Caught in the net: Marvellous Archie Marshall aims for the stars

Julia Holter is etching out her own unique brand of experimental chamber pop

Eighteen-year-old Archie Marshall has been steadily garnering acclaim under his stage name, King Krule, for his hazy, dark melange of sounds: a touch of new wave guitar, some synths, a hint of dubstep, a bassy vocal growl. His self-titled 2011 EP was a particular standout. Now comes his debut album, 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, out on 24 August, the occasion of young Marshall's 19th birthday. The record's opening track, “Easy Easy”, is streaming now at youtu.be/9i35KOGBYBo – and it's a fine, spare effort.

Lo-fi high-flyer's back on song...

The interesting LA musician Julia Holter (pictured), a singer-songwriter etching out her own unique brand of experimental chamber pop, returns with her third album, Loud City Song, in mid August. It's a sparkling collection of songs, dancing neatly between experimentation and skewed pop. We recently heard the sparse opening track, “World”; now another track has been offered in advance of the record release: “In the Green Wild” starts small with jazzy double bass before expanding out with horns, strings, synths and Holter's high-pitched voice. It's streaming with a video at youtu.be/H5M8qRN_Rl0. Lo-fi but theatrical, strange but ambitious – it's a fine encapsulation of Holter's work.

No unfinished sympathy for MIA

A few weeks ago, I wrote in these pages about a new song from MIA: it wasn't her finest, but it was interesting nonetheless. It purportedly came from a new album, Matangi, that is seemingly stuck in development hell. Similarly, her record label, Interscope, have been working on a long-gestating documentary about the Sri Lankan-born UK artist. The film's director, Steve Loveridge, has now quit the project, seemingly in frustration over troubles with getting it finished. Loveridge took to his Tumblr, vandlo.com, posting an extended snapshot of the film so far, with the words, “This was a teaser from 2012 to show Interscope what the film would feel like. Reblog the s**t out of this and maybe they'll wake up.” Alas, they woke up enough to force him to take it down – but it has appeared elsewhere: vimeo.com/69852386. The reel is an intriguing snippet of what might be. MIA herself took to Twitter (@MIAuniverse) suggesting that she would use Kickstarter to get it finished.