Kevin Bronson on September 6th, 2023

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We’re playing catch-up here, with a heaping helping of new singles from Janelane, Nic Hessler, SPELLES, Evangline and Coma Girls …

JANELANE, “Useless”

“Useless” is the first new single from Sophie Negrini (dba Janelane) in over a year. It was back in 2022 that Janelane charmed the horizontal stripes off true-blue indie-pop fans with her EP, “Okay With Dancing Alone.” On the positively breezy “Useless,” she’s backed Nick and Sam Wilkerson, along with Nic Hessler. Janelane performs Sept. 14 at Permanent Records Roadhouse.

NIC HESSLER, “I Know You Know”

Seeing Nic Hessler credited in the aforementioned song brought to mind his great 2015 Captured Tracks album “Soft Connections,” which made us wonder what he’s done lately, which brought us to his late-August release “I Know You Know,” which made us think Nic Hessler should put out more music. Is this sparkly, sax-stoked power-pop gem really his first solo release since 2015? Guess so. Earlier this summer, Hessler did some covers at a Sarah Records night in downtown L.A. (bonus points), so for now we’ll just enjoy the four-minute happy place where “I Know You Know” led us. See him at Permanent Records Roadhouse on Oct. 8.

SPELLES, “Holy Hells”

The first single from the SPELLES (Kathryn Baar and Luc Laurent) since 2021 is a beast, equal parts goth, gospel and film noir. Baar’s weighted-with-gravitas vocals talk of rising out of a personal “black hole” to “find the blessing in the curse.” It is with determination she sings: “In the kingdom of my ruin I made peace / From a dead land grew an Eden.”

EVANGELINE, “I Would Now”

Oh so airy and wind-blown with regret, “I Would Now” is the first single from Evangeline (fka Eva B. Ross) since the May release of her EP, “Mystic.” It was made with producer/co-writer Max Shrager, and Evangeline says that “it’s a song about a few seasons of my life that I could only really appreciate in hindsight. You know that feeling? I didn’t get it then, but I would now.” Evangeline opens for Emily Kinney on Sept. 24 at the Lodge Room.

COMA GIRLS, “Candles”

Barely a year since the release of the sophomore Coma Girls album “No Umbrella for Star Flower,” Chris Spino has announced the follow-up: “Crystal Pistol” will be out Oct. 13 via Baby Robot Records. Lead single “Candles” keeps the singer-songwriter’s Bright Eyes-ian angst on low flame before the conflagration of distorted guitars hits about the 2:20 mark. The album was made with producer Christian Paul Philippi, who also worked on “No Umbrella,” and Spino backgrounds the new one thusly: “‘No Umbrella’ was a COVID record that I made with some friends. I got sober last year and wanted to do this new one by myself, but with Christian’s help because we work really quickly and efficiently together. I wanted to do something that felt a little more clear-headed but still felt ambitious and experimental…. A lot of the lyrics on ‘Crystal Pistol’ are about coming out of that and cleaning up my life and really examining the ways I acted when I was an addict, and the ways those actions affected other people in my life.” Powerful stuff.