey MQ.
‘Outside’ is the best way into this beguiling record.
Oklou is lined up for a Dublin gig this December, by which time, we decree she will be a much bigger artist.
I also love the NTS session performed on ice:
Horsegirl
Rock City
Phonetics On and On, the second album from New York-based college-going Chicago trio Horsegirl is a fine collection of janky indie pop music released on Matador Records, produced by Cate Le Bon.
It’s the kind of album that has drawn comparisons to the Velvet Underground, The Strokes, The Feelies, and Pavement and The Guardian have called it “a minimalist indiepop masterpiece.”
While I wouldn’t go that far this early on, it’s certainly one of the nicest discoveries in a line of indie rock records I’ve heard in a while, since Manning Fireworks?
Deep Thrills
Truth Before Dare
Sorry The Dare, this is the how you do James Murphy voice.
When artists approximate the tone, vibe and losing-my-edgeness of James Murphy, it usually ends up feeling like a facsimile of the original.
Deep Thrills‘ ‘Truth Before Dare’ comes across like an updated version on ‘Losing My Edge’ , with the same type of wry knowing lyrics, yet referencing his nearest challenger – The Dare.
It works both as an homage and an original take on the sound, which we should all appreciate.
The artist is also known as Paper Idol.
I was sure of it, the writing was on the wall
I’ve been talking over my tracks for years
I invented Helvetica
I have the Limewire edition of every great French record:
Justice, Busy P, Kavinsky, Soulwax, Mr. Oizo
Every DJ named SebastianI was here before there
I was truth before dare
I like girls that do drugs too
I should’ve been telling the world
Deep Sea Diver
What Do I Know
The Seatle band lead by Jessica Dobson released their fourth album Billboard Heart on Sub Pop in February, a fine collection of alternative indie rock, best exemplified by the rip-roaring melodic song ‘What Do I Know?’
Guitar virtuoso Madison Cunnigham guests on the record.
Avalon Emerson
Don’t Be Seen With Me
After a successful run out of more shoegaze-focused music with her band The Charm in 2023, Avalon Emerson returns to her solo moniker with more song-based electronic pop music that has some ’80 electronic pop DNA, which is because it’s a cover of Oppenheimer Analysis’ song ‘Don’t Be Seen With Me’.
It’s from a forthcoming record Perpetual Emotion Machine which will come out on Dead Oceans.
“These songs were created for my DJ sets. Whether they’re entirely original, edits to recontextualize old favorites, instrumental, or feature me singing, they are all part of my perpetual emotion machine. And the machine steams on.”
DJ Python
Besos Robados featuring Isabella Lovestory
“Deep reggaeton” New York electronic producer Brian Piñeyro aka DJ Python is to release his first release on XL Recordings on March 28th – i was put on this earth EP, his first solo music since 2022.
The EP funds DJ Python singing, producing and collaborating with South London rapper Jawnino, Honduran-born singer Isabella Lovestory, Organ Tapes, and Physical Therapy featuring.
‘Besos Robados’ featuring Isabella Lovestory is a sludgy reggaeton track that hangs out in a dark hallway.
Factory Floor
Between You
Yeow. The return of Factory Floor, the UK band who last released an album in 2016 is a big cause of celebration as Gabe Gurnsey and Nik Colk Void don their punk industrial dance hats once more.
‘Between You’ is the band’ first release since 2018, released on Erol Alkan’s Phantasy Sound, and is a return to the duo’s robust hypnotic visceral electronic sound. It was recorded late last year in the studio with Stephen Morris of New Order.
The duo will be playing live with alongside touring member Joe Ward.
Joshua Burnside
In The Silence Of
The Belfast-based singer-songwriter Joshua Burnside employs a lush fingerpicked folk sound with nods to Irish traditional music and electronic textures on his new album Teeth Of Time.
From it, I love this banjo meets cut up electronics almost instrumental, which Burnside explained in the track-by-track this week.
I had a lot of voice notes from around the house of sounds I found interesting – children’s toys, the washing machine, my son and I playing, just little snippets of domestic peace and joy. So I just started piecing them together. And then I wrote a little reel on the banjo which worked to the groove, and finally added in some samples of Laura Quirke (of Lemoncello) singing. I cut up the lyrics, just thinking about the sounds she was making and not the words, so you get all these half words and broken sentences, leaving lots of room interpretation.
The Null Club
Slip Angle (featuring Valentine Caulfield)
Gilla Band’s Alan Duggan Borges debuted the new project The Null Club, and features Mandy, Indiana’s Valentine Caulfield.
The EP, out April 4th, also features tracks from Faris Badwan of The Horrors and ELUCID of Armand Hammer, and a series of live shows in Dublin, London, Bristol and Manchester have been announced as per below, and come after Alan “spent time writing and producing music using an array of old synths, drum machines, and guitars – leaning into noise, techno and experimental hip hop, as well as post-punk.”
Maria Somerville
Garden
The Galway singer-songwriter is to release a second album Luster on 4AD on April 25th.
New song ‘Garden’, was produced by Diego Herrera, aka Suzanne Kraft, and sticks to that dark shoegaze sound we heard on ‘Projections’.
John Glacier
Don’t Cover Me
London rapper, producer and poet John Glacier’s debut album Like A Ribbon draws from rap, punk, electronica, indie and soul to create a prism of her own making.
It’s filled with woozy anthems like ‘Don’t Cover Me’.
The album was co-produced and written by Vegyn, Kwes Darko and Flume, and features Sampha and Eartheater.
Maria Kelly
Like A Wave
The Mayo singer-songwriter’s second album Waiting Room is concerned with mental health with the title referencing the very real place Maria spent time in while seeking answers for chronic pain, along with a metaphorical place of her inner world.
‘Like A Wave’ is the album’s opening track and the song’s ambient almost shoegaze production amplifies the tumult and impending change Kelly sings about on the record that follows.
The Vernon Spring, Max Porter
The Breadline
In conversation with Ólafur Arnalds last week, he mentioned The Vernon Spring, a project from British composer and producer Sam Beste, and the upcoming album Arnalds is releasing from the project on his Opia label in May.
After checking it out I was moved by this moody piece anchored by writer Max Porter.
Two Shell
Oops…
The UK electronic chancers casually drop a loosey that sound like 2000s electro-blog-house-era Vitalic, with enough of that Cloudclore sub-bass to bring it into 2025.
This is a very good thing.
Adore
Stay free Old Stranger
The Galway alt-rockers’ fourth single. ‘Stay Free Old Stranger’ is produced by Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox, and is a fine blast of melodic garage punk, an embrace of a feeling of detachment.
Puma Blue
Gone Is The Grace
South-London born, Atlanta-based artist Jacob Allen’s new album antichamber was written by accident in solitude in the artist’s home in Georgia, that was never intended for public ears.
Very quickly there is half an hour of deeply personal, stripped-back music recorded with one microphone, and ambient pieces inspired by my favourite romantic-era classical music, sampling my surroundings using a field recorder I was given by my partner.
What begins as a private reflection grows into a full body of work, capturing the quiet ache of this time. It becomes a companion on long walks and bike rides. I listen to the mixes as I watch birds and rivers. I begin to heal.
When I gather the courage to share it with my partner and a couple friends, they insist this is Puma Blue music. It runs 35 minutes.
4 ambient pieces and 9 songs (1 cover of a song by Low).
Squid
Cro-Magnon Man
The English art-rock quintet Squid’s third album Cowards was released in February. ‘Cro-Magnon Man’ is a foreboding take on their sound, spindly and eerie with vocals from guitarist Louis Borlase alongside Clarissa Connelly, Tony Njoku and Rosa Brook.
Léa Sen
lvl1 – HOME ALONE
London-based French artist guitarist, singer-songwriter and producer and mixer Léa Sen has featured on tracks with Joy Orbison, Sampha and Vegyn in recent years, but it’s the artist’s solo material is equally as worthy as those electronic collaborations.
‘lvl1 – HOME ALONE’ is indicative of Sen’s more acoustic singer-songwriter style, with dashes of experimental pop production appearing as the song develops.
The song is the first of a wider release, yet to be announced on Partisan Records.
“Home Alone” is about my worst flaw that is also my best quality—my ability to dream with no doubt. It’s brought me incredible highs and, at times, left me stuck in a prison of the worlds I created in my mind. I can feel like I’m flying above reality one moment and falling behind the next, caught between daydreams and ambition, love and limerence. Being a wild dreamer lets me shape new realities through music, but no one’s there to pull me back when life calls. It’s a contradiction I live with every day—a blessing and a curse.”
Mamalarky
#1 Best Of All Time
Mamalarky are a Los Angeles indie rock foursome with jazz and math-rock tendencies. Their new album Hex Key comes out on Epitaph Records on April 11th.
I was taken by their song ‘Nothing Last Forever‘ in November, with its woozy indie jazz soul vibe. ‘#1 Best Of All Time’ is on a similar frantic jazz drum tip.
“Through a lot of games of UNO I’ve discovered I’m actually a pretty competitive person. And somehow, the feeling of losing has become highly motivating to me. I always feel like I’m competing against myself, trying to best my last attempt at whatever I’ve set out to do. Like, you probably can’t be the best of all time, but you’ll always be the best you of all time–no one can dispute that,” singer Livvy Bennett says.
“I wanted to write something that felt powerful but funny, too, like laughing in the face of doubt. Cause betting on yourself even when you feel like a losing horse pays off in big ways! If you can make yourself feel like you’re winning right at the moment of failure and only measure yourself against your own barometers, you’re gonna be a lot happier. When we recorded this, we asked Dylan to just play something ‘crazy’ on the drums and worked backwards from there. He powered through this insane performance and the song came together autonomously from there.”
Mamalarky is Livvy Bennett, Noor Khan, Michael Hunter and Dylan Hill.
Marie Davidson
Fun Times
The Montreal electronic producer Marie Davidson’s sixth album City Of Clowns arrived on Soulwax’s Deewee label – moving from “crunching techno straight out of 90s Detroit, fired-up circuitboard breakbeats, and skewed club cuts,” while exploring her place in the world as a woman, a musician, and an artist.
‘Fun Times’ is the ind of electro body music that Davidson excels at, and the record is full of it.
The record was made in collaboration with Soulwax and Pierre Guerineau (Essaie pas, L’Œil Nu, Feu St-Antoine).
Every week, the Nialler9 Spotify Weekly Playlist is updated with new music, and in this corner, we share the playlist and highlight some some select songs from the list below.
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