With our last Out of Step feature for the year, as we’ve said many times, it marks another strong one for the extended-play. Many of which have been self-released affairs, and this trend continues in our latest edition.
We’ll elaborate on that and other matters in our final 2026 editions of Weirdo Rippers and Albums Quarterly. Both, set for publication in November, and while the former usually features in early October, we’re currently working on a bumper edition, given there has been so much new music in this particular space.
Onto the matters at hand, and this latest OoS edition felt like slim pickings until last week. A swathe of new EPs dropping which changed things (for the good!) completely. So much so that some releases even missed the cut. (I’m sure there will be several more before the year’s out, too).
However, there’s still potential for any overspill to feature within these pages before the year is out. Our Top 25 EPs of the year, which will be returning the fourth consecutive year. Already it feels like a mammoth task ahead whittling it down to 25, but, as always, the challenge will be met.
In the meantime, though, enjoy some of most recent EP releases from across the globe, and via various sound worlds.
Bizou: Widow
Moonboot! Records
For all your coldwave needs in this latest edition of OoS, look no further than Los Angeles’ Bizou, who following their 2021 LP, Tragic Love, return with Widow.
Consisting of Marisa Prietto (vocals, synth, bass, guitar), Josiah Mazzaschi (guitar, synth, programming, backing vocals), Nicole Fiorentino (bass, backing vocals) and Nicki Nevlin (guitar), on Widow, the four-piece take a deep dive back into the eighties, but add their own inflections in doing so.
If the Cocteau Twins and Tinderbox-era Siouxsie & The Banshees ever locked horns, then something like Bizou’s Widow may have been the result. It’s the space and time where the worlds of dream-pop, goth, coldwave and shoegaze all converger. Yes, this is quite the earworm.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Burial Cake: Go Home, They Miss You
Silber Records
There’s always room for one more, and following Burial Cake’s surprise EP release last Friday as part of Silber Records’ 5 in 5 series, it would have been rude not to include the Cowboy of Drone.
On Go Home, They Miss You, Blake Edward Conley provides a fragmented look into their world. A snapshot of turbulence and the blast zones some are constantly in, about to be in, or emerge from. Through these five snippets, which Conley still brings the twangs, plinks and drones, they capture this is flush as anyone.
Following the Burial Cake debut earlier this year in Small Steps, Go Home, They Miss You feels like another precarious juncture along a path that demands not only to be negotiated, but also to be lived.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Cold Gawd: Glory2
Dais Records
Following their previous releases, God Get Me the Fuck Out of Here (2022) and I’ll Drown On This Earth, Cold Gawd’s shorten it up with Glory2.
The California collective occupy the same space as Dais Records label mates, Trauma Ray, but unlike the brawn of Fort Wayne, TX act, Cold Gawd lean into the Slowdive homage unapologetically. (Just imagine Machine Gun in variation and you’ll be planted in their world.)
That’s not to say this is watered down or. Glory2, so laden in dreams that it teleports you to a place where the daily grind doesn’t exist. And these days, that’s not a bad place to be, making Cold Gawd a certain kind of world builder.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Small Steps: An Interview with Burial Cake’s Blake Edward Conley
Wendy Eisenberg: Wweennddyy Eeiisseennbbeerrgg
Joyful Noise Recordings
Perhaps only Wendy Eisenberg could make pedaling your past still sound bravely original. In a world were bonus disc demoes and “in strings” are dressed up as nothing more than loss leaders, how about another approach? Like streeeetchiiing thiiings ouuut…??? Like the Brooklyn-based experimentalist does on Wweennddyy Eeiisseennbbeerrgg.
Earlier this year, Eisenberg’s self-titled album saw them strip it back to wonderful results. But make no mistake, they are an experimentalist to the core, and backed by bassist, Trevor Dunn, violinist, Mari Rubio and drummer, Ryan Sawyer (also of the mighty Prison), Eisenberg takes selections of Wendy Eisenberg and makes a wonderful protracted jam session out of them.
To the point where some may even prefer these versions. Either way, they take on a new life form, and hot on the heels of Eisenberg’s excellent release as part of SQUANDERERS in Bright Madness, Wweennddyy Eeiisseennbbeerrgg caps off some year. Is it an EP? No, it’s an EEEEEEEEEEEPPPP.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
The Great Unwashed: The Great Unwashed
Melodic
Like Ex Agent’s debut EP last year, Manchester’s The Great Unwashed pick up the slack in 2026, with their self-titled EP where they make every post a winner.
This is the gentler side of post-hardcore, but not in a Karate kind of way. Think Jeff Mueller in a room with some Thrill Jockey artists banging out some unvarnished post-rock. The sound, not just reaching every corner of the room but illuminating them.
It’s great stuff from The Great Unwashed, to the point where you fear they may not better it. That’s how strong this release comes on, and in a world where the bands from down south have had an unfair monopoly on this area of the new music landscape, it’s nice to see a band from up north representing as The Great Unwashed do here.
Horrid Fog: Horrid Fog II
Self-released
Taking folk traditions and tugging on the thread that pulls through to something that both sounds and feels relevant now, Horrid Fog creates the kind of atmospheres unheard of on Merseyside.
In a sense, Horrid Fog II is the embodiment of this city’s music scene. One that has always done its own thing, and while perhaps sometimes to its detriment, at others it’s a punk ethos that transcends every other city in the country.
With Horrid Fog II, the three-piece are the latest to march to the beat of their own drum, with the kind of hybridisation of folk and rock music that somehow stands on its own despite being pleasing on the ear. Again, it’s another feat, and hopefully the next one isn’t too far away.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Clarion Call: In Conversation with Emma Ruth Rundle
Luce Mawdsley: Dream, Baby Butch
Self-released
Liverpool experimentalist, Luce Mawdsley, exists to never make the same thing twice.
Following the understated Northwest & Nebulous (get it in your ears if you haven’t done so already), Mawdsley returns with the three-track EP, Dream, Baby Butch. Music composed for Catherine Opie: Moments of Being – the Becky Manson film for the National Galleries of Scotland.
And Mawdsley’s sounds add extra emotional weight. Occupying space in SUSS’ ambient post-country stratum, once again Mawdsley wanders to new places with beautifully crafted compositions that glittery with every note. And with a new album said to be in the works, following Dream, Baby Butch, the places Mawdsley ventures to next will be, as always, enticing.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Public Luxuries: Three Songs
Self-released
Following last week’s ad hoc punk feature, it would have been remiss not to take some of that DNA and include it here. And Charlestown, SC four-piece, Public Luxuries, are that very DNA.
Three Songs finds Andrew, Ben, Henry and Myles find gold dust in the discarded corners of punk and post-hardcore. From …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead to The Pop Group, there are plenty of orbits straddled here. And Public Luxuries thrive in every single one of them.
Three Songs is a nice continuation from the band’s two full-length cuts which have dropped during the decade. On that front, spend an afternoon with Public Luxuries, and it’ll make everything better.
The Reds, Pinks & Purples: True Love Daydream
Fire Records
Following his Acknowledge Kindness LP, as he usually does throughout a calendar year, Glenn Donaldson makes it a quick turn-around, this time with the True Love Daydream extended-play.
While it’s easy to stick the San Francisco songwriter into the ‘one-trick-but-what-a-trick-it-is’ silo, on True Love Daydream, Donaldson marks a beautiful departure from anything he’s done. The wistfulness of Acknowledge Kindness is here, but with these songs, sonically Donaldson takes a more protracted approach.
It’s this aesthetic that will serve him well in the future to move this project forward. This path, an subtly adventurous one, and the kind that I hope Donaldson continues to stay on.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Ryuuta Takaki: Drawing a Crystal
Self-released
Japanese experimentalist, Ryuuta Takaki, is yet another in this feature to make their Sun 13 debut. Drawing a Crystal, the latest in a long line of releases that sparkles in what is a sonic cleansing exercise.
Like the aforementioned release from Luce Mawdsley, Drawing a Crystal is expertly produced. Almost to the point where you’d consider it otherworldly. These soundscapes, expanding in your ears, almost like you’re in the studio watching this unfold in real time.
It makes you track back to Takaki’s preceding works, where you realise the composer is one of the many treasures in modern day experimentalism that has been hiding in plain sight. Drawing a Crystal, a lovely entry point.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Imperial Teen Interview: “It’s always interesting to hear what people take away from the songs”
Those Holy: Cold Celtic Electronics
Self-released
Continuing the Merseyside theme in our latest OoS dispatch, local-based duo, Those Holy, return after several singles with their debut EP, Cold Celtic Electronics.
And it comes as advertised. QUARRY sentinel, Chrissy Connor, and Lucy Grey the conjurers of skinny beats designed for this brisker time of year. Still, Cold Celtic Electronics lifts the pulse rate to combat that. The duo, not just flirting with the dancefloor, but owning it in a dead-eyed kind of way.
Like a collision of coldwave and IDM, Cold Celtic Electronics sees Those Holy taking a great leap forward. Their path, opening up new possibilities where the potential to break through to new sound worlds and, by extension, new audiences is very real indeed.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Winter Gardens: Macabre Divine
Self-released
Don’t let the name take you to Blackpool or any other punk venue of the same name around the country. This is shoegaze revival at its core.
On Macabre Divine, Winter Gardens bring the “energy and atmosphere” as they rightly claim on their Bandcamp page. Alongside the above-noted release from Bizou, this is a good dovetail, although, granted, it lands with more panache. (Reaching the crescendo on the closing eponymous track).
This is a band that work hard. You can tell by the results of these songs, and while the Brighton four-piece might be playing to the few, based on the strength of Macabre Divine that’s likely to change sooner rather than later. Listen for yourself.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Various Artists: (BC100)
Bricolage
Compilations are as rare as rocking horse shit around these parts, but it felt necessary to break the mould on this occasion. Why? To shine the light on one of the best underground electronic labels out there.
Yes, Glasgow label, Bricolage celebrate their hundredth release with an EP featuring four of the label’s constants, Fragile X, The New Human, Wilks and Dark Fidelity High Fi.
This is no filler, either. These tracks, dynamic IDM that are exclusive to this release and form the perfect gateway for those yet to delve into a label you should have discovered long ago. So with that, hold an ear to this and choose your own path in this adventure. Here’s to the next 100 releases, Bricolage, because, well, the world needs you!
Out November 20 – pre-order from Bandcamp
Previous Out of Step features:
