Next month the Canadian songwriter Cat Clyde will release Blood Bone Bone, a new full-length album on Concord Records. An effort to reposition or reimagine her relationship with love, the record sees Clyde turn her indigenous Métis heritage for inspiration, as well as the wide natural world, and serves as a expression of everything from exasperation and fury to personal growth and joy. New single ‘Man’s World’ falls at the former end of that spectrum, though repurposes its anger into something cathartic. “This is an expression of the frustration I feel existing as a woman in a patriarchal world,” Clyde explains. “It sometimes feels difficult to be on a 24 hour clock rather than a 28 day cycle, and a 12 month year instead of a 13 month year. I love and crave masculine energy when it’s strong, protective, and emotionally aware. It has been difficult and deeply disappointing to have had experiences dealing with masculine energy that is childish, cowardly, and encroaching on the feminine space. ‘Man’s World’ touches on my own ideas of what being a woman means in this society and how dangerous and violent it can be for a woman’s heart.”

Watch the video directed and shot by Lukas Hyrman below:

Mud Blood Bone will be released on the 13th March via Concord Records and you can pre-order it now.

Dayydream – Proximity

Back in 2025 we introduced Dayydream, the Glasgow-based indie rock project led by visual artist and musician Chloe Trappes. “Straddles shoegaze, slowcore and indie rock to create a sound both hazy and deep,” we wrote of single ‘Fucked Up’, “its title perhaps belying the song’s inviting warmth but describing its confessional tone to a tee, the sound suspended with a light mist yet not without its own internal force.” Now Dayydream are about to release Trace, and EP which builds upon these foundations to delve into the strange, melancholic way the past persists into the present. True to this mood, the sound is often restrained and reflective, the tracks playing as though in the aftermath of something, Trappes and co. left alone but for the footprints on the ground, the fading fog of breath on glass. Single ‘Proximity’ is a good place to dive in, the upbeat rhythm of its opening belying the weight at its heart, a burden which slowly twists the sound into something altogether more hefty and dense.

‘Proximity’ is out now and available from Bandcamp. Trace will be released soon.

jack k – Welcome To The New World

A cross-gen collaboration between composer Jack Kilburn and his father, British poet Mark Kilburn, the forthcoming jack k album 8 Tracks sits at the intersection of music, narrative and memory. Using primarily guitar and piano, Jack creates soundscapes which gesture towards ambient and alt-jazz, and coupled with Mark’s distinctively Brummie spoken-word delivery, the songs come to represent not only reflection on personal experience and family history but something stranger and more abstract. A hauntological sense of imagined pasts and aborted futures which works to evoke the off-kilter, often melancholic sensation of the contemporary British moment. True to its title, ‘Welcome To The New World’ is the ideal entry point into this style. A track spacious and stark, as barren as the society evoked by Kilburn’s plainspoken lyricism, where the new world is not much of a world at all, but rather just the fading echoes of what we imagined as it falls away from us.

8 Tracks will be released soon.

Lamplight – Year 2083

“An exploration of how one’s sense of identity shifts and changes according to any number of present conditions, not least the place we call home at any given time.” That’s how we described the self-titled album by Lamplight back in 2024, the Western Vinyl release seeing Virginia songwriter Ian Hatcher-Williams grapple with a life which led out of a cult in his home state to a job in tech in NYC before eventually circling back around to returning to Virginia to marry a childhood friend. Glimpse at the title of the latest Lamplight single ‘Year 2083’ and you might think Hatcher-Williams has switched focus from the past towards the distant future, though in reality the song is very much embedded in the present. With hemlock adding supporting vocals, the track possesses all of the warmth of the previous album, not to mention the same emotional openness. As though written from within the fluidity of the current moment, with Hatcher-Williams working to establish what is important in real time. Grab it from Bandcamp now, with all proceeds going to MPLS mutual aid.

Lemoncello – Meet Me Halfway

There’s a very contemporary tension within Lemoncello‘s latest single ‘Meet Me Halfway’. A complicated relationship between intimacy and distance. A sense of push and pull. Out now via Claddagh Records, the song sees Irish duo Laura Quirke (guitar/vocals) and Claire Kinsella (cello/vocals) create a soundscape that’s spare yet loaded with latent feeling, as though the true weight of the track lies just outside of the frame. An atmosphere fitting for a song which explores how even though we’re now able to communicate more freely than ever before, we’re somehow as far apart as we’ve ever been. “To be so connected / And yet so disconnected,” as a pertinent line states. “What’s the point in speaking / With so much left understood.” But rather than settle for a dismayed commentary on such conditions, ‘Meet Me Halfway’ pushes further, reaching for the kind of concerted effort required on both sides of a relationship in order to sustain connection. Watch the video below, wih creative direction by Sophie O’Donovan, editing by AK Heisterkamp and title design by Stina Sandstrom:

‘Meet Me Halfway’ is out now via Claddagh Records and available from the usual places.

new body electric – every day

“It all started with a trumpet,” explain Portland, Oregon-based band new body electric (Aaron Peterson, Evan Smoker and Leah Vautar), but their music has come a long way since then. Following on from a self-titled album in 2024 which drew on everything from funk, electro and jazz to enliven its indie pop sound, the band have returned with new single ‘every day’ to continue to explore new ground. Full of easygoing groove, the result is assured in style if not in substance, the track’s lyrics delving into various personas we adopt to get through day to day existence. But no matter how blurry a sense of self might be thanks to the demands of living, new body electric are here to show this need not necessarily defeat us. Better to commit to the rhythm and groove your way on through.

‘every day; is out now and available from the usual places.

Paul Bergmann – West Rock

“A pleading dirge; a manic rumination on the human condition at the foot of a geological anomaly in New Haven, CT.” That’s how musician Paul Bergmann described his latest single ‘West Rock’, a song released in anticipation of forthcoming full-length Connecticut Cowboy. Across a total of sixteen releases, Bergmann’s work has shapeshifted from one album to another, moving from scrappy folk punk to sleek piano-led croons, not to mention psychedelic excursions too. But it has always been bound by an overarching thematic concern with existential ideas of life, death and all the dreams therein. As the above description might suggest, ‘West Rock’ sees Bergman return to the most immediate, raw form, pitching the audience into a shadowy world and barking confessions at us through the gloom. Think of the nocturnal volatility of acts like Bambara crossed with the Jason Molina’s bitter poetry and you’re getting close to the result.

Run Remedy – Jessie’s Girl

The alter ego of US-born, UK-based songwriter Robin Koob, Run Remedy embraces both the serious and silly sides of life in its folk rock sound, something embodied by latest single, a reimagining of Rick Springfield’s 1981 hit ‘Jessie’s Girl’. This version not only plays with the sound, swapping out the guitar solo for banjo, but also flips the gender to transform the track into a queer anthem. “I swear if I’m back home driving around South Jersey, ‘Jessie’s Girl’ will come on within the hour (shout out 95.1WAYV),” Koob explains. “It’s been stuck in my head my whole life. That level of cringey yearning is timeless, so obviously I had to make my own sapphic spinoff.” The single comes complete with a video to further cement the changes. “The original video is pure camp, so I basically Weird Al’d it with rainbow kids,” Koob continues. “We recreated almost every shot in one day, gorilla-shooting around Manchester, spared my bathroom mirror, and ended the day passing around the wig. Everyone looked better in it than I did, which feels correct.”

‘Jessie’s Girl’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Spirited Followers – Returning

Back in September we wrote about Cardiff-based experimental folk rock outfit Spirited Followers, describing how the project reaches across a huge range of influences to inform its singular sound. “With members hailing from Cyprus, India and Wales, Ireland, and England, the diversity of inspiration is perhaps unsurprising,” we explained, “though the work of Spirited Followers pushes beyond those backgrounds too. You’ll hear elements of Appalachian mountain music in the stark guitar, as well as a Greek flavour among several others.” Released via Libertino‘s new sister label BWGIBWGAN, latest single ‘Returning’ is no less ambitious, mining ancient songwriting traditons for their devotional power while still positioning their sound on the cutting edge of the contemporary movement too. It a glimpse at the band’s reflective side, “reframing themes of death,” as the label put it, “through warmth, acceptance and spiritual calm.”

The post Weekly Listening: February 2026 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“Existing in the strange space between loss and whatever comes next, searching for clues as to exactly what happened, not to mention where the future might lead.” So we wrote of Adeline Hotel‘s 2024 album Whodunnit, a raw picture of codependency and its slow disintegration which offered some of Dan Knishowy’s starkest writing to date. Now Adeline Hotel is preparing to release new full-length Watch the Sunflowers via Ruination Record Co., and it seems the future led to something altogether richer. Because, as new single ‘Dreaming’ suggests, the album is a reaction to the threadbare arrangements of its predecessor, as though, having endured the aftermath of loss, the colour has come back into Knishkowy’s world.

Alexei Shishkin – Magpie

Every single Alexei Shishkin has revealed from new album Good Times has stretched its subject matter in new, apparently unrelated directions, be that computer games (‘Disco Elysium‘), football tactics (‘Tiki Taka 2006‘) or poetry (‘Ode to Carl Dennis’). With the record out now via Rue Defense, Shishkin has returned with final single ‘Magpie’, a track which not only widens the topics covered during the full-length but could be read as a kind of metacommentary on this pick and mix style. Because, like the titular corvid, Good Times sees Shishkin collect all manner of shiny objects as and when they take his fancy. So what better a spirit animal for the album than a magpie? “I was actually going to name the album Magpie, but by the time we got around the finalizing it, Peach Pit had *just* released an album called Magpie, so I obviously couldn’t bite that.”

Altai – Brawl

Back in May we introduced New South Wales duo Altai, that’s multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Tessa Collins and drummer Andrew Wilkinson, with single ‘Like You Need It’. “Released just as the southern hemisphere moves into autumn,” we wrote, “the song is suffused with a romantic nostalgia and the gnawing melancholy of the changing seasons.” With an EP set for release in October via Broken Palace, Altai have new returned with new track ‘Brawl’. It’s a song which explores masculinity and its associated pressures, charged with a sense of urgency as though in attempt to will someone away from the ruinous expectations loaded onto men within the patriarchal system. Collins’s vocals harness this energy, sounding at once stark and compassionate in their willingness to name those destructive forces so directly. Fans of acts like The Weather Station will find much to admire.

Cormorant Tree Oh – The Wrong Kind

Recording under the moniker Cormorant Tree Oh, Dublin-based multi-disciplinary artist and songwriter Mary Keane has established herself as one of Ireland‘s premier practioners of experimental folk, winning much praise for 2024 record Moonish (out via Trapped Animal Records) and sharing the stage with the likes of Lankum. Taken from that album, latest single ‘The Wrong Kind’ is another addition to her catalogue, a song presenting isolation in all of its eeriness and beauty, blurring the line between loneliness and romance with an atmosphere as beguilling as it is austere. The song comes complete with a video made in collaboration with artist Zoe Greenway (formerly of M(h)aol), taking cues from 1948 classic Portrait Of Jennie in its visual style. The video marks a conscious embrace of centring the artistic vision above all else, timed just as Keane has decided, in a move we ourselves also made several years ago, to leave Spotify. “I decided to leave Spotify because Spotify’s CEO David Ek is investing in AI war drones, they pay artists feck all and they are now pushing creepy AI music,” as she succinctly describes. Amen.

Moonish is out now via Trapped Animal Records and available from Bandcamp.

Frog – SPANISH ARMADA VAR. XV

“Even for a band who have made a name for their idiosyncratic style, this might just be their most singular release yet.” So we wrote of THE COUNT, Frog‘s brand new full-length coming later this month via Audio Antihero, when introducing the record a couple of weeks ago. “A concept album which sees lead Daniel Bateman assume the persona of the titular count,” we continued, “a figure straight out of some Warren Zevon song, full of shady history, personal mythology and perhaps even a supernatural edge.” After single ‘BITTEN BY MY LOVE VAR. XI’ (a song “strange, unpredictable and oddly heartbreaking), Frog have now returned with ‘SPANISH ARMADA VAR. XV’. Moving from hushed to hysterical and back again, the track showcases the full plasticity of Bateman’s voice within less than 150 seconds, as well as his ability to present desire and yearning in such a singular manner.

Me and the guys walked over with buckets of fries
Boarding the Spanish armada, that’s what I thought when I saw ya

Lawn – Pressure

Built around co-lead singers/songwriters Mac Folger and Rui De Magalhaes, New Orleans band Lawn have excelled with an idiosyncratic combination of jangly pop and taut post-punk across three full-length albums, defying genre conventions to show that fun and edge need not be mutually exclusive. Coming later this month via Exploding in Sound, new full-length God Made The Highway finds Lawn perfect this style. While previous single ‘Davie’ showed off the bright side of the release, latest single ‘Pressure’ falls on the wiry end of the spectrum. A track which coils like a tightening spring as De Magalhaes mulls over perceived judgement on his life choices from elsewhere, building and building in seething tension as things threaten to spill over into chaos. Whether the feelings are justified or just the product of personal insecurities is left up in the air, but it doesn’t really matter, there’s catharsis in the chorus all the same.

Watch the video directed by Daniel Lynch / Company Businesses Inc below:

God Made The Highway will be released on the 19th September via Exploding in Sound Records and you can pre-order it now.

múm – Kill the Light

We’ve covered a couple of tracks from Icelandic mainstays múm in recent months, previewing their forthcoming new album History of Silence. First ‘Mild at Heart’, what we called “a controlled, ever-curious track that shows the power of understatement while also reaching towards new ground,” then ‘Only Songbirds Have a Sweet Tooth’ which “embod[ies the colour and playfulness of the record as a whole,” as we described, “all manner of glitches and pops play[ing] across the background melody, offering a bittersweet tone which the dual vocals only further in their searching, reflecting style.” With release imminent via Morr Music, múm have shared new single, ‘Kill the Light’, and the song is no less striking. One lighthearted and playful yet evocative too, typical of the sense of nature running through the record. As ever, múm craft with a gentle hand yet evoke things far larger and grander than everyday existence.

History of Silence will be released via Morr Music on 15th September. Pre-order it now from the múm Bandcamp page.

New Balance – Lemon Slice

Originating back in 2017, New Balance was conceived as the solo project of Jeremy Leasure, a space in which to experiment and improvise with help from a rotating band of collaborators. One which appeared to offer a swan song back in 2022 with second album More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid, as Leasure came to feel the style had reached its apex and thus run its course. However, rather than putting New Balance to rest, Leasure instead evolved the project into something different, the line-up now solidified as a full band with the permanent addition of Jacob Maag, Emily Monnig, Dawson Timpany and Andy Campbell. A full-length is planned for 2026 with Anxiety Blanket Records to fully establish this new era, but for now double single Lemon Slice / Pocket Change gives an indication of what to expect. ‘Lemon Slice’ is perhaps the best introduction, its easygoing sound masking lyrics that focus on everyday disasters, what Leasure refers to in the chorus as “these little devastations.”

Lemon Slice / Pocket Change is out now via Anxiety Blanket Records.

Sweet Nobody – Revenge

Hailing from Long Beach, California, Sweet Revenge are an indie pop quartet whose work embraces the twin joys of melody and noise, utilising both pop and garage rock aesthetics to write songs for the meek and modest among us. Out via Repeating Cloud, latest single ‘Revenge’ shows both the fun and bite of this style, using sunny momentum as a source of energy to confront the phonies and their convoluted ways of living. “It’s hard to feel like you’re the only one searching for the genuine among the accusing masses,” as the band explain. “The hardest thing to face in conflict is knowing that someone is lying and not knowing who it is. This song is for those without an angle. It’s for those who love the straightforward.”

Pick up your pen
Accusations fly again
It’s all pretend
Even your friends
You ride the high
Kill anyone who asks you why
You try to cry
But you’re dead inside

Spirited Followers – Awakened

Cardiff‘s Spirited Followers have steadily built an audience in recent times, practising a singular blend of experimental folk and post-rock which reaches around the globe for influence. The resulting sound invokes the act’s title in its impassioned, enveloping style. With members hailing from Cyprus, India and Wales, Ireland, and England, the diversity of inspiration is perhaps unsurprising, though the work of Spirited Followers pushes beyond those backgrounds too. You’ll hear elements of Appalachian mountain music in the stark guitar, as well as a Greek flavour among several others. Now the band have released their debut single ‘Awakened’ via Roccoco Sŵn, and the track is the ideal calling card. One typical of the project’s sense of detail and scale, ebbing and flowing across its length yet, led by Avaneesh Bavadekar’s striking vocals, always building towards something higher, drawing the audience into its evocative, mesmerised state.

Wide Orbit – He’s A Wizard

Described by label 22Twenty as “a Midwest cough drop for the sore soul,” Chicago’s Wide Orbit are a DIY band in the best sense. A group of college-town buds recording in their cramped room with equal parts heart and playfulness. Suitably titled debut album Introducing… Wide Orbit has just been released, a calling card for the project and its emotive, mischievous spirit, as highlighted by single ‘He’s a Wizard’. The country-inflected indie rock number pairs irreverent energy with almost deadpan vocals, telling the tale of a teenage rogue and their attempts to get the better of their parents (“In May or April of 2006 / my mom bought me a brand new pair of kicks,” as one verse goes. “And I ran every which way even far away from them / And they’d come get me in the Honda Odyssey”). But by the back half of the track, the droll humour ramps up into something different, embracing the sing-a-long energy of a barroom jam.

The post Weekly Listening: September 2025 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Insurance agent by day and costumed country star by night, Brent Amaker of Brent Amaker and the Rodeo is something of an enigma. A Southerner in Seattle who channels the classic country spirit while at the same time subverting its tropes, owing as much to the persona-led art rock of Bowie and co. as the macho (so-called) authenticity of the genre’s heavy hitters. “We’re cowboys, living the spirit of the West,” Amaker explains. “We’re not really playing country music, but we’re playing cowboy music. ‘Western performance art’ is what I like to say.” Out early next year on Killroom Records, new album Philaphobia feels like the culmination of this spirit, and single ‘Take It By The Horns’ shows off the project’s infectiously energetic side. Watch the video directed and edited by Sean Downey below:

Philaphobia is out on the 26th January via Killroom Records.

Cool Planet – Don’t Forget to Lock the Door

“A love letter to my tape machine.” That’s how Samuel Szigeti describes Everything on the Floor, the new release from the Cool Planet project. Finding the device discarded at a part time job, Szigeti experimented with the technology and in many ways followed its lead, crafting songs full of nostalgic heart. Single ‘Don’t Forget to Lock the Door’ shows off just how warm and comforting the style can be, conjuring the sense of fond calm unique to crepuscular half-dark. The kind of mood found on “a late summer evening, walking home from work through the park,” as Szigeti puts it, “the lights in the baseball diamond are turning on as the sky goes from blue to orange.”

Everything on the Floor is out now and available via streaming services.

Drench Fries – Poolside

The solo project of Seattle-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Levi Nattrass, Drench Fries first caught our attention last year with the cool pop of ‘Out My Window’. “Think classic country regret made hazy by the sea mist of the West Coast,” as we put it, “with dollops of indie rock fuzz and playful pop synths adding an idiosyncratic charm.” Following successful nights sharing the stage with the likes of Pinegrove and Katy Kirby, Nattrass decided it was time to loosen his grip on the project and invite others to collaborate. New single ‘Poolside’ is the first taste of this newly communal form of Drench Fries. A bright, upbeat pop song which opens up on close listens to grapple with almost existential themes.

Layperson – Massive Leaning

Grief as an elemental force. That’s the theme behind Massive Leaning, the latest album from Portland, OR‘s Layperson on Lung Records. Led by Julian Morris and supported by Barra Brown, Steven Skolnik, Sam Wenc, Alex Fermanis and Tyler Neidermayer, the project straddles the line between country and pop, and its moods are equally fluid. An attempt to communicate from within the aftermath of a painful loss, where the possibility of new beginnings is always challenged by an overwhelming despair. As the title track suggests, Morris sits with these competing emotions and thus transcends the traditional break-up album. Not only mourning what is lost or pining for its return, but appreciating the wonder which can fill the gap if only you let it.

L E M F R E C K – After

Hailing from Newport and now based in Cardiff, L E M F R E C K is an artist and producer who casts a wide net for inspiration. Growing up, he played for gospel artists while honing his tastes with the likes of Ghetts and Kano, before immersing himself in the pirate grime scene across Wales and Bristol. His work now wears this rich variety proudly, drawing on both underground and mainstream influences to become something entirely his own. Take single ‘After’ from new release Blood, Sweat & Fears, which might open as a trap number but soon deepens into a smooth slice of R&B that hints towards a hauntological nostalgia.

Blood, Sweat & Fears is out now via Noctown and available from the usual places.

Montañera – A Flor de Piel

Montañera‘s album A Flor de Piel is a lesson in exploration and self-discovery. Writing on previous singles ‘Un Día Voy a Ser Mariposa‘ and ‘Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista‘, we’ve been struck by the manner in which the London-based Colombian artist is able to conjure such diverse spaces within their work. Soundscapes which seem to travel great distances while mapping interiority, and blur the distinction between reality and dreams, all while eschewing any genre conventions. With the album now out via Western Vinyl, we thought we’d share the title track as final proof of this ability. A song which draws on traditional Japanese sounds to offer a mission statement for the record. To find that light inside, and in full memory of the generations which came before, allow oneself to be born anew.

A Flor De Piel is out now via Western Vinyl and you can get it from the Montañera Bandcamp page.

Night Teacher – Comfort

A collaboration between multi-media artist/singer-songwriter Lilly Bechtel, and drummer/writer/producer Matt Wyatt, Night Teacher introduced their blend of doom folk and electro pop back in 2020 with their self-titled debut album—a collection of songs which delved deep into grief to to hope and despair simultaneously. New EP Dear Ellen builds upon this aesthetic and pushes into an increasingly dreamy atmosphere. Take single ‘Comfort’ with its organic ambient textures, all led by Bechtel’s ethereal delivery. The opening is like a dreamy field recording, swaying in the breeze behind bubbling birdsong, before guitar tumbles in gently and Bechtel’s voice enters with warm but sober sincerity.

Dear Ellen is out now and available from the usual places.

Shaina Hayes – New Favourite

Sometimes your parents know best, as typified by Quebecois artist Shaina Hayes. “My folks always wanted me to be a musician,” Hayes explains, “so for me, rebelling meant getting a degree in agricultural science!” But seeing as next February sees the release of her second album Kindergarten Heart on Bonsound, it seems rebellion didn’t stick. Lead single ‘New Favourite’ shows just why we should be glad of the fact, a folk pop track as playful as it is evocative, owing as much to Feist as Hank Williams in the way it paints the excitingly volatile pull of new love.

Oh, I remember the feeling
My feet on the ground
My heart in your soft hands
My head in the clouds

Will Gardner – Remains

Remains, the debut solo album from London-based composer and artist Will Gardner, is a record of abstract emotions grounded in physical reality. A picture of days spent caring for his father through late stages of Parkinson’s dementia, the songs not only bring to light the difficult realities of the process, but push further into the intangible sensations of losing something so familiar so gradually, mourning that which has not yet passed away. Closing the album, the title track encapsulates the release, built around diary entries written by Gardner’s father, fragments of texts which were used to as scaffolding before being removed, leaving just the rhythms and melodies they inspired.

The post Weekly Listening: November 2023 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Portland, Oregon songwriter Anna Tivel returns later this summer with brand new album Outsiders on Mama Bird Recording Co. Ahead of the release, Tivel has unveiled the lead single and title track to set the tone. A slow-moving, mysterious track nevertheless grounded in the human experience, looking to connect what seems faraway to our immediate situation. “I wrote ‘Outsiders’ sitting on the floor in front of the TV between fragments of the Apollo 11 documentary,” Tivel explains. “The news was feeling especially dark, full of pain and distorted truths, and watching all that beautiful footage from the ‘69 moon landing hit me right in the gut.”

Outsiders, look up
It turns out we are not so different

Check out the video by Eric J. Loeffler and Vincent Bancheri below:

Outsiders is out via Mama Bird Recording Co. on the 19th August and you can pre-order it now.

Badvril – Tall Sam

Badvril is the recording project of Becket Schroeder, a songwriter who draws inspiration from his time spent between rural Washington and San Francisco. New single ‘Tall Sam’ plays on this juxtaposition, balancing quiet lo-fi textures with heavier guitars, Schroeder’s reflective vocals wrapping the whole thing in a warm nostalgic charm.

‘Tall Sam’ is out now and available from all the usual places.

Kathryn Joseph – A Way From Rage

Fresh from her fantastic new record for you who are the wronged, Kathryn Joseph has returned with a version of Heir of the Cursed‘s ‘A Way From Rage’, dedicated to the memory of Beldina Odenyo Onassis and in support of the Mental Health Foundation. We first covered Joseph’s work back in 2015 with the album Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled, describing it as a record about people “lonely and loved, corporeal and divine, mortal and terrified yet enduring with a resilient hope that never quite goes out.” The description could extend to this cover and the new record too, as both display Joseph’s understated and devastating style at the height of its power.

‘A Way From Rage’ is out now and available on the Kathryn Joseph Bandcamp page, where you can also find her new record, for you who are the wronged.

Lonely Uncles – 20 Million People

With album Mad Ashes on the horizon, Lonely Uncles have unveiled brand new single ’20 Million People’ to build anticipation. Following on from 2020 punk/electro-pop hybrid release Ex-Kidz, the track furthers the project’s creative art rock aesthetic, its sound a rich and fluid tapestry across which various styles of vocals move. From the zealous, preacher-style monologue of the middle section to the laidback lilt of the closing minute. Perhaps not quite twenty million people, but the track does capture a sense of multiplicity and movement to evoke the diversity of a population.

You can find Lonely Uncles on Instagram.

Martha – Please Don’t Take Me Back

Durham pop-punk four-piece Martha return next month with a new 7″ single, Please Don’t Take Me Back’. Released on the ever-reliable Specialist Subject Records, the song sees Martha continue to perfect their anarchic, fun and politically-conscious brand of pop punk. Rather fittingly for a week in which large swathes of the UK will be garlanded in red, white and blue in celebration of the imagined glory of a difficult history, the song is about rejecting the comfy allure of rose-tinted spectacles. “The past was absolutely terrible,” the band say. “Don’t get us wrong, the present is also absolutely terrible, but that almost instantly becomes the past anyway.”

Take me back to the old days
Take me back to the glory days we had
Take me back to the old days
No wait, don’t do that
I was really fucking sad
The old days were bad

Please Don’t Take Me Back is out via Specialist Subject on the 24th June and you can pre-order it now from the Martha Bandcamp page.

Midding – Figurehead

Having changed their name from Clwb Fuzz, Cardiff’s Midding have unveiled a brand new single as a kind of re-introduction. Titled ‘Figurehead’, it’s a slice of foreboding psych rock in which a languid dreamlike drift is interspersed by anxious acceleration, its shadowy western sensibilities offering an almost Lynchian vibe. “We’ve all matured (a bit) since and just wanted a fresh start,” as guitarist/vocalist Joe Woodward explains of the new moniker. “We will still be the same band, just in a different body. It’s like Clwb Fuzz was a caterpillar and now Midding is us transforming into some weird fucked up butterfly.” Check out the video for ‘Figurehead’ by Pypi Slysh below:

‘Figurehead’ is out now and available on streaming services. You can also follow Midding on Instagram.

M. Lockwood Porter – While We’re Here

We last wrote of Oklahoma-born, Oakland-based songwriter M. Lockwood Porter way back in 2014 with the album 27, though he has since continued to develop his country rock style. New single ‘While We’re Here’ sees John Moreland on bass, Jeremy Lyon on guitar and Ian Taylor Sutton on pedal steel, resulting in a warm and emotionally-charged exploration of grief in the wake of the death of Lockwood’s father. An attempt to communicate the new understanding gleaned from the process of losing such a fundamental part of one’s life, recontextualising everything and promising to continue with the hard-won wisdom only grief can bring.

While we’re here
Our little lives are everything we’ve got
We pretend they’re never ending, though they’re not
So chalk that up as one more thing you taught me
It’ll come in handy

‘While We’re Here’ is out now via Black Mesa Records and you can get it from the M. Lockwood Porter Bandcamp page.

quand il pleut – Altar

Seattle super duo quand il pleut have unveiled their new EP, Refuge, as part of Dance Cry Dance Records’ newsletter subscription package, Dance Cry Dance Break. Consisting of Natalie Bayne (Sound of the Hunter) and Matt Badger (Ravenna Woods), the pair layer discordant guitars and atmospheric synths to create a sound at once stark and triumphant. The EP comes packaged as a single 25-minute track, split into six distinct songs. Lead single ‘Altar’ is a reflective slice of this whole, its mournful vocals following the ascendant guitars into a cathartic close.

Refuge is out now for subscribers to Dance Cry Dance Break, and will be available publicly a year later.

Workhorse – Chain

Workshorse is the project of Adelaide songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Harriet Fraser-Barbour, who arrived on the scene back in 2017 with debut EP No Sun. The record introduced a distinctive style, combining the dusty nostalgia of American country music with slinky, shadowy dream pop that wouldn’t be out of place on a David Lynch soundtrack. In August, Workhorse will release their debut LP No Photographs on Dinosaur City Records, a record created during the initial 2020 lockdown when Fraser-Barbour set out to “experiment with creating band music as a solo musician.” The result is something tender, wistful and strange, influenced by queer. Check out lead single ‘Chain’ in the player below for an idea of what to expect.

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Big Thing, AKA Jen (guitar/vocals), Dan (guitar/vocals), Jonny (drums) and Matt (bass), released their first single ‘Longbeach’ a few months back, a bright and breezy track that certainly leaned toward the pop end of the spectrum, the summery title going some way to suggesting the cool, carefree rhythm that made the song. However, the evocative vocals and atmospheric dips in tempo hinted at another side to the band too, with the emotive chops to back up the sense of luminous motion.

Today we’re really happy to share a new single, ‘Spin’. The song is altogether heavier and squally, the relaxed momentum from the previous single swapped out for a feedback-laden grind, a dense wall-of-noise upon which the vocals surf. The drums don’t so much float on the noise as rise through it, like bubbles rising staccato through a cloudy carbonated drink, though every so often they kick into tight sequences that drive the intensity and feeling of the track. Take a listen for yourself:

‘Spin’ is out on the 27th July via Phwoar and Peace. You can grab their previous single, ‘Longbeach,’ here.

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The Album Wall is a one-man blog run by Joel Dear, who writes all sorts of great things like this recent piece on CHUCK’s masterpiece and this not so recent piece on the legends that are Okkervil River, plus shares super controversial opinions like this semi-insinuation that Hospice isn’t the one of best albums ever committed to tape (though his original review used the word ‘essential’, so it’s all cool).

If You’re Beautiful

by Joel Dear

Song from a different continent to your own

Caetano Veloso – O Estrangeiro

Caetano Veloso is a Brazilian musician whom I was lucky enough to see live at the Primavera Sound festival in Porto a couple of years ago. I bought his Definitive Collection CD from one of the merch stalls while I was there, and while this track isn’t particularly typical of the compilation as a whole, I do enjoy the way it sounds a bit like Nine Inch Nails so here it is.

Song for the coldest day of the year

Sharon Van Etten – Tarifa

Few songs warm me up like ‘Tarifa’. When Sharon Van Etten recorded this track, she created a sort of audiowomb that almost envelopes you as you listen to it – perfect for simulating that warm ‘n’ toasty feeling on cold days.

Sure, it’s a pretty melancholy song. But it’s a cosy kind of melancholy, y’know?

Favourite song from this year

Mothers – Nesting Behaviour

There are currently a fair few tracks in contention for my personal ‘Song of 2016’ award (and obviously there are several exciting new releases still to come this year), but ‘Nesting Behaviour’ is certainly among the front-runners right now. Its sparing arrangement is a masterclass in not overdoing things, and the way Kristine Leschper’s voice swoops and wavers before soaring up to hit those last few high notes (“Reminding me not to bloom…”) gives me the trembles every time. Stunning.

Song that reminds you of someone awful

John Grant – Jesus Hates Faggots

When I was in sixth form – about eight or nine years ago now – I spent more time than I would have liked in the company of a truly awful person whose name I won’t disclose here. Let’s just call him James.

There was lots to dislike about James. He was irritating. He was lecherous. He was not very bright. He had more money than everyone else. He seemed to have no concept of personal space or boundaries; once, upon noticing my larger-than-average Adam’s apple, he literally reached across the table to try and touch it, the absolute freak.

Worst of all, though, were his religious beliefs. James was – if I remember correctly – a Baptist, and he genuinely held some of those scary beliefs that you don’t really expect to encounter nowadays outside certain parts of the USA. Most notably, he had very little tolerance for gay people; in fact, he once informed me that, if he encountered any “gays”, he would chain them to the back of his car and drag them around behind him as he drove. (Ironically, his favourite musician was Elton John, so either his homophobia was very selective or he missed a memo somewhere down the line.)

Frustratingly, most of the other people in my year seemed to think that James, for all his foibles, was a great laugh and a fun person to have around. For my part, I hated being around him – I think he’s still the closest thing I’ve ever met to the biblical bigots that John Grant imitates in this song’s choruses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDFg7kuX97U

Song that reminds you of your favourite book

The Magnetic Fields – Asleep and Dreaming

My all-time favourite book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which means that the obvious choice here would have been Paranoid Android from Radiohead’s OK Computer (named for Marvin the Paranoid Android, a character from Hitchhiker’s Guide who isn’t actually paranoid so much as clinically depressed).

However, I didn’t want to take the obvious choice, so I instead turned to one of my very favourite albums, the titanic three-disc pop odyssey that is 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields. The beautiful Asleep and Dreaming is track number 42 of 69, and the number 42 – according to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – is The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.

There aren’t really any parallels beyond that. I just like this song a lot and I’m kind of a sucker for number stuff.

Here’s the entire ‘EP’ as one thing, if that sounds like something you might prefer:

Be sure to add The Album Wall to your list of sites to check on Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays, and follow his Twitter and Facebook pages as a reminder.

Artwork by Vicky, Joel’s girlfriend (he can’t remember why she drew this)

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You can pre-order the self-titled Nudes début album via Dog Knights and Barely Regal.

The band are also embarking on a UK tour this month. See the dates below:

SEPTEMBER
26 Manchester, Fallow Cafe
27 Leeds, venue tbc
28 Sheffield, Golden Harvest
29 Birmingham, venue tbc
30 Cardiff, Full Moon Club

OCTOBER
1 Bristol, venue tbc
2 Brighton, venue tbc
3 London, Power Lunches

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Fragile? hosted ‘Music is Fragile?’, a concert by Cardiff University’s School of Music written in response to the ceramics exhibition. Lisa Nelsen (flute) and Gwenllian Llŷr (harp) played a number of pieces which utilised technology alongside classical music to produce imaginative, evocative sounds, with composers Richard McReynolds, Julia E. Howell, Blair Boyd, Daniel James Ross, Jordan Hirst, Martin Humphries and John Cooney managing to create seven very different pieces. The audience, which ranged from ages seven to seventy, sat (and then stood) entranced – the connoisseurs appreciating the technique and composition, while the lay folk learned just what is possible with a harp, a flute and a gathering of experimental minds.

A quick dash across the hall led to the Chalkie Davies exhibition, the location of the music event presented by Spillers Records. Mike Dennis, wearing a rather apt Dennis The Menace shirt, kicked off proceedings with his rather unique brand of spoken word. As alluded to in the preview post, Dennis is a classically-trained violinist, so the early minutes of his set acted as a pleasant soundtrack for an audience still milling around Chalkie Davies’s photos. But this was not another traditional concert. Dennis was soon utilising loops and effects pedals to build a dense tangle of sound, and as he began to recite his verses a crowd gathered, drawn by lyrics covering everything from bad bosses to the insanity of firearms. Both violin and verses became impressively frantic and by the end of his set the the novelty of a gig in a museum gallery began to hit home.

If Dennis was the early stages of transition between exhibition and venue, then Junior Bill & the Scallies completed the switch. Peddling their brand of punky, samba-infused ska, the band had the audience packed around them, the photography forgotten, a gang of nodding heads and tapping feet punctuated with sporadic pockets of dancing from the diehards at the front.

The final act, Gwenno, changed the room again, swapping sweaty energy for something far more detached and ominous. With the aid of electronics that fell somewhere between robotic and celestial, not to mention her Welsh and Cornish lyrics, Gwenno created vivid soundscapes that were somehow desolate, clinical, post-human worlds in which love and pain are nothing but nagging, vestigial impulses buried beneath a cascade of ones and zeroes. Accompanied by Adam Curtis-style visuals projected onto the wall, the set captured the audience in a totally different way to the previous acts. Strangely, things had come full circle, the gallery-cum-club morphing into a conceptual art gallery. (FYI this is neither the time or place but I could write quite a bit more about Gwenno’s music and the ideas behind it. The album is out this July on Heavenly Recordings, so expect one of my long-winded, not-practical-for-the-internet-consumer specials in the near future).

The diverse, shape-shifting nature of the evening highlighted something very important with regards to museums in general. Without getting too much into politics and the mind-melting confusion of the economy, British museums, along with a whole host of other public services, are under threat from the current climate of austerity. This is something that causes some people to bump their gums angrily (*raises hand*), and others to shrug their shoulders in apathy at the maiming (and eventual loss) of what they see as redundant collections of old stuff. But the truth is that museums can and should be so much more than dusty halls manned by dusty men and women. The Late Night Music evenings showed that museums can be innovative, adaptable and welcoming to all, centres of the community rather than simple tourist novelties. All it takes are some determined people with imagination. Not only does it serve to interest the disinterested (the people who feel museums aren’t for them or else visit once in a blue moon and skip to the dinosaurs) it also gives a productive, progressive outlet for the energy that would otherwise be wasted gum-bumping and foot-stamping by those who already appreciate the value a museum can hold. What better way to ensure the survival of an institute than to make it central to the lives and well-being of the people it serves?

Keep up to date with future events at the National Museum Cardiff on their Website or Twitter page. Let’s hope they continue to do things like this.

P.S. The lovely musical photos are by Andrew Mackie. The amateurish Fragile? one is from us.

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Tracklisting:

1. A Lingering – German Error Message
2. All You’ve Gotta be When You’re 23 – Free Cake For Every Creature
3. Can You Feel It, Too? – Fun Home
4. Garden Tomb – Pasture Dog
5. How Marvelous – Lewtrakimou
6. Out Names – Shunkan
7. Floral Mattress – Naps
8. Rapture in Heat – Liam Betson
9. Astoria – Gwenno
10. Electric Duck – Henry Demos
11. Angharad – Yucatan
12. Orchids (Instrumental) – Celebrity Crush
13. Tulsa – John Statz
14. Snow – Alanna McArdle
15. Yours Till the Ocean – Danielle Fricke
16. The Lights in the Sands of Katumpkale – REW<<

April 2015 Roundup from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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May 21

AAH – the solo project of Tenby’s Adam Taylor (formerly of Victorian Gentleman’s Club). Very little information is available online but the one gig review I did manage to find described his sound as “60s – 80s goth-pop, delivered by a left-field ensemble of violas, keyboards, omnichords and footswitch drum machines,” which sounds just the sort of music you’d expect to find in a museum.

Ratatosk – the moniker of experimental musician Rhodri Viney, Ratatosk puts out experimental music which he describes as a ‘sad quasi-historical faux-dystopian musical thing’.  Fans of downbeat ambient/slowcore should find something to love over at Viney’s Bandcamp page.

Threatmantics – one Cardiff’s most beloved live acts, Threatmantics create a brand of music that defies any one genre. Maybe we should make up a new one: theatrical folk-punk art-rock indie pop ‘n roll. Or something. Listen to their album Kid McCoy on Bandcamp and come up with a better suggestion. They also have a song called ‘Archaeopteryx’, so why not pop to see the fossil before their set?

May 28

Mike Dennis – A rapper, producer, sound engineer and classically-trained violinist, Bristol’s Mike Dennis makes what can only be described as string-heavy hip-hop/spoken word. Coupled with his frenetic rhymes about British life, Dennis’s tunes should please fans of The Streets, Run DMC and The Beastie Boys. You can grab his music now on Bandcamp.

Junior Bill & The Scallies – A ska band which draw upon elements of rap, hip-hop, reggae and samba, Junior Bill & The Scallies are a very British in the best sense – diverse and inclusive and cross-pollinated, the meeting point of a variety of styles and cultures. You can get their latest album from Bandcamp.

Gwenno – Fresh from releasing her debut album on Peski last year, Cardiff singer/producer/DJ/radio presenter/ex-Pippette Gwenno Saunders will be playing her very own brand of avant-electro-pop. Part inspired by Welsh sci-fi novel Y Dydd Olaf (The Last Day) in which machines are taking over the world (and the main character keeps a diary in Welsh so the robots can’t understand it), Gwenno’s album is very much one of politics and protest, with songs titles such as ‘Chwyldro’ (‘Revolution’) and ‘Patriarchaeth’ (‘Patriarchy’) hinting at the themes of technological propaganda and manipulation.

You can grab your tickets online now for a very reasonable £5 or chance it on the door for £7.

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