the roundup: reckoning, memory, and survival

Across continents and genres, this week’s crop of new releases shares a common emotional core: artists using music as a site of reckoning - with identity, memory, love, and survival. From Brooklyn’s self-mythologising polymath to dust-streaked Americana, diaristic indie-folk and deeply personal alt-pop, these are the releases worth sitting with.

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Zeke the Zombie Slayur – I’m Glad I Made This

Brooklyn-based creative Zeke the Zombie Slayur doesn’t so much release albums as construct worlds. His latest project, I’m Glad I Made This, is a sprawling 26-track concept album that functions as a conversation between Zeke and his listeners, between ambition and exhaustion, admiration and jealousy, solitude and recognition.

Entirely self-made, the record is rooted in Zeke’s pursuit of artistic independence. “I decided to make my master the pursuit for artistic independence,” he explains. Hip-hop forms the backbone, but the album stretches far beyond any one genre, blending sharp lyricism, experimental beats and philosophical reflection into something closer to self-portraiture than performance.

On standout track “be right there”, Zeke distils his ethos with a single line: “You say rapper, I say prophet.” It’s not bravado so much as clarity. Zeke positions himself as an artist in totality - producer, designer, visual director - with every sound and image existing in dialogue. The result is a record that’s dense, vulnerable, and unflinchingly honest about what it means to create in a world obsessed with comparison and visibility.

Outpost Drive – ‘Lonestar’

Transatlantic duo Outpost Drive turn their gaze outward with ‘Lonestar’, a cinematic single that captures the quiet devastation of young love slipping through your fingers. Written by Mary Bragg Robinson, Willow Robinson and James Carrington, and produced by Willow Robinson in the English countryside, the track feels steeped in wide-open roads and unspoken endings.

The song traces a teenage road trip across America, from Alabama to California and back, honing in on the moment everything began to unravel under the Texas sun. Beneath its sweeping guitars and desert-dusted textures lies a confession about pride, fear, and the inevitability of growing apart.

“It’s about how love and shame can exist in the same breath,” Mary Bragg shares. That tension is everywhere on ‘Lonestar’: in its restrained verses, its poetic imagery (“Mint smoke and cheap vanilla, smolders like the tires on black”), and its aching guitar-led climax. It’s a track that understands how places can become emotional landmarks, forever haunted by the people we were when we passed through them.

Lea Willms – Marbles

German singer-songwriter Lea Willms introduces herself with Marbles, a debut album that feels like a carefully kept diary finally opened. Raised along the Rhine and shaped by early exposure to Bob Dylan, Neil Young and The Beatles, Willms blends classic songwriting instincts with a modern indie-folk sensibility that feels both intimate and expansive.

Recorded between Germany and the UK at Sloe Flower Studio in Chester, Marbles charts Willms’ journey through early adulthood - moving between Manchester, Berlin and her hometown, carrying homesickness, self-doubt and quiet transformation with her. The result is an album that ebbs between vulnerability and strength, never rushing its emotional conclusions.

Tracks like ‘Branding Bruises’ explore authenticity in an age of curated perfection, while ‘Reunion’ leans into alt-pop warmth and ‘Home’ drifts into grungier indie-folk terrain. Across the record, delicate acoustic moments bloom into layered soundscapes, mirroring the emotional arcs within. Influenced by the likes of Julia Jacklin, Lucy Dacus and Soccer Mommy, Willms emerges as a songwriter unafraid of stillness - inviting listeners to sit with uncertainty rather than escape it.

ALBII – ‘PTSD’

Australian alt-pop artist ALBII closes out the year with ‘PTSD’, a haunting and deeply personal single born from her experience of surviving aggressive breast cancer. Written and recorded largely from her bedroom studio during recovery, the track transforms pain into something quietly luminous.

Blending dreamy alt-pop textures with minimalist arrangements, ‘PTSD’ incorporates real hospital sounds, home video snippets and raw vocal takes recorded immediately after treatment. These elements create an unsettling intimacy - placing the listener inside ALBII’s experience rather than observing from a distance.

“This song is both my story and something bigger,” she explains. Sonically, the track nods to artists like dodie, Phoebe Bridgers and Billie Eilish, building gently before erupting into a chaotic crescendo that mirrors the emotional weight of survival. It’s a powerful reminder of music’s ability not just to process trauma, but to reshape it - turning heaviness into connection, and isolation into understanding.