Dream pop is alive and well. Four of the most transportive tracks we have run in a while. A Norwegian sanctuary, Houston tape machines, a London producer who met his collaborator via Yellow Pages, and a Miami Beach artist following voices inside. Let’s go ✨
Maribelle – A Prayer
Maribelle’s A Prayer is a cinematic sonic sanctuary from Norway, meditative, ethereal, and deeply calming without ever drifting into filler
A Prayer is exactly what Maribelle says it is, a sonic sanctuary. The Norwegian singer, songwriter and musical theatre artist delivers a cinematic piece of alt-pop and dream-pop with meditative rhythms and ethereal, sub-bass goodness and light-filled storytelling that invites you to exhale the past and float above the noise for a few minutes. It is beautiful and tranquil, has a touch of Kate Bush, and there is real craft in the sound world here.
Maribelle has spent years on musical theatre stages before transitioning into a solo career, and her latest project A New Spring marks a significant artistic shift, away from electropop and towards organic stillness and presence. She performed a tour of Japan in 2025, which you can hear in the patience of the arrangement. A Prayer is the kind of music that earns the sanctuary description, deeply considered and lovelier for it with every listen through the arrangement. It’s compelling stuff, and we really like it.
The Shrubs – Let Us In
The Shrubs’s Let Us In is Houston dream-pop recorded on 40-year-old tape machines, past and present colliding in something fresh and genuinely new-sounding.
The Shrubs duo of Miguel and Sophie from Houston have built their sound on an authentic analog philosophy, and Let Us In was recorded primarily on 40 to 50 year old reel-to-reel machines and cassette tapes before being mixed in the digital realm. The result is a present yet veiled, dreamy audio atmosphere that has a greater dynamism than most dream pop, and it really works. They describe their vibe as nostalgia for an experience you never had, which is one of the best descriptions of dream-pop we’ve heard.
Lyrically, the track deals with mental instability and how society treats people who are struggling, handled with real sensitivity and without reaching for easy language. The Shrubs have been crafting their indie and psych rock sound since signing with Blossom Records in 2019, and Let Us In is their first single of 2026. The familiar yet new balance they strive for is very much achieved here, sounding like both a classic dream-pop record and a completely contemporary one. It’s fantastic, more of this please guys.
Frank Joshua – Glass
Frank Joshua’s Glass is hypnotic, shimmering dream-pop about identity and self-examination, a London original doing something quietly extraordinary on his 45th release.
Glass is the lead single from Frank Joshua’s upcoming fifth album, and it demonstrates exactly why he is one of London’s most distinctive voices in dream-pop right now. Built around hypnotic repetitions, shimmering guitars and layered vocals, the track explores identity, fragility and the kind of self-examination that comes with maturity. It is a contemplative piece blending dream-pop atmosphere with neo-psychedelic textures and cinematic storytelling, and it genuinely earns every one of those descriptors.
Frank Joshua and his longtime producer Tony White, who Frank famously found in the Yellow Pages, draw from Elbow, The Blue Nile and Bowie, and the shared reference points show in how the track is arranged without ever sounding derivative. He is now on his 45th release in under five years, which is a staggering rate of output for anyone, and the quality remains consistently high from record to record. Glass is a great way in for anyone, check it out below.
Kim Cameron – Following A Voice Inside
Kim Cameron’s Following A Voice Inside is uplifting progressive new age pop about trusting your instincts and making your own story worth actually telling out loud.
Following A Voice Inside is the sound of a fresh creative start, with Miami Beach based Kim Cameron kicking off 2026 with intention, moving beyond relationship-focused love songs to share something more universally positive. This collaborative track with vocalist Grzanna brings the house dance and classical jazz worlds together in a fusion that is genuinely unexpected, and it is built around an inspirational message about pursuing your passion and listening to the inner voice that guides you toward your dreams.
Kim Cameron is a songwriter, singer and co-producer whose work consistently connects emotionally with audiences rather than aiming for critic-bait. Following A Voice Inside was recorded between Miami Beach and Milwaukee, two very different creative spaces, and the contrast between them seems to have produced something special. I moved beyond the love song this time, and it felt right, she says, and the track is warm and encouraging without ever slipping into saccharine territory. A lovely piece of music.