Bright Sparks is posted once a month and offers a collection of really great songs that we’re determined not to let slip past our radar. Vol. 28 is ready and waiting.
Husbands – Mexico
Husbands are a duo separated by geography, Danny Davis living in Seattle and Wil Norton in Oklahoma City. If the circumstances go some way to explaining their forthcoming album’s lengthy gestation (After the Gold Rush Party had been planned for 2016) then they are not apparent on the songs themselves. There’s something of the late 00s buzz band aesthetic at work, sun-bleached rock unafraid to dip its toe into the dreamy, tropical ends of the genre. However, as single ‘Mexico’ shows, the tracks come complete with undercurrents of something more morose—like shadows and sudden breezes, or the sunset sorrow of summer evenings.
“I spent last summer housesitting with my wife in Costa Rica,” Davis explains. “I spent the summer surfing, writing music and playing poker with the locals. It was the best time of our lives, but it also wrecked us.” Because the trip was something of an eye-opener, not so much in terms of what was in Costa Rica, but rather what was waiting back home. “We came back to Seattle, disillusioned about our days spent looking at code, working in cubes working 9-5s with no end in sight.” ‘Mexico’ is the response, a single based around the type of pipe dream fantasy that we know will never happen, yet lean on nonetheless.
Kelly Hoppenjans – If I Had You
Channeling the spirit of riot grrrl while maintaining a folk sensibility, Nashville’s Kelly Hoppenjans makes music of empowerment, facing up to expectations and staring them down. Her debut full-length, OK, I Feel Better Now, is an album about breaking moulds and realising your true self, encouraging people to fill their own space in the world without apology or embarrassment.
Single ‘If I Had You (Love Letter From A Padded Cell)’ is a case in point. Exaggerating and subverting the bunny boiler ex trope, the song confronts the glorification of obsession and fixation in relationships, asking why creepy and/or violent situations are held up as romantic or honorable. “I’d do anything to keep you, if I had you,” Hoppenjans sings amid the buoyant sound, the unhinged heart of the track dressed in brightness. “The album, as a whole, deals with the experience of being a woman in the world and accessing our power as women,” she explains. “I feel there is so much power in taking control of the narrative around the so-called ‘crazy ex-girlfriend,’ and saying, ‘You think that’s crazy? Oh no, this is crazy’.”
OK, I Feel Better Now is out on the 18th October.
Leah Dunn – Oakland
Based in the Bay Area in California, Leah Dunn is a songwriter with diverse influences, from the folk majesty of Joni Mitchell to the atmosphere and noise of Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. Released earlier this summer, her first EP Oakland displays how perfect such a marriage is, combining tenderness with a brooding atmosphere to create authentic and emotional songs driven by Dunn’s insistent vocals.
The title track is a perfect introduction for new listeners. Rising to life from a wistful wash of field recordings and reflective guitar, Dunn’s delivery emerges with the gentle croon of a lullaby. The lyrics themselves are concerned with something lost, an unease that works in juxtaposition to the sound, though soon a defiant refrain is found, repeating itself like mantra and growing in impact with every cycle.
I gave my soul to a lonesome mystery
Gutter Sparrow – Sheridan
Gutter Sparrow is the recording project of John Mosloskie. After previously writing and singing for Holler Wild Rose, Mosloskie set out solo, releasing his debut, The Fear of Forgotteness in 2017. The record was a lesson in patient, melancholic folk music, songs carved out of the intricacies of history and relationships and shaped into sad and striking sounds.
With the follow-up album, The Waker Dreams, set for release this autumn, Gutter Sparrow has unveiled a brand new single that continues such a style. The intimacy and warmth of ‘Sheridan’ is indicative of Moslokie’s sound, warm and fond and possessing the Kozelekian knack for sounding conversational and poetic in the same breath.
The Waker Dreams is out on the 25th October on Meadowlands Records and you can find more on the Gutter Sparrow website.
Soot Sprite – Bleed
Exeter trio Soot Sprite operate at the intersection of shoegaze and bedroom pop, crafting songs polished with an alternative sheen that lends a real intensity to the emotion. Set for release next month via Specialist Subject Records, their latest EP, Sharp Tongue, develops this aesthetic into something moody and dark but human too, balancing a simmering anger against vulnerability, a willingness to open up.
Lead single ‘Bleed’ is our first taste of the release, a track which finds an insistent rhythm yet is willing to change when needs be, breaking down into a heavy reverberation at the midpoint. Thematically, the song charts the insidious harm of friendship turned sour. ‘Bleed’ is about “toxic friendships and recognising them in your life and in others,” explains lead Elise Cook. “It’s all the niggling signs of someone acting like your friend and confidant whilst casually putting you down and chipping away at your self esteem, and the damage that leaves.”
Fime – Solo/Together
Based in Los Angeles, Beto Brakmo, Chase Cook and Maxine Garcia combine to form Fime, an alt rock band indebted to the genre’s 90s heyday. Recorded and produced by Melina Duterte (AKA Jay Som), Fime’s latest EP is set for release on the 11th October and you can hear the first single now.
‘Solo/Together’ utilises a quiet/loud dynamic to huge effect, crafting a sound that is smoky and sultry one minute then soaring the next. “How do you see without (Absolutely knowing)?” they demand in the cathartic refrain. “How do you feel without (Absolutely knowing)?” The song comes complete with an excellent video directed by Hailey Ruffner, so be sure to check that out below.
Sprawl is set for release on the 11th October and you can find Fime on Bandcamp.
Kate Teague – Sweetheart
“I’m just trying to be as real as possible,” says Oxford, Mississippi songwriter Kate Teague. “My songs are like journal entries. And I rarely filter myself.” Her self-titled debut EP is a product of such an artistic style, a rich tapestry of emotions that nevertheless maintains a near conversational tone. The balance is an interesting one, allowing Teague to delve into a kind of natural poetry, the incidental poetry of daydreams where the various strands of any given moment stitch into a beautiful whole.
The final single from the EP, ‘Sweatheart’ shows all this and more, playing subtlety and directness off against one another, both in terms of the sound and lyrical style. Because, for all of the delicate melodies and rich arrangements, there is a steely centre to the song that refuses to concede an inch to expectations. “Don’t call me sweetheart, I can frown if I want to,” Teague declares, breaking the romantic tropes of the folk genre to reclaim respect and autonomy. “Is the smile on my face that makes you feel you can put me to shame?”
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Kate Teague is out on the 20th September and you can pre-order it now.
Sea Caves – Dart
Led by singer Sydney Rohrs and writer Shiloh Halsey, Sea Caves are a band interested in the rhythms of life—how circumstances, feelings and emotions can often be found to exist in recognisable patterns. These shapes might be hidden in the ground-level experience of every day living, but a slight change of vantage or remove from the usual conditions reveals them all the same. Sea Caves operate on such a level, creating music to be experienced rather than analysed, though closer looks will find a considered engagement with (or subversion of) forms and patterns.
As new single ‘Dart’ attests, the ability to recognise such patterns can be a source of optimism, allowing one to move beyond and start afresh. “You get into these rhythms,” Halsey explains, “but when those rhythms start to dissolve, you look to find them and they’re just not there. So you learn to recognize and explore new ones.” Change, however painful and uncertain, can be a force for good.
Beautiful Dudes – Shape I’m In
Led by Tom Bevitori, Nevada City’s Beautiful Dudes make what they describe as “rocking real dude music.” Set for release with the ever-reliable Mama Bird Recording Co., their self-titled debut out this autumn promises to be a return to classic punk rock, foregoing any experimentation or frivolity in favour of a high-energy commitment to the cause.
The album’s first single, ‘Shape I’m In’ explores the reality that lurks behind even our best days. A ‘pink cloud’ is the transient feeling of contentment and joy that come with early sobriety, and the song is positioned in the aftermath of such an experience, where the positivity has fallen away. “It felt so empowering to believe in the concept of freedom,” Bevitori explains, “and to be such a positive force with a mindset for change. But when the cloud went away, I was left with the weight of life, wavering health, and the emotional burdens of society. In the end, all the realness of life is still there, and when the cloud opens up, we are left living with life on life’s terms.”
Radio is to be released via Mama Bird Recording Co on the 28th October and you can pre-order it now.
That’s all for Vol. 28 of Bright Sparks, but be sure to stick around the Reviews and Previews sections for more in-depth writing.