CARPARK RECORDS

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”