The title track explores the ways in which our sense of self can be distorted by pernicious others, pushing through vulnerability to reclaim a sense of agency. “[‘Dragonfly’] rejects this sentiment in favour of self-love,” we wrote, “embodying an album that champions softness, vulnerability and what is too often labelled as imperfection within a society pathologically attached to certain modes of living.” Elsewhere, ‘More Than a Friend‘ views this idea from a different angle, reflecting on previous relationships and the compromises which came with them before deciding on the freedom of being single, while ‘Young Girl’ pushes back even further to childhood trips to Oregon. “While the lyrics offer a layered picture of a personal, the sound itself opts for simple clarity,” we wrote of the single. “An arrangement which allows the vocals, and the narrative picture they evoke, to take centre stage, and thus highlight [McCoy]’s growing talents as both a songwriter and storyteller.”

With the album now released, Ava McCoy has returned with a brand new video for ‘More Than a Friend’. Directed by Aidan Millroy, shot and colored by Clark Ivers and with additional shots and photography by Eden Niefer, the vid was filmed in part during closing hours at the Met Museum, as well as around Central Park. “Making a music video in one of the most iconic museums in the neighborhood where I grew up was a proud moment for my inner child,” McCoy explains. “This video highlights my personality in new ways, and the range of emotions I feel throughout the song while working through the aftermath of a relationship. We encountered weather changes, and were forced to adapt to whatever the city was giving us on our shooting days. I think this video is very honest, carefree, and visually captivating. It feels very me.”

Dragonfly is out now via Acrophase Records and Secretly Distribution and available from the Ava McCoy Bandcamp page.

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A collaboration between multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Tessa Collins and drummer Andrew Wilkinson, Altai create music that lands somewhere between dream pop, post-punk and folk. Both members live on farms, and say their forthcoming debut EP was created “between dodgy Wi-Fi and driving tractors.” Lead single ‘Like You Need It’ is a good introduction. Released just as the southern hemisphere moves into autumn, the song is suffused with a romantic nostalgia and the gnawing melancholy of the changing seasons. “Wanting to be wanted, feeling woeful as the cheery summer days come to an end,” the band describe. “You turn to your partner for affectionate reassurance that might just ease the seasonal blues.”

‘Like You Need It’ is out now via Broken Palace.

Ava McCoy – More Than a Friend

Described by the artist as “a patchwork quilt of me post-college,” Ava McCoy‘s forthcoming album Dragonfly “run[s] the gamut between hushed folk and driving indie rock to offer a sonic palette wide enough to paint a diverse collection of scenes and feelings,” as we wrote in a preview. With the record set for release via Acrophase Records at the end of the month, McCoy is back with ‘More Than a Friend’, another square in this mosaic which focuses on a Christmas spent in the UK reflecting on past loves and the compromises which came with them. But with a propulsive energy and bright jangle, the track finds freedom in the situation, embracing the agency of being single.

Don’t Worry – Unbelieveable

“Balancing heart-on-the-sleeve emo confession with a distinctively British self-deprecation.” So we wrote of Don’t Worry‘s forthcoming album Idealism back in April, a full-length which sees the Essex outfit evolve their sound while staying true to the spirit that has won them fans with previous albums. With the record set for release this summer on Specialist Subject Records, Don’t Worry are back with ‘Unbelievable’, a song which evokes the dystopia of lockdown-era Britain with a disarmingly bright and sunny sound. The single therefore owes an equal debt to the romanticised past and soul-sapping present, the warm Beatles-esque tones belying the cold hard reality of the contemporary moment.

Frankie Cosmos – Bitch Heart

New York indie favourites Frankie Cosmos are returning this June with brand new full-length Different Talking on Sub Pop, with the ever present lead Greta Kline joined by Alex Bailey, Katie Von Schleicher and Hugo Stanley in the project’s current iteration to create what might be their most collaborative record to date. The album collects a myriad of memories and images into a cohesive whole, exploring growing older amid the unstoppable passage of time, and latest single ‘Bitch Heart’ centres on the competing allures of comfort and raw experience which push and pull a person over the course of their lives. The track comes complete with a video by Eliza Lu Doyle which further pushes into these ideas, all shot on infrared and thermal cameras to position it firmly within a surreal space. “To me the song is about being torn between the comforts of domesticated life and your innate wildness,” Doyle explains. “There’s a yearning for a more feral time—before you touched your fucking phone all day. So we made Greta into a dog-shepherd, someone who straddles those two realms.”

Different Talking is out on the 27th June via Sub Pop and you can pre-order it now.

Fuubutsushi – Loop Trail

This June sees the release of Columbia Deluxe, a live release by ambient jazz quartet Fuubutsushi, via American Dreams. Taken from a show at the Columbia Experimental Music Festival, the project’s only live performance to date, the collection finds the quartet working to adapt tracks recorded remotely for the live setting, drawing from the breadth of their work and allowing intuition, risk-taking and collaborative spirit to flourish in close proximity. Half the magic of the release is the way in which the tracks flow into one another across the performance, meaning it is best experienced as a whole. Though lead track ‘Loop Trail’ offers a suitable snapshot of what to expect. A number indebted to both the patience of ambient aesthetics and old-school punk ethos, drawing the audience into a soundscape at once poignant and meditative.

HLLLYH – Uru Buru

Last month we introduced HLLLYH, a project risen from the ashes of 00s favourites the Mae Shi which is preparing to release brand new album, URUBURU. What the band describe as “an end-of-the-world story written on a mobius strip” the record lacks none of the invention and personality which made the Mae Shi stand out so clearly from the crowd of indie buzz bands. Released as the latest single, the opener and title track shows such a spirit is present from the very start, the newly invigorated outfit wasting no time to establish their fist-pumping charm and offering a timely reminder that energy persists irrespective of everything. “We’ve been eating our own tail for as long as i remember / We’ve been doing it wrong right from the start,” as the opening verse states. “But one thing I know / one thing that’s sure / one light outshines.”

URUBURU is out on the 27th June via Team Shi and you can pre-order it from the HLLLYH Bandcamp page.

Hudson Freeman – Good Faith

Combining the atmospheric intensity of slowcore with the closeness of bedroom pop, the work of Hudson Freeman pushes boundaries in terms of genre conventions while maintaining a direct emotional resonance. Later this month the Springfield, Missouri songwriter will release Is A Folk Artist, a brand new album which employs this style to explore some of the largest themes possible. Because though the record is situated within a coming-of-age experience, it probes deeper than the usual uncertainty and angst of young life. Rather, Freeman follows the likes of David Bazan in using the period to reflect on the metaphysical as well as the personal, drawing on a religious upbringing to explore how meaning might be located within the digital present. Check out latest single ‘Good Faith’ now:

Is A Folk Artist is out on the 29th May via Mendel Records.

Jack Goldstein – MUD MICE

The music of Margate’s Jack Goldstein is nothing if not ambitious. He bends the pop spectrum into a perfect circle and makes himself comfortable at the point where both poles—earworm commercial and oddball avant garde—meet. Forthcoming album HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER COWPUNCHING JEWBOY is a case in point. Goldstein describes it as ​”a fever dream in a parallel dimension where Britney Spears makes a fully fledged country and western album around the time she shaves her head—the moment this cosmic heartache begins to envenom the world.” If that’s hared to envisage, then give lead single ‘MUD MICE’ a spin. A ludicrously infectious and imaginative song that displays both a  country twang and pop polish.

HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER COWPUNCHING JEWBOY is out on the 20th June via Fabulous Things.

Juan Wauters – Dime Amiga

Although now based in NYC, Juan Wauters was born in Montevideo and, for the first time in his career, returned to the Uruguayan capital to make album MVD LUV, coming via Captured Tracks. Created not just in his own studio, but also the city itself (on sidewalks, rooftops, in the homes of friends), the album has a sense of Montevideo in its very bones. Latest single ‘Dime Amiga’ is a good place to start. Sung in Spanish, it’s a gentle and heartwarming song about the importance of loved ones. “‘Dime Amiga’ is a song that sparked while seeing my daughter cry,” Wauters sings. “The chorus just came out as we were there. I wanted the song to highlight life’s difficulties and how important it is to have a friend on your side if it ever gets hard.” His daughter also has a starring role in the video (written and directed by Lucía Garibaldi, Fatos Marishta, Eric McLeland, Matthew Volz and Wauters himself), which sees her wander off into the bustle of New York as Wauters’s busks for donut money.

MVD LUV will be released via Captured Tracks on 27th June. Pre-order it now from the Juan Wauters Bandcamp page.

Mourning [A] Blkstar – Letter To A Nervous System

We’ve covered a couple of singles from Mourning [A] Blkstar‘s new full-length Flowers of the Living in recent months, first the patient and quietly radical ‘Stop Lion 2‘ and then the striking ‘Let ‘Em Eat‘. The latter “pivots from bright, affirming beginnings into something else entirely,” we wrote in our piece, the song staying “true to the visionary, boundary-pushing spirit of the project” by shifting the vibe entirely and welcoming rapper Fatboi Sharif for a closing verse. With the album out later this week on Don Giovanni Records, MAB has unveiled final single ‘Letter To A Nervous System’ and the track is no less inventive. Another lesson in the power of understatement, the languid rhythm and crooned vocals full of assured confidence and aching longing.

Flowers of the Living is out on the 16th May via Don Giovanni Records and you can pre-order it now.

Snake Lips – Thumbs Up

This summer sees the return of Portland, Maine indie punk outfit Snake Lips with Cat Beach, a brand new full-length on Repeating Cloud. Previous release Happy Anxious was an album “delivered with both volatility and wry humour,” as we wrote in a preview, “as though strung out between hope and despair and choosing to ride the instability,” and the new record looks to build upon these foundations, as introduced by lead single, ‘Thumbs Up’. It’s a surf-inflected slice of garage rock which again embraces the danger and thrill of sheer momentum, burning bright and quick no matter consequences and ultimately revealing the real threat comes from within. “Brake check / I’m driving in the wrong lane / Blacked out / Alcohol and cocaine,” as the song opens. “So cool / I’m calling you the wrong name / Too bad / I’m the only one in my way.”

Watch the video by Ninety-Five Films below:

Cat Beach will be released on the 25th July via Repeating Cloud and you can pre-order it now.

Will Orchard – Nothing Fog

“A dream-folk track which preaches the benefits submission within an overwhelming world, complicating the lines between playfulness, sadness and acquiescence.” So we wrote of Will Orchard‘s ‘Down‘ back in April, what has since been revealed to be the closing track of his forthcoming third album, Behind The Shadow Glass. To announce the record, Orchard has shared another single, ‘Nothing Fog’. Again presenting a nuanced atmosphere, the track uses a decidedly sincere style to explore a sense of uncertainty, its confessional tone unafraid of revealing its own vulnerabilities and loss of confidence. Yet it is the sound’s brightness which persists in spite of all of this, leading to something ultimately affirming. “‘Nothing Fog’ expresses something very central to my struggle as a human,” as Orchard puts it. “The feeling of pushing your own wants and needs aside, and always trying to consider every perspective, until you can no longer recognize your own.”

Yoshika Colwell – A Poem About Walking

In April we introduced On The Wing, the forthcoming release from Yoshika Colwell on Blue Flowers. An album, at its heart “about acceptance and release, and freedom from old binds,” as Colwell herself describes, collecting a series of key experiences and events from across the years in order to not only process the journey so far but to chart a more hopeful path forward. Latest single ‘A Poem About Walking’ embodies the compassion and self-acceptance of this endeavour, finding its subject at the rock bottom of a troubled relationship though still holding onto small embers of possibility. The hope, that is, to achieve a more fulfilling and healthy existence, even if it means passing through a period of solitude and reflection in order to map out its shape. Watch the video by Tilly Wace below:

On The Wing is out on the 25th July via Blue Flowers and you can pre-order it now.

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Described by Acrophase as “a coming-of-age record in the truest sense,” the album sees Ava McCoy expand her sound to new territory, running the gamut between hushed folk and driving indie rock to offer a sonic palette wide enough to paint a diverse collection of scenes and feelings. “Dragonfly feels like a patchwork quilt of me post-college,” as McCoy explains:

Realizing the dumb decisions I made (maybe don’t get that tattoo in your dorm room), the things I should’ve said, the ways in which I’ve changed. My tendency to self-sabotage. Friendships and relationships that have gone sour. Surviving sexual harassment and assault, and allowing myself to speak about it freely after spending almost a decade being ashamed. Since writing and recording these songs, I’m no longer afraid to say everything on my mind.

Highlighting the cathartic dimension of Dragonfly, the title track explores the loss of identity which can come with viewing yourself through the eyes of others, and how we might reclaim our sense of selves from within such pernicious conditions. “At that time in my life, I wasn’t eating, and I was the smallest I had ever been,” she says. “I went to the doctor weekly out of concern for my well-being, but I was being praised by the person I loved for the drastic changes in my body.” The result rejects this sentiment in favour of self-love, embodying an album that champions softness, vulnerability and what is too often labelled as imperfection within a society pathologically attached to certain modes of living.

Watch the video by Aidan Millroy below:

Dragonfly is out on the 30th May via Acrophase Records and you can pre-order it now.

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Seattle’s 129,600, the recording project of Jade Tcimpidis, is preparing to release their debut album Granular Convection with Ghost Mountain Records. Described as exploring the “limits of tradition in the consumer era,” the album sees Kalen Walther (bass), Kirsten Ourada (drums) and Neil Welch (baritone saxophone) join Tcimpidis to conjure a sound which straddles dustbowl folk and art pop invention, all while reaching towards psych and jazz. Lead single ‘Techi’ highlights this singular style, where all manner of details spin from a taut rhythm, making for a twitchy, volatile mood. Tcimpidis’s vocals are equally frantic, and coupled with the sax evokes the paranoid vibe of Coppola’s The Conversation, with all its schemes and surveillance.

‘Techi’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Casters – Memory

Casters is the recording project of Andrew Strader and a rotating cast of supporting musicians, based in Brooklyn via Nashville and Knoxville. With EP Walk on Home coming soon via Like You Mean It Records, Strader has shared single ‘Memory’ to give an indication of what to expect from the release. This time featuring Neil MacLean (Home Visions, Griffin Moyer) on keys/synths and Connor James (Pat & The Pissers) on drums, the track draws on Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again to explore the impossibility of returning to a place you’ve left behind. All cast in a dreamy drift that marbles fondness and regret into sound so rich you could suspend yourself within it.

Chris Chism – On The Run

Focusing on the working class experience and following a lineage through Dylan and van Zandt, Richmond, Indiana’s Chris Chism delves into the personal to emerge with a more universal picture of life’s joys and struggles. New EP Things Has Changed develops this style, and single ‘On The Run’ is the perfect place to jump in. A semi-autobiographical portrait of a young person beaten down by life—loosing those close to them, experiencing brushes with the law, and generally searching for reasons to continue on amid a slew of misfortune—though one captured with the patience and empathy only hindsight can bring.

 Hit Bargain – Degree Decree

Featuring members who are/have been parts of acts like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Beach Fossils and Cold Beat, Hit Bargain is a LA-based project led by Nora Singh which aims to stare the worst excesses of our society square in the eye. It is of no surprise then that new album A DOG A DEER A SEAL is charged by equal parts manic fervour and anxious frenzy, playing like the fevered delirium of a country’s dying mind. Single ‘Degree Decree’ might clock in at barely two minutes but portrays this mood in all of its maniacal panic, where the technological hubris of consumerism encroaches on our world as a synthetic blight.

Check out the video directed by Katharine Antoun below (though those with photosensitive epilepsy should note there are flashing images):

A DOG A DEER A SEAL is out on the 10th November via Get Better Records and you can pre-order it now.

June Rosewell – a solid state

Nashville songwriter June Rosewell recently released a new EP, the dog bit at such an angle. It’s a collection of songs in which frustration and tenderness coexist and hope refuses to ever quite evaporate. Take single ‘a solid state’, a track about moving home which sees Rosewell’s intimate croon relays scenes with an everyday poetry. “In the morning we were packing up our boxes,” the opening lines play, “and our friends / Brushed our backbones with their warm thumbs while they sent us off again.” Later the song reveals the significance of the EP’s title (“The dog bit at such an angle where I thought I’d need a stitch”), and endeavours to show the invisible bonds that persist even as all that is familiar is upended.

Sitting quietly in a pair in the back seat of mother’s car
While she hummed along to songs she chose to deaden worry’s roar
We’re moving states, we’re moving states
A solid state, a solid state

the dog bit at such an angle is out now and available from the usual places.

Kendl Winter – Humming Mantra

Beginning as a way to both explore the clawhammer banjo and share this process with fans and peers, Kendl Winter’s forthcoming album Banjo Mantras originated in a daily practice of improvisation. “The banjo mantras started off as morning writings, like morning pages but in musical form,” she explains. “Daily pen to paper, fingers to strings, listening, feeling, sliding and thumbing my way around my open back banjo.” But the more Winter committed to the concept, the more she became attached to the ideas which emerged, and eventually decided to expand the resulting mantras into fleshed out soundscapes. First single ‘Humming Mantra’ channels the Pacific Northwest’s verdant summertime, full of small details and a sense of invigorating clarity.

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

leoblu – dirty windows

“It’s unclear if the events [portrayed] are autobiographical or fiction,” we wrote of leoblu‘s ‘cake‘ back in January, “but the emotions are so keenly felt that whether these things actually happened seems almost besides the point.” The project of Åland-based songwriter Julia Carlsson, leoblu complicates the divide between truth and fiction in order to locate a deeper emotional honesty, weaving a layered and controlled sound that has been described as ‘dark pop’. Latest single ‘dirty windows’ pushes further into this style, taking the titular image to explore the cycles of stasis and rejuvenation that come with depression. Again the sound is beguilingly understated, growing subtly across its length as though slowly thawing from a deep freeze.

Watch the video shot and edited by Jonathan Carlsson below:

‘dirty windows’ is out now and available via streaming services.

Mali Velasquez – Shove

Next month Mali Velasquez is releasing full-length I’m Green on Acrophase Records. An album, as we described in a preview of single ‘Bobby‘, which explores “how our relationships with ourselves can be so conflicted and uneasy, and the way in which this is governed by our experiences with those around us.” Homing in on a specific relationship with a sound somewhere between vulnerable and visceral, latest single ‘Shove’ delves into the way our actions can be detrimental within such experiences no matter how pure the motivation. “I wrote this song in an attempt to explain the feeling of seeing myself doing the wrong things in the perfect moment,” as Velasquez puts it.

I’m Green is out on the 13th October via Acrophase Records.

The Rural Alberta Advantage – Conductors

Next month sees the return of Canadian indie stalwarts The Rural Alberta Advantage with their brand new full-length The Rise & The Fall on Paper Bag Records and Saddle Creek. Though, despite their experience, latest single ‘Conductors’ explores how the process of writing songs gets no easier no matter how many records you have under your belt. “There is so much I love about being in a band. But one of its most fundamental aspects causes me more mental anguish than anything else, and that’s actually writing songs,” as Nils Edenloff explains. “When I’m able to tune out the doubting voice in my head and get it done, there’s no greater feeling. But often the devil wins and it’s easier to just run away.” This time it took drummer Paul Banwatt’s threat to use AI generated lyrics for Edenloff to shake off the doubt, and the video by Good Job Hi Five channels Adam Curtis to foreground the sense of human creativity struggled against the encroachment of systems and machines.

Why, why do I run?
From the work and the words before it’s done
Sometimes I’m always waiting on what will never come
Before it’s done, now every thought weighs a ton
Taking it on the chin for a while
Taking it like a champ for a while

The Rise & The Fall is out on the 6th October via Paper Bag Records and Saddle Creek and you can pre-order it now.

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Latest single ‘Bobby’ throws the listener headlong into the depths of such ideas. Presenting a young Mali Velasquez coming to terms with the passing of her mother, beset by both the permanence and fragility of the memories etched within such days. The sound starts out tentative, washed with electronic glitches like light leaks and distortion on an old photograph, though gathers momentum as it progresses. As though in cataloguing the moment, Velasquez is not only attempting to move beyond it, but to ensure some part of it remains intact however much time might pass.

“Getting these songs out has been really healing for me,” she explains. “Before, the way I was grieving was just kind of holding it all in, waiting for it to release. These songs have given me a new perspective on grief. At one time, I didn’t think anything good could come from this. There’s nothing left of my mom on the planet, and that can be super strange to talk about, but I do feel like there are little pieces of her living in these songs, which is very comforting to me.”

Check out the video by director and videographer Reed Schick, with animation by Chase Hall:

I’m Green is out on the 13th October via Acrophase Records.

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Brooklyn-based musician Alexei Shishkin is about to release new record Goodbye Sunrise on Rue Defense, and latest track ‘Froze Up’ serves as an entry point for those unfamiliar with his jazz-inflected pop rock style. With sax and even some neo-soul elements working their way into the mix. Offering direction to the album’s title, the song conjures not so much a bright dawn as a tropical city night. An open-topped car ride through neon-lit streets, perhaps the last people awake and feeling easy with it, as though with a little luck and not much effort the night might just stretch on forever.

Long nights
fast cars
the city bars
are closed up
and I froze up

Corey Gulkin – Half Moon

“How were we before this?” sings Corey Gulkin on the title track of their upcoming LP Anything Bagel. “Was it all so simple?” The album sees the Montreal artist delve into the fully intricacies of the self, disavowing any clear intention or conclusion in favour of something more natural and kind. “I wanted to engage with parts of myself that I was most afraid of and let them speak their mind, without shame or judgment,” as Gulkin explains. “This album overall feels like both a coming out and a coming into myself.” Watch the video for the single below, filmed and directed by Nasuna Stuart-Ulin, with special effects by Dustyn Lucas:

Half Moon is out on the 6th October via on Anything Bagel and you can pre-order it now.

goodgrief – two wheel drive

Be it in his solo work or through bands like Young Elk and The Slow Sound, the music of Ezekiel Rudick always packs a punch of the darkest kind. Songs which reluctantly set out into the shadowy realm of the past through all the lurking traumas, sometimes emerging with some sense of catharsis and others nothing but bitterness. With love birds, the latest record from his solo project goodgrief, coming this September on Rue Defense, Rudick has shared new single ‘two wheel drive’. A continuation of Rudick’s new mission statement to make “happy-sounding sad music” which blends the 90s shoegaze of Low with a Bazan-esque earnest-yet-forthright delivery.

Lee Baggett – All Star Day

“Like a long-lost seventies summer jam complete with a surreal slacker spirit which captures that easy-going West Coast swagger.” That’s how we described ‘Fruit Dog‘, a song from Lee Baggett released last summer. The track captured the spirit of Baggett’s work, having played in various bands in California since the eighties, eventually meeting fellow musician and surfer Kyle Fields and playing with Little Wings and the Be Gulls for going on two decades. With new album Echo Me On coming next winter on Perpetual Doom, Baggett is back with ‘All Star Day’, and the song might just capture the vibe even better than the last. An embodiment of those perfect summer days you had in your youth, and a reminder that such carefree bliss is still available for those willing to search it out. “The song came to me in my head already done,” Baggett explains. “I couldn’t even bend it a little bit.”

Mali Velasquez – Tore

Described as “a perennial introspection into the wild animal of young adulthood,” Mali Velasquez’s forthcoming LP I’m Green on Acrophase Records explores everything from grief to the trials of toxic relationships, though above all works to acknowledge how our biggest critic so often comes from within. Lead single ‘Tore’ takes on self-judgement directly, looking to overcome the unrealistic barriers and expectations we create for ourselves with a mix of gentle compassion and heartfelt catharsis. “‘Tore’ is a song mostly about my own way of self-sabotaging,” Velasquez says. “I have no idea how to combat being embarrassed all the time still, but explaining it some has helped. Being comfortable in my skin is something that feels out of reach a lot of the time. I put a lot of my ideas of not knowing how to feel or what to do or eat or wear into this song.” Check out the video directed by Reed Schick below:

I’m Green is out on the 13th October via Acrophase Records.

Middle Priest – Act Your Age

LA-based outfit Middle Priest are gearing up to release their debut EP, I thought that I was far away, very soon, and have unveiled their very first single to give an indication as to what to expect. Led by Raleigh native Colson Dorafshar, the band offer a bright and emotionally charged sound that lands somewhere between the rich, country-inflected rock of the likes of The Wooden Sky and probing resonance of someone like Sinai Vessel. “How long must I wait for you?” Dorafshar asks in the opening lines. “How long ’til you’re ready to / come home, talk it out? I am a man now, don’t be a child, no / I’ve been missing you.” The song proceeds from this opening, the sound ebbing and flowing as Dorafshar questions and pleads with this significant other. Though no clear answers emerge, there’s nevertheless something affirming in the bright momentum of the sound.

POSTDATA – Try

Though better known as lead of Canadian rock royalty Wintersleep, Paul Murphy has also developed a solo career under the moniker POSTDATA. With new full-length Run Wild coming soon via Paper Bag Records, Murphy has unveiled latest single ‘Try’, and all the elements which have made him such a prominent songwriter in Canadian independent music are present. From his distinctively searching vocals to the melding of pop and idiosyncratic sensibilities, this time to paint a picture of a frustrated musician driving themselves onwards, regardless of whether the terminus is a brighter horizon or total breakdown. “I think this is about following your passion wherever it leads,” Murphy explains. “There’s a sense of humour I think to it and a sense of lightness and darkness and desperation too. Essentially, they are the same lyrics in verse 1 and 2 with a slight twist in perspective or that’s what I’m trying to arrive at.”

Run Wild is set for release on the 22nd September via Paper Bag Records and you can pre-order it now.

Viv & Riley – Kygers Hill

Viv & Riley, AKA Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno, is a Durham-based duo preparing to release new album Imaginary People later this year on Free Dirt Records. The record combines pop, indie folk and traditional country sensibilities to evoke the nuances of nostalgia, and opener and lead single ‘Kygers Hill’ serves as the ideal intro to the sound. It’s a song based around Leva’s experiences returning to her childhood home of Virginia after moving away for college, and how new perspectives of such familiar places can emerge with distance and time. “It’s about missing your old home while trying to make a new one.” As Leva concludes. “It’s about growing up.” Watch the video directed by Leva and Calcagno themselves below:

Imaginary People is out on the 15th September via Free Dirt Records and you can pre-order it now.

Your Heart Breaks – Do you dare to dream with me? (feat. Wynne Greenwood)

We’ve shared a number of pieces on The Wrack Line by Your Heart Breaks in recent months, describing how the album functions as a version of title image, with Clyde Petersen detailing “a lifetime of friendships, feelings and memories, broken free of a gyre and left upon the artists’ shoreline.” Across eighteen tracks and with guest appearances from the likes of Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, R.Ring, Kimya Dawson, and Nana Grizol‘s Theo Hilton, The Wrack Line details not only a life spent on the margins, but also the community which Petersen chose to build there. With the album now out via Kill Rock Stars, final single ‘Do you dare to dream with me?’ invites the audience into this project of building a better world. The dreamily triumphant tones and Wynne Greenwood’s vocals convincing us that the impossible can be brought to life, if only we retain a sense of defiance and imagination.

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This month saw V.V. Lightbody return with brand new single, ‘Really Do Care’. A B-side from the Make a Shrine, the song continues the record’s personal tone, approaching anxieties around commitment with a distinctively idiosyncratic style. “This song acted as a self-soothing mantra for when I knew I couldn’t be with someone while also wanting to keep them in my back pocket,” McConnell explains. “I realize that ‘saving someone for later’ can be selfish and a little absurd, but this thought process was a sincere way to help make breaking things off less painful.”

Because for all of its worry and doubt, the song unfurls with warm patience, cyclic swirls of guitar and flute accompanied by the evocative slide guitar of Nashville’s Juan Solorzano. The result is a contemplative atmosphere in which concerns lose their sharp edges, can be held and studied in the palm of a hand. A way of bridging the gap between the past and the present in order to move forwards in the healthiest, kindest way possible. As McConnell concludes: “Sometimes you care too much, and sometimes you have to convince yourself to care.”

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Cold Beat – Mother

Out via DFA Records, the latest Cold Beat album, Mother, came into existence when front person Hannah Lew was expecting a child. “I found myself trying to describe our earth to a new human who had never been here,” they explain, submerged in what is undoubtedly a pessimistic age. “It was a bleak year to be pregnant, but I was simultaneously filled with so much love and hope at the same time.”

Mother is Lew’s attempt to communicate these conflicting sensations. Shot through with a binding sense of energy, the record channels the like of Au Revoir Simone in its otherworldly beauty, synths and guitars offering sparkling yet melancholic soundscapes that are constantly shifting. That said, the songs actively work against the sense of doom of our age, unearthing light amid the darkness, and finding a sense of hope and perseverance in the cycle of life.

MAITA – A Beast

Inspired by the songwriters of 2000s indie rock, from Conor Oberst to Lesley Feist, Maria Maita-Keppeler found her own artistic vision in the amalgamation of reality and poetry. The result is songs both honest and emotionally resonant, driven by the urge to communicate more deeply. “For me, songwriting comes from a place of wanting to find the truth in life,” Maita-Keppeler explains. “Sometimes that truth is so complex and nuanced that it requires a whole song to explain.”

Recording under the moniker MAITA, the Oregon-based musician works with such ideas in mind, crafting emotionally resonant tracks that look to convey what might otherwise be left unsaid. New single ‘A Beast’ is a superb example, drawing the listener in with the gentle lilt of the opening before plunging you headlong into the cold rush of the chorus. However, MAITA has a firm grip of your shoulders, and pulls you out for breath before immersing you once more.

Best Wishes will be released via Kill Rock Stars on the 3rd April and you can pre-order it now from the MAITA Bandcamp page.

Orpine – Sondern

Orpine is UK duo Eleanor Rudge and Oliver Catt, self-described migratory birds “singing in harmony 300 miles removed.” The pair had spent time together in the past, lending their talents to various bands and records, yet fell out of touch for several years before Rudge eventually reached out once more. A trip to Black Hill in the Scottish Borders entailed, and a four day writing period where the collaboration truly began.

The result was Grown Ungrown, a full-length album to be released this May on Heist or Hit. Forgoing the trappings of contemporary life, the album is a celebration of the natural and organic—tapping into the great rhythms of nature so as to create a space in which their own emotions can ebb and flow. Lead single ‘Sodern’ is a great example, a song ostensibly about loss and mourning that nevertheless finds the time to cycle through various moods and states. A seasonal song that finds not only comfort in the patterns of life, but something like awe.

Cold ice water covering my head
And a long, hard winter breaking whatever’s left
And black coal burning, warming my legs
And my old, lone island, sinking for itself

Grown Ungrown is out via Heist or Hit on the 15th May and you find Orpine on Bandcamp.

Alli Millstein – Smoke in Her Eyes

Combining folk and rock sensibilities and driven by an impressive vocal range, the music of Brooklyn songwriter Alli Millstein is an evocative trip through the emotions and vulnerabilities of modern life. New EP Psychic Distance represents an authentic and idiosyncratic experience, drawing as much on classic country rock as contemporaries such as Lucy Dacus, and capable of both urgency and dreamy patience.

Latest single ‘Smoke in Her Eyes’ is firmly in the latter camp. A slow ballad of lazy saxophone and unfurling lyrics, the song brings to mind the moving conversational power of Frederick Squire, Millstein possessing the confidence to lean into the expansive half-paced style.

There is a flame burning all day
too hot to touch it
There is a name on every page
too shy to say it

she’s on the tip of my tongue
and the skin of my hands
I sleep in her waves
and live on her land

Chase Weinacht – Leap Day

Best known as the singer of Austin band Marmalakes, Chase Weinacht records solo under his own name, and has teamed up with the ever-reliable Keeled Scales to release a brand new single, ‘Leap Day’. In contrast with the slick polish of the Marmalakes sound, Weinacht’s solo work is far more individual and textured, refusing the urge to iron out every kink or answer every question.

Such a sense of uncertainty marks ‘Leap Day’. The song is “about how big and small New York feels when you’re there with the people you’ve known for years,” Weinacht explains, “but how you can feel like an imposter in that very familiar person’s very unfamiliar-to-you world, like you can’t understand how they are so in their element in a place that feels so different from the space where you made the initial connection.” Chase Weinacht is not writing perfect answers to every ambiguity but mapping their shapes, making them known so that the common humanity there might be teased to the surface.

On a rooftop in Bushwick at 5am
I couldn’t look at you
Without almost leaning in
And if we’d been alone
I’d have had no control
but if we’d never met up
How would I have ever known

V.V. Lightbody – If It’s Not Me

Back in May last year, we wrote about ‘Babe, Honestly‘, a single by Chicago’s V.V. Lightbody on Acrophase Records. The song has a “surreal, constantly-shifting atmosphere that subverts and surpasses the genre conventions,” we wrote, noting the duality between the “delicate and hospitable sound masking a colder, more vicious tone.” Again working with Acrophase, Vivian McConnell and co. are back with a brand new full-length album, Make a Shrine or Burn It, to be released this May.

Lead single ‘If It’s Not Me’ serves as our introduction to the record. Although there might be an ambiguous space between the soft, warm sound and the lyrical themes, the bite of the previous single is replaced by something altogether more conciliatory. For rather than anger or jealousy, the song attempts to make peace with an ex and their new flame, viewing the ‘other woman’ not as some poisonous figure but a fellow human being. Treating this person “with respect and dignity,” McConnell explains, is “an important step for healing and one’s sanity.”

Make A Shrine Or Burn It will be released on the 1st May via Acrophase Records.

Grizzly Coast – Forever

Writing last year about the single ‘Half-Light Boy‘, we described the music of Alannah Kavanagh’s Grizzly Coast as “vivid […] heartbroken rock,” the song “operating within the liminal space between clinging to and moving on from someone who was once important […] a cathartic detailing of the profoundly wounding experience of another’s selfishness.”

A brand new Grizzly Coast single has just been released, and the song builds upon this style. Finding harmony between thoughtful lyricism and instrumental immediacy, ‘Forever’ is dream pop in its most potent form. The haziness of the genre is present but not overpowering, Kavanagh’s vocals cutting through the velvet tones in a forthright, confrontational manner. The result is something of a subversion of the usual conventions, a fight against the false romanticism of longing and loneliness.

Grizzly Coast is releasing her debut EP this spring, so be sure to follow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more news.

Foreign Fields – Rose Colored

Hailing from Wisconsin, Foreign Fields have been crafting some of the most evocative folk music of recent years, starting with their debut record in 2012. Indebted to both the natural world and the human experience, the songs of Eric Hillman and Brian Holl have always carried a quiet grandness, melancholy and wonder wound tight into soundscapes both lonely and affirming.

Brand new album The Beauty of Survival looks set to continue this style, holding up small pockets of human warmth against the cold. Latest single ‘Rose Colored’ displays this with its fittingly moving sound. A song “about contentment and the paths we take to reach it,” the song looks into the past for answers about the present. “It is probably the most autobiographical song on the record that closely follows our path and journey in making this record.”

Merpire – Heavy Feeling

Recording as Merpire, Melbourne’s Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt released her debut EP Endless Chatter back in 2018, a record that introduced her distinctive brand of urgent pop emotion. Leading up to an as of yet unannounced debut album, a series of singles followed that saw the sound evolve and grow. As our friends over at Swell Tone put it: “Building from acoustic beginnings, [Merpire] has developed a sound that maintains her songwriting’s signature punch of familiarity but ignites it with unexpected textures and tones to create her own mystical sonic world.”

Based around experiences of anxiety and discomfort, latest single ‘Heavy Feeling’ is a good view into the world Merpire is creating. Rich, affirming and confident, a steely-eyed glare into the face of one’s demons in the hope that they might just blink. “I write music to get those thoughts out of my head so that they seem like less of a reality I’ve created and more just thoughts that will pass,” Atkinson-Howatt explains. “This song is more straight-up lyrically, melodically, production-wise than previous releases. Straight to the point of ‘anxiety is shit so I’m going to write a loud, strummy song to get it out’.”

The debut Merpire album is on the horizon, so be sure to follow on Facebook and Instagram for further updates.

Minor Powers – Wound Like Me

Minor Powers is duo Megan Lightell and Derek Greene, partners from the Appalachian foothills who combine mountain music with indie rock to produce a bittersweet sound perfectly positioned to explore the age old themes of love and loss. Album Stones We Keep is a collection of such tracks, staying true to folk influences while adding newly emotive edges. As the Minor Powers website explains, the songs are “haunted by the past while grasping at the ephemeral nature of the present […] search[ing] for the meaning of memories and second chances.”

Single ‘Wound Like Me’ is the perfect example. The song “explores what life is without the one that chose another,” the band explain, as well as “the regret that follows.” But rather than the self-pity and melodrama of many a break-up record, Minor Powers offer something far more poignant. Embedded in the organic world, loss and longing are presented as another of nature’s cycles, persistent features of being alive.

Jordana – Crunch

The recording moniker of Wichita’s Jordana Nye, Jordana put out the record Classical Notions Of Happiness last year to some pretty impressive acclaim. Teaming up with Grand Jury Music, this March sees the re-release of that record, giving those who missed it the first time around the perfect opportunity to right the mistake and fall for Jordana’s distinctive brand of indie pop.

Despite being the closing track, latest single ‘Crunch’ is as good a place to start as any. Introducing Jordana’s knack for taking relatable vignettes and twisting them into evocative, layered weirdness, the track highlights how Nye masks her clever and often cutting writing within deceptively simple scenarios. “Crunch is a feeling of an overbearing want for validation from someone and getting the cold shoulder from them,” Nye explains. “The song starts out with the confidence in knowing this person could possibly notice you, and ends in anger and frustration seeing that they ignored you, established by a distorted guitar solo.“

Laveda – Ghost

Regular readers of VSF will recognise Laveda, the Albany duo of Jake Brooks and Ali Genevich, after we covered several releases in the past, including single ‘If Only (You Said No)’ back in November. Unbeknown to us, the song was actually part of the band’s forthcoming debut record, What Happens After, set for release this spring on Color Station.

Laveda used new single ‘Ghost’ to make the announcement. “It was the song that invented our sound,” Genevich explains. “If we had never written it I don’t think the rest of the record would sound the way that it does. It felt obvious and just right to make it the first track on the LP because it laid the foundation for all our other songs.” As we’ve come to expect, the song packs a real punch, setting up What Happens After to be one of the most anticipated dream rock albums of 2020.

Thanks for stopping on by for Vol. 33! Be sure to check out the Reviews and Previews sections for more in-depth writing, and do let us know what you’ve been listening to on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

The post Bright Sparks: Vol. 33 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Not that V.V. Lightbody is a solo endeavour. Indeed, its collaborative nature is made clear in its rich sound, with Daniel Pierson (keys), Matt Carroll (drums), Michael Harmon (bass), Evan Metz (guitar), Emma Hospelhorn (flute) and Wills McKenna (flute) all providing their talents to shape the songs. The various elements can present an almost jazz-like feel, offering a surreal, constantly-shifting atmosphere that subverts and surpasses the genre conventions.

Following up 2018 full-length debut, Bathing Peach, V.V. Lightbody is back with a brand new single with Acrophase Records, and the nap-rock aesthetic sounds better than ever. “‘Baby, Honestly’ is my ‘snake-in-the-grass’ song,” McConnell explains, “explor[ing] what sinning feels like as a chronic people pleaser.” This background suggests something of the duality present in the track, the delicate and hospitable sound masking a colder, more vicious tone in the themes. As McConnell continues, “[The song] is appropriately two faced: biting lyrics hidden beneath a lush and charming soundscape.

I used to tell the truth
Now I speak in two
Separate voices split
My tongue, venom spits

Now I color black and blue, it’s only my legs that’ll sit this thing through

The post V.V. Lightbody – Babe, Honestly appeared first on Various Small Flames.