Bright Sparks is posted every few weeks and offers a collection of really great songs that we’re determined not to let slip past our radar. Take a peek at volume 15.
Miranda Winters – The Futuristic District
Usually found fronting Chicago noise-rock band Melkbelly, Miranda Winters put out a solo record this summer that shows she is equally comfortable with the energy toned down a little. Which isn’t to say Xobeci, What Grows Here? is without its own bite, just that its intensity is not quite of the eardrum-busting variety. Opener ‘The Futuristic District’ is a good example, an electrically charged blend of bedroom pop and indie rock along that fans of Hop Along and Waxahatchee will appreciate, though Winters’ vocal rhythm carves out a space all her own.
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You can get Xobeci, What Grows Here? now via the Miranda Winters Bandcamp page, or on cassette via Sooper Records.
Tuvaband – Wolfpack
The Berlin-based project of Norwegian singer/songwriter/producer Tuva Hellum Marschhäuser, Tuvaband create ethereal and emotive songs that sound something like a more radio friendly take on the reverb drenched drone pop of Midwife or Allison’s Gate. The latest Tuvaband single, ‘Wolfpack’, is a wonderful example, a smoky and twilit song that borrows elements of panoramically affecting singer-songwriters like Daughter and buries them in a dreamworld of smoke and twilit. The delicate shimmering beauty is offset with a sharper edge – as the title suggests, the track has teeth.
Be sure to keep an eye on the Tuvaband website for future releases.
Valley Maker – Light On the Ground
We’ve featured Austin Crane’s Valley Maker project numerous times here at VSF, culminating in a review of the excellent record, When I Was a Child released in 2015, which we described as “an album about belief and love in a variety of guises, about the big and unknowable questions, from love and growth and family to God and everlasting life.” Crane is back with a brand new Valley Maker album, Rhododendron, that will be released this autumn, and has released a single to whet our appetites, complete with a video from Joseph Kolean. It sounds like the album will be one to look forward to.
Rhododendron is set for release on the 12nd October via Frenchkiss Records and you can pre-order it now.
new casino – going for a walk
Taking their name from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Brooklyn’s new casino began as a solo project of Morgan Kaplan though has since expanded to incorporate Carlo Pisanu on bass. New single ‘going for a walk’, released in preparation of the band’s first full-length, Oshiki 2, gives a good flavour of the new casino aesthetic, combining a minimal slacker sound with an engaging lyrical flow. Every so often this rhythm gathers itself into something of a crescendo, which appears not in an increase in volume or energy but rather in the sincerity of the vocals, the feeling breaking through the disaffected cool of the genre to offer something a little more heartfelt.
Oshiki 2 is out now and you can listen via Soundcloud or Spotify.
Joe Kaplow – I Said I Was Going And I Went
After traversing the USA for the better part of three months playing all manner of clubs and bars, Joe Kaplow began to feel a profound longing for the tiny details of life at home. The idea of tour might conjure an image of exciting adventures, though Kaplow realised he was missing the decidedly unexciting, the household chores, cooking food from scratch. New single ‘I Said I Was Going And I Went’ channels this into an emotive and homesick sound in which uncertainty reigns, where the halcyon ideal of home is known not to be entirely true, though allowed to persist to drag him through the days away.
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‘I Said I Was Going And I Went’ is available now from the Joe Kaplow Bandcamp page, alongside his previous EP release.
Baby Cages – flowers
We featured Baby Cages twice back in 2014, calling single ‘Dark Arts‘ a “shadowy three minutes that slither under your skin” and album Indelicate as akin to “taking a thousands of weird screenshots from Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet and Eraserhead to make one giant mosaic that is super-weird. Hyper-Lynchian.” Well, the Toronto-based music collective are back with a new EP, bitter melon, a release that maintains the off-kilter vibe though this time casting it in a light altogether more bright and peppy. ‘Flowers’ serves as a good introduction, the production relatively crystal clear when compared to that of Indelicate, the instrumentation possessing a manic, restless edge that is at odd with the lyrics.
“teach me to relax
and i am rebornflowers in the back
of a pair of patterned pants
so I pick up the past
and fall into your lap”
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bitter melon is out now and you can grab it from the Baby Cages Bandcamp page.
Lauren O’Connell – Out of Focus
Hailing from Rochester, NY, songwriter Lauren O’Connell has been releasing a steady stream of albums and EPs since 2007, displaying a keen sense of storytelling within her country/folk style. Earlier this year, O’Connell put out a new record, Details, and her writing is as detailed and impressive as ever, managing to craft complex, near literary-level metaphors and imagery while losing none of the immediacy and atmosphere. Single ‘Out of Focus’ is a case in point, a piano-driven track falling somewhere between Leonard Cohen and Julien Baker, though it’s in O’Connell’s words and delivery that the real magic lies. Maintaining a conversational flow capable of accelerating and decelerating at the drop of the hat, the song sounds like thoughts and feelings unfurling straight from the brain, as though bypassing the awkwardness of phrasing and speaking entirely, emerging fully formed and disarmingly beautiful.
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Details is out now and you can get it from Bandcamp, along with the rest of Lauren O’Connell’s back catalogue.
Harvey Trisdale – Baby
Based in Los Angeles, Harvey Trisdale make a restrained, languid brand of indie rock that’s perfectly suited to sunny climes. However, rather than being carefree tropicana, their songs possess an emotional depth too, resulting in a struggle between light and dark where neither side wins out. This summer saw the release of their self-titled EP, and such a to-and-fro can be seen across the record, the sunny energy of opener ‘corners’ dampened by the emo-tinged ‘Fit to be Found’. Though these conflicting moods even seem to compete within single songs, as typified in second single, ‘Baby’, with the depressed torpor of the vocal style eventually shaken by the instrumentation as the track rises into a stirring finale.
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Harvey Trisdale is out now via Baby Blue Records and you can get in from Bandcamp.
Babehoven – Out Of This Country
Babehoven is the project of Portland resident Maya Bon, rounded out to a trio with the help of Skylar Pia and drummer Elias Williamson. Their latest release, a five-song EP titled SLEEP, is being released by our pals at Good Cheer Records later this summer. In preparation, they have released a single, ‘Out of This Country’, a soft and shambling bedroom pop song that swaddles real feeling in a blanket of restraint. The drums and guitar and Bon’s impressive vocals seem to grow in intensity only to recede and dissipate, a reminder that sometimes less is more, that something intangible can be captured when artists hold a little something back.
SLEEP is out via Good Cheer Records on 17th August, and you can pre-order it now from the Babehoven Bandcamp page.
Adam Arcuragi – Low Rain Parade
For a period from the mid-to-late-00s to 2012, American songwriter Adam Arcuragi was one of the most soulful and stirring songwriters plying his trade, releasing a series of albums and EPs that collected his probing writing within an evocative musical landscape. The good news is that Arcuragi is back, with a brand new full-length due sometime this year, though for now all we get by way of a taster is the single ‘Low Rain Parade’. The track falls on the restrained side of his oeuvre, the slow meandering rhythm dominating what is a contemplative and calm song, though Arcuragi does show flashes of his vocal range as the swells reach their highest points.
The as-of-yet untitled album is reportedly due to appear sometime in 2018, so keep an eye on the Adam Arcuragi website for more information.