Indie Basement is a weekly column on BrooklynVegan focusing on classic indie and alternative artists, “college rock,” and new and current acts who follow a similar path. There are reviews of new albums, reissues, box sets, books and sometimes movies and television shows. I’ve rounded up March’s best music, highlighting my favorite songs and albums, plus links to relevant features and news, a monthly playlist, and more.
As the old adage goes, March came in like a lamb but went out like a lion, at least release-wise. (Weather wise it was the opposite, at least in the Northeast.) There was no shortage of great new music and a lot of great singles and I picked my 10 favorites, a mix of newcomers and Indie Basement Hall of Famers.
As far as albums, I picked four plus a mini-LP but runner ups included great records from Cut Worms, Fcukers, Damaged Bug (OSEES’ John Dwyer), New German Cinema, The Orielles, Squeeze, Hater, Holy Fuck, and more.
While you’re reading, you can listen to the Indie Basement Best of March 2026 playlist featuring all ten songs I review, songs from my five albums of the month, and 36 other tracks I really loved from the month. It’s available in most of the streamers (Qobuz, hit me up!).
I also had a busy month with BV Interviews, talking to The New Pornographers‘ Carl Newman, dub/postpunk legend Adrian Sherwood, MEMORIALS, and our friend Mikey from M for Montreal (for an Angine de Poitrine-heavy episode). Listen and subscribe here.
You can also catch me on BV Weekly where I join Dave, Andrew and Amanda to talk about the week’s biggest music news, new albums, and more.
Head below for track reviews, album reviews and the Indie Basement Best of March 2026 playlist.
INDIE BASEMENT – BEST SONGS OF MARCH 2026
Lee “Scratch” Perry & Mouse on Mars – “Rockcurry”
Lee Perry died in 2021 and was prolific till the end. Not unlike Tupac, there have been a lot of posthumous albums claiming to be the “final” one, and who knows which is actually the last — it doesn’t really matter, especially if it’s as good as the upcoming Spatial, No Problem. Made with German electronic duo Mouse on Mars, the only real instruction Lee gave them was that he didn’t want to make a reggae album. Mission accomplished, at least with with first single “Rockcurry,” which sounds closer to something that could’ve come out of Nassau’s legendary Compass Point Studios in 1980 — think Talking Heads or Grace Jones — all giddy, playful, and very danceable. Genuinely fantastic.
Iceage – “Star”
Once known for dark post-punk, Danish band Iceage lightened up considerably on Seek Shelter, and that continues here. “Star” is pretty joyous — dig those handclaps — and it’s even described as “a total love song.” Still very much Iceage, though: “You’ve got me dying like a star,” Elias Rønnenfelt sings. “Centuries apart, sunlike in the battered sky.” A little sun does this band good.
Slippers – “Wants for Everyone”
Madeline Babuka Black, who used to play in NYC bands Yucky Duster and Beverly, and more recently in LA’s Le Pain, makes wonderful janglepop on her own as Slippers. The first single from her upcoming K Records debut is a winning confection that had me hooked in the first three seconds: jazzy, lightly distorted chording that’s an instant endorphin rush, recalling those Swedish groups from the mid-’90s (The Cardigans, Eggstone). When the “ooooooohweeooooh” hits in the chorus, knock me over, I’m done.
mary in the junkyard – “Crash Landing”
If you caught Wet Leg on tour this past year and showed up early, you’ve probably seen London’s mary in the junkyard. Their shabby-chic indie rock sits in the same universe as Sorry and Goat Girl, but it sounds like they’re leveling up for their debut album, made with producer Oli Bayston. “Crash Landing” is widescreen bummer pop, powered by a dubby bassline and layered with atmosphere worthy of a croissant (or The Cure), as singer/guitarist Clari-Freeman Taylor delicately details a doomed, gunpowder-hot relationship that goes from “You opened up like a coconut” to “You came in like it was all my fault / Crash landing / I never want to see you again.”
Gelli Haha – “Klouds Will Carry Me to Sleep”
There’s a lot of ’00s revival talk at the moment (I’m not going to use that term — you know what I mean), but few are tapping that era’s unbridled joy like Gelli Haha. Last year’s debut album was a technicolor blast, and she’s already back with a bouncy single so packed with hooks and clever touches it should come with a warning label. “Klouds Will Carry Me to Sleep” brings to mind dancefloor earworms like Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.,” Junior Senior’s “Move Your Feet,” and Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks,” all filtered through her Rainbow Brite magical alien vibe. Everybody could use a little more fun right now.
Soulwax – “Perfect We Are Not”
Like Buzzcocks and ABBA, Belgian group Soulwax are, at their core, a singles band, and they always deliver in the 12″ format. For “Perfect We Are Not,” they brought their A-game, recording with their full three-drummer lineup (including former Sepultura basher Iggor Cavalera) at London’s Abbey Road Studios. The track was created specifically for a rave held there a couple days later — Abbey Road’s first event of that kind. As with the best Soulwax songs, things really open up once they start jamming, and it’s a banger, natch. The Dewaele brothers make full use of the studio’s history, too — is that the final chord of “A Day in the Life,” played on the same piano The Beatles used, bringing this to a close? You know it is.
Soft Cell – “Out Come the Freaks”
Synthpop icons Soft Cell recorded their 1981 debut, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, in NYC, and while doing so Marc Almond and Dave Ball lived in a seedy Times Square apartment, soaking up nightlife where disco was still thriving and figures like Grace Jones, Arthur Russell and Andy Warhol mingled with Blondie and Talking Heads. Made before Dave Ball’s death, their final album, Danceteria, pays tribute to that era, and its first single is a cover of Was (Not Was)’s cult new wave funk track “Out Come the Freaks,” originally released the same year as Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. Ball takes lead vocals here, joined by downtown legend Nona Hendryx on backing vocals. It sticks closer to the original than “Tainted Love,” but still sounds fantastic — a real stormer.
Pulp – “Cold Call on the Hot Line”
“This is a masterclass in telephoning for future generations.” That’s Jarvis Cocker leaving an extended message for someone he’d like to get closer to on a song that feels like a quintessential B-side: fun, a little weird, very Pulp. (The A-side is a cover of Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around,” available as a tour-only single.) “Cold Call on the Hot Line” mainly serves as an excuse for Jarvis to unleash a stream of puns, innuendo, and other Cockerisms, all delivered in that breathy whisper. “I’ve heard of phone sex, but phone impotence — that’s a new one on me.” With music by keyboardist Candida Doyle, it plays like a 30-years-later sequel to “Disco 2000” B-side “Ansaphone.” Let’s hope Pulp stays on the line.
Beth Orton – “The Ground Above”
Beth Orton’s Weather Alive was one of my favorite albums of 2022, and she’s now back with many of the same collaborators (Shahzad Ismaily, The Smile’s Tom Skinner, and more). An album announcement is imminent, but for now we’ve got the stunning “The Ground Above.” Set against Vishal Nayak’s skittering drum pattern and a swirl of sound design–heavy production recalling late-period Talk Talk, Beth sits at the center with chiming Fender Rhodes and her fragile vocal delivery. It not only gets better as it goes, it deepens with repeat listens. More of this soon, please.
Fundido – “Get a Grip” ft. Emma Dufaux
Need more ’00s-inspired dancefloor fun? Here’s the debut single from Brooklyn duo Fundido, and dare I say it’s a lot better than most of the current throwback attempts. Latane Hughes and Billy Scher started out spinning Balearic cuts late-night in the front room of Baby’s All Right, eventually getting bumped up to the main stage when a band canceled — thanks to owner Billy Jones (RIP). From there: remixes, edits, residencies, and now their own music. “Get a Grip,” out via DFA, is their official debut single, and the Brooklyn party vibes are strong — hard-charging disco-rock beats, pulsing synth-bass, acid 303s, and ice-cool vocals from Emma Dufaux. This one sounds best loud, but be warned: this may induce strutting.
A playlist featuring all these songs and more of March’s best new music is below…
INDIE BASEMENT – BEST ALBUMs OF MARCH 2026
MEMORIALS – All Clouds Bring Not Rain (Fire Records)
“We have a wide palette between us, our ‘sound world,’” Matthew Simms says of what he and Verity Susman had in mind for MEMORIALS’ second album. “We knew we wanted harpsichord and vibraphone.” Instead of opting for computer plug-ins to mimic those instruments, they sought out studios that actually had them on hand, which led them to rural southwestern France and London, in addition to their own studio in Kent, England. Can you hear the difference? On All Clouds Bring Not Rain, you can feel it. While still very much within that well-defined “sound world” — a mix of ’60s psych by way of ’70s Düsseldorf and Cologne, verdant folk, dub, and their own previous groups (Susman led Electrelane; Simms was in Wire and It Hugs Back) — MEMORIALS have expanded their reach. Not just harpsichord and vibraphone, but also rich vocal harmonies, tape-loop delay, and a wide array of vintage instruments that don’t get dusted off much anymore. All Clouds Bring Not Rain is an amazing headphone album, but it sounds even better on a proper stereo, with some distance between your speakers and, ideally, a room lit only by lava lamps. But even on earbuds, the grooves, vintage textures, melodies, drones, and voices on this wonderful album will transport you there.
MORE: Listen to my conversation with MEMORIALS on the March 16 episode of BV Interviews.
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The New Pornographers – The Former Site Of (Merge)
Carl Newman has always been the kind of lyricist who seemed to go more by feel than meaning — like clever refrigerator-magnet poetry or, in his own words, “non-representational art.” On The New Pornographers’ 10th album, however, Newman has put a lot more care into his words, which are still clever and cool. “Now I’m trying to paint landscapes,” he tells us. “I’m trying to be like the Flemish Masters.” When Newman sings “First comes love, then comes pity / Then it’s terminal velocity” on “Ballad of the Last Payphone,” you know just what he means. When he’s singing about a satellite circling Saturn on “Spooky Action,” you know what he means. When he’s having “Bonus Mai Tais” with a friend who’s dying of cancer, you know what he means. “This time I wanted every lyric to count,” he says. The lyrical step up is not the only thing that makes The Former Site Of such a treat, but it’s a big part of it. Sonically, it’s unlike any record the Canadian group have made before, letting synthesizers drive the songs instead of just adding accents and hooks. When more traditional instruments do appear, they’re often used in unusual ways — like the mandolin all over “Votive,” played closer to post-punk, almost New Order, than its folk origins. This could be The New Pornographers’ mellowest album, but it’s not listless or dull. Whatever it is — a new wave of creativity or something to prove — Newman has his mojo back, and The Former Site Of is the best New Pornographers album since Brill Bruisers.
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Alexis Taylor – Paris in the Spring (Night Time Stories)
“Sometimes an audience wants to be told, what is this?” says Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. “Be ready to be surprised, to find something new in music, and let the music resonate with you.” That’s good advice in general and also a perfect preface to Taylor’s sixth solo album and first in five years. Most of his previous five have very much been “solo albums,” sounding like one man working on his own — often with just a guitar, piano, or synthesizer — and decidedly far from the clubby pop he makes with Hot Chip. Paris in the Spring is a little different, though: heavy on collaborations, often richly produced, and not afraid to get dancey, while never fencing itself into one style or sound. It is, however, quite good. Still more chill than any Hot Chip album, Paris in the Spring is powered by beats, grooves, and some very affecting songwriting. Taylor has always been an extremely empathetic artist, and he’s in very fine form here. Who else could title a thematically complex ballad “MP3s Can Make You Cry” and be sincere about it? “No good at streaming ’less the tears stream down my face,” he sings, wrapped in swirling strings and effervescent vocoder harmonies courtesy of Air’s Nicolas Godin. “Stream of consciousness is still my favourite place.” Paris in the Spring also has a number of first-class pop songs, as well as a number that will move you. Paris in the Spring is full of wonderful surprises that move both your body and your heart.
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Ladytron – Paradises (Nettwerk)
“There’s an itch we never scratched,” Ladytron’s Daniel Hunt says of this new single and the Liverpool electro vets’ upcoming eighth album. “Despite our origins in the DJ world, we never actually made a ‘disco’ record. Albeit, ‘disco’ in our context has a somewhat different meaning.” Ladytron have always had an eye on the dancefloor, but they’ve usually played it cool. On Paradises, the band’s eighth album, they loosen up and have some fun, digging into a variety of late-’80s and ’90s dance styles across this 16-track double LP. You feel the difference most on “Kingdom Undersea,” which adds a little early-’90s baggy/Madchester to the equation — Inspiral Carpets come to mind — and the song’s staccato, housey piano riff almost makes them sound like a different band, at least until Helen Marnie’s distinctive vocals enter. It’s also a rare duet with Hunt, whose ’80s goth-leaning delivery makes for one of the most refreshing and unusual Ladytron singles in years. There’s a lot of late-’80s / early-’90s acid house DNA on Paradises, too, from the plonky, percussive synths on “I Believe in You,” “Free, Free” and “Death in London” (very A Guy Called Gerald), to the 808 State-style rolling bass and electro handclaps of “I See Red” and “Metaphysica.” Melodically, this is still very much a Ladytron album, but they’re working with a new, more colorful box of crayons.
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Various Artists – HELP(2) (War Child UK)
Thirty years ago, many of the biggest names in the UK indie/alternative world (plus Johnny Depp) recorded new songs for HELP, a compilation album that benefited the War Child charity. It was a high-concept record, with artists given just 24 hours to record a song and deliver the finished product, and the album was released by the end of the week. Now, with wars raging all over the globe, War Child have put together another HELP to benefit children caught in the line of fire. This time the process worked a little differently, with producer James Ford coordinating a week of sessions at London’s Abbey Road Studios and assembling a lineup of artists that rivals — if not betters — the original compilation. With so many talented people in the studio at the same time, including a bunch of ringer musicians helping out everywhere (Johnny Marr, Portishead’s Adrian Utley, Blur’s Graham Coxon), there’s a lot more cross-pollination on HELP(2). There were also plenty of children on hand, singing in a backing choir and interviewing the musicians for a documentary by Oscar-winning director (and ’90s music-video innovator) Jonathan Glazer. With Ford overseeing the whole thing, there’s a little more cohesion here, though it’s still a sprawling collection (23 songs!) featuring originals, covers, surprising collaborations, and a few tracks not recorded at Abbey Road. Pretty much everyone Ford has worked with over the last decade is here, including longtime collaborators Arctic Monkeys, who kick off HELP(2) with “Opening Night,” their most rock-oriented song in ages and the closest they’ve ever come to sounding like Steely Dan (I’m here for it). There’s also Pulp’s “Begging for Change,” which nearly appeared on last year’s More and might be the most rocking song they’ve ever recorded — glammy and gritty, with patented Jarvis Cocker sexy whispering and spelling, not to mention the best “Hoo! Ha!” exclamations since Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Welcome to the Pleasuredome.” Both are fantastic.There’s so much on this album — Beth Gibbons! Fontaines DC covering Sinead! Greentea Peng & Ezra Collective! Young Fathers! Big Thief! — that a review can start to feel like a list, and I’m not going to go through every song but there’s a lot to dig into here. It all supports a worthy cause, and there’s more than enough great material to justify actually buying it. Sadly, the cause it supports remains just as relevant 30 years later. HELP(2) if you can.
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Dutch Interior – It’s Glass EP (Fat Possum)
Dutch Interior’s third album, Moneyball, was one of my favorites of 2025, and a year later they’re back with this EP that might be the best thing they’ve done to date. This is the first time they’ve made a record outside their own LA studio, traveling to San Francisco’s Hyde Street Studios, where The Grateful Dead, Neil Young, and many others have recorded. This sextet — five of whom write and sing — waste no time here: It’s Glass is a perfectly conceived and sequenced 18 minutes featuring five great songs that flow seamlessly into one another and distill their dusty, disparate influences. “It’s so silly writing love songs while we teeter at that edge,” Jack Nugent sings on opener “Ground Scores,” a spare, twangy number that finds him over the moon during the end times and has Dutch Interior sounding more than a little like Summerteeth-era Wilco — living up to the comparison. It’s followed by the EP’s best song, the Conner Reeves-sung “Go Fuck Yourself,” a pretty-poison takedown of vapid LA culture that sits firmly in ’70s piano-man territory, a la Harry Nilsson. When Reeves sings “Go fuck yourself and all your cool friends too” in a featherlight falsetto, it’s perfection: “The city’s a bus / I’ll be road kill by dusk.” It’s Glass also features two wonderfully atmospheric slowcore ballads: Davis Stewart’s “Say Anything,” which plays with dubby production touches, and Noah Kurtz’s “Play the Song,” another Tweedy-style earworm. It closes with Conner Reeves’ heartbreaking “I Have No Clue.” EPs are by nature meant as a showcase for an artist, but this one feels like Dutch Interior fully coming into their own.
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Here’s the Indie Basement Best of March 2026 playlist in TIDAL (best sounding, less morally dicey), Apple Music, and for those who haven’t left it yet, Spotify:
Looking for more? Browse the Indie Basement archives.
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