Discover Blogly: Listen to new music from Lucy, Kiss Facility, and more

It’s hard to keep up with the output of Cooper B. Handy (aka Lucy), who’s been dropping music at an insane clip for more than a decade. The fact that he rarely misses makes this release rate all the more frustrating for the completionists among his organic, devoted fanbase. The Hadley, Massachusetts pop visionary has produced the lion’s share of his records to date, developing a signature style that stretches the limits of GarageBand’s potential as a digital audio workstation. Increasingly, though, he’s been letting others take, or at least share, the reins. His new, unheralded album 100% Prod. I.V. is, as its title implies, an example of the former tactic. “Rather mysterious Minnesota producer I.V,” as she’s referred to in the project’s bio, shares Lucy’s penchant for clearly synthetic yet disarmingly earnest sounds, perhaps pushing the envelope even further in that regard than her new collaborator has. Lucy’s lyrics, alternately Seussical (“What’s done is done, what’s said is said / So I wake up in the morning and I make my bed”) and [Harry] Crewsian (“I need a blood transfusion and an oil change”), sound both at home and alien over quantized guitarpeggios and other preset plugins tweaked to gummy nirvana. Standouts include the nomadic ballad “Better,” the glitchy Masshole anthem “What She Said,” the harmonica-dosed nostalgia pill “Tank,” the soaring ballad “Faith Hill,” and “Substance,” in which Lucy tunelessly interpolates the Christmas carol “God Bless Ye Merry Gentlemen” over I.V.’s chirping trap beat to revelatory effect. — Raphael Helfand

Over the past two years, dream-pop went from a favored soundtrack for blog-era millennials to the go-to TikTok score of their kids. A Beach House song is doing Dua Lipa numbers on streaming, it’s harder and harder to get Slowdive tickets with each successive tour, and indie labels are flooding vinyl pressing plants for reprints of just about any band they signed in the mid ‘80s to early ‘90s that had at least one Jazzmaster and no less that two tremolo pedals. It’s a flood, and while it’s great to see the legends get their dues, newer bands usually fail to build something outside of their shadows. It’s not impossible, though — our favorite album of 2023 showed us how to retool previous dream-pop eras — and now Kiss Facility, a Paris-based duo of Emirati artist Mayah Alkhateri and producer Salvador Navarrete, reveal another new path with their debut EP. The lodestar of Esoteric is Alkhateri’s vocals, inspired by the Islamic hymnal tradition of nasheeds and Arabic music channels. Her voice steers between lament and ecstasy, its passion shifting colors as needed seamlessly, bringing new context to productions that pull from the past. Dream-pop, crucially, is not the only point of reference: there are flavors of My Bloody Valentine and Mazzy Star (“Black Stone”), but you’ll also hear Evanescence (“z”) and Portishead if they did a Bond theme (“So Many Ways”). The EP concludes with “Prayer At The Dinner Table,” which sways and grooves at the languid pace of late-‘90s new age. While dream-pop is never far from Kiss Facility’s sound, the range and immediate immersive quality of their songs make it clear that their influences are accomplices, not anchors. — Jordan Darville

Lily Seabird only had her “I need to quit my job and do this music thing full-time” moment just a year and a half ago, but she’s already built her own musical world in that time. A Pennsylvania native by way of the University of Vermont to study political science, Seabird ditched her fledgling career path of working for the government once she started playing in her friends’ bands, filling out tour lineups, and helping out on occasional bass duty. Started to take notes, writing music of her own that mirrored the kind of ramshackle, DIY Americana she found a community in: slacker folk-pop with tinges of alt-country and a rock n’ roll heart. The result is her new album Alas, an intimate foray of bedroom indie rock that recalls Adrianne Lenker and Big Thief as touchstones, while occasionally foraying into the more scuzzed-out country-gaze warmth of feeble little horse and Ratboys. “I love the world, but I wasn’t meant to be happy,” Seabird murmurs on opening track “Take It;” it’s an appropriate way to induct herself into the indie rock canon. — Cady Siregar

Australian trio Acopia make glistening and sad electronic pop for people who possibly spend too long thinking about themselves. On Acopia Kate Durman, Morgan Wright, and Lachlan McGeehan weave narratives centered on separation and faltering attachments through a hazy cloud of synth washes and guitars as sharp as pins. There's a pleasingly modest nature to the trio's songs, like Chromatics if their smoky glamour was powered exclusively by vape.

The name "Acopia" alludes to frailty or an inability to combat the day-to-day and there's a melancholy sway to much of the albums that befits such an affliction. Durman is often blunt with her words for a band whose leisurely tones suggest a more chill demeanor, though. She'll sing lines like, "I take you for granted/It’s just what I do," or "you're drainin' my empathy" and make it sound like she's the one being put through the wringer. The groove-laden "Disengage" is a more upbeat entry point to the album while "Eyes Shut" is the standout moment, with programmed drums and Durman's gorgeously sighed vocals coming together to elevate the feelings of isolation into something to strive for. — David Renshaw