On Ricochet, her third album as Snail Mail, Lindsey Jordan returns to assert herself as a generational songwriter, clear-eyed and honest as ever. Time has passed, but she remains a sensitive soul, and here her incisive introspection is tethered to newly expansive and hypnotic melodies and ornate string arrangements. While writing Ricochet, Jordan found herself fixating on concerns she’d previously pushed out of her mind, namely death and what happens after. These 11 songs are colored by the anxiety of watching life slip through your fingers, as well as the vulnerability of loving deeply rather than frenetically. Ultimately, Ricochet is an album about realizing—and accepting—that the world still turns no matter what is going on in your tiny life.

Ricochet is the first Snail Mail album in five years, and a lot has happened in the interim. Before touring 2021’s Valentine around the world, Jordan had surgery for vocal polyps. She underwent intensive speech therapy and emerged as a more confident vocalist—on Ricochet, Jordan wields newfound control over her voice, ironically enough for an album about uncertainty. She made her acting debut in Jane Schoenbrun’s indie horror I Saw the TV Glow, playing a Buffy-esque heroine with psychic powers. She moved out of New York, floated around for a bit, and landed in the area around Greensboro, North Carolina. She’s 26 and has a fluffy white puffball of a dog, whom she holds up to the night sky so she can see the stars.

All the while, Jordan was working on new music. She tried to write quickly—“which obviously didn’t work”—but with intention, aiming not to leave any material on the cutting room floor. “I've never done this before, but I wrote all of the instrumentals and vocal melodies on the piano or guitar, and then I filled in the lyrics all at once over a year,” Jordan says. “It takes me a lot more time and consideration to make great melodies than it does trying to connect things lyrically, so I gave myself more time to do the one.”

When it came time to record the songs bouncing around in her head, Jordan turned to a friend, Aron Kobayashi Ritch, the bassist and producer of the fuzzy indie rock band Momma. In winter 2025, they made Ricochet at North Carolina’s Fidelitorium Recordings, owned by R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter, and the Nightfly and Studio G in Brooklyn. Jordan describes the process as refreshing, trusting, and comfortable. “I felt like an equal voice,” she says. “He was as interested in my decisions as I was in his.”

Sonically, Ricochet sounds like the natural next step in Snail Mail’s small but mighty discography, building on the poised guitar parts of her 2018 Matador debut, Lush, and Valentine’s raw rock passion. Ricochet channels the Smashing Pumpkins at their sunniest and Radiohead at their most Britpop, with notes of Catherine Wheel shoegaze, Ivy power pop, and Sunny Day Real Estate emo. These are welcoming and vibrant tones of the ambitious ’90s alt-rock variety, embellished with unusual chords and curious textures that tickle the ear. (The most immediate and obvious descriptor is, ahem, lush.)

Now one of dance music’s most respected DJs, Avalon Emerson first made a name for herself in the storied warehouse scene of her birthplace, San Francisco, before relocating to Berlin in 2013. Over a decade of performances at the famed Berghain led to appearances at numerous festivals around the world which all cemented Emerson as perennially in demand.

Her DJ sets transcend the confines of time or genre by recontextualizing dance music from previous eras among contemporary sounds weaving together house, techno, new wave, disco, and rave obscurities with her own productions and edits.

In 2019 she launched 9000 Dreams, her own international series of events, as the curatorial expression of her musical vision. Showcasing the breadth of her eclectic taste over the course of a club night, artists on the lineup range from heavy hitters to exciting new names.

In 2020, she released her first full-length collection: a contribution to the long-running DJ-Kicks series (which Resident Advisor described as “The sound of a well-honed DJ at the top of her game.”), nestled alongside a steady stream of remix releases for the likes of Four Tet, Slowdive, Robyn and more.

Next up was 2023’s Avalon Emerson & the Charm, an instant classic which saw Emerson exploring her singing voice and more traditional songwriting outside of the boundaries of her dance music work.  Created after a move to New York, the resulting & the Charm album was released to critical acclaim, landing on numerous critics’ best-of-the-year lists.

In 2025 Avalon focused on her DJ career with a heavy schedule of worldwide touring including a 9000 Dreams tour, a celebrated closing slot at Dekmantel festival, and the release of Perpetual Emotion Machine, a series of singles created for her DJ sets, spanning genres and decades, and delivered as a living, evolving project. 

In 2026 the stage is now set for her to carve out a wholly unique path starting with the release of the propulsive, breakbeat assisted “Eden” and the announcement of Written into Changes, the second full length from the Avalon Emerson & the Charm project and the first to be released by indie powerhouse Dead Oceans.  A slate of worldwide & the Charm tour dates will follow.

Fall in Love again with Sharp Pins' Balloon Balloon Balloon

Sometimes it all goes POP!

Sharp Pins is the super solid lo-fi pop project of talented

Chicago musician Kai Slater of Lifeguard and Dwaal Troupe.

“Youth Revolution Now”