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. 22 is ripe and ready for plucking.
MUNYA – Benjamin
“I don’t really understand how I make music,” says Josie Boivin, who records under the moniker MUNYA. “I feel like it’s coming from another world.” The sentiment feels apt for the Montreal-based songwriter, her vivid and crystalline style drawing from synth pop and psychedelica to form a languid, dream-laden sound. After three EPs in 2018, Boivin is back with the debut self-titled MUNYA full-length, and single ‘Benjamin’ sets the tone for the release.
With a natural elegance and bilingual lyrics, the track explores how prior experiences can get in the way of present events with an intuitive feel, past heartbreak undermining the possibility of new love. However, MUNYA takes this with a light spirit, acknowledging the ubiquity of such vulnerabilities and in doing so relinquishing the neuroses that can develop around them, clearing the way for new relationships.
Control Top – Chain Reaction
Philadelphia-based trio Control Top are set to release their record, Covert Contracts, next month on Get Better Records. “With a covert contract, the trick is that the agreement is only known by the person who makes it,” explains vocalist and bassist Ali Carter of the record’s title. “The other person is oblivious. Consent is impossible. A void of communication opens up a world of misunderstanding.” Hence Control Top’s scathing style of post-punk that looks to shine a light on the insidious systems that have a hold on society, all in the hope of rekindling some sense of autonomy with patriarchal capitalism, as made clear by single ‘Chain Reaction’.
Ricochet downward spiral
One more word and it goes viral
Light the wick, pull the trigger
What started small is getting biggerI’m looking for an open door
But all I see is a broken mirror
Covert Contracts is out on the 5th April on Get Better Records and you can pre-order it now.
la loye – to live underwater
Based in the Netherlands, la loye is an indie folk outfit built around the songwriting of Lieke Heusinkveld. With a hushed tone and restrained style, the sound belies the fact that there are six members in the band, though close listening reveals the depth and detail that constitutes their delicate soundscapes, as gauzy and intimate as a spider’s web and catching Heusinkveld’s warm, whispered vocals for all to see. Latest single ‘to live underwater’ is the perfect example, formed with craft and care, the subtle emotion emerging slowly but with great conviction.
Spectator – Waves
The recording project of Megan Rooney and Jeffrey Albert from St. Louis, Spectator is a collaboration in the most fundamental sense. Both were writing songs before they met, though once together these ideas interacted and merged, leading to hybrid songs that were neither Rooney’s nor Albert’s—they were Spectator’s. Ahead of a new album Charlie, Baby on Nordic Records, Spectator have put out a brand new single, ‘Waves’. The song gives an insight into the evocative and richly emotional style of the duo, Albert’s vocals bringing to mind the compassionate grandeur of Frederick Squire and bringing to life a song that finds hope in even the darkest of places.
Charlie, Baby will be released on Nordic Records and you can pre-order it now.
The Exbats – 2027
A father/daughter duo from Bisbee, Arizona, The Exbats make a brand of frenetic punk that they describe as “more troublegum than bubblegum.” Earlier this year, they put out an album, E is 4 Exbats, on Burger Records which collected their favourites songs from previous tapes in a full-length release. Single ‘2027’ gives a good idea as to what to expect from the band, racing into life with feverish drums before Inez McLain’s vocals enter with a tangible attitude, confident and fierce and taking no shit from no one.
minihorse – Drink You Dry
After lending his talents to a variety of Michigan bands over the past few years, Ypsilanti’s Ben Collins started his own band, minihorse, with a debut EP released in 2016. Their forthcoming record, Living Room Art, will be the band’s debut full length, and guest stars a number of familiar faces including Fred Thomas, Kelly Moran and Anna Burch.
The latter appears on lead single, ‘Drink You Dry’, a thundering introduction to the minihorse sound that tempers into gentle lulls periodically. Collins’ vocals lend the whole thing a soaring quality, the heavy cloud of guitars not blotting out the lyrics but holding them aloft.
Tyler Burkhart – Waiting For You
Tyler Burkhart is a DIY artist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who operates in the classic bedroom pop territory of melancholic nostalgia. After releasing a full-length album back in 2018, Burkhart is back with a brand new single with Berlin label, Feel Flows Records. ‘Waiting For You’ is trademark Tyler Burkhart, with a intimate, almost vulnerable sound, his words emerging with such earnestness that they sound like secrets told in confidence.
‘Waiting For You’ is out now on Feel Flows Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.
Sharkmuffin – Serpentina
Consisting of Tarra Thiessen (guitar/vocals), Natalie Kirch (bass/vocals) and Jordyn Blakely (drums/vocals), Sharkmuffin makes a raucous brand of indie rock that straddles both the artistic and anthemic poles of the genre. After the success of the previous album, the trio are back with a brand new EP, Gamma Gardening, out via Exploding in Sound Records.
The release is a concept album centred on “a space dominatrix named Serpentina that takes a job as receptionist [and] has an affair with a genetic engineer scientist who she codes a designer baby with that can withstand crazy atmospheric pressure, breathe underwater and never age.” As ever which such schemes, things don’t go to plan, with “The Atomic Gardening Society” getting wind of the situation and stealing the baby, causing Serpentina to hang herself with a belt. So… just your average dystopian EP with a narrative arc that would be at home in Ancient Greece.
Gamma Gardening is set for release on the 5th April via Exploding in Sound Records.
Trevor Stott – Halfway in the Night
Trevor Stott is a songwriter from St. George, Utah, who makes a stirring brand of country rock that blends existential concerns with cathartic energy. The title track of his debut album, ‘Halfway in the Night’ is a great place to start for those wishing to grow acquainted with Stott’s music, his gravelly vocals offering an organic emotion as the instrumentation pushes an insistent sense of motion. Stott’s voice is prone to stretching and almost breaking, the feeling so keen as to appear almost desperate, and the result is a sound that sweeps you up within its earnest course.
Walking Bicycles – Fat Cat
Chicago post-punk outfit Walking Bicycles have been on hiatus ever since releasing To Him That Wills The Way back in 2014, an album which told the story of guitarist Julius Moriarty’s three-year spell in prison. This year is going to change that, with the band’s fifth record, Chooch, coming this spring via Highwheel Records. If lead single ‘Fat Cat’ is anything to go by, the time away has done nothing to quell Walking Bicycles’ cynical and boisterous attitude, the break only providing more time to stew in the mess of inequality and greed that marks our time. Hence this song, a cutting and caustic middle finger to the men pulling the strings.
Downhaul – Wires / Enough
Richmond’s Downhaul craft a lyrical brand of emo that balances intelligent songwriting with the sincere, pensive style of the genre in a way that fans of The Hotelier no doubt appreciate. Their album Before You Fall Asleep is set for release on Refresh Records at the end of the month, and lead single ‘Wires / Enough’ does more than enough to whet the appetite. Taking the alienating process of growing up with an honest vulnerability, the song probes the psychic cost of becoming yourself in a society fraught with expectations and preconceptions.
Gold Connections – Like a Shadow
Gold Connections is the recording project of Will Marsh of Charlottesville, Virginia. Marsh was a school friend of Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo, and the latter helped record and produce the self-titled debut Gold Connections EP which came out last year on Fat Possum Records. This was followed by the full-length album Popular Fiction on EggHunt Records, and this year sees Marsh unveil Like a Shadow, another EP on EggHunt that continues his guitar-driven, brooding sound that is very much of our time. “Like A Shadow,” Marsh explains, “and especially its single of the same name, is about the struggle to move forward into a world that seems both infinitely precarious and abundant.”
Well you know I see them waves rising
Don’t say I never said nothing
Just I’d rather be a dead man
Than love like a shadow
Like a Shadow is out via EggHunt Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.
Witching Waves – Eye 2 Eye
London’s Witching Waves have a reputation for ferocious energy and an uncompromising post-punk aesthetic, as displayed on 2016’s Crystal Cafe. The band are now back with a new record, Persistence, on Specialist Subject Records, and as the title suggests the album is committed to “continuing in spite of difficulty,” as displayed by its urgent and assertive sound.
Lead single ‘Eye 2 Eye’ shows off Witching Wave’s distinctively frenetic style, drummer Emma Wigham providing the lead vocals with backing from guitarist Mark Jasper, leading to a shout-a-long chorus that rises above the angular instrumentation. The album was recorded directly to tape without over-dubs, and the unprocessed energy is the band’s greatest strength—possessing a bite that cannot be reproduced by any amount of technical wizardry.
Black Belt Eagle Scout – Indians Never Die
We have been big fans Black Belt Eagle Scout, the project of Portland’s Katherine Paul, since we first heard their latest album, Mother of My Children, back in 2017. Since then, The Black Belt Eagle Scout stock has risen immeasurably, re-releasing the album on Saddle Creek last year. They recently released a video for ‘Indians Never Die’, a song we previously described as “about the strength and persistence of indigenous peoples, their power and will in the face of oppression and attempted annihilation, not just of themselves but of the entire planet.” Directed by queer Diné filmmaker Evan James Atwood, the video was shot on the ancestral lands of the Chinook, Chinnuk Wawa, and Tillamook tribes and provides a beautiful backdrop to a powerful song.
Mother of My Children is out now and you can get it from the Black Belt Eagle Scout Bandcamp page.