Pontypridd to Lausanne via Chicago, Anaheim and Tampere: three indie pop songs this week from three songwriters with very specific things on their minds and the craft to make them land.
Curtis Hicks – Catching Feelings
Curtis Hicks’ “Catching Feelings” is a brilliant piece of bedroom pop: bright and hook-driven on the surface with a touch of the quietly devastating underneath
“Catching Feelings” was recorded in Curtis’s own creative space and it carries that intimacy throughout: instinct-led production that keeps the emotional rawness intact rather than smoothing it into something more presentable. Vocally it’s great, and it grows with a lot of melodic skill and the chorus lands somewhere stunning with that soaring chorus. The subject is self-sabotage and the way destructive internal patterns disrupt connection with other people. It’s great.
Curtis Hicks is from Pontypridd, the Welsh town that also gave the world Tom Jones and the Welsh national anthem, and his sound draws from modern Americana with a Welsh sensibility that sits distinctively apart from most UK pop. He signed a record deal at 16 with the first song he ever wrote and has since worked with Grammy-nominated writers and number one hit songwriters. He is currently releasing a new track every six weeks across a year-long project, building a community around his music that he describes as a place where “lonely souls collide.” We’re colliding with this hard, and can’t wait for the next one.
Laura Moisio – Jotain muuta
Laura Moisio’s “Jotain muuta” is a gorgeous Finnish-language indie pop single: produced like a dream and the kind of opening statement that makes a sixth album feel like a genuine new chapter
“Jotain muuta” is the first single from Moisio’s upcoming sixth studio album, due September 2026, and it blends warm synths with shimmering indie-folk textures and a subtle rhythmic pulse that keeps the track grounded while the melody floats. This is put together beautifully, it sounds like a dream and was an instant save for me. The subject is the fragile, inexpressible quality of closeness between two people, the feeling that resists direct description. It suits Moisio’s compositional approach, which really works, and has such a genuine groove to it.
Moisio is a Tampere-based singer-songwriter whose second album Ikuinen valo was nominated for both the Teosto Prize and the Critics’ Choice Emma Award in 2016. Her breathy vocal tone and resistance to conventional narrative songwriting give her a singular place in Finnish music, and her membership of folk band Ne Lintuizet runs alongside a solo career now spanning six albums. “Jotain muuta” is the sound of a songwriter who knows precisely what she is doing and we absolutely love it. We’ll be digging into her back catalogue immediately.
YaYa Whatever – Kickback
YaYa Whatever’s “Kickback” is an excellent alt-pop love letter to Chicago: CTA sample, dark wave synths, and a vocal performance that makes teenage freedom sound enormous.
“Kickback” opens on a sample from the Chicago Transit Authority, one of the city’s most recognisable ambient textures, and builds from there into a song about the specific euphoria of being a teenager in Chicago and feeling, for the first time, genuinely free. It’s quite the vibe, and it wastes no time in dropping into a banger of a chorus. Sitting carefully between electro-pop and dark wave, it’s a curious mix that keeps my attention throughout. YaYa has described it as a snapshot of what being alive feels like before experience begins to accumulate weight, and the arrangement delivers exactly that: immediate, physical, and over too way fast. It’s great.
YaYa Whatever is a singer-songwriter and performer born in Chicago and now based in Los Angeles, who began on piano and developed into an alt-pop performer working with a live band. Her songwriting is built on the specific and the fleeting: individual moments rendered with enough precision that they stop belonging only to her. Rock and roll instinct, electro-pop texture, and a vocal range that moves between intimate and anthemic are the consistent elements across her catalogue. Kickback is an indie pop stunner, and we absolutely love it.