Several new indie music releases have sprung from the month of May. From more mysterious bands like The Crying Nudes to artists whose personal image and aesthetic is closely intertwined with their sound like yeule, May has brought an abundance of fresh releases to the independent music scene.
The Crying Nudes
“ber3ft” by The Crying Nudes was released on May 16. This is their first release of the year, following their slew of singles that came out last fall. “ber3ft” contains a familiar sound to their previous music — intimate and lilting, yet dark and shrouded in melancholy.
The Crying Nudes is a London-based project that first appeared in 2023, with ties to frequent collaborators and founders of the music label World Music Group, Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland, who are both notable for their mysterious personas.
The secrecy of The Crying Nudes creates an impression that the creators want fans to focus more on the music than the artist affiliation. However, while transparent information regarding The Crying Nudes’ members is obscured, Fine Glindvad Jensen — a.k.a Fine — is the soft and feathery voice of this project.
“Over a minimal, looping rhythm, Fine’s voice once again feels like a guide through emotional shadows — tender, unsure and eerily calm,” Arnaud Mauty wrote in a HighClouds review. “The repetition of lines like ‘You never really listened’ underscores a sense of betrayal, while the refrain ‘the breeze has come to get me’ hints at a kind of surrender.”
yeule
yeule is Singaporean artist Nat Ćmiel’s project and musical persona. They utilize cyborg and dystopian aesthetics with a focus on distortion and self-expression beyond the constraints of gender or identity.
“Dudu” was released on May 14, containing a cyborgian-electronic quality that aligns with the rest of Ćmiel’s discography. The song is danceable yet cut through with an undercurrent of visceral emotion that contrasts yet complements yeule’s robotic post-pop persona.
“Dudu” is a dynamic, upbeat pop-rock jam primed for singing along to, nodding to ‘90s and ‘00s hits with a contemporary twist,” Abby Jones wrote in her Stereogum review. “yeule says in a press release that the song is about ‘unrequited love and stifling yourself,’ though it sounds pretty un-stifled to me: ‘Ripped my painting off the frame … / I screamed and screamed and screamed your name / All my paint was washed away.’”
Their upcoming album “Evangelic Girl is a Gun” released on Ninja Tune on May 30.
Neggy Gemmy
Neggy Gemmy — formerly known as Negative Gemini and whose real name is Lindsey French — adopts the polarity of the astrological sign Gemini through her electronic music. French’s goal is to provoke emotion within her listeners through the vulnerability of her lyrics and resonance of her colorful instrumentals.
“Polly Pocket” was released on May 16 and is the second single from Neggy Gemmy’s upcoming album “She Comes From Nowhere.” On a similar note to yeule’s “Dudu,” the lyrics of French’s new track lean unexpectedly dark when compared to the pop-like, gleaming instrumentals. In an Instagram post, she describes how the song has been in the works for years.
“So although this song took years to make, it was just fragmented quick pieces of time strung together, and I think it still has that looseness about it which I like, even though it was labored over a fair amount,” French wrote.
“She Comes From Nowhere” is set to release in June.
Exciting new projects are in the works to arrive on the indie scene in the near future, and listeners should prepare their ears for subversive and starkly unique tunes.
Tessa Kang is an Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer. She can be reached at tokang@uci.edu.
Edited by Lillian Dunn and Mia Noergaard.