BRREAACHH

August 11, 2026

Welcome to our (Drew and Lionel) first issue of soundbored! What is even happening??

Explained:

Who?: Drew and Lionel, your friends (at least one of us)

What?: This music newsletter serves YOU, our beautiful homies and enemies, with fresh music recommendations and stories, right in your busy inbox with all your important emails.

Music Christmas in your inbox, hopefully you enjoy unwrapping our recommendations.

Where?: in your inbox

When: Every two weeks you will receive the standard issue of our current listening. More sporadically, you’ll receive an interview, an article on emerging scenes, or maybe a live event we go to!

Why?: Besides having a place to catalog our thoughts, we want this letter to hopefully bring our friends together through thoughtful, curated, person-to-person recommendations. Ditch the mind-numbing daylists and streaming algorithms.

We also invite you, our friends, for your recommendations. Send us a pitch, and we’ll get your voice on the letter :)))); this can be a column or even a single song you’ve been enjoying and want to share with the world. Until further notice, enjoy our debut issue: “BRREEAACHHH”

Song of our summer

Ember - Iceage

This summer I fell in love with Elias Rønnenfelt and his band Iceage following the release of For the Love of Grace & The Hereafter. Tangled and knotted in his feelings, Elias Rønnenfelt pairs sinister metaphors with his dissonant delivery to capture and strangle his aggressive pang of love. I got really in his face with a camera at Ukrainian National Home, and he looked so awesome and pissed. This album overall is so fun and sweaty (like summer)—case in point: on “Match Head Girl” Elias forgot his harmonica, so he put a tin whistle and a recorder in his mouth for the solo that finishes the track. – Drew

coffee - Waldone

Endearing hopecore cloud(?) rap with the most fried person you’ve ever heard singing, to the point where it sounds like he has a speech impediment. I guess I'm chopped because my Instagram Reels algorithm has decided to show me a video of Waldone singing to this song every five videos, but I’m not complaining. He is adorable and so is this song. – Lionel

Pop Pop Pop Pop 2

EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED - Tiffany Day

I was almost ready to tell Lionel to send out this issue, and then this song came on. This song into DOIT4ME gives me that feeling I had listening to Pop 2 or What I’m Feeling Right Now for the first time. Cornily relatable and undeniable banger(s). I love Tiffany Day. – Drew

Old song to wake up to

Just The Way It Is - Lisa Moorish

Get some ’90s club pop in your system. – Drew

Alone Again Or - Love

A live performance from a Wes Anderson festival recently revived my love (get it?) for this song. Sounds like hopping on a horse in the desert, during the title credits before anything goes wrong. — Lionel

Ass to gas (song that sucks to hear for the first time and then gets really good)

want it all - deathtoricky

To me, most any 2020s-era underground rap has a sweet spot of around four listens in, where you can start to actually break down the individual parts of the bombardment of sound before it inevitably knocks you down and tires you out. Deathtoricky has a similar initial learning curve, but unlike the tired noise wall of most of the underground, I can’t seem to stop enjoying Ricky’s melodic flow. He has the raw 808s and synths in the vein of traditional rage rap, but the polished samples give the charisma of a more established act, reminding me of POINT IT TO ME by the Lil Yachty-led Concrete Boys. Thank you deathtoricky, you Irish fae. – Lionel

“TEN 23” - ST6 JodyBoof, Dragnutz

Accidentally discovered DMV (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) rap this summer and this shit gets me so excited. Allow me to get pretentious and annoying by glazing this xaviersobased-produced track: The DMV collective TooManyStrikerz has many members but its poster boys, Jody and Drag, pop out on this track over blown-out 808s deep fried to a Snow Strippers degree. I just like chugging a cup of coffee and putting this song on to feel something. Feel how Jody and Drag blitz through my neurons 😍. – Drew

Indietronica corner

a. Good__b. Bad__c. Both - 300SkullsAndCounting + Harto Falión

There’s something endearing about hearing 300Skulls sing over this beep-booping, video game beat, and then having each lyric explained to me by the banshee in the background. Shout out to the crow sample too. Crows are crazy.

halo (and halo_v2) - Baileyrp

When I first heard this song, I thought it was an Ethel Cain glitchpop remix, which is a testament to the intrigue of this buzzy dream of a song; her breathy, somber vocals over an optimistic plucky synth track contrast beautifully without being contradictory. This song also has a cool second version uploaded, appropriately titled “halo_v2”, which I recommend listening to (although I don’t think it quite lives up to v1). – Lionel

Bonus 3! miscellaneous listening

6 underground - Sneaker Pimps

This song is how I imagine it was like to live in Bushwick in the 2010s.

Yeah I like aH - Khadija Al Hanafi

Craziest sample game and so sexy.

Blessed - Jackzebra

I love this Chinese cloud rapper. I love this crystalline track

P.S.

U fw Jejune? Then keep your eyes peeled for a soundbored exclusive featuring em. Till next time!

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