The recording project of Chicago-based songwriter Ben Groth, The Child of Eve is preparing to release the full-length Sozo this summer. The record was brought to life together with Grammy Award winning engineer Ben Rawlins and Northern Ireland Music Prize winning engineer Caolán Austin, not to mention drummer Matt Carroll (Finom), bassist Eli Broxham (The Arcadian Wild), vocalist Sara Di Bella (Anuna) and violinist Gareth Quinn Redmond (Glen Hansard, Ye Vagabonds), and the result is every bit as assured as you might expect from such a talented outfit. Take latest single ‘I’m Here’, a song which explores feelings of fear and the ways in which can come to influence our very identity. “This song addresses a kind of fear I wrestle with,”  Groth explains. “One that convinces me to question my worth, to wear a mask and hide myself away. That I’m embarrassing to others.” But rather than allow himself be consumed by the fear, he instead confronts the feeling. Decides to walk through it no matter how uncomfortable it might be.

Dog Shaped – Reason

Rising from the ashes of Sue Your Landlord and featuring Emily Cabarle, Dog Shaped is a new band announcing itself on the New York scene, and debut single ‘Reason’ serves as their calling card. Described by the band as “a love letter and a longing to reconnect with lost childlike wonder,” the track looks to wriggle free from the difficulties and isolation that so often comes with adulthood and instead return to something more tender and curious. What if loneliness need not be the default setting of our existence? What if there’s a path back to kindness and connection once more?

Ead Wood – Emmeline

“A bittersweet slice of wistful reflection, with Soles evoking that strange mix of comfort and loss inherent within any spot of natural beauty.” So we wrote of Ead Wood‘s single ‘Peace in the Pines‘ back in 2024, describing how the Bristol-based project utilised an Americana-adjacent sound to achieve a mood simultaneously upbeat, melancholic and often a little absurd. With new EP Wild Water coming soon via Breakfast Records, Soles and co. are back ‘Emmeline’, a single which continues the introspective nature of the project while widening its focus, serving as a bridge between previous record Cash Mountain and whatever new territory Ead Wood charts next. “I wrote ‘Emmeline’ during a time when I was touring a lot and constantly heading off somewhere else,” Wood explains. “It made me think about what that experience must feel like for the person staying behind. The song is written from my partner’s perspective—that feeling of watching someone rush out the door again while life at home carries on. It’s about love, patience, and the quiet strength of the person who’s always there when you return.”

Eliza Edens – Leash

More than three years since releasing last record We’ll Become the Flowers, Brooklyn‘s Eliza Edens has returned with brand new song ‘Leash’. The standalone single suggests an evolution in style, moving away from the introspective glow of the previous record and stepping into a newfound sassy confidence. “I’m a goddamn killer, ended many things,” they sing in the opening line which rather nicely sets the tone, “fucked up your mind and stole your parents’ wedding ring.” Insistent bass and peppy percussion buoy things along with irrepressible energy, licks of guitar bursting in at intervals as if a metaphor for the abandonment of self-control at the track’s heart. ‘Leash’ “is a tongue-in-cheek, breezy rock song that celebrates the shadow self,” Edens describes, “our darker impulses, the devil on the shoulder, and the cynic inside us all.”

Eric Angelo Bessel – Upstate

After lead track ‘Double Helix’ introduced Mirror At Night B-Sides, a song “dreamlike and drifting,” we wrote, “emerging full of ambiguous meaning as though dug from deep in the distant past or else visiting from some time or space we are yet to encounter,” Eric Angelo Bessel has now shared its partner single ‘Upstate’ to cap off the release. Fans of the project will relish the opportunity to step out of the frame of ordinary existence and delve into this otherworldly soundscape once again. “’Upstate’ feels like a quiet transmission from somewhere beyond time,” Bessel explains of the track, “where memories blur, dreams surface, and sound moves like breath through spaces you can’t quite place but somehow recognize.”

Helenor  Windshield

The recording project of Brooklyn-based songwriter and visual artist David DiAngelis, Helenor serves as a vehicle to explore the twin threads of stasis and change that run through any life, and provides space to reflect on age old existential questions with a fresh, contemporary edge. Released via Mtn Laurel Recording Co., new single ‘Windshield’ is the ideal introduction for the uninitiated, exploring the ways in which we may or may not alter as we grow and come of age, and the curious comfort which might be found in the answer. “I’ve been spending a lot more of my time with children lately, which feels like a portal but also a mirror,” DiAngelis describes. “The mirror part has me feeling like—damn, I’m really not even that much different than who I was at that age. I guess the only way for me to reconcile this is to just remember that every other self-important someone walking by me in New York City is actually just one gigantic child in disguise.”

Mark Trecka – Wake Dance Romance ft. Lead Into Gold

Chicago-born writer, sound artist, performer, and activist Mark Trecka has a new record, ROMANCE WAKE NAMING, coming out next month via LA label The Garrote. Long-time readers will be familiar with his work which roams the outer edges of post-punk, neo-classical and avant garde, combining themes both personal and political in a sound which have said previously “utilis[es] sound to explore a diverse set of styles and themes in a practice as inventive as it is ambitious.” Collaboration is key to Trecka’s practice and the new record is no different. This time industrial music legend Paul Barker (Ministry) both produces and features under his alias Lead Into Gold, helping to create a trip-hop-influenced sound that’s as big and immediate as it is nuanced and experimental. Lead single ‘Wake Dance Romance’ throws the listener headlong into this style. Check it out below.

Pearla – Loved By Me

Pearla has shared a couple of singles from her upcoming new album Song Room in recent weeks, with ‘Be Around‘ and ‘Imagine Your Face‘ introducing a record which inverts the outward view of predecessor Oh Glistening Onion, The Nighttime Is Coming to instead offer a more introspective style. “A survey not of the exterior but interior,” we wrote, “though one which nevertheless finds a vast world full of strange beauty.” With the release fast approaching, Pearla is now back with new track ‘Loved By Me’ which further grounds the emotional core of the record. “This is a song of unconditional love for someone who is used to measuring their worth by external factors,” she says. “I wrote a lot of the songs on this record guided by the question, ‘What is it that my body needs to sing?’ In this case, it was an expression of love, directed toward the more tender parts within myself and the people in my life.” Watch the video by Enne Goldstein below:

Song Room will be released on the 24th April and you can pre-order it now from the Pearla Bandcamp page.

Polhawan – No Sweat

You might know Tim Rowing-Parker as the songwriter behind acts like Woahnows and Immy, the Bristol-based artist using the later to put out a series of scrappy, surf-inflected releases in recent years. His new project Polhawan is both an evolution and revolution of this style, looking to preserve the immediacy and DIY spirit of Immy while pursuing a newfound polish and depth. The result is clearly Rowing-Parker, but also Rowing-Parker as never seen before. Cryptic, strange, fresh and confident. Take single ‘No Sweat’ from debut EP Wild Mountain Time, coming this May via Breakfast Records, which takes a sunny, surfy sound and applies it to something altogether more supernatural. “After a few years living in the country, I moved back to the city, and honestly it kinda freaked me out,” he explains. “To take the edge off the train station each morning I’d block out the noise with headphones, and for some reason this led to listening to loads of supernatural podcasts. It’s quite funny that people recounting the scariest shit that has ever happened to them seemed more comforting to me than existing alongside fellow commuters in the light of day.”

Rare DM – Compliment

The moniker Rare DM might be cryptic (does it refer to direct message? Dungeon master? Dance music?), but the music of Brooklyn-based singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erin Hoagg is anything but guarded. Leaning mainly on synths, Rare DM creates an immediate, emotionally charged sound which seduces the listener into its embrace before bearing its messy heart, no matter how revealing or intense the process might be. Later this spring, sees the release of new full-length Attention, and single ‘Compliment’  is typical of its sensual, confronting style. “It is inspired by when you are in a relationship, and someone who you had eyes for (before meeting your s/o) suddenly pays attention to you,” as Hoagg expands. “I was sent a suggestive message from someone, and wasn’t single anymore. As the lyrics share: ‘don’t you worry about it for a second, I can take a compliment’ because hey, I don’t want them to feel embarrassed or bad, they didn’t know that I met someone! This all being said… I can’t control if they are thinking of me. ‘You can’t have it… but you can imagine it’.”

Watch the suitably surreal, suggestive video by Lisa Saeboe below:

Attention will be released on the 29th May and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Shaina Hayes – Flourish

When not writing songs or touring, Québec-based artist Shaina Hayes runs a vegetable farm in her hometown, a fact which is more than an interesting tidbit to add to a bio. Because spend any time with Hayes’s music and you’ll come to appreciate a kinship between both of these pursuits: an attention to detail, a deep-rooted connection to the land and its life, not to mention an overarching patience that allows her to reflect upon the present with admirable clarity. In preparation for her third full-length, coming soon via Bonsound, Hayes has returned with ‘Flourish’, a suitably earthy, emotive slice of folk which highlights this style perfectly. A well-timed evocation of spring and all of it inherent hopefulness, blooming with an easy warmth as it gestures towards a brighter future of healing and growth. Watch the visualizer by Flavie Lemée below:

‘Flourish’ is out now via Bonsound and available from the usual places.

Will White – When To Stop

Songwriter and composer Will White has long been known for his work with other artists. The Maccabees, 86TVs and Great White Shark are among the acts he’s collaborated with, and he runs a residency at Ron’s cafe in Peckham which has welcomed everyone from Jasper Llewlyn (of Caroline), Katy J Pearson and Will Rees (Mystery Jets) to Florence Welch, Dry Cleaning and Sam Akpro. Even his own project BLANc practised a certain level of distancing from his personal self. But this May sees White step out into the light on his own for the first time with the release of his debut solo album It’s Easy To Let The Thoughts Gain Ground on state51. A record which takes all of the knowledge and experience gained through years spend in the heart of the UK’s artistic community and applies it to his own intimate, reflective brand of indie rock. Latest single ‘When To Stop’ captures the spirit of the release, offering a decidedly compassionate tone that is nevertheless shot through which a rising tension too. Like a picture of someone caught between the shadows of the past and an obscure future, wishing to hope for something better while the world rocks and burns.

Watch the video made by White  alongside Rosie Terry-Toogood below:

It’s Easy To Let The Thoughts Gain Ground will be released on the 1st May via state51 and you can pre-order it now.

The post Weekly Listening: March 2026 #5 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Now Shaina Hayes is back with the album’s next single. ‘Sun and Time’ is rich and nostalgic, harking back to film-grained memories of summers past as an escape from the cold clutch of the winter months. Told from the perspective of watching a friend struggle through frosty fields and grey skies, Hayes says it’s a song “for anyone who’s ever found themselves slipping into the winter blues.”

Holy weary winter this one’s something
I watch you suffering at its hand
Boggy berry princess we are fading
But I can still make out your laugh

Watch the video below, with direction, cameras, editing and colorization by Charles-David Dubé and Flavie Lemée:

Kindergarten Heart is out on the 23rd February via Bonsound and you can pre-order it now from the Shaina Hayes Bandcamp page.

Photo by Lawrence Fafard

The post Shaina Hayes – Sun And Time appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Bay Area songwriter Asha Wells is releasing a double single ahead of forthcoming album Water Words on Royal Oakie Records. Written during a testing period of a relationship, Water Words traces the arc of a partnership from dreamy beginnings to the new paths of the aftermath, and this pair of singles sits in the strange space at the heart of this progression. The period where nothing is decided in any one direction, the potential of both promise and regret latent within every detail. Take ‘Blue Angels’ and the way it marbles intimacy and hesitance into its tender tones, like an open palm wanting to grasp what is before it, though wary of the thorns hidden out of view.

Elisapie – Uummati Attanarsimat

Recording under her first name, Juno Award-winning Inuk musician, filmmaker and activist Elisapie Isaac makes music that reflects Canada’s complex history, singing in English, French and the Inuit language of Inuktitut as she combines contemporary pop with her ancestral culture. Her latest single ‘Uummati Attanarsimat’ is a cover of Blondie’s new wave classic ‘Heart of Glass’ translated into Inuktitut. A song that transports Elisapie to her childhood, bringing back memories of dancing to the radio with her cousins. “I remember one night when they played ‘Heart of Glass,'” she recalls. “I must have been five or six years old. They all started dancing like crazy. I observed their joy with admiration. I felt like I was free.” The cover also comes with a video, directed by Philippe Léonard, which comprises of Super 8 archival footage from Quebec’s northern reaches. Watch it below:

‘Uummati Attanarsimat’ is out now via Bonsound and available to download from the Elisapie Bandcamp page.

Her New Knife – douglasland.v1

Philadelphia outfit Her New Knife have recently released lead dreams/flayed so light, a new EP via Julia’s War Records. Through a combination of noise and shoegaze elements, the band weave a deliciously dark sound somewhere between 90s alt rock and contemporary acts like Greet Death, the controlled simmer of its brooding dark always threatening to spill over into chaos. Inspired by the band’s dog, who is said to have the regular old name of Halo 3, ‘douglasland.v1’ is the ideal intro to the aesthetic for anyone uninitiated, its palpable weight settling over the listener and gathering like a thunderhead before the searing climax.

Josie Toney – Extra

With album Extra coming soon on Like You Mean It Records, Olympia‘s Josie Toney has shared the title track to whet appetites for her distinctive blend of traditional and contemporary country styles. It’s a tale of longing dressed in a wistful brightness, inspired not so much by the heartbreak so familiar to the genre but rather the missed opportunity that comes with lonely living. “Is there anybody out there / who wants what I’ve got to give?” she sings in the opening lines. “I have so much extra / more than any one girl needs to live.” But more than that, Toney recognises that others are out there feeling the exact same way, and the song becomes a kind of ode to the possibility of a mutual love, if not yet the love itself.

Extra is out now via Like You Mean It Records.

Jude Brothers – practicing silence / looking for water!

There’s a curious mix of sorrow and whimsy on ‘practising silence / looking for water!’, the lead single from Jude Brothers’ render tender / blunder sunder coming soon on Gar Hole Records. The sense that the distance between the confusion of loss and clarity of peace isn’t all that large, with a considerable overlap between the experiences. Consisting of just Celtic lever harp and vocals, the song explores this territory with a delicate, compassionate tone, cataloguing those things lost amid living while coming to a sense of acceptance too. The track also has a video directed by Adeliza Backus-Pace which featured puppets made by Flying Wall Studios and controlled by Damon and Sabrina Griffith:

render tender / blunder sunder is out via Gar Hole Records and you can pre-order it now.

Langkamer – Hatchet

With new album The Noon and Midnight Manual coming this May on Breakfast Records,  Bristol‘s Langkamer are unveiling a steady stream of new tracks. First single ‘Sing at Dawn’ found “the sweet centre of a Venn diagram of twangy Americana and insouciant indie rock,” as we described it, though in doing so worked through heavier themes and depressive moods. New single ‘Hatchet’ again uses left-field pop energy as a Trojan horse to push into darker territory, taking inspiration from an old poet vocalist/drummer Josh Jarman knew. “He read me a poem about going to the supermarket with his wife, and how much of a struggle it was,” Jarman explains. “His words really stuck with me. How difficult such everyday things had become for them. Even just getting out of a car. It was heartbreaking, the matter-of-fact way he spoke about it.”

The Noon And Midnight Manual is out on the 8th May via Breakfast Records and you can pre-order it now from the Langkamer Bandcamp page.

Matthew Danger Lippman – And

Matthew Danger Lippman practises what has been called “stream-of-consciousness songwriting,” blending psych, pop and indie rock into an inventive and endlessly shifting style able to evoke the flights of fancy of our inner worlds. New album Once You Get Low You’ve Gotta Start Flying Baby promises to build upon this style is all of its bizarre glory, with lead single ‘And’ typifying Lippman’s ability to be earnest and absurd in the same breadth. The sort of thing which only makes sense when caught up within it, dream logic fired by its own momentum and charged by the endearing brightness of its rhythm.

And I had that dream last night
Where I pissed on the third rail
And the charge climbed up the piss trail
And it shot into my dickhole
And electrified me

And I walked around glowing
And I fried everything that I touched
And then I ran into my third grade teacher and she said
“You better watch where you piss”
And watch me now!

Palm Shadow – You Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way

Based in southern California, Palm Shadow is a songwriter and musician who combines elements of dream pop, shoegaze and folk to create lush, diaphanous songs that shimmer and swirl in an enveloping haze. Debut single ‘You Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way’ is the perfect introduction, taking the stark emotion of the likes of Phoebe Bridgers or Lucy Dacus and wrapping it up in ethereal ambience. Subtle arpeggiated synths add a cinematic poignancy as the song looks head-on at the tender regrets and heart-quickening inevitability of a complicated relationship, touching on what the liner notes describe as “bad timing, tabled ambitions, missed connections and procrastination guilt.”

Wayfinding – Hiro Up From The Woodshop

Wayfinding is an Edmonton-based project consisting of nêhiyawak members Marek Tyler and Matthew Cardinal alongside musician/artist Cassia Hardy (Wares) and Ryan Beattie (Himalayan Bear, Chet). The band introduced their shoegaze-inflected pomo pop back in November with ‘Bad Bloods’, which turned out to be the opening track of a self-titled EP set for release next month. It is a collection of songs which explores the full spectrum of memories both personal and cultural to Canada’s colonial history and the people shaped within it. Latest single ‘Hiro Up From the Woodshop’ moves through loneliness and humble compassion to capture the essence of a friendship, as well as the existential weight bubbling beneath even the quietest of moments.

And if you should inscribe
Iambic pentameter on my gravesite
make it a couple of lines
about the first part of my life
No empty accolades
Or poetry infantilized
Just the good times

The post Weekly Listening: March 2023 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.