The long-awaited return of Brooklyn’s Beach Fossils, Somersault showcases a band in bloom. Charting into new musical territory with a refined songwriting style, it’s an album that captures flashes of life in New York grounded in personal experience. The band’s self-titled 2010 debut established a sound that was both minimal and enveloping. With Somersault, the group’s first release since 2013’s Clash the Truth, Beach Fossils have channeled years of experimentation into expansion and reinvention. Augmented with more complex instrumentation, including string arrangements, piano, harpsichord, flute, and sax, the new songs offer multi-layered pop guided by sharp, poignant, and honest lyrics. As the band’s first release on Dustin Payseur’s new label Bayonet Records, which he co-owns with wife Kate Garcia—the group made the most of their newfound independence, investing ample time in expanding its range both musically and lyrically. While Payseur handled the bulk of the songwriting duties in the past, Somersault is a true collaboration between the founding member and bandmates, Jack Doyle Smith and Tommy Davidson. The new songs speak to a more fluid, eclectic sound, filled with lush compositions formed by studio experiments and sam-pling of the band’s own recordings. Orchestral pop gem “Saint Ivy” shines with plucked strings, buoyant basslines and a propulsive, wayward, guitar. “Tangerine,” a driving, tightly wound melody, rushes forward and briefly leaves the ground due to the gossamer guest vocals of Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell. The effervescent “Rise,” which hinges on the spoken word of Gavin Mays (Cities Aviv) discussing a failed rela-tionship, hangs, like many recent breakups, in a sense of suspension. The cloudy, wistful “Soci-al Jetlag,” bustling with samples of crowded streets, features the type of candid, off-the-cuff lyr-ics that make the entire effort immediately illuminating. Recorded at multiple studios across New York City, a cabin in upstate New York, and even Los Angeles (including the home studio of Jonathan Rado of Foxygen, who helped engineer part of the album), Somersault turns the newfound chemistry between the trio into a sonic tapestry. Due to the variety of sessions and recording locations, the album was a Frankenstein-like series of reworking and reimagining songs. As the group pieced together different parts in a cycle of creation and cooption, and built out more elaborate songs track by track, the process became more reminiscent of a record created via sampling and arranging than one built by simply grind-ing out riffs. The long-simmering album, filled with breezy music both melancholic and uplifting, sees the band channeling their voices and honing their craft. Flowing between shimmering compositions and immersive soundscapes, Somersault evokes the laid-back mood of a warm, breezy city night, the air crackling with humidity and excitement. These songs pulse and pull, capturing a blend of promise and heartache. It’s beautiful and lay-ered, a refined, sweeping creation that threads together numerous styles, textures, and themes into a refreshing, singular vision.

Neggy Gemmy’s (FKA Negative Gemini) heartfelt electronic pop is built around duality. In astrology, Geminis represent polarity and though Lindsey French—the producer, singer, and songwriter behind the name—is an upbeat Sagittarius, her music has always been linked to that idea. The Los Angeles-based artist delivers sparkling vocal hooks alongside angst-ridden missives, and floating atmospherics with chest-caving bass. She’s constantly swerving and shapeshifting as her interests and surroundings change: no two releases are quite alike, yet within all of their DNA lies a magnetic songwriting sensibility that makes you want to sing, chant, and scream along with her. The breadth of French’s palette and the emotion in her storytelling are evident in her upcoming third album, whose influences range from “Princess of Pop” Kylie Minogue to maximalist dance acts Basement Jaxx and Daft Punk. The songs are layered and complex—apt accompaniment for her vulnerable introspection. On downtempo-pop opener “California” for example, French’s hopeful lyrics sprawl across weightless electronica with a ground-shaking, hip-hop-tinged bassline. “I just wanna go and never come back,” she sings. “You’re saying slow down, but I just wanna go fast.” It’s a simple sentiment, rendered all the more moving by the colorful backdrop. “It’s easy for me to make instrumentals,” says French, underselling her meticulous approach to the craft, “but it’s challenging to make a good pop song that makes you feel something.” But doing exactly that—making art that honestly reveals emotions, and provokes the same in listeners—has long been the goal of her work, even outside of creating music. French runs the 100% Electronica label with artist and husband George Clanton, hosts a weekly virtual reality 360 livestream on YouTube from inside a spaceship, and designs unique merch like CBD Reiki Moonbears - her new potent CBD gummy bears - all important components for creating a vibrant, fully realized world around sound. And her M.O. as Neggy Gemmy is to take full ownership of her music, writing and producing 100% solo. “I’m the only one that will do it like I would,” she says. Neggy Gemmy was born from movement. She spent her childhood hopping around the South from Louisiana to Texas, then Kentucky, and finally Virginia for her father’s work. Songwriting was how French, a self-described introvert, felt most comfortable expressing herself. In college, she joined a rap group, where she learned how to produce using GarageBand and Logic. It opened up a new skill set with endless possibilities. When the group disbanded, French continued to produce on her own as Neggy Gemmy. She relocated from Richmond, VA to Brooklyn in 2014 to pursue her music career. She found a home in the local underground electronic scene, a community that echoes through the sweaty club beats and crushing basslines of her 2016 album, Body Work. As ever, she experimented with a vast palette of sounds and moods across the record, but all the songs felt linked in their devotion to the dance floor—like she was writing with proper sound systems in mind. One of the album’s singles, “You Never Knew,” on which she sings of lost love over icy percussion, offered a turning point in her career when it premiered on the iconic taste making blog Gorilla vs. Bear. Never one to stay still long, French spent the next two years touring on and off while writing her next project, Bad Baby. The EP shifted toward a lo-fi indie rock sound, glowing with the warmth of more analog instruments. French used her introspective songs to extract her deepest, darkest emotions, from the despondence of “Skydiver” to the raw rage of “Innocence.” The project proved that she’s a keen student of whatever genre she touches, no matter how niche. French moved out to Los Angeles in 2018. The city marked a new era in her career, which bubbles sonically throughout her next album. Intended to be a driving album in a nod to L.A.’s car-centric culture, the LP cruises like a joyride down Sunset Boulevard, traversing sunny house, poolside disco, and darker, psychedelic indie—a fitting soundtrack for a story about being seduced by the city’s glamour. Like any good movie based on a true story, the album feels dramatic, but it’s real too.