It’s been more than 12 months since we’ve heard any new music from Wigan’s indie-poets, The Lathums. Indeed, it was June 2025 when they last troubled the airwaves – with standalone dubby single, Cobblestones. The Lathums haven’t been exactly idle though; tours of Australia and the Far East have been followed by a selective run of intimate live dates at home. And, now, The Lathums are ready to take on summer, energised – as they freely admit – by the unwavering support of their loyal fans.

With new single Vice Versa, lyricist and frontman Alex Moore ponders vulnerability and seeks self-assurance. “Vice Versa was written from a feeling of not fully belonging in the world we’ve built around ourselves,” says Alex. “It came from that experience of having everything you need to survive, yet still feeling hungry for meaning, connection and peace. The song sits between connection and alienation, between needing people deeply and fearing what we carry inside ourselves.”

A swirl of organ provides the cue to the jangly guitars that drive Vice Versa along. Despite the insecurity in his lyrics, there’s a note of euphoria in Alex’s voice, particularly as he sings the song’s payoff line: “Rely on Me – I rely on you.”

The Lathums’ catalogue is now three albums deep and they’re about to head into a busy summer of festival appearances. and, you know what? with Vice Versa, they might just have the summery anthem they need to help those shows go with a bang.

Another artist emerging from a lengthy hiatus is London-based singer-songwriter-author Roxanne de Bastion, whose last new music was her acclaimed 2025 album, You & Me, We Are the Same. For that, Roxanne faced to the trauma of losing her father. With her new single, Simple Pleasures, she moves in a different direction altogether, into a world of pulsing electro-rock, as she ponders the path that the human race is choosing to take.

“How much do we question whether we really need that upgrade or the latest version of the latest thing,” asks Roxanne. “Simple Pleasures is a musing on our direction of travel as a species, walking the path from a human to an AI society and how we never seem to pay attention to the ‘man behind the curtain.’ The song might be inspired by the dystopia we’re creating, but it’s also set to driving synth and angular guitar riffs: if we’re going out, we’re going out with a loud synth bang!”

That’s an accurate summary of the feelings generated by Simple Pleasures. Fuzzy guitars grind and chug as Roxanne delivers a heady melange of late 60s happiness and K-pop, laced with the punky attitude of US new wave bands like The Waitresses. It’s a bundle of sheer energy that ends far too soon and leaves the listener thirsting for more.

Manchester-based 4-piece Brickhouse are: Owain Sharp (vocals/rhythm guitar), Max Duffy (lead guitar/backing vocals), Alex Price (bass) and Freddie Haigh (drums) and, on the evidence offered by debut single, Angel Eyes, they’ve spent a lot of time listening to the first Velvet Underground album…

Frontman Sharp doesn’t mind admitting that, either: “Angel Eyes is, at its core, about being haunted. Not in the supernatural sense, but rather the persistent melancholy. The lingering of memories after losing a lover and being unsure as to how to help yourself let go and be released from the curse of seeing someone in everybody else you meet. Sonically, the track draws from The Reid Brothers and Lou Reed and the gang but also from Sonic Youth and The Stooges. What they all did came to define the eras they worked in. While those references are vintage, Angel Eyes came out of the studio sounding like something with echoes of them but definitely something also of the now.”

The spirit of Lou Reed pervades Owain’s vocals. the music is gritty, but with a sparkle that lifts the listener’s gaze away from the seamier side of Manchester’s streets. The guitars chime, just like they did when Stirling Morrison was in command and the video is the perfect accompaniment to the message that Owain and the gang are putting across.

Yes, it is that Rock Island Line, but it is fair to say ol’ Lonnie D never done it quite like this. Fussell, has form, over six releases, of revising and revisioning songs hardwired into any predetermination, finding always ways to baffle and beguile with the nuances new, squeezed and eked out from the familiar.

Slowing it right down, Fussell could see parallels with an old nursery rhyme: “Wire, briar, limber lock, how many geese is in our flock“, blending that also into the narrative. Thereby, the two contrasting sources marry, becoming something new, rooted in history yet ingeniously modern.

This song is the first flourish of an album, The Old Beloved Path, due to drop in the Autumn, promising more of the same therein, old and loved songs filtered through Fussell’s idiosyncratic hall of mirrors. Once again, sympathetic and sensitive arrangements make the song always central and integral, and suddenly the Donegan version seems just so darn swift.

Now nominally a solo project for Brendan Perry, here he shows that none of the vocal charisma within the brand has been lost. And he doesn’t even sing a note!

Frustrated by the limitations of conventional album, tour, album, Perry has, of late, taken to working whenever the muse strikes, with this the latest in a run of standalone releases, available solely via Bandcamp. The Cicadas references the ancient creation myth, wherein the origin of the noisy insects is explained as representing the transformation of men who died whilst singing. So caught up were they in the rhapsody of performance, that they forgot to eat. Duly reincarnated, by the Muses, they perpetuate their song.

Over a typically dense bed of organic percussion and hurdy-gurdy drones, each via Perry, the Rhodope Women’s Ensemble chant with full open-throated majesty, as David Kuckhermann and Yannis Pantazis apply appropriately ethnic ornamentation. It is a terrific epic blast in a typical DCD format that augurs well for the ongoing future of this iconic band.

Single #2 from ISQ’s forthcoming album, The Silence is Deafening, which is scheduled to be with us in October. On Shoulders of Giants follows hot on the heels of lead single, Animals, a song that issued the opening salvo of warnings that something very special is on its way.

Animals was ISQ’s contemplation of the mother/daughter relationship. This time around, the lady otherwise known as Irene Serra turns her attention to the legitimacy of wisdom. Born from trips to visit loved ones in Italy, the song traces a journey from a specific place to a wider area, moving from personal reflection to a meditation on legacy, humility and the famous phrase attributed to Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

ISQ explains: “What started as a love letter to the mountains gradually became something much bigger. Walking paths carved out by generations before me, I found myself thinking less about the landscape and more about the people who shape our own journeys. The older I get, the more convinced I become that none of us arrives anywhere entirely by ourselves… As we get older, we realise we’re building on ideas, stories and wisdom that have existed long before us. That, to me, is what the song is really about.”

Guitarist Luca Boscagin provides a tasteful backing, with drummer Chris Nickolls’ rhythm unstated to perfection. But, make no mistake, On Shoulders of Giants is about ISQ’s emotional, controlled and thoroughly tuneful vocals. Luca chips in with a fluent, melodic electric guitar solo and the backing vocals are heavenly. Indeed, On Shoulders of Giants amounts to 4+ minutes of soft, jazzy perfection. ISQ has served further notice of what she has in store.