Atwood Journal is happy to share our Editor’s Picks column, written and curated by Editor-in-Chief Mitch Mosk. Each week, Mitch will share a group of songs, albums, and artists who’ve caught his ears, eyes, and coronary heart. There may be a lot unbelievable music on the market simply ready to be heard, and all it takes from us is an open thoughts and a willingness to pay attention. Via our Editor’s Picks, we hope to shine a light-weight on our personal music discoveries and showcase a various array of latest and up to date releases.
This week’s Editor’s Picks options Goldie Boutilier, Mothé, The Aces, Jack Garratt, G Flip, & Of Monsters and Males!
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“Goldie Montana”
by Goldie Boutilier
Goldie Boutilier shimmers like starlight in “Goldie Montana,” the dazzling, golden-hued title observe to her forthcoming debut album. It’s a dreamy, seductive, sweltering reverie – cinematic in scope, sultry in supply – that reintroduces the world to an artist who has worn many names, however has by no means shone so brightly as she does now. The guitars drip in reverb, her voice is crisp, charming, and emotionally charged, glowing with grit, glitter, and stardust. In a single breath she’s a femme fatale, a starlet, and a survivor, casting her personal mythos in radiant, golden hues.
I’m sporting a white gown
I couldn’t look extra harmless
I seem like a virgin
And also you wouldn’t know the distinction
Nobody sees the grifter
She’s reducing a determine so elegant
Not even a whisper
And that’s how I win your confidence
“This album is my manifesto,” Boutilier declares. “Goldie Montana is an idea I created in regards to the alter ego I needed to turn out to be in an effort to survive my previous, after which, in truth, now thrive on this chapter of my life. A gangster in a robe, Goldie Montana is that outlaw model of your self, the particular person you turn out to be to really feel your inside power and empowerment and that’s what I hope folks will take away from my music – that feeling that you’re accountable for your future.” That duality – grit wrapped in glamour, survival steeped in attract – pulses on the very coronary heart of this tune.
The lyrics learn like a screenplay dripping in scandal and attract. “I’m sporting a white gown, I couldn’t look extra harmless / I seem like a virgin, and also you wouldn’t know the distinction,” she sings, her phrases laced with hazard and want. Elsewhere, she toasts champagne laced with MDMA, winks at fathers behind lovers’ backs, and descends in glass elevators like a goddess-turned-grifter. Each line blurs fantasy and actuality, portray Goldie Montana as each a personality and a confession – an alter ego born of necessity, but additionally a mirror of Boutilier’s personal reinvention.
I look fairly inside {a photograph}
Don’t you agree, as I wink at your dad
Ya, he’s winking again
Mdma inside my champagne glass
You understand that every one one of the best women are quick
Uh huh it’s like that
“It’s my origin story and my heist film rolled into one,” she candidly tells Atwood Journal. “Goldie Montana is a personality I constructed out of my very own scars – half Scarface, half Goldie: Somebody who might stroll into any room and by no means flinch. Every tune is a scene in my transformation: from underdog, to survival, to chaos, many dangerous selections, dangerous folks and hazard. The moments I want you possibly can take again however wouldn’t, as a result of they made you indestructible.” It’s the sound of a girl refusing to be outlined by her previous – as an alternative, wielding it like a weapon.
A glass elevator
Your eyes on me as I descend.
My sins are forgiven
Earlier than I’ve even dedicated them
You’ll get the property
My interval’s later than it’s ever been
Now all people is getting what they wished
Aren’t they?
As Goldie herself places it, her music is “a love letter to dangerous selections, survival, and the ladies who don’t wait to be saved.” “Goldie Montana” is all of that and extra: A shimmering, intoxicating anthem of self-creation and self-possession. Each dreamy and harmful, glittering and grounded, it heralds the arrival of an artist absolutely in charge of her future – a gangster in a robe, a star cast from her personal hearth.
I look fairly inside {a photograph}
Don’t you agree, as I wink at your dad
Ya, behind your again
Mdma inside my champagne glass
You understand that every one one of the best women are quick
Uh huh it’s like that
Right here she comes
imagine the propaganda
Look out fellas
Be careful world
it’s Goldie Montana
“Complete Popstar”
by Mothé
“I’m not a rockstar, child I’m a pop star,” Mothé boldly declares with conviction of their voice and a strut of their step. The title observe off their sophomore album Complete Popstar is massive, brash, and unapologetic – a magnetic, intoxicating tune that seduces the ears and stuns the guts, immediately profitable us over and luring us deep into Mothé’s visionary world. Equal elements satire and celebration, “Complete Popstar” is a glittery, electrified anthem of self-mythologizing – the sound of an artist demanding the highlight on their very own phrases. “Cease calling me a rock star / That’s the previous me, I’m an actual whole pop star,” Spencer Fort sneers, blurring the road between parody and proclamation.
I’m not a rockstar, child I’m a pop star
You would promote me spit in a tiny little bottle
Was once an empath, now I’m simply an asshole
Used so far a pleasant woman, now I’m with a mannequin
And I solely see my associates after we’re all f*ed up
And it’s 1pm and I can’t get up
When has yet another drink ever been sufficient?
Once I’m again on the town I’m by no means again sufficient
Born within the punk scene and sharpened within the membership, Mothé’s music thrives on contradiction – weird synths layered in opposition to pop accessibility, intimacy colliding with hedonism. “I feel that the ethos of the challenge is all the time simply type of doing no matter I wished,” they not too long ago shared with Atwood Journal. “I need folks to count on style adjustments as a result of I simply get so bored.” The place their 2022 debut I Don’t Need You to Fear Anymore leaned into guitars and a lush indie pop sound, Complete Popstar embraces the chaos of the dancefloor, drenched in sticky synths and late-night abandon. The result’s a report designed like a DJ set – relentless, stressed, and inconceivable to step away from.
I’m a pop star
T-O-T-A-L-L-I-E pop star
Completely a pop star, that’s why I’m so terrible
What’s your identify once more?
Cease calling me a rock star
That’s the previous me, I’m an actual whole pop star
That sense of freedom bleeds into the lyrics themselves – messy, incriminating, and reveling in extra. “It began as a joke,” Mothé says of the title observe, co-written with Anna Shoemaker. “That’s why we misspelled ‘popstar’ and did all these items. It was actually simply Anna and me having numerous enjoyable, sort of embracing a brand new friendship in music. After which after I was wanting again at it, I used to be like, oh my God, that shit really occurred!” From stalkers and sports activities vehicles to hangovers and hookups, “Complete Popstar” is as autobiographical as it’s exaggerated. “We have been sort of expressing our grievances with… ‘stand round along with your arms crossed’ music,” they add with a smirk. “Any individual’s received to inject some life into this shit.”
The entire album carries that very same pulse of reckless honesty. Written and recorded on a breakneck timeline, a lot of its vocal takes are salvaged post-club freestyle periods: Unfiltered, unpolished, and alive. “I put myself on this actually intense schedule in order that I’d not have the ability to edit myself,” Mothé explains. “It principally grew to become unfiltered at a sure level… I ended up with an album with essentially the most incriminating lyrics I’ve ever had. However I additionally figured… if it provides the viewers an additional quantity of permission that they didn’t beforehand have of their life to exit and be messy and really feel the enjoyment on the earth, then that’s price it.”
Needed to change my quantity ‘trigger I received a stalker
Broke into my home, he’s a freaky little fucker
I simply received a brand new automobile, I can take the highest off
Truly take your prime off
We might get down at the back of the restaurant
Child, don’t you wanna?
That’s the ethos of Complete Popstar: To revel within the mess, to glorify the chaos, and to remind us that being human isn’t about wanting polished – it’s about exhibiting up, turning the lights up, and sweating it out collectively. “The age of the ‘put-together’ pop artist, it’s simply so f*ing executed,” Mothé asserts. “It’s boring as hell… So let’s create an album the place I’m the one which’s doing issues mistaken, that’s messing up. Test it out. I’m happy with it.” Loud, incriminating, and unapologetic, Complete Popstar is a manifesto of radical honesty – and a report that makes you need to rise up, get out, and dwell just a little louder.
I’m a pop star
T-O-T-A-L-L-I-E pop star
Completely a pop star, that’s why I’m so terrible
What’s your identify once more?
Cease calling me a rock star
That’s the previous me, I’m an actual whole pop star
Pop star
T-O-T-A-L-L-I-E pop star
Completely a pop star, that’s why I’m so terrible
What’s your identify once more?
Cease calling me a rock star
That’s the previous me, I’m an actual whole pop star
“Gold Star Child”
by The Aces
The Aces’ “Gold Star Child” is a strutting, shimmering, disco-drenched triumph – a tune bathed in mirrorball gentle, dripping with sweat, and pulsing with euphoric abandon. The title observe to their fourth studio album captures the whole lot this new season of the beloved indie pop band stands for: pleasure, confidence, celebration, and unapologetic queer ecstasy. It’s dreamy, it’s seductive, and it’s inconceivable to not transfer to – a glitter-glossed invitation to step contained in the world they’ve constructed, the place love and liberation take heart stage.
I do know the place to go, comply with the rainbow
Each taste you’ll be able to come and style
Once you include me, I feel you’ll agree
That you just’ll by no means wanna return, child
Don’t know what to do, don’t stress, I received you
I’m an knowledgeable within the area I’m majoring
Say you’ve by no means tried, I stated I don’t thoughts
And you’ll thank me later
“This album is all about pleasure, confidence, even cockiness, and intercourse attraction,” the band share. “We really feel now that we’re grown girls, we will discover these issues in a method that feels genuine and thrilling. This album is for anybody that’s on the lookout for an escape within the greater than difficult world we dwell in. This album is a celebration. Welcome to ‘Gold Star Child.’” That spirit radiates by way of each verse and beat, wrapping you in glitter and letting you lose your self on the dance flooring.
Do you want shiny issues?
Assume you already know what I imply
Yeah, I’m a gold star child,
oh, I’m so distinctive
You wanna be taught some issues?
I do it in another way
You get a gold star, child,
while you’re good for me
(good for me, yeah)
Sonically, the observe is pure disco-pop bliss: Glowing synths and funk-kissed guitars swirl round an infectious four-on-the-floor groove, whereas Cristal Ramirez’s vocals glide with equal elements sweetness and warmth. The lyrics are playful and filled with allure – “Do you want shiny issues? Assume you already know what I imply / Yeah, I’m a gold star child, oh, I’m so distinctive” – embodying the album’s stability of lighthearted confidence and sultry attract. It’s a soundtrack for the sort of evening the place magic feels tangible, and the place something is feasible.
“This album actually embodies the sound of what I feel a resident disco band would play on the golf equipment in these movies, so I assumed it will be cool to create our personal membership by way of each the album and video,” drummer Alisa Ramirez explains. “So far as the tune goes, to me it feels just like the epitome of a queer awakening; thrilling, horny, intense (generally even disorienting) and principally, magical. I wished to embody that feeling visually by way of a vibrant, colourful evening out that begins off similar to some other Saturday evening and transforms right into a psychedelic queer disco fantasy at Gold Star Child. It’s informed by way of the lens of a younger girl who’s come to the membership along with her buddy, however upon getting into is transported to a different world the place her needs turn out to be her actuality.”
That’s precisely what The Aces obtain right here: They’ve created not only a tune, however a universe – a metaphorical membership that exists all over the place and anyplace, ready for us to step inside. Or, because the band put it themselves, “It grew to become this beacon of sunshine for everyone.” With “Gold Star Child,” The Aces don’t simply ship a single; they ship an anthem, a celebration, and a promise of freedom on the dance flooring.
Jack Garratt has all the time recognized learn how to stability spectacle with sincerity, however Pillars seems like one thing totally different altogether – one thing greater, bolder, and extra unfiltered. His third studio album is an enormous, multifaceted manifesto of the place he’s now: Catchy and cathartic, experimental and colourful, weak and candid, free-spirited in areas and unapologetic in others. It’s essentially the most intimate and unguarded Jack Garratt has ever been in his artwork, and it’s stunning for all these causes and extra.
“That is essentially the most genuine sounding report I’ve made but, as a result of I’m essentially the most genuine model of myself that I’ve ever been,” Garratt says. “And to get there, I needed to undergo years and years of confusion and strangeness. And never realizing. And feeling like I’m being pigeonholed or cornered. However then on the identical time not telling individuals who I’m! Whereas now I’ve a significantly better understanding and thought of that.”
“I wished to make one thing that felt trustworthy, but additionally enjoyable once more,” he provides. “For a very long time I assumed I needed to show myself with each lyric, each sound. This time I let go of that – I let myself play, and that’s why this report sounds the best way it does.” That authenticity pulses by way of each be aware of Pillars, which he frames as “an album about love (of self; of associates; of romance and, sure, intercourse). About neighborhood. About connection. About celebration. I actually need this album to be an invite… I need listeners to really feel cared for and sorted and cherished and introduced in. I additionally actually need this album to succeed in extra folks. I need it to succeed in others.”
The report is as kaleidoscopic sonically as it’s emotionally. Lead single “Catherine Wheel” bursts like fireworks – hit my head, scratch my again, depart me on learn, get me on observe – whereas tracks like “Shaftesbury Avenue” simmer in longing, and “Prepared! Regular! Go!” struts with buoyant, funky abandon. Garratt has all the time been a wizard of manufacturing, however right here the magic feels much less polished veneer than uncooked translation – capturing his full emotional vary in technicolor sound. “I wished the songs to run away with themselves,” he defined. “Even after I tried to maintain them neat, they’d spill out. That’s what life seems like, so why combat it?”
“Two Left Ft” is an immediate standout, a dreamy, candy, intoxicatingly dancey quantity that embodies the album’s stability of enjoyable and fragility. It’s playful and radiant on the floor – come on child, come gimme an opportunity, coz I received two left ft and I wanna dance – but it cuts to the core with brutal honesty: “Damaged folks want loving too, damaged folks like me and also you, let me present you my arms are right here to carry you, so give me your fingers.” “That’s one of many songs that I really feel opens the door to new listeners,” Garratt says. “It’s received all my bells and whistles in it, the melody is enjoyable, the beats are cool and the chords are luscious.”
“I really like that it’s exuberant, however it’s additionally me admitting my flaws,” he provides. “I wished it to really feel like a hug, like I’m saying: You don’t should be fastened to be cherished.”
On the opposite finish of the spectrum, “Love Myself Once more” aches inside and outside – “darling you make me wanna love myself once more,” he sings – a strong confessional of self-loathing reworked right into a plea for therapeutic and a testomony to like’s redemptive energy. With its aching refrain and heavy lyricism, it’s the sort of tune that leaves a long-lasting mark on each ears and coronary heart, lingering lengthy after the final be aware fades. “I didn’t suppose I’d ever let a lyric like that depart my mouth, not to mention launch it,” he shares. “Nevertheless it’s the reality, and saying it out loud makes it actual. It’s terrifying, but additionally liberating. That tune is me at my most weak.”
All of it comes collectively in Pillars, an album of resilience, reckoning, and renewal. Garratt has described it as a sort of open invitation: “I need folks to know that there’s a celebration occurring. You possibly can simply are available. There’s no visitor listing. You don’t have to fret. The water’s nice, come on in.”
“I spent years feeling like I needed to earn my place in music,” he displays, “however this report is me saying: I’m right here, and also you’re welcome right here too. Let’s have fun collectively.” That spirit of welcome defines Pillars: A report that meets you the place you’re, holds nothing again, and reminds us that we’re by no means too damaged to bounce, to heal, or to start once more.
“Disco Cowgirl”
by G Flip
G Flip’s “Disco Cowgirl” is a blinding fever dream of a tune – dynamic, hard-hitting, and completely dripping with cinematic seduction. The lead single off their fast-approaching third album Dream Experience (out September 5 by way of AWAL) pulses with life and love, fueled by G’s explosive drumming and simple songwriting drive. It’s dazzling, it’s radiant, and it cements their place as one among pop’s boldest, most enjoyable voices.
You have been a wild card
I knew you have been bother babe
Oh oh
Oh no you by no means keep lengthy
Star studded, a runaway
Oh oh
“‘Disco Cowgirl’ is the primary style of a brand new period, and I can’t wait to share it with the world,” G Flip declares. That boldness is all over the place on this observe, which fuses slick Nineteen Eighties-inspired manufacturing with trendy pop edge: reverb-drenched drums, shimmering synths, and a refrain that soars with anthemic urgency. For one evening I’ll rock your world / however don’t go fallin’ for a rustic woman, they croon, portray a cinematic portrait of love-at-first-sight that burns vivid and fades quick.
I took an arrow straight to the guts
Scorching shot
As she whispered to me at nighttime
“For one evening I’ll rock your world
However don’t go fallin for a rustic woman”
The lyrics themselves really feel ripped from a neon-streaked film display: I can nonetheless see your face / watching you dancing on the desk / saying oh child I by no means felt this manner. It’s euphoric and aching suddenly, equal elements disco fantasy and heartbreak confessional. And like a lot of G Flip’s work, it’s anchored by rhythm: their drumming drives the observe ahead with a heartbeat-like urgency, making it inconceivable to face nonetheless.
In a candid interview with ABC’s Drive, G shared a number of the inspirations behind the observe: “Queer line-dancing nights is scorching and a lot enjoyable… positively some inspo.” Additionally they teased the moodboard for this new period: “Let’s go denim, muscle vehicles, numerous 80s textures… Tape cassettes, possibly some saxophone, drum solos, synths, excessive power, a lot of color… however nonetheless some dark-coloured themes, some neon lights and moody evening time vibes.” That imaginative and prescient shines brilliantly by way of “Disco Cowgirl,” which feels each nostalgic and model new, playful and charged with longing.
With Dream Experience on the horizon, “Disco Cowgirl” is the proper launch level: a glowing, swaggering anthem that feels tailored for the membership, the freeway, and all over the place in between. Dazzling, intoxicating, and brimming with life, it’s G Flip at their most magnetic – and the beginning of an exciting new chapter.
“Abnormal Creature”
by Of Monsters and Males
Tright here’s a dreamy, dramatic intimacy to Of Monsters and Males’s “Abnormal Creature” that hits like a homecoming. It’s achingly heat and lived-in, breathtaking in its quiet depth – expressive in a method that feels so definitively them: Soul-stirring indie folks that’s each wondrous and confessional, cozy and cathartic suddenly. Their newest single off the upcoming All Is Love and Ache within the Mouse Parade (out October 17) is poetic and powerfully human – a light-weight at nighttime, reminding us of the sweetness in merely being alive.
I used to be on a prepare
Heading by way of the veins of your coronary heart
You have been lookin’ in
However the passenger window was darkish
Sluggish swim in sloe-gin,
getting misplaced within the labyrinth
I’ve been grinnin’ by way of Easter
like an abnormal creature
Farewell, my dreaded concern
Thanks, however I’m out of right here now
“‘Abnormal Creature’ captures the second the place your thoughts is opening as much as the world and also you’re realising that you just’re beginning to really feel higher after a protracted interval of the other. Sort of a journey from sorrow to pleasure. From winter to summer season,” the band inform Atwood Journal.
“The unique thought of the tune was very minimalist, constructing on a sluggish, regular beat and staccato strings. We later turned it completely on its head. We have been taking part in round within the studio and one thing simply clicked. It’s all the time thrilling when one thing so joyful and pure comes so effortlessly. ‘I want I might run to your own home when it will get darkish out’ has a type of a quiet starvation to it. Ideas of an awakening thoughts. To us, it’s nostalgic. It reminds us of a protracted summer season evening in Iceland when the solar by no means units. It’s a peculiar power, each romantic and relentless.”
I want I might run to your own home
when it will get darkish out
I want I might run to your own home
when it will get darkish out
That duality is on the tune’s core. The lyrics ache with longing and shimmer with hope: “Farewell, my dreaded concern / thanks, however I’m out of right here now… I want I might run to your own home when it will get darkish out.” Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and Ragnar Þórhallsson’s voices intertwine like two halves of the identical story, carrying sorrow and solace in equal measure. Their harmonies really feel timeless, grounding the observe in a way of lived-in knowledge even because it glows with renewal.
Concerning the tune, the band add: “’Abnormal Creature’ is in regards to the feeling of craving for that somebody that brings you consolation. It’s about while you begin feeling higher after a interval of not feeling so nice. That second while you begin coming again to your self once more and remembering what it’s wish to be an abnormal creature.” That mild return to self radiates by way of each verse, carried on dreamy strings and the band’s signature mix of intimacy and grandeur.
“Abnormal Creature” follows “Tv Love” – one other tune rooted in dialogue, reminiscence, and connection – and collectively, these singles set the stage for what guarantees to be Of Monsters and Males’s most poignant album but. Written and recorded in Iceland, formed by playfulness and renewal, All Is Love and Ache within the Mouse Parade explores the paradox on the coronary heart of human expertise – the inseparable dance of pleasure and sorrow. If this single is any indication, the return of Of Monsters and Males isn’t simply long-awaited; it’s soul-stirring, spectacular, and completely well worth the wait.
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