Set for release later this month via Window Sill Records, with a cassette edition by Aural Canyon, Seasons Turn Like Pages is a brand new album which sees Principato continue to test the boundaries of the Saapato project. As the title suggests, the record is concerned with passage of time, each of its tracks representing a snapshot of a specific period taken over a year within a forest. Experienced as a whole, the result serves as a chronicle not only of a specific time and place, but also the change and constancy which marks the annual cycle within the natural world. Lead single and opener ‘Willow’ kicks things off, not only introducing the overall tone of the release but also going some way to prepare the listener so they might experience it properly. A song written from the perspective of a dreaming dog, Willow. “Willow is a Great Pyrenees which means she’s constantly on guard, looking to protect her herd (me) from danger,” Principato explains:

When she falls asleep at night she looks like she’s dreaming so deeply, so at peace and relaxed to be off the clock. In her dream, I imagine her running through a wildflower meadow watching Canada geese pass by overhead. Observing Willow on guard when she really doesn’t have to be has led me to realize all of the ways that I am metaphorically “on guard” in my own life, and in response has helped me to try and be more like the dreaming version of Willow. It’s a song about a dog dream and at the same time about reminding myself to step back and enjoy the dream.

The post Saapato – Willow appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Now Creekbed Carter Hogan is set to return with Peasants Revolt, a brand new full-length via Gar Hole Records which builds upon these beginnings to conjure their most ambitious and stylistically diverse release to date. Written within the span of an array of transitions, which saw Hogan undergoing gender affirming treatment and living/moving between the North and South while the entire world seemed to be lurching towards something newly frightening, the record embraces multiplicity as a kind of remedy. As though to refuse to be reduced to any one thing is to stand in opposition to the central tenets of capitalism and imperialism. To move beyond the confines of individual isolation and into a teeming world, and indeed a teeming history, full of radical potential.

Hence Peasants Revolt contains Medieval ballads and Appalachian strike songs, finds inspiration in everything from the Haitian Revolution to Ethiopian jazz. And, crucially, is far more than a solo record. The almost overwhelming community of collaborators includes Britton Beisenherz, Lindsey Verrill and Jeff Johnston (Little Mazarn), Carolina Chauffe (Hemlock), Beth Chrisman (Lost Patterns, Missy Beth and the Morning Afters, Willi Carlisle, James Hand), Nora Predey, Zack Wiggs, Sarah Schultz (Sun June), Hunter Prueger (Middle Sattre), Gabriela Torres, Jude Brothers and Hot Dog Choir. “Building such a rich world takes artists who understand music isn’t just ornamental,” as the album notes put it, “but fundamental to survival.”

To set the tone before the album’s release this summer, Creekbed Carter Hogan has shared the lead single, ‘Cutbank of Cleves’. Described by the label as “a rollicking, medieval-Americana fable sung by a jester in the halls of a dying empire,” the track embodies the spirit which runs through the entirity of Peasants Revolt. The sense that, though the world is falling all around, there has never been a better time to come to together. To create, to dance, to scheme, to fight. To refute those forces which have come to shape the dismal present, and to remember, in spite of everything, to still make space to live.

Watch the video by by Lexi Kiecker below:

Peasants Revolt will be released on the 24th July via Gar Hole Records and you can pre-order it from the Creekbed Carter Hogan Bandcamp page.

Album artwork by Jammy Violet

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“Are you so bored, or just boring?” asks American Cream Band‘s Nathan Nelson on ‘Don’t Burn the House Down’, the latest single from their new full-length Twin, coming next month via Quindi Records. A repeated refrain dripping in sardonic wit and clearly pointed towards the malicious forces currently extending their tentacles across the US and beyond. Based in the Twin Cities, Nelson and co. have experienced the blunt end of contemporary fascism in recent months, something which charges the new record with an almost electric urgency, as ‘Don’t Burn the House Down’ attests. A rich, colourful and caustic track which stands its ground against those who would destroy the places we call home if given half a chance.

Aubrey Jane – Karmic

Next week, New Orleans-based songwriter Aubrey Jane will release Starshiner, a new full-length album which builds upon the foundations of previous release Calamity, using vulnerability and emotional honesty to move beyond difficult experiences and towards something new. Latest single ‘Karmic’ is the ideal entry point, demonstrating Jane’s mix of folk-inflected brand of indie rock and the confessional bedroom pop sensibilities which underpin it. Flowing between relative restraint and urgent peaks of intensity, the track confronts a dysfunctional relationship head on, probing at the parts at hurt with an almost masochistic compulsion. “And I’ll play the victim / Cause I’ve always been good at it,” as Janes sings:

Wait till you have the words to tell me
What I did
Maybe all this is karmic
Maybe it’s deserved
So I’ll be the bad guy if you be the damsel
Cause I like how it hurts

Watch the video filmed, produced, directed and edited by Quinn Young below:

‘Karmic’ is out now and available from Bandcamp. Starshiner will be released on the 15th May.

Félicia Atkinson – Les Yeux II

Ghent’s VIERNULVIER runs a series called VIDEOROOM, where classic cult films are shown with new live soundtracks, with 2026’s programme featuring the likes of Mary Lattimore playing a score for Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy and Alabaster DePlume doing Peter Kass’s Time of the Heathen. Félicia Atkinson‘s new album SANS VISAGE stems from the project, taking the reimagined soundtrack for Georges Franju’s 1960 horror classic Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face) she performed live and condensing it into a continuous, non-linear composition. One which considers the “female and animal gaze” of the film, repositioning the focus towards the resistance displayed by the victims to open up a feminist counter-narrative, and ultimately working to show how old art might offer sites to imagine new ideas. Listen to first cut ‘Les Yeux II’ now:

J.W. Ricci – Through a Frame

Though Through a Frame / Pollen Drop is the debut solo guitar released from J.W. Ricci, the double single is far from the first time the North Carolina-based songwriter has attempted to put his music into the world. He spent the best part of the last decade playing in various bands to different levels of success, all while working a series of underpaid, exploitative (and sometimes downright dangerous) jobs, though ultimately emerged feeling discouraged and burnt out having been chewed up on either side by twin meat grinders of the music industry and life. But fast-forward to the present, armed with stable employment and some sense of perspective, Ricci has turned to writing instrumental guitar songs which speak to a new creative headspace. “I feel a sense of spaciousness, ease and openness in those pieces,” he explains, “in contrast to the white-knuckled, clenched, grasping that I hear in my older music.” There’s an clear sense of authenticity to Through a Frame / Pollen Drop as a result, each track recorded live with no overdubs and feeling like an artist not only reflecting on their journey to the present, but also coming to understand a healthier path they might follow from here on in.

Watch the video by Emma Geiger for ‘Through a Frame’ below:

Through a Frame / Pollen Drop is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Laura Lucas & Luke Sital-Singh – Same World

Described as the closest Winnipeg-based songwriter Laura Lucas has ever come to penning a love song, ‘Same World’ was a single on her 2025 debut There’s a Place I Go. A track which turned to the beauty of the organic world as an allegory for human connection, equating the symbiotic bonds of nature to the mutual benefits of a loving relationship. “The first verse of the song is one of my favourite things I’ve written,” she explains. “The line ‘I’ll use your light after you go’ is basically saying ‘I will photosynthesise off of you’, which I think is what falling in love is meant to feel like, like they are the sun and you are the leaf.” But Lucas was not quite finished with the song, and has now returned with an alternate version recorded with Luke Sital-Singh. The essence of the original is preserved, but the addition of an extra voice only accentuates the tenderness and romance.

And I think we live in the same world
And I’ll wait for a sign
Think my nature is something like yours
And yours something like mine, mine

Lemoncello – Tomorrow Nostalgia

In recent weeks we’ve shared a couple of singles from Perfect Place, a full-length from Dublin duo Lemoncello which sees Laura Quirke (guitar/vocals) and Claire Kinsella (cello/vocals) adopt a newfound clarity and emotional honesty within their work. First came ‘Meet Me Halfway’, a song featuring “a complicated relationship between intimacy and distance,” as we wrote, “a sense of push and pull,” then ‘Articulate Animal’, which was “something like a mantra,” as we put it, “a spell intended to cut to the quick of the self, hurdling over the rational part of the mind and sinking into the instinctive.” With the album now out with Claddagh Records, the pair have shared new single ‘Tomorrow Nostalgia’ to further convince audiences of their talents. With a combination of taut, almost brooding tones and altogether more ethereal textures, the song faces up to the dangers of our preoccupations with both the future and past, where the seductive urge to fill a life with dreams of either results in not much of a life at all. Watch the video directed by Eilís Doherty below:

Perfect Place is out now via Claddagh Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Max Knouse – Angel’s Share

“The title Goat Pupil could be aspirational, like a name for a student of greatness,” explains Max Knouse of his new record, coming next month via Ruination Record Co., though the LA-based artist offers a number of alternate reads too. “It could be something about seeing in widescreen—goats have amazing rectangular pupils. Or it could be a self-deterministic thing. Goats are pretty Satanic. I like the paradox of following someone who follows no one. There’s a lot of stuff in the songs about harnessing your own powers of evil or about perseverance while witnessing the evil around you.” Following hot on the heels of 2025’s Chimpmunk’d Away, Goat Pupil is itself a story of perseverance. An album created under considerable financial constraints (which, of course, equates considerable practical constraints), that, with help of producer Chris Schlarb, somehow manages to twist this fact to its benefit. How long does it take to capture lightning in a bottle? Judging by this, it takes exactly a day and half in a studio above an Arizona pizza shop. Listen to the lonesome, languorous lead single ‘Angel’s Share’ for an early preview:

Rowena Wise – Blood Ties

Naarm/Melbourne-based songwriter Rowena Wise won acclaim back in 2024 with Senseless Acts of Beauty, an album which drew as much from the classic folk of the sixties as it did contemporaries like Aldous Harding and Julia Jacklin to create a sound able to explore the difficult themes of loss, longing and alienation with an ever-burning compassion and warmth. New single ‘Blood Ties’ continues to develop this style, using a steely yet earnest tone to confront pain head on, and emerging with the possibility that suffering might be conquered if we could look at it honestly. “I wrote ‘Blood Ties’ after a close friend experienced a mental health crisis,” Wise explains. “In the aftermath, I watched his father struggle to respond, not because he didn’t love his son, but because he didn’t know how to meet him emotionally… In Australia, especially, emotional restraint has long been normalised… But that silence creates space for shame to grow, particularly within families where unspoken pain lingers beneath the surface.”

Watch the video directed by Didirri below:

‘Blood Ties’ is out now via Beloved Recordings and available from Bandcamp.

Trivial Shields – First Edition Paperbacks

Having cut his teeth with college band My Dear Disco, Christian Carpenter has gone on to play with the likes of Renata Zeiguer, Luke Winslow-King, Kent Odessa, Anna Ash and Cassandra Jenkins, though has also built up a considerable catalogue of his own work under the moniker Trivial Shields. Recorded analog to tape at the renowned Tiny Telephone studio in Oakland, latest single ‘First Edition Paperbacks’ is the ideal introduction for anyone unfamiliar with the project. The tale of two relationships which come to mirror one another (one with a bookseller, another with an experimental ‘plant musician’), both enthralling the narrator despite (or perhaps because of) proving somewhat unobtainable in the grand scheme of things.  “Living off of manic lust in excess / Eating from your supple hands,” Carpenter croons in typically passionate fashion. “When brilliant minds / antagonize / Is there fault to contest? / I don’t know but…” The result is lush, woozy and sensual, committed to romance even while understanding such things are doomed, and savouring the grandeur of feelings while they last.

Watch the video below, directed by Melanie Drew Chambers, filmed and coloured by Otium, featuring the puppets of The Bob Baker Marionette Theater:

‘First Edition Paperbacks’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

The post Weekly Listening: May 2026 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

After first single ‘One Too Many Nights’ explored the loss of identity that so often accompanies the end of a relationship, Zoon has returned with ‘I Was Younger’ to dig further into such ideas. “And I know that you’re going / Leave it all in the mourning,” the opening verse states. “And I said that you’re falling / Falling backwards in the mourning.” But for all of the undeniable turmoil and drama of these lines, they are delivered amid, or rather through, a light, shimmering soundscape, Chris Chu of indie-band The Morning Benders lending their talents to help craft warm washes of textured, lo-fi pop. As Zoon puts it: “I wanted heartbreak to feel soft around the edges.”

And I know that you’re perfect
Coming down from
When you found me
Wait around until we say something real
Something real

Happy Thought School comes out on 19th June via Paper Bag Records and you can pre-order it now from the Zoon Bandcamp page.

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I was going to a lot of churches and walking a lot and living in my head, and I found I was making this kind of personal folklore out of the things I encountered each day. I walked a pilgrimage and slept in churches over the middle of winter, and collected field recordings which became the backbone of this EP. One week I found three dead birds, so that became a symbol, or for a while I’d always cycle under this telephone pylon and each time I’d get an electric shock in the same hand. I wrote and photographed these things, recorded a lot of sounds, and mythologised a lot.

In a way the EP is another of those folklores, a mythology I wrapped around my own life so that when I looked out at it the colours were different. In another way it’s a true story, of a girl who meets a great sadness and then meets a mountain. In a way it’s a fairytale – filled with wolves and bells and river gods. It’s also about nature and the wild as a sacred and living thing, and of all things being connected in a small, and big, way. It’s messy and thick and bristling with sounds because of that.”

To celebrate the release of the EP, Josephine Illingworth has unveiled final single ‘Hail’, and there is no better place to dive in. Because while each track is striking in its own right, Bright Things I Found In The Dark is essentially a story, and as with any story it is best to start at the beginning. This is the tale of a girl in a fictional land populated by wolf mothers, goddesses and great natural spectacles. One which features mysterious strangers, burgeoning loves, even its own cosmology. Think of ‘Hail’ as the origin story of this universe, then let yourself get swept away by the narrative.

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Having recently signed to Nils Frahm‘s LEITER imprint, New York-based saxophonist and composer Alden Hellmuth has announced new full-length Tether. The album builds upon 2024’s punk-inflected jazz record Good Intentions to explore the creative potential of an ensemble embracing the tension between composition and improvisation. Tether is a fitting name for the release, speaking to both the connection between Hellmuth and her supporting cast—bassists Logan Kane and Miller Wrenn and drummer Justin Brown (Thundercat, Aja Monet)—and how group, and indeed the audience, act something like a leash within the spontaneity of improvisation. The musicians might play themselves out into unexpected territory, but there’s always a line to bring them back into the heart of the group. Lead single ‘Face The Wall’ is available now, and shows just how raucous and visionary the Alden Hellmuth sound can be.

Alice Bradley – Seismic

Per her bio, Asheville-based songwriter Alice Bradley “sees songwriting a way to grow words past the point of logic into catharsis,” and latest EP Seismic certainly lives up to this intention. Take the title track, woven from a layered, almost meditative arrangement of fingerpicked guitar, though one always led forwards by the underlying groove. The style is matched by Bradley’s vocals, both in tone and substance, the rhythmic ease of her delivery belying the difficult grapple presented in the lyrics. “There’s a face looking back / and a face looking forward / the space between that / i gotta move toward,” as she sings. “And the waves want to crash / to talk with the shore / future and past / converse at the door.” But by the close, something of a slow epiphany seems to have occurred. The acknowledgement that perhaps words aren’t best suited to pick at such complicated knots, and instead it is best to lean into the flow.

maybe this is something i cannot talk through
maybe this is something i must dance to

Atta Boy – Oh, Mama

Since their inception back in 2012, LA-based indie pop outfit Atta Boy have amassed a following with a sound that’s bright, sometimes whimsical and always compassionate, driven by a sense of curiosity shared by core members Dashel Thompson (piano), Eden Brolin (vocals), Freddy Reish (guitar), and Lewis Pullman (drums). The band are preparing to release their new album Lilt this June, and new single ‘Oh, Mama’ embodies the spirit of their work. A song which holds up the unique force that is motherly love as something as organic and ever-present as the natural world itself. “When I was growing up (and still today) my mom was so amazing at inspiring a sense of wonder at our natural world,” Brolin explains. “She is intensely nurturing and there for me, no matter what. I could say a billion things about why I think my mom is the shit, but as far as the song goes, I just wanted to paint a picture of how grand I see her love and her motherhood. This idea can be applied to anyone whose support feels like relief and respite when life is sideways. I think it’s a testament to how meaningful and necessary human connection is.” Watch the video for the track directed by Michael Rees with cinematography by Sarah Penson:

Silt will be released on the 26th June and you can pre-order it now.

Brenna Bruce – Something Gold

Brenna Bruce “brings to life a serene sound shadowed by a certain mournfulness,” we wrote of the Seattle-based songwriter when covering her 2024 EP Honest Bloom, “evoking the way even the most tranquil environment is in some way made poignant by the latent promise of its own end.” The release, put out via Ghost Mountain Records, placed emotional states within the context of the larger cycles of the natural world, and came to find beauty within an embrace of transience. Now Bruce is preparing to release Light Catcher, a brand new EP no less ambitious or emotionally astute, and latest single ‘Something Gold’ hints at what to expect. The song asks whether mourning is a strange form of alchemy, charting how moving through the end of a relationship can so often elevate the mundane into something precious, at least in one’s memories. Although, whether this process is legitimately capable of creating treasured material is open to interpretation. Every alchemist is shadowed by the possibility of their folly, coming to see (or wish for) cherished things which cannot, and never will, exist.

Light Catcher will be released on the 12th June via Ghost Mountain Records and you can pre-order it now.

Darren Hayman – Hotter Than Mojave in My Heart (Iris DeMent cover)

Way back in 2008, Darren Hayman (Hefner / New Starts), Dan May (Owl & Mouse / Field Glass), David Watkins and David Tattersall (The Wave Pictures) released a self-titled bluegrass album under the name Hayman, Watkins, Trout And Lee, winning acclaim with a mixture of originals and rearrangements of songs from the likes of Townes Van Zandt and The Mountain Goats. Now Hayman is re-releasing the album and has provided two new covers in support, including a take on Iris DeMent‘s ‘Hotter Than Mojave in My Heart’. Leaning into the playful side of the original, the song not only offers solid evidence for diving back into Hayman, Watkins, Trout And Lee, it also hints at the depth of Hayman’s back catalogue, which has remained more or less missing despite his position as one of the most creative and distinctive voices in UK music.

Fox Run Sounds – Shake a Shoe

“But I don’t think you’re hearing me / I don’t think you’re hearing me / If I don’t feel you here with me.” So sings Fox Run Sounds on ‘Shake a Shoe’, a short verse indicative of the mood and tone of the new track. The project’s previous EP Yuh, O! probed at the tension between interior feelings and exterior appearances, utilising a bright sound to explore dark themes so that the form mirrored the duality of the content, and the new single is no less thoughtful in execution. More downbeat on the surface yet leavened by the hope that’s inherent within any sense of longing, the track ebbs and flows between hushed despondency and naked yearning, that latter marked by a lift in the instrumentation as though towards some promised epiphany. The enlightenment might never quite be granted, but the very act of continually reaching towards it seems to hold some wisdom of its own.

The Hobknobs – Easier Listening

“Helmets Off can be described as an honest attempt at honesty.” So describes the press release for the debut album of The Hobknobs, a new project featuring Arie van Vliet (Lewsberg) and Yaël Dekker (The Klittens), though anyone expecting something earnest and sentimental will quickly find they have misunderstood. Because the honesty of The Hobknobs is something purer than the usual meaning of the word. Purer and therefore stranger. Honesty as delivered by a pair of songwriters who aren’t overly convinced by the goodness of humanity or even the meaning of language. Lead single ‘Easier Listening’ might be the poppiest track on the album, and on the surface gestures towards a nostalgic sort of twee, but is in fact very much its own animal. “’Easier Listening’ is about people who consciously choose to be less intelligent, in order to be able to understand so much more” Dekker explains. People who are faithful yet have no faith, enlightened and underestimated, presented here without judgement. Should we surrender and join their ranks?

The Huntress and Holder of Hands – Doctrine

Rising from the ashes of folk duo Brown Bird after the death of creative partner and husband Dave Lamb, MorganEve Swain’s The Huntress and Holder of Hands is both a vehicle to explore grief in its full spectrum of emotions and a way to continue the spirit of its predecessor. The result is a sound that holds space for anger, confusion, sadness and compassion, as well as an inherent sense of hope that’s built into the very fact of its existence. Set for release next month, new album Babylon is the perfect example of this nuanced style, confronting the corrupt and violent present without forgetting ideas of redemption and sanctuary too. Single ‘Doctrine’ was written in 2017 but is more relevant than ever, a taut and haunting slice of country rock which simmers with fury even it is quietest moments. “Honestly I was hoping it would be obsolete by now,” Swain explains, “but instead these words now feel like an incantation we need more than ever.”

Babylon will be released on the 5th June and you can pre-order it now.

lots of hands – grapevine

Newcastle upon Tyne duo lots of hands (that’s Billy Woodhouse and Elliot Dryden) last released new music at the beginning of 2025 with Fire Talk debut into a pretty room. Since then, the band have gone from strength to strength, finding lots of new fans and going on tour across the US in support of Lala Lala. Now they are back with a new single ‘grapevine’, a song which harks back to their nostalgia-laced lo-fi roots with a stark, stripped-back atmosphere. It’s dark and shadowy, squealing guitar and repetitive loops undulating over electronic percussion, Woodhouse and Dryden both contributing soft, understated vocals that deliver lyrics both opaque and suggestive. “Oh I feel it pulling me away, some sort of magnetic wave,” Woodhouse sings, “I’m finding myself upstate.”

Scott C Park – Marlene

Last year, Stornoway-based songwriter Scott C Park released his debut album Crossing The Line, establishing a rich and introspective brand of folk rock able to probe deep into the uncertainties of young adult life. Not one to rest on his laurels, Park is preparing another full-length for later this year, and has unveiled lead single ‘Marlene’ to whet appetites in the meantime. A track which again possesses the authenticity of its predecessor, pairing an almost twee level of sincerity with a rougher edge, resulting in something heartfelt but never cloying. This is achieved in no small part via the wry humour which runs through its heart, a feature which ultimately grants an affirming conclusion. “The song spends a whole lot of time where the protagonist is like, ‘Woe is me’… his world is kind of grey and drab,” Park explains. “And then in the last half he just rips the piss out of himself for being such a depressed guy.”

‘Marlene’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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This summer, Jacbob Brodovsky is returning with Tell The Kids We Tried, a full-length which continues this style to meditate on themes of community, connection and family within the tumult that is the present moment. Like it’s predecessor, the album is far from a solo endeavour, supported by some of Canada’s finest musicians. Gavin Gardiner (The Wooden Sky, MOONRIIVR), Charlotte Cornfield, Jason Tait (The Weakerthans), Champagne James Robertson, John Baron, Dominique Adams, Keiran Placatka and Julie Penner (The FemBots, Broken Social Scene) all lending their talents to push the sound towards a rich folk rock sound.

Two singles have been unveiled in preparation for the release. Penned within the dark depths of the pandemic, opener ‘Past Mistakes’ dwells on the ostensible hopelessness of our times, its characters attempting to build a life within a world where the future seems unwilling or unable to materialise. The mood is understandably morose, the arrangement subtle and subdued as Brodovsky’s earnest vocals detail an array of precise, melancholic images. But it never quite slips into outright despair. As though to share and sing of such feelings is in some way to refuse them.

It’s been so hard to feel hopeful
It’s been so hard to look ahead
It’s been so hard to say I’m sorry about before
It’s been so hard getting out of bed.

Watch the video Brodovsky made along with Christine Fellows below:

Follow up ‘Colorado Low’ is altogether more buoyant, peppy in rhythm and charged with a certain electricity, though loses none of the emotional depth. A song which pines for the past while trying to imagine that reluctant future, wishing to reconnect to fonder periods while knowing there’s no chance of really going home. “I wrote it in early 2016 when I had just moved back to Winnipeg from Toronto,” Brodovsky explains. “I remember feeling underwhelmed by the Winnipeg winter and missing the snow drifts that I remembered from childhood. On the radio they kept referencing this impending ‘Colorado Low’ that would bring in the winter and I wrote this song about hypothetical characters waiting for winter, while also pondering my own decisions about coming back home and trying to settle back into life in Winnipeg after half a decade away.”

Tell The Kids We Tried will be released on the 10th July via Make My Day Records and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

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Now Anjali Rose is back with ‘Sovereignty’, her first new song in four years and one which applies the same level of nuance to the chaos of the contemporary moment. It’s stripped-back like a folk song, but so much more than that, flickering with electric charge and often dissipating behind ambient textures both hazy and ominous, with samples of things like gun shots punctuating the distortion. The song is “one’s woman’s experience of surviving in The United States in 2026,” as Anjali Rose herself puts it, and it’s clear the experience is as disorientating as it is dismaying. Her vocals snake like smoke through an atmosphere thick with turbulent intensity, delivering sparse, opaquely poetic lyrics that capture the sense of societal disarray perfectly. “This is my first release in four years,” she continues, “and the act of sharing it is in itself a practice of vulnerability, learning, momentum, and growth.”

You dont own me
And I am not this fear
More than a body
More than just these years

The single comes complete with a video filmed by SoundSolstice and Anjali Rose Kumar:

‘Sovereignty’ is out now and available via the Anjali Rose Bandcamp page.

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Over the last decade, Portland-based songwriter Alela Diane has established herself as one of the most interesting and consistent songwriters in contemporary folk music, putting out sixth full-length albums since 2003 debut Forest Parade. Next month will see the release of the seventh, Who’s Keeping Time?, with Fluff & Gravy Records and Loose Music. The album sees a return to a more collaborative style, and latest single ‘Dusty Roses’ highlights the compassionate sound which results. “I wrote this song about a dear friend of mine whose path took a wrong turn a number of years ago,” Diane explains. “I think she’s still alive, but no one knows where she ended up. I believe that we all have the capacity to lose ourselves along the way. I’ve seen it happen again and again, whether through mental health struggles, drug use, addiction, trauma, depression, or grief. So many of us have seen someone we love lose the light in their eyes, and become a stranger to themselves. It feels like we’re all just teetering on the edge, and some just don’t have a sturdy enough footing to get back on track. This one is for all the lost girls.”

Watch the video Diane herself below, with direction and camera assistance by Soraya Kim (aged twelve):

Who’s Keeping Time? 22nd May via Fluff & Gravy Records and Loose Music and you can pre-order it now.

Alex Zhang Hungtai – Mother / Sidewinder

You might recognise Taiwan-born, Canada-based artist, musician and actor Alex Zhang Hungtai from a number of different things, be it acts like Dirty Beaches, Last Lizard and Love Theme, the composer behind themes for films like Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland, or as part of one-night-only-at-the-Roadhouse band Trouble in Twin Peaks. But now he is now pursuing a more improvised style of music under his own name. This June sees the release of double album Orion/Mother via American Dreams, and Hungtai has shared a single from each of the records to give an indication of the singular, visionary sound which awaits. “Both tracks share a common theme,” as he expands. “An exploration of the primordial state within the unconscious that leads to a confrontation with what is unspoken and hidden. The symbolism is neither negative nor positive, but a guide that snakes its way across the psychogeographic terrain of the mind.” An ideal entry point to a double album which layers a variety of instruments, an ensemble of collaborators and indeed an array of time periods over one another, recombining a patchwork of past and present to conjure something entirely new.

Orion/Mother will be released on the 19th June via American Dreams and you can pre-order it now.

Brittany Ann Tranbaugh – Wissahickon

We last wrote about Brittany Ann Tranbaugh back in 2023 with the release of single ‘We Could Be Comets‘, a track which saw the Philadelphia-based songwriter portray love from different angles. Embracing both the intense yearning of the early days and the slow burn yearning upon reflection, the result painted something rooted in the real world, too complicated for romantic epiphany yet no less magic for it. “In her compassionate and always controlled tone, [Tranbaugh accepts] that a happy ever after might not be possible,” we wrote, “instead parcelling the feelings into brief moments which burn bright if only for a moment.” Now Tranbaugh is back with ‘Wissahickon’, a track no less authentic in tone, though one unafraid to embrace romance unapologetically. One in which playfulness and humour do not preclude sincerity, lending the whole thing a distinctively Prine-ian vibe.

My girl’s a redneck with a PhD
She don’t condescend to me
She took a lot of hits and a lot of heat
She came out tough and she came out sweet

Now we’re waist-deep in the Wissahickon
Like her so much let her take me fishin’
Didn’t know what I’d been missin’
Sunlight making the river shine

FAITH PLATES – Fever

Born in Germany to Romanian-Hungarian immigrant parents, FAITH PLATES might have grown up in various places around the world, spending time in South Carolina, China, Germany and the UK, but her music is marked by a clear fondness for the US of the early 2000s. Take latest single ‘Fever’, a decidedly nostalgic track built from the simplicity of vocals and guitar which pines for a time and place now left behind. Or perhaps one which never quite existed, the song evoking an idealised version as remembered from afar, packed full of striking details amid an otherwise hazy warmth (“Spanish moss and / magnolias in / the summer breeze / remember me”). However, there’s also a melancholy built into such a style, the implicit knowledge of having lost the thing so dear, and worse, knowing it can never return.

‘Fever’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Henry Nielsen – Beginning Of The End

Part of the current folk rock revival, North London songwriter Henry Nielsen follows in the footsteps of contemporaries like Brown Horse, taking the rustic charm of classic country tunes and adds a decidedly seventies-style polish and warmth. Ahead of debut full-length Hollyhocks next month, Nielsen has shared latest single ‘Beginning Of The End’. Described as “the story of someone who can’t meet the people in their life halfway,” the song follows a narrator towards the impending realisation of the title, its easygoing rhythm tracing an accumulation of regrets in real time. So though the sound is assured and romantic, the situation it brings to life is anything but. A snapshot from a relationship that’s ultimately doomed, the protagonist gradually opening their eyes to the consequences of actions.

Watch the video directed by Lawrence Dodgson and Will Thomson below:

Hollyhocks will be released on the 29th May. ‘Beginning of the End’ is out now.

MEGGO – Jaws of Life

We last wrote about MEGGO back in 2024 with the release of EP eavesdropper ;; death stories. “‘brooklyn, pt. 1’ has a lot more going on beneath the surface than you might glean on first listen,” we wrote of the lead single. “Each layer carries its own shade and meaning, accentuated by [Megan] Ennenberg’s warm and soulful delivery, [and] there are other dimensions to the track too. Stylistic choices which go beyond tone and structure and into its execution, as though MEGGO is inviting us not only into Brooklyn but also the song itself.” Now MEGGO is back with a new single ‘Jaws of Life’ and the result is similarly nuanced, Ennenberg using the duality of the titular equipment (where hydraulic force, almost violence, is used to rescue and comfort a victim, and ultimately return them home). “This song means a ton to me. Writing it helped me imagine my future and appreciate my past,” she explains:

There are a bunch of little secret sonic nuggets throughout the song that infuse it with good vibes, like the sound of my love coming in and out of the room while I was recording vocals, my dear big brother slaying the harmonica, and a roommates choir made up of a bunch of the friends I’ve built homes with throughout my 20s. Their voices singing together sound like a hug. So much is uncertain and spooky these days but this message feels simple and clear and unwaveringly true, a reminder of what’s good and important, that love is the strongest stuff.

Swapmeet – Sand

“Pairing jangle and fuzz with a buoyant energy, the track represents the very best of the project,” we wrote of Swapmeet‘s ‘I Know’, the Aussie four-piece’s first single having signed with Winspear. “A sound able to encompass both sardonic slacker bite and cathartic alt rock release, rising from sly, taut beginnings into something with serious size and heft.” Now Swapmeet have announced their new album Mount Zero, and new track ‘Sand’ shows off a different dimension to the band. A more reflective and earnest track which mourns that which is lost within contemporary youth, where a thousand distractions rob some of the magic away from the experience. The dual vocals only ramp up the emotional resonance of the sound, though while the style might seem more restrained than its predecessor, the conclusion still whips itself up into something of a cathartic release.

Watch the video directed by David Milan Kelly below:

Mount Zero will be released on the 17th July via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

Thin Lear – Healing Alone

We’ve featured a number of singles from Thin Lear‘s new album Many Disappeared in recent months, from the Mothman-inspired ‘Silver Bridge‘ (“the song uses the myth as a way to investigate grief and its accompanied challenges, pushing deeper than the usual cheap thrills of the story to probe at the weightiest of issues”) and personal trauma-tale of ‘Witness‘ to the supremely ambitious and evocative ‘A Cherished Man‘, which followed a trio of dysfunctional characters as they searched for human connection in a world which seemed set against it. With the record now out via First City Artists, Thin Lear has shared the closing track as a final single. A suitably haunting number which again teases a narrative to life with careful details and an enveloping mood, while Matt Longo’s vocals add a very human compassion too.

Friend, can you hear the call?
From deep in a tomb
Oh, I see ‘em now, the sad eyes
Fixed to the stone
Oh, I can see ‘em now, the sad eyes
Fixed to the stone

Many Disappeared is out now via First City Artists and you can get it from the Thin Lear Bandcamp page.

Tory Silver – Your God

“There’s a healthy does of existential dread sure, but there’s also enough garage rock crunch for it to feel rousing too. An anthem for the masses forced to drag themselves out of bed every morning to keep on keeping on.” So we wrote of Tory Silver‘s ‘Microwave’ back in March, a single from their new album In Through the Front with Lasers forthcoming via Michi Tapes. A fitting introduction to an album which deals with, as per the artist, “chronic pain, losing a friend to a cult (at least I think?), jealousy, overthinking death and the jobs that make everything worse. The stress that compounds daily. The realization that the world doesn’t stop being painful just because you need it to.” Digging further into this headspace, Tory Silver’s latest single ‘Your God’ sets an exploration of friendship (or rather, the lack thereof) and religious bigotry to an upbeat, almost carefree sound. How you interpret this style is up to you, and both have thematic resonance: A Trojan horse where difficult subjects are broached under the guise of having fun? Or an attempt to sand some of the sharp edges from these difficult subjects so it is possible to talk about them at all?

I thought we’d always be friends
And where’s the compassion
From a God who is love
I don’t need to compare your God to mine, but mine never judged me at all

Watch the video below, edited ‪quiet sports‬:

In Through the Front with Lasers will be released on the 29th May via Michi Tapes and you can pre-order it now.

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After previous singles ‘Je Nes Sais Pas’ (a track of bright energy and fading dreams, not to mention a trademark wit and humour”) and ‘Dark Out’ (“has all the idiosyncratic style which has won the New York outfit such a following, managing to maintain a toe-tapping brightness despite the desperation and soul bubbling beneath the surface”), Frog have now shared latest single ‘Best Buy’ to mark the release of Frog For Sale via Audio Antihero. The song is typical of the release, pairing a sound that’s sunny and playful with lyrics that possess a darker edge, spiralling into the male psyche and its attempts to appear not bothered by things which clearly bother it.

The result is a languid calm that strains against something more desperate, Bateman’s vocals sounding as though they’re fighting to maintain their wry humour and cool attitude. It’s unclear whether the protagonist is pathetic, creepy, dangerous or none of those things, merely following a normal daydream in his head. “Well I thought about you on the way to work and it occurred to me I want you to know,” as he sings in the opening. “I know it always hurts when I’m a jerk when I’m at work what am I doing it for / I’ve resolved to try and find a way inside of your vagina and to that end I’m sorta tryna get you alone.”

Why don’t you just get married to the next guy impressed by your spit-shiney hair
I run into you in Bed Stuy at Best Buy and there’s no hiding there, though I did try
1234567, all good children go to heaven
All good singers purchase Zyns at the 711 in the tins

Photo by Jarod A. Walker

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