Rose Main Reading Room, the fourth full length by Peel Dream Magazine, is a lush, inviting headphones record; the kind of album made to accompany city bus rides and rainy-day solo trips to accidental destinations. The band, whose name nods to the BBC Radio 1 legend John Peel — arbiter of all things underground, quality, and (it must be said) “cool” — has since its inception been a genre-hopping experiment, jumping from motorik krautrock to shoegaze and space age pop, and their newest work is a perfect starting point for the uninitiated, beckoning toward a newfound romance and nostalgia with their catchiest collection of songs to date.    Set to the backdrop of New York City and its towering landmarks — The American Museum of Natural History, Grand Central Station, and the like — songwriter Joseph Stevens weaves personal stories into the wider fabric of the natural world, touching on themes of instinct, animality, and evolution. On tracks such as “Central Park West” and “Migratory Patterns,” Stevens and his principal contributors, vocalist Olivia Babuka Black and multi-instrumentalist Ian Gibbs, evoke a woodland sound palette juxtaposed against drones and various electronics, like on side one closer “Gems and Minerals.”  Pre-release singles “Wish You Well” and “Lie In the Gutter” conjure the driving feel of the band’s earlier output, which often draws comparisons to Stereolab and Yo La Tengo, while songs like “Dawn” revel in arpeggiating woodwinds and mallets, recalling the wide-eyed contemporary classical of Steve Reich and Sufjan Stevens. Rose Main Reading Room also touches on Y2K indie pop nostalgia by incorporating breakbeats and acoustic guitar-driven ear candy, as heard on tracks like “Counting Sheep” and “Four Leaf Clover”.  Across its fifteen songs, Rose Main Reading Room ultimately proposes a world of marvels and compelling complexity: “Oblast” cheekily prods at mutually assured destruction; “Ocean Life” explores the infiniteness within ourselves; while “R.I.P. (Running in Place)” unpacks an all too familiar stagnation. It’s all part of, and crucial to, Rose Main Reading Room’s transportive power, ever reaching for the wonder and magic of the world we live in.

somesurprises is the musical project of Egyptian/English American songwriter and guitarist Natasha El-Sergany. Born in Letterkenny, Ireland, and raised in the north of England before moving to Florida at age ten, El-Sergany eventually found home in the evergreen mist of Seattle, WA. What began as a bedroom project focused on spectral balladry and late-night exploration has evolved into a dynamic four-piece band. Motorik beats, reverb-drenched vocals, washes of fingerpicked guitars, and hazy synths expand El-Sergany’s delicate and blissful songwriting. Perseids, the band’s first new album since 2019, hearkens back to the raw and powerful voice memos that started the project. El-Sergany recorded and demoed tracks in near isolation beginning in early 2021 at Seattle’s legendary Crybaby Studios. Cellist Lori Goldston (Earth, Nirvana) and long-time musical partner Josh Medina provided contributions remotely, before the band reunited later that year at ExEx Audio with producer Paurl Walsh. Bassist Laura Seniow and drummer Nico Sophiea provided drive and rhythmic grounding for the initial skeletal songs. Vocalist Jessika Kenney (Sunn O))), Midsommar) added life and meaning to the album’s title track, drawing inspiration from Islamic poetic tradition central to El-Sergany’s vision for the album. Musically, the album draws from a variety of influences, including Stereolab, Cluster, Broadcast, Neu!, Mazzy Star, and Nick Drake. El-Sergany and band are however, uniquely their own, combining elements of shoegaze, dreampop, drone rock, and experimental improvisation.