Candice Gordon: Garden of Beasts – Gothic guitar-noir from Berlin-based Irish woman

Candice Gordon makes ornate, guitar-noir songs that draw strength from all over the stylistic map. On debut album Garden of Beasts, the Irish woman, now based in Berlin, works in gently psychedelic 1960s pop, spooky indie folk and reverb-heavy garage rockers, covering everything in her own seedy Gothic shade. Hive Mind opens with a creeping guitar noodle underpinning Gordon's voice – capable of Robert Plant-style dramatics – before switching into a more propulsive number. The jangly guitar riff on I Belong to the Night draws strength from '80s UK indie pop without sounding indebted to any one source, while Gordon's deep-thinking pen game is displayed on The Laws of Nature, which covers the rigid societal rules of identity. Melodies don't always stick, but the tones and textures are gorgeous, substantiating Gordon as a new-age Irish indie paladin. candicegordonmusic.com