Indie Basement (5/15): This Week’s Essential Indie, Alternative, and College Rock

Hi! This week: reviews of new albums from Kevin Morby (produced by Aaron Dessner), Indie Basement Hall-of-Famer Kelley Stoltz , Austin indiepop newcomers Touch Girl Apple Blossom , Australian garage rock band The Gnomes , and Seattle’s Telehealth , plus a look back at Hunters & Collectors ‘ Human Frailty .

Over in Notable Releases they cover Drake, Genesis Owusu, Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade, Dua Saleh, and more.

On this week’s episode of BV Interviews , I talked to Social Distortion’s Mike Ness , and on BV Weekly , my 1996 pick of the week is Aphex Twin’s Richard D James Album .

Other Basement-friendly news from this week: Swervedriver are celebrating raise at 35 on tour and BrooklynVegan is presenting the whole trek; Pixies are finally releasing Complete B-Sides on vinyl ; Britpop greats Gene announced their first North American tour in two decades; and Tricky announced his first tour in eight years .

Head below for this week’s reviews…

Kevin Morby – Little Wide Open (Dead Oceans)

Producer Aaron Dessner helps Kevin Morby make his most direct, grand, and heartfelt album yet

Since making his solo debut in 2013 with Harlem River , Kevin Morby has been a force, releasing great record after great record full of his empathetic, insightful, and tuneful brand of Americana. With his eighth album, Morby seems to have made a conscious effort to level up and swing for the fences — and he mostly connects.

Little Wide Open was produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner, who has spent the last decade working on some very big projects (Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Noah Kahan) and brings Morby a little closer to center stage while widening his scope. There’s quite a cast of contributors here too, including Justin Vernon, Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath, MUNA’s Katie Gavin, Lucinda Williams, Andrew Barr, and more.

The album sounds great: big but not slick, full of strings, woodwinds, and, on “Junebug,” harp. Dessner also knows when to peel back the layers, giving the songs exactly what they need. Beyond the production, Morby feels like he’s trying to write songs that fit this wider palette, aiming to strike universal chords and find beauty amidst all the terrible stuff going on.

As sprawling as the Midwest skyline, Little Wide Open is filled with vivid imagery, evoking the Kansas City of his youth while aiming for something closer to the full American experience. “ Little Wide Open is set to a backdrop of tangled highways, towns with populations less than 100,000, roadside crosses, a rock and roll romance, coupling butterflies, being an American entertainer, Econoline vans and more,” he wrote while announcing the album.

“Badlands,” which opens the record, immediately brings to mind both the Terrence Malick film and Bruce Springsteen, but also tips its hat to Belinda Carlisle’s #1 single “Heaven Is a Place on Earth.” Morby is a sincere songwriter — there’s no winking at the listener — and the Boss and the former Go-Go’s singer are equally worthy reference points. There are nods to everyone from Dylan and Hank Williams to John Mellencamp and Neil Young. He’s also not afraid to blatantly tug at the heartstrings, but he’s got the talent and charm to pull it off.

The album’s a little long, pushing an hour, and losing a couple songs might’ve made it even more powerful, but this is Morby’s America and he wants us to see all of it.

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Kelley Stoltz – If You Don’t Know Me Buy Now   (Dandy Boy / Agitated)

Another effortlessly charming collection from this San Francisco underground DIY lifer

San Francisco DIY legend, musical polymath, occasional touring member of Echo & The Bunnymen and Robyn Hitchcock’s band, hilarious person, and Indie Basement all-star Kelley Stoltz is one of the great underground artists of the last 25 years, seemingly with an endless well of cleverly produced earworms at his disposal. “In no time it took me to write this song,” he sings on his 19th album under his own name, “I catch epiphanies before they’re gone.”

Despite the groan-worthy, punny title, If You Don’t Know Me, Buy Now is another great collection of songs and, if you’re unfamiliar with Kelley, as the title suggests, this is a great place to start. You get a little bit of everything he does best: ’60s-inspired pop (“Repercussions,” “Radio Station”), ’70s-style singer-songwriter piano jams (“Love in Any Language”), glam (“Queen of Diamonds,” “Turn the Earth”), and nervy ’80s pop (“The Daughters of the Golden West,” “Come On Spirit”).

My favorite song is Stoltz’s ode to drummers, “Watts, Moon, Starr,” which musically doubles as a tribute to his heroes Echo & The Bunnymen. Those influences and styles are blended so naturally at this point that the whole record feels just a little unstuck from time. If this is your first exposure to Stoltz, be happy you’ve got a whole lot more great music left to discover.

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Touch Girl Apple Blossom – Graceful (K)

This Austin band shine on their jangly, twangy debut album

Long-running indie label K Records is on a bit of a hot streak recently. They’ve got a great new album from Slippers on the way, and before that comes the similarly jangly debut from Austin quartet Touch Blossom Apple Girl. Their brand of indiepop recalls everything from The Wedding Present and Heavenly to Velocity Girl and Small Factory, but in addition to a great batch of songs they’ve got a few other aces up their sleeve that make them distinctive: Dustin Pilkington brings ultra-melodic basslines and nice counterpoint vocals to singer-guitarist Olivia Garner, while John Morales’ twangy leads add a little grit. Graceful is lo-fi and twee, but in all the best ways, and when the chorus of “Big Star Shinin’” hits, it’s all but impossible not to “la la la” along with them.

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The Gnomes –  More EP (Goblin Records)

This new EP from these Melbourne garage rockers is a total blast

Introducing The Gnomes was one of my favorite surprises of 2025 and one of the first “garage rock” albums I’ve really cared about in a decade. The Melbourne, Australia band’s take on primitive beat is less Nuggets and more first-wave British Invasion, rooted in The Beatles, The Kinks, and The Creation.

This new EP, arriving just six months after that album, is even more adrenalized, bursting through the gate with the blistering boogie of “Thinking of Me,” then blazing into the chiming, danceable “Don’t Worry,” jangly ripper “Magic Man,” and finishing just as hot as it began with the drum-fill-heavy, fuzzed-out “Matter of Time.” What a blast.

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Telehealth – Green World Image (Sub Pop)

Seattle’s Telehealth turn modern digital malaise into sharp, danceable new wave on their Sub Pop debut

Every major city seems to have a band making arch, high-concept DEVO/B-52s-inspired new wave/post-punk that’s very plugged into plugged-in culture. Portland has YACHT, Brooklyn has Bodega, and Seattle has Telehealth. Led by married couple Alexander Attitude (synths/vox/guitar) and Kendra Cox (synths/vox), Telehealth released their debut, Content Oscillator , in 2023 and then signed to Sub Pop for their second album.

Green World Image examines our current status of work-from-home office drones, Instagram influencers and ads, athleisure, and life in a city looming under the shadow of Starbucks and Amazon, all funneled through angular guitars, chorus-drenched bass, vintage synths, and danceable rhythms. As their inspiration once sang, it’s a beautiful world.

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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: Hunters & Collectors – Human Frailty (I.R.S. / Mushroom, 1986)

Hunters & Collectors’ rugged 1986 classic still hits with force and heart

I had a Maxell XL-II 90-minute cassette that had The Woodentops’ Giant on one side and Hunters & Collectors’ Human Frailty on the other. Apart from both coming out in 1986 and me buying both on vinyl at the same time, these two albums don’t have much in common — one is by a London group making romantic acoustic pop, the other by hard-driving, horn-fueled Aussie rockers — but I wore out this tape in my parents’ car and both records hold a special place in my musical backstory.

Hunters & Collectors hailed from Melbourne and sounded very Australian in their sun-baked, big-percussion-powered brand of flinty blues rock, punctuated by horn blasts and the full-throated vocals of singer-guitarist Mark Seymour. They had more than a little in common with Midnight Oil, with whom they’d tour North America in 1990, and possessed a driving rhythm section that could power a school bus across the whole of the outback. That energy comes into play on funky, danceable songs like “Say Goodbye,” “99th Home Position,” and “Is There Anybody In There,” but they were even better on subtler, relationship-driven songs like “Throw Your Arms Around Me,” which was covered by Crowded House on their 1990 MTV Unplugged episode and by Pearl Jam in 2000.

That’s the album’s absolute standout, but almost as good are the Stonesy “Everything’s on Fire,” the dreamy “The Finger,” “Dog” (sung from a canine’s POV), and the smoldering “Relief.” A lot of records from this era sound dated, but producer Gavin MacKillop had a knack for mixing organic instrumentation with big ’80s signifiers (see also General Public’s great debut album), and Hunters & Collectors filled the room with sheer force rather than gimmicky studio trickery. Human Frailty still smokes.

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THE MOON & THE MELODIES: 12 SONGS FEATURING ELIZABETH FRASER

This Mortal Coil – “A Song to the Siren”

Most people want Elizabeth Fraser for her voice's more angelic qualities, but she's got quite the range, and her lower register can be just as transportive, as this spine-tingling cover of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" proves. This Mortal Coil was the recording project of 4AD Records founder Ivo Watts-Russell and producer John Fryer, and "Song to the Siren" -- Ivo's favorite song of all time -- was TMC's debut single in 1983. With guitar from Robin Guthrie, it remains one of the most unforgettable showcases for Fraser's emotive pipes. This Mortal Coil's version has touched a lot of people over the years, perhaps none more so than filmmaker David Lynch, who has called it his favorite piece of music ever. He was obsessed with "Song to the Siren" during the making of Blue Velvet , and wanted Fraser and Guthrie to perform it in the film, but usage rights were out of the film's budget. Lynch eventually got to use it 10 years later in Lost Highway . "That song does something to me, for sure," Lynch told The Guardian .

Jeff Buckley & Elizabeth Fraser – “All Flowers in Time (Bend Toward the Sun)” (demo)

Jeff Buckley loved This Mortal Coil's cover of his father's "Song to the Siren," and the musical admiration was mutual, as Fraser was enamored with Jeff Buckley's album Grace . Their mutual admiration grew into a short but passionate love affair somewhere around 1994, which was not long after her relationship with Robin Guthrie ended. (Cocteau Twins continued till 1997.) "I just couldn't help falling in love with him," she said in BBC documentary Jeff Buckley - Everybody Here Wants You . "I read his diaries, he read mine. We'd just swap...I've never done that with anybody else." While it didn't last, at least one song was written during their relationship. "All the Flowers in Time (Bend Toward the Sun)" is a gorgeous duet between Buckley and Fraser, with Jeff singing the chorus of "Oh, all flowers in time bend towards the sun / I know you say that there's no-one for you / But here is one." It's a rough demo that has never been commercially released, but you don't really need much more than their voices to have you wondering what could have been. Elizabeth Fraser w/ Massive Attack at Radio City Music Hall, 2019 (photo by P Squared)

Massive Attack – “Teardrop”

Elizabeth Fraser's most popular song, Cocteau Twins or otherwise, is probably "Teardrop," one of three songs she sings on Massive Attack's 199

_Originally reported by [Brooklyn Vegan](https://www.brooklynvegan.com/album-reviews-kevin-morby-kelley-stoltz-hunters-and-collectors-touch-girl-apple-blossom-the-gnomes-telehealth-more/)._