Hailing from Regina, Saskatchewan, Darryl Kissick has made a name with the band Foxwarren along with Dallas Bryson, Andy Shauf and brother Avery Kissick. But he records solo under his own name too. Forthcoming album Goodbye Patterns invites Avery (drums/percussion) along with Andrea Hedlund (vocals/violin) to help create its sound, exploring themes as diverse as aliens, werewolves and various other extra-dimensional things. With that in mind, lead single ‘In the Middle’ might sound surprisingly subdued, though in reality, intricacy lies beneath the surface as Kissick works through the drifting strangeness of a depersonalised state.

In the middle of it
feel a little unlike yourself
saw a vision
from another dimension
now you don’t recognise yourself

Fast Romantics – Smoke + Lightning

Toronto’s Fast Romantics have a new record, their fourth, slated for released at the end of next month. Titled Happiness + Euphoria, the album sees core duo Matthew Angus and Kirty finally create something that has been on their minds for the best part of a decade. Latest single ‘Smoke + Lightning’ sees Kirty take on vocal duties to achieve an ethereal sound which questions the distinction between reality and dreams. One in which pressing emotion and unanswered questions are pursued with a kind of intuition, the dream logic of the subconscious brought to the surface and allowed to flow. Watch the video by by Raven Shields below:

Happiness + Euphoria will be released on 29th September via Postwar Records and you can order it form the Fast Romantics website.

Jordan Murawa – Let Her Dance

A cover of sixties rock & roll band The Bobby Fuller Four, ‘Let Her Dance’ is the latest single from Phoenix, Arizona singer songwriter Jordan Murawa. The original (which you may recognise from a certain Wes Anderson Roald Dahl adaptation) has a manic clockwork energy, but Murawa’s take is very different, instead sculpting the song right the way down to its gently aching heart. George White’s percussion adds a sense of widescreen weight, and the whole thing comes together with a feeling of lived-in emotion.

‘Let Her Dance’ is out now via streaming services.

Loose Wing – Capital Alphabet

Loose Wing are an indie rock band from Seattle, led by Claire Tucker (who also plays in psychgaze outfit Black Nite Crash). Along with her husband Jack Peters (bass), Aimee Zoe (drums) and Bill Patton (pedal steel, guitar), Tucker writes songs that combine catchy college rock with arty, left-field pop. Later this year, Loose Wing will release Miracle Baby, a brand new full-length on Drums & Wires Recordings and lead single ‘Capital Alphabet’ is our first taste of what to expect. It’s a gritty and defiant indie pop song that rallies against the soul-sucking drudgery enforced on many by the capitalist overlords, what Tucker describes as the “prevailing model of life where you get up, put all your energy into a job, then go home drained and exhausted.”

Things are looking up for the company
They’re gonna buy the moon
Things are looking up for the company
We’ve got a flash sale on single-use plastics

maeve & quinn – I Know I Will

Alaskan twin sisters Maris and Bryce O’Tierney, AKA maeve & quinn, are set to release their new LP Another Door in the very near future, and latest single ‘I Know I Will’ should convince anyone unaware of the duo to take note. Drawing on the landscape of their home of Anchorage, as well as their Irish heritage, the song offers a spacious, compassionate soundscape into which the listener is invited. Where the searching emotion of the narrator is balanced against something larger and unmoving, as though beyond personal trials exists solid ground upon which we can find our footing and realise who we are meant to be.

i’m not sorry that i’m on my own — /
the sky is clear…/
but my memory has a memory
that brings me back to you; /
and my memory has a memory /
and i don’t know what’s true //
on the outside /
i know i will //

Sea Lemon – Breakdown

We’ve featured several songs from Sea Lemon‘s EP Stop at Nothing in recent months, first the oneiric ‘Cellar‘ and then the ominous ‘Vaporized‘. With the release now out via Luminelle Recordings, Sea Lemon has released final single ‘Breakdown’, which sees Natalie Lew team up with Oakland’s Day Wave to create a nostalgic duet submerged beneath throwback nineties reverb. “The song is a campy story,” as Lew explains, “all about the aftermath after being wronged by someone where you’re trying to figure out if you should forgive and forget or seek revenge.” Watch the video below:

Stop At Nothing is out now on LUMINELLE and you can get it from the Sea Lemon Bandcamp page.

So It Was – Dance Now!

Back in June we wrote about ‘Speak Now!‘ by Daniel Lobb’s So It Was, a “combination of earnest heart and laidback charm” which “draws on a rich selection of instrumentation—from trumpet, trombone and clarinet to keyboards and electronics—yet always maintains a sense of casual ease.” With album Round the Mountain now out, Lobb has released brand new single, ‘Dance Now!’ A song which swaps out the languid calm for something altogether more taut and building, confronting the uneasy truth of change with as much positivity as it can muster. If things are uncertain, then why not roll with the punches and lean into life’s unpredictable rhythms? Watch the video directed/produced by Matt Boyle and Chris Monroe below:

Round the Mountain is out now and available from the So It Was Bandcamp page.

trash girl – Static

The project of New York‘s Shaughnessy Jones, trash girl has been making gentle and intricate folk-inflected bedroom pop songs since 2017. Following bedbug-produced debut the whole place is titled a little, and last year’s Rock N Roll, trash girl has returned with new single ‘Static’. It’s a characteristically hushed folk song painted in pastoral greens and earth tones, conjuring the cool breeze and slanting sunbeams of a late summer afternoon. Short and sweet and very beautiful.

you get me higher than heaven
you get me madder than hell
can you see me through the static
can you hear those wedding bells

Wastelander – Be Where (feat. Erin Rae)

Wastelander is the recording project of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cooper Formant. Soon he will release his debut album What is Left Of Me, which although ostensibly a solo record, draws upon the wealth of talent in Nashville’s Americana scene. This includes Jo Schornikow, Paul Defiglia (Langhorne Slim, The Avett Brothers), Spencer Cullum and singer-songwriter Erin Rae, who has a starring role in latest single ‘Be Where’. A throwback to the classic folk rock stylings of the Laurel Canyon scene, the song sounds sepia-toned and wistful without abandoning its sunny buoyancy. Rae’s vocals match Formant’s in effortless harmony.

Worriers – Cloudy And 55

“A song which leans headlong into the spirit of freedom and self-discovery, shaking off the nagging doubts and second guesses with its building momentum.” That’s how we described the title track of Trust Your Gut by Worriers. With the release of the LP fast approaching on Ernest Jenning Record Co., Lauren Denitzio has unveiled new single, ‘Cloudy and 55’, which offers an altogether more reflective sound. “This song is for your soundtrack to missing Autumn in New York,” as they put it, “where every corner has a memory you can’t shake.” Though true to the new Worriers spirit, the track rises through its wistful mists towards the widescreen clarity of its climax, even if that epiphany is merely coming to terms with the omnipresent emotion of missing the things which constitute your history.

The post Weekly Listening: August 2023 #5 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“Meet me in between
the cities we grew up in
the places we have loved”

So opens the first part of a new double-header release from Anchorage-based songwriter The Washboard Abs, who we first featured when covering his great release WHATEVERLAND put out by our buds at Z Tapes. These six new songs, spaced over two releases (the beaming & the beaming pt. 2), are a welcome addition to his catalogue of gentle and reflective bedroom pop. The rest of first track ‘dust’ is just lovely, with gentle poetic lines such as:

“Take me far away
to forests with no ceiling
to bridges made of sand.
By the time that we awake
our legs have turned to cedars
we won’t need them to stand”

‘ghosts’ sounds a shade darker somehow, still delicate and sad but bruised purple and green rather than the cool blue-grey of the opener, and the lyrics have a lovely flowing melody that washes through the song (walking alone through the dark / i feel your weight, i see a spark / but i don’t miss you anymore”). ‘fall’ sounds kind of like a stripped down JBM, which is high praise indeed.

“Go to sleep
dream of me
and I will try to do the same”

pt. 2 begins with a cover of Mount Eerie’s ‘Goodbye Hope’ which (thankfully) remains pretty faithful to the original. ‘fall two’ has a blustery autumnal feel, while ‘ladder’ is pretty and gentle and incredibly sad, detailing those quiet moments of remembrance after the death of a loved one.

“and I wanted you to know
that every time it snows
the frost
spells out
your name”

Both releases are really, really good, I can’t recommend them highly enough. My only complaint is that the whole thing is infuriatingly brief. We want more more more! Get the beaming and the beaming pt. 2 on a name-your-price download via The Washboard Abs Bandcamp page.

The post The Washboard Abs – The Beaming pt.s 1 & 2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The first song, ‘Death & Taxis’ is soft acoustic bedroom pop which is almost overwhelmingly heartsick and romantic, with lines such as, “I long to live alone with you” and “my everything exists for you”. This is followed by ‘The Way It Goes’, which is way more upbeat, with ramshackle percussion and carefree guitar. Things are still loved-up though, which is no criticism, “I don’t believe in love” Sondermann sings, “but you’re all I’m dreaming of”. The song also contains the great line,”I hope you feel bored and lonely too”, which seems to sum up our fear of being different and desire to find solidarity, to find people just like us. ‘My God’ is another rattly DIY indie pop song, opening with the line, “I’m afraid of everybody, I’m afraid of you”. Both of these songs are reminiscent of a super-earnest Swim Lessons, which is high praise.

Things then get a whole lot sadder. ‘The Day Draws Near’ is just plaintive acoustic guitar and Sondermann’s voice and what feels like empty space. Its sad but in a cosy, reassuring way – sounding like being alone in an empty room on a rainy afternoon, when the not-quite-twilight has that blue-grey quality and the only sounds are raindrops on the glass and the shooooshing of passing cars. It’s just three minutes long and deceptively simple but the atmosphere it manages to conjure makes it one of my favourite songs of the year so far. Sondermann sums up the mood when he sings, “In your backyard, you talk to God / about the heartbreak you forgot”. ‘Downtown’ is another pretty sad song, with a lovely gentle flow to the melody of the lyrics:

“I will go to a forest where all tired souls are bound,
I will go downtown
I will sink to the bottom of the sea without a sound,
I will go downtown”

‘Constant’ is another love song, with just acoustic guitar and tender lyrics, “the morning light surrounds you, darling, the wind is in your hair / the afternoon I found you, darling, I knew that I was there”, while ‘Don’t Know a Thing’ reintroduces percussion and confronts self-doubt head-on, “I am scared, I’m unprepared, I’m unaware of the ways I’m wrong”. The final song, ‘Way Down’, is perhaps brighter and breezier than previous tracks, but retains the sensitive and sincere vocals, opening with the lines, “I hide my fears way down, way down / where you dry your tears, way down”. The track reminds me strongly of Cataldo’s Prison Boxing, although I have no idea of how to articulate why that’s so.

All in all it’s a really really great album and I’m again eternally grateful that the folks at Z Tapes brought it to my attention. Fans of Radiator Hospital, Field Medic and Talons’ will all find something to love I’m sure.

You can get WHATEVERLAND on limited run cassette tape, or a name-your-price download via the Z Tapes Bandcamp page.

P.S. The Washboard Abs Bandcamp page has a bunch of other releases, including a new EP which features a cool Yo La Tengo cover. Check it out, it’s good I promise.

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