Tulpa – PSYOPs (Skep Wax)
Their debut album Monster Of The Week lands this Friday and Leeds-based Tulpa lead us in with mesmerising alt-rock single PSYOPs.
Artist: Tulpa
Track: PSYOPs
Label: Skep Wax
Released: 24 November 2025
Find it: Bandcamp
- Tulpa: a mythical being manifested into existence through the act of concentrated thought, like an imaginary friend…but sometimes scarier
- PSYOPs: a military operation designed to influence the enemies state of mind through non-combative means
Here we are then, at Tulpa‘s third and final single before the release of their debut album later this week, Monster Of The Week. PSYOPs is a mesmerising swirl of poppy guitars and crystalline but playful vocals. There’s more than a little of the Yo La Tengo about it.
It’s this off-setting of upbeat, fairly gentle indiepop with the ideas of manipulation or disorientation through repeated phrasing that is particularly great here. It’s the same juxtaposition we get elsewhere with this band – warm and rolling riffs from the twin guitars while something sinister mists through the lyrics. You feel pretty safe on the jangling indiepop surface but you are already being sunk into something a little darker.
‘You’re so sad and I don’t know why / You’re in love and I don’t know why’
The band is still very new – the singles and album are the first releases from them but they’re growing a following all the same. Support slots with Throwing Muses, Pale Blue Eyes and Bug Club as well as having grabbed the attention of the likes of Gideon Coe and Marc Riley are all part of this heady ascent.
And this interest is well deserved – an inventive, highly melodic sometimes frenzied but often hypnotic sound around the duality of light and dark, sinister-edges to every-day things. Tulpa are on to something timeless and certainly great here, and I don’t think it’s down to any PSYOP that I’m saying that.
PSYOPs by Tulpa is out digitally now. Album Monster Of The Week is out on vinyl, CD and digitally via Skep Wax Records on 28 November 2025.
Find Tulpa: Bandcamp | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook
Live dates:
- 29 November – Wharf Chambers, Leeds
- 30 November – Lexington, London
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Sarah Lay
A long-standing music journalist she's also co-founder of independent record label Reckless Yes, an author of novels, and when not messing around with words and music, a digital strategist.
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