EKHO Sonic Chill #5

Baxter were a trio out of Stockholm, Sweden, formed in 1996 by producers Ricky Tillblad and Carl Herlofsson with vocalist Nino Ramsby. Drum-and-bass rhythms with emotive songwriting, on their self-titled 1998 debut. That album, which AllMusic rated four out of five stars, is where 'Love Again' shows up. All three brought real scene credentials: Tillblad founded Stockholm's DubDeck club, Ramsby had fronted the Swedish band Salt, and Herlofsson headed the indie label Primal Music. Two more albums followed, About This (2002) and Tell Me Like It Is (2010), the latter their most recent release.

Mono were a London trip hop duo: vocalist Siobhan de Mare and keyboardist/producer Martin Virgo. They met in 1996 and built a sound around 1960s spy-film soundtracks and orchestral pop that stood apart from the darker trip hop of the era. 'The Outsider,' off their only album Formica Blues (1997), is built around a hammered dulcimer part played by Geoff Smith, a distinctive touch for the genre. Their song 'Life in Mono' later became the most-requested track on US radio stations after it showed up in the 1998 film Great Expectations. That pushed them to #70 on the Billboard Hot 100 and their only tour, 21 dates across North America and Europe. De Mare is the daughter of Shadows drummer Tony Meehan, and Virgo trained classically at London's Guildhall School of Music. After Mono split in 2000, de Mare joined Violet Indiana and Virgo moved into film and television composing.

Beacon. Brooklyn duo, vocalist/lyricist Thomas Mullarney III and producer Jacob Gossett, who met as students at Pratt Institute and formed the band in 2011, building a hushed, minimalist downtempo sound from there. 'Into the Night' is off their debut For Now EP, out on Ghostly International in October 2012, after the pair had been self-releasing their first singles on Bandcamp. They've toured with artists like Tycho, Gold Panda and Oneohtrix Point Never, and in 2020 Apple featured their track 'Show Me How' in a MacBook Pro launch event. Their fifth album, How drie a Cinder, came out in August 2026.

sweet93 is the shoegaze project of New York-based singer-songwriter Chloe Kohanski, who writes and records long distance with Ohio-based producer Evan Boutte. Before sweet93, Kohanski won Season 13 of NBC's The Voice in 2017. Then she deliberately stepped back from the mainstream machine to make something more personal, pulling from 1990s touchstones like Slowdive and Radiohead. The '93' in the name is her birth year, 1993, which she calls 'the year for albums.' 'what's true?', out in October 2024 as her first single of that year, is a hazy, reverb-heavy track about questioning reality. It arrived as she set out on her first US tour, supporting Porches.

Motorcycle was a studio project pairing New York vocalist Jes Brieden, who performs as JES, with producers Josh Gabriel and Dave Dresden of Gabriel & Dresden. 'As the Rush Comes' became a genuine trance landmark. It topped Billboard's Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart and ended 2004 as the most-played song on US dance radio, a rare feat for a track built on restraint rather than the genre's usual bombast. This Chillout Mix strips it back into a warmer downtempo listen. After the song's success, JES launched a solo career, with her debut solo album, Disconnect, on Black Hole Recordings in 2007. Motorcycle itself was a one-off credit, not an ongoing band.

orbit is the solo project of Marcel Heym, a German producer out of Achim, near Bremen. He moved to Berlin in his twenties to work as a music producer, then deliberately moved back to his small hometown, and that's where the project took shape. 'Youth' is off Countless Feelings But So Few Words, his debut album, out in November 2025, after his 2020 EP Perspectives. He's also collaborated with Parra for Cuva and CRi, including on 'Too Close To Echo.'

Mannequin Pussy. Philadelphia punk band fronted by singer-guitarist Marisa Dabice, who co-founded the group in 2010 with Athanasios Paul. The lineup now is her plus bassist Colins 'Bear' Regisford, drummer Kaleen Reading and guitarist Maxine Steen. 'I Don't Know You' is off I Got Heaven (2024), the record that brought the band its biggest critical wave yet, praised for pairing ferocious noise-punk energy with genuine pop hooks. They signed to Epitaph in 2019 and launched their own imprint, Romantic Records, in 2023, a real vote of independence for a band that began as a scrappy two-piece. Their music was also featured in the HBO series Mare of Easttown.

Pinback. San Diego indie rock band built around Rob Crow and Armistead Burwell Smith IV, who performs as 'Zach Smith'. The two formed the group in 1998 and named it after a character in the 1974 sci-fi film Dark Star. 'AFK' is off Summer in Abaddon (2004), their first release for storied indie label Touch and Go Records, and critics singled it out for its intricate, layered arrangements. Drummer Chris Prescott joined in 2005 and has played with the pair since. Summer in Abaddon and the later Autumn of the Seraphs (2007) and Information Retrieved (2012) all charted on the Billboard 200. Information Retrieved is their most recent studio album.

Daughter. English indie-folk/dream-pop trio formed in London in 2010 by singer-songwriter Elena Tonra with Swiss guitarist Igor Haefeli and French drummer Remi Aguilella. Tonra's hushed, confessional vocals over widescreen, atmospheric guitar and drum textures, across the albums 'If You Leave' (2013) and 'Not to Disappear' (2016). 'Doing the Right Thing' is off that second one. A genuine vote of confidence in their emotional range: Daughter were trusted to compose the entire score for the 2017 video game 'Life Is Strange: Before the Storm,' released as the LP 'Music From Before the Storm.' After a few quiet years they came back with their third album 'Stereo Mind Game' in 2023, then the Middle Farm Session EP in 2025.

Sebastien Tellier. French singer, songwriter and producer from Le Plessis-Bouchard, just outside Paris, blending French house, orchestral pop and synth-heavy new wave for two decades. 'La Ritournelle,' off his 2004 album 'Politics,' is his best-known song. Seven and a half minutes of strings and drums building slow, with Tony Allen on it, and it became a downtempo standard. In 2008 France picked him for Eurovision with 'Divine,' the first French entry sung mostly in English. He was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in April 2025, and 'Kiss the Beast' came out on Because Music in January 2026.

frogurt is an Australia-based solo/bedroom project that's quietly built a substantial catalog since 2022. That includes the EPs 'What You Want To?' and 'twenty fifth of august' and full-lengths like 'The Vehicle Is Invisible,' 'Arctic Survivor,' 'Soon Missed' and 'guided meditation.' 'water landing,' off the 2025 release 'any.thing,' fits the hushed, slow-motion sound the project is known for. What's genuinely admirable is the sheer productivity: at least one full release a year with almost no promotional footprint. Little has been made public about the person behind it. Its most recent album, 'a lifetime spent sitting down,' came out in 2026.

The Sea and Cake. Chicago band, formed as a quartet of Sam Prekop, Archer Prewitt, Eric Claridge and John McEntire, making warm, jazzy, gently propulsive indie-pop together since their 1994 debut. 'Parasol' is off their second album, 'Nassau' (1995), which pushed them from their self-titled debut's pop immediacy toward more exploratory, texture-driven arrangements. One genuinely impressive credential: drummer/producer John McEntire, also of Tortoise, produced 'Nassau' himself and went on to become one of the most in-demand producers in indie rock, working on records for artists like Stereolab and Broken Social Scene. Claridge left after 2012's 'Runner,' and the remaining trio put out the album 'Any Day' in 2018.

Phantogram are Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter, a duo from Greenwich, New York. Early on they played around nearby Saratoga Springs and built their sound in a remote barn studio in upstate New York, nicknamed Harmonie Lodge. Hip-hop-indebted beats and samples, shoegaze guitar haze and big pop hooks, a style the pair call 'street beat, psych pop.' 'As Far As I Can See' is off their 2010 debut album 'Eyelid Movies,' which announced them as one of the more distinctive-sounding new bands of that era. They later moved to California and released their fifth studio album, 'Memory of a Day,' in 2024.

The Postmarks. Chamber-pop group formed in Pompano Beach, Florida, built around Tel Aviv-born singer Tim Yehezkely with multi-instrumentalists Christopher Moll and J. Phillip Wilkins. Cinematic, string-laced pop that critics have compared to Mazzy Star and Stereolab. 'You Drift Away' is track 10 on their 2007 self-titled debut album, which opens with the song 'Goodbye.' A nice credential: they were discovered by Andy Chase of the band Ivy, who signed them to his Unfiltered Records label, and they showed up on Nick Jr.'s 'Yo Gabba Gabba!,' giving this understated project an unexpectedly wide reach. They went on hiatus in 2010 and started releasing new and re-recorded tracks in 2024.

Cannons. Los Angeles synth-pop trio, vocalist Michelle Joy with Ryan Clapham and Paul Davis. They found their singer through a Craigslist ad and have made dreamy, retro-futurist 'escapist synthwave' together since forming in 2013. 'Bad Dream' is off their 2022 album 'Fever Dream' and reached number 3 on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart. The genuinely impressive part: their earlier song 'Fire for You' (from 2019's 'Shadows') got a second life after a 2020 placement in Netflix's 'Never Have I Ever.' It hit number one on Alternative Airplay, went Platinum, and led to their signing with Columbia Records. Cannons put out their fifth album, 'Everything Glows,' in March 2026 and co-headlined a 2026 tour with Bob Moses.

Gold Panda is the recording name of English electronic producer Derwin Schlecker. He studied at London's SOAS and lived in Japan before channeling that influence into intricate, sample-built, folktronica-tinged instrumentals. 'In My Car' is off his 2016 City Slang album 'Good Luck and Do Your Best.' A genuinely charming detail behind his breakout: his acclaimed debut, 'Lucky Shiner' (2010), was recorded in two weeks over Christmas at his aunt and uncle's house in Essex and is named after his grandmother. A homespun start for a record that went on to earn a Metacritic score of 80 and press best-of-year mentions. His album 'TON UP' followed on Studio Barnhus in 2026.

Portico Quartet. London instrumental group, two pairs of childhood friends who first made their name busking outside the National Theatre. The name comes from the portico where they were sent to play when it rained at an early gig. Jazz, ambient and electronic textures, built early on around the hang drum with double bass and drums. Their 2007 debut, Knee-Deep in the North Sea, got a Mercury Prize nomination, and this 2012 self-titled album (home to Ruins) found them settling into a richer electro-acoustic sound with new member Keir Vine. Drummer Duncan Bellamy, who trained in fine art, designs all of the band's own album artwork. The companion albums Terrain and Monument came out in 2021.

Puracane were a New York City trip-hop group fronted by vocalist Ali Rogers, with guitarists Juan Masotta and Tony Diodore, bassist David Leatherwood and pianist Susan Elinger passing through the lineup over the years. Critics likened them to a mix of Tricky and Bjork. Their 2000 debut Things You Should Leave Alone (which has 14 Nights on it) was well reviewed and reached #78 on the CMJ Top 200 chart. The music crossed into film too: the album track Big Day showed up on a snowboarding movie soundtrack. They kept putting out records through the 2000s, including I've Been Here the Longest (2009), before disbanding in 2011.

Chatterton. Southern California project, listed in Oxnard, built around Brock Pierce and Logan Scrivner, who fill out their recordings with a cast of guest musicians. Slowcore and shoegaze with a chamber-pop, almost storybook feel. Their September 2025 release Tiny Empire (home to Bite Down), produced by Scrivner, has a children's-book look, with artwork by the illustrator Sibylle von Olfers, and folds marimba, glockenspiel, mellotron and organ in with the band's usual guitars.

Yndling is the solo project of Norwegian musician Silje Espevik, based in Oslo. She started out as a bedroom producer in 2020 and gained confidence after early interest from a label. Shoegaze, trip-hop and dream pop, drawn to music that lets you 'make a lot of noise and you can be really quiet at the same time,' which suits her soft, whispery vocals. Citing Beach House, Portishead and Massive Attack as touchstones, she's earned real critical notice, including a Line of Best Fit feature titled 'Yndling is reinventing dream pop.' It's Almost Like You're Here is on her second album, Time Time Time (I'm in the Palm of Your Hand), out in November 2025, the follow-up to her debut album Mood Booster.

Cocteau Twins were a Scottish dream-pop trio, Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde, whose ethereal, effects-drenched sound became a blueprint for shoegaze and dream pop alike. Ella Megalast Burls Forever is off 1988's Blue Bell Knoll, the album that marked their first major-label U.S. distribution deal. Fraser famously wrote all of its lyrics in a language of her own invention, which she said gave her 'wonderful freedom.' The band split in 1997, but their influence never faded. In 2022 all three were jointly honored with the Ivors Academy's Visionary Award, decades after their last record together. A planned 2005 reunion at Coachella was cancelled, and after the split Guthrie and Raymonde co-founded the record label Bella Union.

The Herbaliser. London jazz-hip-hop outfit built around producers Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba, who went with live jazz and funk players instead of turntables partly because they couldn't find rappers to work with at the time. Forty Winks is off 1995's Remedies, their debut album on Ninja Tune, where they were long a flagship act. Their music has reached wide audiences through film too: they produced music for the soundtrack to Guy Ritchie's Snatch. Their most recent album, Bring Out The Sound, came out on BBE in 2018.

DJ Shadow is the recording name of Josh Davis, who grew up in Davis, California, and started out DJing for UC Davis's campus radio station KDVS in 1989. This is the second track on his 1996 debut Endtroducing....., a Mo'Wax album built entirely from sampled vinyl that Guinness World Records recognized as the first album made completely from samples. The track itself is a small marvel of that method. A looped piano line from Jeremy Storch's 'I Feel a New Shadow' gets joined, layer by layer, by an interview clip of drummer George Marsh, a women's choir, bass fills, processed drum kicks and funk guitar, all put together on an Akai MPC60 sampler. For the album's 30th anniversary, Shadow announced a North American tour scheduled to run from September 24, 2026, in San Diego to November 1, 2026, in Fort Worth.

Night Swimming. Bath/Bristol-based dream-pop/shoegaze five-piece: Meg Jones on lead vocals, Sam Allen and Jesse Roache on guitars, Josh Nottle on bass and Torin Moore on drums. They met as students at Bath Spa University. They draw on Cocteau Twins and Beach House, with Jones's classically trained voice moving between ethereal falsetto and more direct delivery, across influences she says span folk, trip-pop and dub. Warmer is on their debut EP No Place to Land, out in September 2024, a month before the band played their first international show, in Paris. Jones put it simply: 'I really can't imagine not making music.'

Not For Radio is the solo project of Maria Zardoya, lead singer of the Los Angeles dream-pop band The Marias, who also sang on Bad Bunny's blockbuster 'Un Verano Sin Ti.' The sound here is hazier and more intimate than her main band. Her debut album Melt, out in October 2025, surprised the industry by dropping all ten songs at once with no advance singles. It still landed at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and hit No. 2 on the Vinyl Albums chart in its first week. A striking result for a low-key side project.

Wu-Lu is the stage name of Miles Romans-Hopcraft, a musician out of Brixton in South London who moves fluidly between punk, hip-hop, dub and jazz without settling into one lane. He's closely tied to South London's celebrated jazz scene, working with artists like Nubya Garcia. His 2022 album Loggerhead, his first for Warp Records, got nominations for Best Punk Record at the Libera Awards and Best Independent Album at the AIM Awards. 'Then I Dream' is off Ginga, his self-released 2015 debut, made years before that wider recognition. In June 2026 he put out Bakerz Dozen, a collaborative EP with POiSON ANNA, on Warp.

Swapmeet. Four-piece out of Adelaide, Australia: Joshua Doherty, Venus O'Broin, Maxwell Elphick and Jack Medlyn. Folk-leaning indie rock in the vein of Big Thief and Julia Jacklin. Their debut EP Oxalis (2024), which opens with 'Ceiling Fan,' was entirely self-recorded and self-mixed by the band, dozens of tracks layered per song. It won Best Song and Best Release at the 2024 South Australian Music Awards, and the band later became the first international act signed to the Los Angeles label Winspear. They played SXSW in 2026, where Rolling Stone named them among the festival's most impressive new acts, and put out their debut full-length album, Mount Zero, in July 2026.

The Radio Dept., a dream-pop duo built around Johan Duncanson and Martin Larsson out of Lund, Sweden, known for mixing fuzzed-out guitar pop with electronic textures. Their profile jumped internationally when three of their songs, two of them from 2006's Pet Grief, turned up in Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette and got their hazy sound to a much wider audience. Clinging to a Scheme (2010), where 'A Token of Gratitude' comes from, is widely regarded as a genre high point. In 2026 they announced a London headline show for November 2026, their first there in nearly a decade, along with new music in progress and a planned Pet Grief vinyl reissue.

Fine is the solo project of Copenhagen musician Fine Glindvad Jensen, who used to sing in the electro-R&B trio CHINAH and was a guest singer in Clarissa Connelly's project Canons. Her debut album Rocky Top Ballads (2024) is a genuine solo achievement: she recorded, produced and mixed the whole thing herself, leaning on acoustic guitar and Americana textures instead of the digital sounds common among her peers. 'Big Muzzy' is off that record, out on the Copenhagen label Escho, whose roster also includes experimental Danish artist Astrid Sonne.

Chromatics were a Portland, Oregon electronic group. The classic lineup, Ruth Radelet, Adam Miller, Nat Walker and producer Johnny Jewel, went from noisy lo-fi beginnings to the moody, Italo-disco-inflected synth-pop that made them a cult favorite. 'Cherry' first surfaced in 2013 on their own label, Italians Do It Better, and became one of the most-loved tracks from that nocturnal, cinematic run, later collected on a deluxe edition. Pitchfork ranked their 2012 album Kill for Love the 8th best album of that year, a genuine critical high point. They disbanded in August 2021, with Johnny Jewel saying he'd keep making music through Italians Do It Better.

Night Tapes. London-based dream-pop trio, Iiris Vesik from Estonia with Max Doohan and Sam Richards from the UK. They first started making music together as housemates in South London in the late 2010s. They built a devoted following through a run of EPs before signing to Nettwerk for their debut album, portals//polarities, out in September 2025, and 'storm' is a highlight. Their atmospheric, night-driving sound has drawn remix interest from producers like Franc Moody, a sign of reach beyond the core dream-pop scene.

Slowdive. Shoegaze pioneers out of Reading, England, formed in 1989 around Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell, whose early records helped define the genre alongside My Bloody Valentine. 'Rutti' is off Pygmalion (1995), a daring turn into ambient, post-rock textures that was misunderstood on release but has since been reassessed as a genuine masterpiece that influenced a generation of ambient and post-rock artists. They split not long after Pygmalion but reunited in 2014, and put out the acclaimed everything is alive in 2023. Their influence on the 2020s shoegaze revival is hard to overstate.