This edition of LITM Singer-Songwriter Picks brings to you our fresh indie favourites by SHARAI, Broken Colours, the Gerry Farrow Band, and more!
1. SHARAI – Get Back
Sharai brings a well-defined, lush elegance to Get Back, an evocative song that explores wanting to “get back to where I was / ‘cause you’re not making me feel like I’m good enough”. Gentle piano in the background weaves in and out of a calm acoustic guitar, while her voice floats above with clarity. SHARAI’s songwriting is meaningful and feels grounded in lived experience – it’s easy to empathise with the feelings she sings of, because she delivers the track with a straightforwardness and sincerity that will immediately draw you in. SHARAI effortlessly injects emotion and vulnerability into every syllable of Get Back, and it’ll stay with you for a long time, too.
2. Broken Colours – Before the Sun
In just three and a half minutes, Before the Sun dives into struggling mental health without much ado, set against a light percussion and a mellow acoustic guitar. The track sees Broken Colours write and compose with restraint and simplicity as core principles, elevating the song to a different level. “What I want and what I need are conflicting insecurities,” they sing with emotional depth and raw, unfiltered honesty. It picks up pace and urgency a little after the two-minute mark, with faster guitar and more agitated vocals: a perfect release of tension, setting you down gently after it’s over.
3. The Gerry Farrow Band – Sliding Door
Featuring rainbow frog biscuits, The Gerry Farrow Band released Sliding Door, a cinematic, expansive, dreamy number. It draws you in with its almost psychedelic vibe, with shimmering vocals and harmonies, and lyrics like “How did you get inside my head again? The story ended years ago,” and “Let it out, just let it go, we can close the sliding door”, adding depth to the song with the layer of metaphor, making the song even more alluring. The vocals are layered to further intensify this dreamy feel, lifting the entire track into something a lot more surreal – one that’ll leave a lasting impact.
4. Sugarfoot – Jolene
Simply covering a song as iconic as Dolly Parton’s Jolene is by no means a small feat; reimagining it the way Sugarfoot has done is a whole other ball game. Parton’s Jolene dripped with desperation; it was a landmark in acknowledging ‘the other woman’ as a complex human with her own desires without devolving into bitter jealousy, and that’s what made it so hauntingly memorable. Sugarfoot’s reinvention of this classic adds another layer to the song’s haunting nature with the piano it’s built around and their ethereal, airy voices. Sarah Capstick and Alisa McIntosh’s voices blend perfectly, humanising Jolene to an extent that hasn’t been reached before, and may never be since!
5. AlascA – Ophelia
From the song’s cover to its lyrics, AlascA draws parallels between the literary Ophelia and love, in Ophelia. When you pull back the gauzy layers of the song, you’ll find that Ophelia is deeply existential – there’s no better character to personify love, youth, naïvete, and self-doubting. AlascA gives equal prominence to the song’s instrumentation, vocals, and lyrics, all melting into each other, forming a beautiful bouquet (yes, the Ophelia imagery is heavy in this one!). It’s dazzling, sweeping you along and away in its whirlwind of romance and new love. With whispers and fairy-like voices rounding the whole thing out, it’s a must listen!
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