Now Blue Deputy are back with a new single ‘Big Fleece’, and again the track finds an outfit willing to mix and match their stylistic influences in order to craft their own singular sound. The press release sites Alvvays, Slow Pulp, Indigo De Souza and The Beths as touchstones and with good reason, the song retaining the emotional vulnerability of its predecessor but adding shoegaze revival richness and sunbleached indie rock wooze. The resulting mood is also a patchwork of conflicting feelings, where the allure of romance and rawness of pain compete for the upper hand.

Watching through a lens, and getting in my head
Paralysed and seeing ceiling eyes
I target a flare to whom I feel it’s fair
The nerve I pressed, maybe I guess I acted out of turn

When you sink to cruelty, I button up my big fleece
And iron over the crease
And I will love you for just a bit too long

The post Blue Deputy – Big Fleece appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Based in Brooklyn, Ben Van Bonn has made a name combining the traditional and the contemporary, taking a classic American fingerpicked style and reaching in new directions. Debut album Myth of the Middle Rung displayed how evocative this style could be, with singles like ‘Concord, MA’ highlighting a distinctive combination of archaic and digital sensibilities which created something delicate, spacious and shot through with some cryptic ancient power. Now Van Bonn is back with Further Than Thought, a new full-length which strips things back further, forgoing any vocals and removing all instruments but guitar and electric bass. Named after an aquatic portal in the Farallon Islands, first single ‘Great West Arch’ doubles down on intricate fingerpicking to transport the audience to the Californian coast, and serves as a timely reminder that less is often more.

Further Than Thought is out on the 29th November and available to pre-order via Bandcamp.

Blue Deputy – Cypress

Blue Deputy was formed by Andy Bunting in Philadelphia in 2020, and immediately won fans with the self-produced single ‘New Jersey’. Since then, Bunting has moved to Belfast and recruited Caoilfhinn McFadden (bass) and Cathal Francis (guitar and vocals) to form the current Blue Deputy lineup. The band are currently working on their debut EP, and new single ‘Cypress’ is perhaps our first taste of that. Released via new Dalliance Recordings imprint Under The Rolling Y, the song combines everything from soft bedroom pop and lyrical folk rock to the emotional intensity of Midwest emo. Bunting’s vocals smoulder and sway over steady percussion, subtle synths and wistful slide guitar, all coming together to from something that feels soft and raw with a clear-eyed clarity.

Daughter of Swords – Alone Together

Daughter of Swords is the solo project of North Carolina‘s Alex Sauser-Monnig, who you may also know as one third of Mountain Man and one half of The A’s. Their debut album, Dawnbreaker, came out in 2019, and followed a similar folk blueprint to those other projects. But the last few years have been ones of great personal change for Sauser-Monnig, and new single ‘Alone Together’ very much reflects that. Created with help from log-time pals Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak, Flock of Dimes), Nick Sanborn (Sylvan Esso), and TJ Maiani (Weyes Blood, Neneh Cherry), the song pulses with synths and blossoming electronics, driven forward on a stream of potent guitar and muscular percussion. It’s a dispatch from what label Psychic Hotline describe as “[a] fresh chapter of exploration and liberation,” exuding a buoyant confidence as we all trudge on through the barrage of bad news and complicated feelings.

Elori Saxl – Grows Along The River Fast

“Arrangements which combine digitally processed recordings of natural phenomena with analogue synths, MIDI samples and woodwind by Stuart Bogie, evoking not only the interplay between geography, ecology and human development in the area, but also the emotional landscape which results.” So we wrote last month when introducing Earth Focus, the new album from  New York-based composer Elori Saxl on Western Vinyl. A soundtrack to the PBS documentary of the same name, the record evokes the Southern Californian topography, especially along the LA River, highlighting the environment’s rhythms and changes, so it is fitting latest single ‘Grows Along The River Fast’ offers a different take to first single ‘Grows Along The River Slow’. A variation which switches up the length and tempo to offer a different picture of the same waterway, susceptible as it is to the varying conditions of the land.

Max García Conover – coming up low

A new month, a new single from Max García Conover, and this time he has company. ‘coming up low’ sees Buenos Aires’ Paula Prieto and New England’s Ben Cosgrove lend their talents, joining Conover on what is a characteristically sincere and tender track. Because while there are more voices in the mix, the song is a lesson in understatement. Mining the image of the moon in all of its isolation and pale sympathy, not to mention the way it encapsulates the stark power of a simple image. “I watched you dress in the soft light of the moon,” as one verse goes, “I was desperate and I was hopeless except for hoping that you wouldnt notice / I watched you dress in the soft light of the moon.” Elsewhere the night comes crashing down, and worst fears are realised, yet the lasting impression is that familiar blend of melancholy and hope experienced when looking up to see the moon rising again.

All month the moon coming up low coming up low coming up low
I awoke and you were missing and you left me a letter in the kitchen

Pocket Full of Crumbs – Ice Water

This summer, San Francisco outfit Pocket Full of Crumbs released In My Hands I Hold A Lucky Cricket, a full-length album on Cherub Dream Records. With its marriage of post-punk, alt rock and shoegaze, the record embraces the twin forces of gauzy texture and crushing weight to create something which nods to the nineties while keeping its eye fixed firmly forward. It saw an admirable degree of variation across the songs—from the twitchy energy of tracks like ‘Blink’ to the altogether heftier ‘In My Home’. Fan favourite ‘Ice Water’ offers yet another dimension, where increased clarity grounds a downbeat and ambiguous sound which threatens to spill over into dark chaos but never quite does, highlighting an understanding of mood and sense of control which is sometimes lacking within the genre.

Sonya – Inside & Out

Sonya released their debut At What Cost? earlier this year, a succinct collection of songs as comfortable offering late-night emotion as it was an upbeat swagger. If this duality marked the album, then new single ‘Inside & Out’ confronts such an idea head on. Another example of Sonya’s fantastic ability to sound at once confessional and carefree, intimate feelings communicated without sacrificing any of sense of confidence or attitude. With a taut rhythm that pulls the audience in and a singalong finale keeping them there until the close, the song is yet more evidence that the star of Sonya is rising and one to watch in the coming months.

‘Inside & Out’ is now available via streaming services.

Steph Cameron – Today

Having just announced a UK and European tour along with fellow Canadian songwriter Abigail Lapell, Saskatoon’s Steph Cameron has shared new single, ‘Today’. Her first new release in seven years, the single offers a glimpse of a full-length forthcoming next year on Neon Moon Records, and sees Cameron build upon the atmospheric and thematically charged style of folk which made previous records Sad-Eyed Lonesome Lady and Daybreak Over Jackson Street so special. A song as assured as it is emotive, simmering with brooding longing as it contemplates complex ideas of identity and history with a straightforward confidence. “’Today’ is a song about reconnecting with both our living and ancestral communities,” she explains. “It is about the pain of turning away from your identity and the strength and pride found in turning toward it.”

‘Today’ is out now via Neon Moon Records. You can find the dates of the Steph Cameron and Abigail Lapell tour here. 

Stephen Becker – Range

The forthcoming album from  LA-born, Brooklyn-based songwriter Stephen Becker, Middle Child Syndrome is a record concerned with change in all its guises, exploring the duality of permanence and decay inherent within existence itself with a distinctively personal slant. “The album sees Becker lean into this unorthodox style with an almost stream-of-consciousness immediacy,” we wrote in a preview, “as though the audience is given a direct invitation into his daily existence.” With vocals from Alena Spanger, latest single ‘Range’ puts forward a more subdued, restrained aspect of the record, the absence of drums creating a kind of torpor into which anxious thoughts inevitably seep, and the slow drift of time offers not peace but unease.

Microcosm of your parents, brother left LA
By this age you already had Michael I was late
Melody recycled wind me up and watch me spin

I’m not lost, I’m just outside my range
I’m not lost, I’m just a little spaced

This Lonesome Paradise – Into the Ether

Led by E. Ray Béchard, This Lonesome Paradise specialise in a dark and mysterious brand of Western noir. Last week they released a new record, Luna Nocturna, via Bad Vibes Good Friends, a collection of eight songs that we previously described as “a meditation on the American Dream with all its brutality, broken promises and betrayals.” Likening it to a Cormac McCarthy novel, the label describe the album as “an evocative journey through desolate landscapes and haunting narratives, capturing the raw essence of the American West.” This is very much apparent on centrepiece and standout track ‘Into the Ether’, a slinky and surreal slow-burn rock song that feels like a midnight cruise along a desert highway, taking us deep into the shadowy heart of the nation.

The post Weekly Listening: October 2024 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

With a ninth album coming later this year, Orchid Mantis is back with a brand new single ‘Another Life’. A song which not only explores new styles but also continues the trend of Howard enlisting outside help. Offering a morose intimacy typical of the best bedroom pop and slowcore, the song plays like inner longings as murmured to an empty room. Lyrics written and performed by Sign Crushes Motorist, one of Belfast artist Liam McCay’s several projects, elevate the mood further, and raise the Orchid Mantis sound to new levels of melancholic charm. It’s reportedly the first song from a forthcoming album, so stay tuned for more info in the near future.

The post Orchid Mantis – Another Life (feat. Sign Crushes Motorist) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“[The song] feels like several songs coalescing into one, a magic formula emerging by chance from a radio set between stations…post-rock thump, dream pop drone and indie rock vocals shrouded in gauzy ambience… the various elements complementing one another to build into a squally climax”

With such a diverse and varied sound, we thought it would be interesting to find out who the band consider inspirations, and asked them to choose ten influential songs that have in one way or another shaped their sound or just seemed important through their lives.

Ten Songs

from Hiva Oa

Although a lot of fun, this was a near impossible task to whittle a list of what could have been hundreds of songs to a list of just 10. I guess the artists are just as influential as the tracks chosen, and I could have easily plucked 10 different tracks from each of the artists. None the less, here we go.

While collating this list, the one recurring theme from each track chosen was not just the initial impact of the track when I first heard it (often from my youth), but also how these have stuck with me for a number of years and songs that I continue to return to.

1. Ces gens-la – Jacques Brel

I guess it would make sense to start with the man who inspired our choice of band name. There are a number of tracks I could have gone with, but Ces gens-la is a notable gateway to his music. The real power of this track comes in the form of the live visual performance. No understanding of the French language required. His animation is self-explanatory.

2. Avalanche – Leonard Cohen

There is much of his discography that I am yet to discover, on purpose, but Songs of Love and Hate was a staple listen in my youth and still to this day. The desire to do cover versions doesn’t occupy my mind much, however, I have flirted with the idea of doing a cover of this for quite a while now. Maybe I will convince the rest at some point…..

3. Roads – Portishead

Portishead were the first ever band I saw live. I was 12 and couldn’t possibly appreciate the situation I was in (I have my older sister to thank for that), but it still remains one of the best gigs I ever saw. Again, it was hard to narrow down to one Portishead track. Roads….why not!

4. Love me or leave me – Nina Simone

Again, difficult to narrow to one track for Nina, but the musicianship in this track just blew me away the first time I heard it and continues to this day, particularly the contrast of the piano solo and accompaniment. No better example of the classically trained beast trying to burst through the jazz/blues surroundings she feels caged within.

5. Factories – Damien Dempsey

I would love to see the day where Damien is as well revered around the world as he is in Ireland, but I fear it will never be so. Brutal honesty in a disillusioned modern age. As much as I tried, Irish traditional music was something that I just couldn’t warm to. Damien bridged that gap perfectly. I guess I just needed a hero for my generation.

6. I Only Said – My Bloody Valentine

Throughout this list, it could be said that it is singers that are the focal point which first inspired me. Being a singer myself, it is always the aspect I get drawn to initially. Hearing this track for the first time however…..There is just something special about the melody and its delivery. Intoxicating.

7. Lullaby for Hamza – Robert Wyatt

Robert Wyatt is the blend of the above statement. A great unique voice, but with the same strange intoxicating delivery. This was the first Robert Wyatt track I ever heard and continues to be an album I return to. Recently, Daithi and I were having a conversation about Wyatt and Christine piped up to say she never heard of him. The following question being ‘what does he sound like?’……For passers by listening in, they would be forgiven for thinking that two strange animals had escaped from a zoo. You’re trying it now aren’t you…..

8. Clap Hands – Tom Waits

I was first turned on to Tom Waits while in my mid teens and was given his debut album Closing Time by a friend. I loved it but didn’t delve into his discography any further for some time. Imagine my surprise when the next album I heard was Rain Dogs a decade later. This is the opening track and is, again, an album I return to constantly.

9. Song to the Siren – Tim Buckley

I was difficult not to choose his son, but since we are just talking about individual songs here, I thought I would go with this. Something very special indeed.

10. Rez – Underworld

To close things off, I wanted to step away singers. This was the first electronic track that widened my scope of the limitless beauty of electronic music and again, served as the perfect gateway. Such a shame it only lasts for 10 minutes.

Hiva Oa’s new EP, mk II (part 1) is set for release on the 16th September and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

The post Ten Songs from Hiva Oa appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘A Great Height’ opens the release with insistent drums and sinuous baseline, with numerous types of percussion joining the simple beat as if in thumping chorus. The repetition builds into a near atavistic frenzy, carving out a depth within which you could become lost. Second track ‘Seskinore’ begins with another prominent baseline, this time backed with pretty ambient flourishes which shimmer and glitch behind vocals reminiscent of Thom Yorke. Again the instrumentation gathers in intensity, swelling outwards before being joined by more scattered drums and Tubridy’s vocals following a similar pattern, remaining even for a long while before eventually getting swept up in the energy too.

‘Christine’ is airy and slightly ominous, the ambient drone lethargic and strange like some slow-motion dream world. The vocals take centre stage, rising from the fog with unerring clarity, playing like the confessions of a man as spoken within his head. Closer ‘Johnny Brazil’ feels like several songs coalescing into one, a magic formula emerging by chance from a radio set between stations. There’s post-rock thump, dream pop drone and indie rock vocals shrouded in gauzy ambience as the track gathers around itself, the various elements complementing one another to build into a squally climax.

“Chrisine, oh Christine,
I’ve shot another one”

mk II (part 1) is set for release on the 16th of September and you can pre-order it now from the Hiva Oa Bandcamp page.

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