You can always rely on U.e (Ulla) for a kind of quiet acoustic wandering, ambient meandering and field-recorded textures that gently invite you to slow down and lose yourself in the details. Recorded on the fly in Korea last year with minimal gear, including a used Sony dictaphone, various toy instruments, and a borrowed acoustic guitar. Plucking her guitar with a cool, indifferent, easygoing touch, she unfolds the nine tracks on this makeshift album like a series of unhurried sketches, rich in atmosphere, intimacy, and quiet charm. If you enjoyed the charms of last year’s spacious and intimate ‘Hometown Girl’ or its companion album ‘Other Girl’ (see here), you’ll find much to love here. Saving the best for last, start with the perfectly imperfect closing title track and work backwards. U.e (Ulla) continues to gently reinvent her sound. 

I’ve been looking forward to this album ever since their wonderful debut EP dropped last year (see review here). Sax and guitar duo Darius Blair and Niko Huber return with nine succinct, bewitching tunes. Not quite as experimental as their EP, but plenty here keeps my ears engaged. My favourites are the intricate ‘Chasing Down Lessing Street’, the jazzy, funk-drenched ‘Gamblin’, the upbeat funky groove of ‘Prism Break’ featuring drummer Noah Fürbringer, and the mellow ‘Titan’, elevated by Khadim Seck‘s subtle percussion work. Listening to this mostly laid-back and spacious album is a chilling way to spend your time!

Following three highly acclaimed albums, the wind-instrument duo NoSax NoClar reaches new heights of improvised dialogue on their fourth release, Twofold. Composed during a 2025 residency in Finland, the album is a masterclass in musical interplay, balancing Julien Stella’s velvety clarinets against Bastien Weeger’s virtuosic saxophones. The duo expertly bridges non-Western traditions with bebop foundations, creating an expansive sonic landscape built on shifting counterpoints and earthy, hypnotic rhythms. Highly recommended.

Berlin dream-rock trio Roomer return to Squama with their second album, Staircase Made of Rope, a record that wears its looseness like a badge of honour. Where 2025’s Leaving It All to Chance felt road-hardened and sure-footed, built from songs tested night after night, this new one was born in the studio, often from improvisations and mostly captured in single takes the band didn’t feel the need to second-guess. Their music blends alternative, indie, noiserock, and shoegaze into a hazy sound that’s sometimes high-energy and sometimes languid, where jagged guitars, drifting vocals, and propulsive rhythms collide. Take a listen now.

On first listen, Brandon Locher’s Rahu Ketu and companion EP, The Shadow Planets, feels like a striking new beginning. His rhythmic, cinematic sound blends ambient music, trip-hop, library textures, and experimental collage into something immersive and quietly hypnotic. There’s a strong sense of introspection throughout, music that feels carefully shaped by meditation (he’s a dedicated practitioner of Transcendental Meditation), ritual, and curiosity. As his first recordings in six years and debut under his own name, these releases suggest an artist entering a fascinating new phase. Listen to both releases below.