Latest single ‘Moon Landings’ is no exception to this style. Drawing on the iconic event alluded to in the title, the song sees City Dress ruminate on those moments which reverberate around the world and reorientate our relationship with our surroundings. “I wrote ‘Moon Landings’ in the early days of the pandemic after watching a show in which the characters go back in time to the night Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon,” Skramstad explains. “It made me think about transcendence, awe, and what it feels like when the world’s collective gaze is aimed in the same direction, as that was happening in real-time with Covid.”

City Dress brings this to life with a gentle acoustic soundscape, and what results is a rare celebration of positive face of humanity which showed itself during the pandemic. Where people worked together to address a problem, showing how the even largest tasks are not insurmountable if only the will and energy exists in order to tackle them.

The post City Dress – Moon Landings appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tender, the debut solo album by Colorado’s Allison Lorenzen on Whited Sepulchre Records was marked by “a transience which feels deeply compassionate,” as we described in our review. “Hope manifest as an understanding of the potential for change.” Follow-up single ‘The Fourth Cycle‘ continued this examination of change, detailing the gamut of emotional states involved with any upheaval, and latest track ‘MTO’ feels like the next step along the process. Described as sounding like a “final climax of a Mark Fisher-influenced hauntological prom scene,” the song looks to recognise the repeating patterns of the past so that Lorenzen might heal and move forward.

Bad Tiger – Enough

Last year, we described how Bad Tiger’s 2020 album The Goat and the Bad Tiger was “far from being the full realisation of [Yasi] Lowy’s goals,” but instead “merely opened the doors to new possibilities.” The San Francisco outfit are back with ‘Enough’, a new single which focuses on the precariousness of the present moment. With Lowy’s tender and confessional vocals, the track paints a vulnerable, open-hearted mood which longs for certainty within the painful fervour of love.

City Dress – Empires of Honey

“Music is for everyone who spent their childhoods obsessively reading the lyrics to their favorite songs.” That’s how Brooklyn‘s Christina Skramstad describes her folk pop project City Dress. Together with guitarist Johnny Simon Jr. (Wilsen), she writes lush and literary folk songs, which we last featured back in 2020. Fast forward a few years and City Dress is back with a new single, ‘Empires of Honey’, a rhythmic and resolute exploration of the self-deception involved in ego and boundless ambition. “The song is about standing at a crossroads and making decisions you imagine will bring you joy and contentment,” Skramstad describes, “but realizing that sometimes your wants and needs are misaligned.”

‘Empire of Honey is out now via streaming services.

clay pigeon – Come Down

Having released an EP and album under his own name, Montreal-based songwriter James Clayton has now adopted the moniker clay pigeon for his new material. Clayton recently recorded the project’s debut album at Hotel2Tango with Howard Bilerman and Shae Brossard, and debut single ‘Come Down’ gives a glimpse into what to expect. A simmering blend of shadow and rhythm, where the understated mood grows taut as it progresses, threatening to snap into an all-out crescendo but never quite breaking its controlled progress.

Lael Neale – White T-Shirt

Following the release of her sophomore record Star Eaters Delight back in the spring, LA’s Lael Neale has released standalone single ‘White T-Shirt’, a take on one of her older songs that didn’t quite fit on the album. As producer Guy Blakeslee describes, “White T-Shirt’ dates back a number of years to when I used to follow Lael around LA to all of her barely publicized performances. The song never ceased to silence the chatter in the room…it’s a raw gem that stands alone and cuts through the noise” Blakeslee is not wrong. Clocking in at under two minutes, ‘White T-Shirt’ has an almost uncanny timeless quality, stripped back to guitar and Neale’s distinctive vocals

‘White T-Shirt’ is out now via Sub Pop and available via the Lael Neale Bandcamp page.

Left Tracks – Strawberry Moon

LA‘s Kabir Kumar (AKA Sun Kin) and Oakland‘s Phil Di Leo (DI LEO) first met in 2016, though it is only now they’ve decided to combine their skills. Enter Left Tracks, a brand new project that sees Kumar and Di Leo use all of their skills as composers, vocalists and multi-instrumentalists to imagine a new future in the wake of COVID and the adjacent catastrophes. What emerged was End Times Hauling, an EP which sits on the precipice of disaster but makes a decision to envisage a different world, working on the logic that no significant change can occur without first rekindling a sense of imagination. Opening track and single ‘Strawberry Moon’ introduces the left-field folk-inflected pop sound, as well as the compassion and collaboration which marks the release.

Nina Keith – Blow Up Yr Life (U Need To)

LA-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Nina Keith first caught attention in 2019 with MARANASATI 19111, an LP which decorated piano arrangements with a whole host of flourishes from flute to field recordings to better explore ideas of memory and death. With a tour opening for Youth Lagoon fast approaching, Keith has returned with ‘Blow Up Yr Life’, a single featuring Barrie and Qur’an Shaheed which again combines classical and contemporary styles to urge its audience to break from from their circumstances and live on their own terms. “Lately the more I wear the turmoil of my life on my sleeve the more often I find myself in conversations with strangers and loved ones that reach a similar end,” as Keith explains. “I can never be the one to tell someone to burn it down and start over. They see the ash stains on my shirt and ask to borrow a match so they can play with it, save it for later, but sometimes it’s like ‘girl, the house is already on fire, you can’t stay in there’.” Check out the visualizer by Nik Arthur below:

‘Blow Up Yr Life (U Need To)’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Ratboys – The Window

Later this summer, Chicago indie rockers Ratboys return with The Window, a brand new record via Topshelf Records. Having already released two singles – the epic ‘Black Earth, WI’ and expressive ‘It’s Alive’ – they have now unveiled the title track, an uber-personal song that forms the record’s emotional centre point. “I wrote that song a few days after the death of my grandma” explains lead Julia Steiner. “She didn’t have Covid, but because of the pandemic my grandpa wasn’t able to visit her in person at the nursing home to say goodbye. He ended up standing outside her room and saying goodbye through an open window.” It starts quiet and sober, but this is not your standard sad song. It soon kicks up a gear, becoming a country-tinged rock song that displays the Ratboys knack for combining tenderness with raucous noisy energy. Watch the John TerEick-directed widescreen video below:

The Window will be released on 25th August. Pre-order a copy from the Ratboys Bandcamp page.

Upper Narrows – Tinker’s Darn

Based in Portland, Maine, Upper Narrows is the recording project of songwriter and producer Tyler Jackson. Jackson’s process is an unusual one, swapping out drums and guitars for programmed beats and an array of synths. In October he will release While We’re Warm, the debut Upper Narrows full-length via Repeating Cloud, and debut single ‘Tinker’s Darn’ is our first taste of what to expect. A deep and spacey sound that balances its digital soundscape with a very human emotion, resulting in something as immersive as it is affirming, even if the lyrics hold a more conflicted view.

hungover when I cry
my bucket of bolts on fire
preach forgiveness around the clock
pretend I’m not a liar

fathoms of forgiveness
from the magazine to the gun
the apples inside her are turning to cider
the terror of not having fun

The post Weekly Listening: July 2023 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Pezzettino – Somewhere North of Pescadero

Pezzetino has been the recording moniker of Oakland-based multi-instrumentalist Margaret Stutt since 2008, with the releases numbering into double figures. Indeed, Venus, the 10″ EP out this month, is the eleventh Pezzetino release. “Success to me means having the opportunity each day to witness beauty in life, big or small,” Strutt says. “I just so happen to write music along the way to help me through.”

Lead single ‘Somewhere North of Pescadero’ operates according to this sentiment. Led by a mellow piano line, the track is an encapsulation of the calmness to be found in the small details of nature—mindfulness in its pure sense, before it became co-opted by the productivity ghouls of our age. “I enjoy the flavor of fruit and the color of sunsets,” Strutt explains. “I can’t believe how many sunsets I wasted in my 20s. There is so much to be found beneath the surface of everyday, boring life.”

Check out the video below, which was edited by Christiana Charalambous, with footage by Chris Coad:

Venus is out now and you can get it from the Pezzetino Bandcamp page.

Bedtime Khal – Black Tears

Bedtime Khal is the recording moniker of Michigan-based bedroom artist Khal Malik. After releasing two EPs last year, Malik has teamed up with the good people at Devil Town Tapes for a brand new release. Described as an “introspective” EP of ” love, isolation and the feeling of nostalgia,” Fog finds Bedtime Khal at its most developed and honed, taking inspiration from the aesthetics of the late 90s/early 00s and combining post-punk, indie rock and singer-songwriter styles.

Lead single ‘Black Tears’ gives a good indication of how this turns out. Intended as a meditation “on life as a black and brown individual,” the song’s tight rhythm evokes both frustration and unease, though below this energy lies an overwhelming sadness too. The restless melancholy of post-punk has sometimes fallen victim to existential navel gazing, and Bedtime Khal is here to revitalise the sound and direct it toward more pressing concerns.

City Dress – Showing Up

City Dress is the recording moniker of Brooklyn-based songwriter Christina Skramstad. With help from Johnny Simon Jr., Skramstad draws from folk, rock-and-roll and jazz to create lush, narrative-based songs that combine emotional immediacy with a desire to evoke memories and tell stories.

New single ‘Showing Up’ serves as the perfect introduction. “‘Showing Up’ is a response to a tension that built up with my best friend as we navigated walking deeper into the wonders and hardships of adulthood,” Skramstad explains. “It speaks to the insecurities that follow us as we get older. There are still so many humbling moments when we feel small and vulnerable, just like we did when we were young.”

Check out the video by Glenn Gallagher with visual narrative and illustrations by Liana Finck:

Prudence – Heart Sways

We covered Prudence, the recording project of Australian multi-instrumentalist Tom Crandles (of COLOURS and Au.Ra), a few times last year. First the single ‘Euphoria’ introduced a smoky dream-like atmosphere before the full EP Major Tom was released on Forged Artifacts. The release explored “realms both strange and reassuring, disquieting and beautiful,” drawing on post-punk and new wave to capture an alluring blend of the joyous and sinister.

This month sees Prudence return with a brand new single, and something of a shift in the project. Enlisting the talents of pianist Aleesha Dibbs (of Divebell, Lorelei), bassist Kat Harley (The Laurels, Mezko) and drummer Steve West (Obscura Hail), Prudence has evolved into a full band, and new song ‘Heart Sways’ utilises this to weave a vivid dream pop soundscape. The warm currents evoke the themes too, with the volatile patterns of love charted in all of their fickle beauty.

You know it’s not done.
Don’t ruin all the fun,
Cos’ I’m becoming numb.

I know your mood swings with the moon.
I know your heart sways

Check out the video directed by McLean Stephenson:

Heart Sways is out now and available from the Prudence Bandcamp page.

Jess Williamson – Wind on Tin

LA-based songwriter Jess Williamson has been steadily establishing herself as a leading name in the Californian folk movement. Released in 2018, her last record Cosmic Wink introduced a subtle esoteric edge to her country-inspired sound, and Williamson’s forthcoming fourth full-length album looks sets to continue in that direction. Sorceress, to be released this month on Mexican Summer, might not be overtly psychedelic, but it carries a mysticism nonetheless.

Lead single ‘Wind on Tin’ is the perfect example. Born out of an experience during a memorial service for a friend in a remote town, the track sees Williamson lean into the spiritual dimension of the desert, where the air shimmers over the land and the wind carries its own mystique and power. “We heard an unexplainable sound in the wind that made us all pause,” she explains. “Like a flute, but more angelic. It kept going. We tried, unsuccessfully, to record it. The sound was indescribably beautiful and heavenly.”

Helpless, helpless, helpless
We all sang along
There is a braid that binds us
And his thread ain’t gone
Heard a sound so heavenly
Were the angels singing just for us?
Or is that what the wind
Out here does on tin?

I heard god

Sorceress is out via Mexican Summer on the 15th May and you can pre-order it now.

Toner – Dark Ecstasy

Oakland band Toner describe their music as ‘lovers rock’, though the tag doesn’t quite get close to the noisy amalgamation of slacker, garage rock and slowcore that constitutes their sound. Last month saw the release of their brand new record, Silk Road, on Smoking Room, an album that completes the outfit’s total transformation from solo project of lead Samuelito Cruz to no holds barred rock band.

Single ‘Dark Ecstasy’ sets the tone, Cruz’s vocals perched atop of the dense sound and weaving a carefree, nocturnal air. But beneath the buoyant energy runs another force, some desperation, as though everything is slipping away with the motion of the track, leaving Cruz to reach out as they move away. “No sleep, gin on the backstreets,” he sings. “My time is on your lease just to calm / your ease but you leave.”

Karina – Teko

Helsinki duo Karin Mäkiranta and Helmi Tikkanen record under the moniker Karina, and in 2018 won critical acclaim with their self-titled debut album. Built from a sense of intimacy that veered between warm and haunting, Karina was a record of serious emotion, blending folk sensibilities with the indie rock weight of Daughter, and maintaining a certain mysteriousness too—establishing them as one of Scandinavia’s most intriguing acts.

Ahead of their second record, the aptly titled 2 that’s out on GEMS this summer, Karina has unveiled a brand new single, ‘Teko’. Weaving a detailed soundscape populated by the pair’s ethereal vocals, the track sits at the intersection of dream pop and indie rock, pushing the Karina sound in an increasingly ambitious direction. Indeed, with the peaks and troughs, ‘Teko’ has roots in post-rock too, and the transcendent climax (which in fact kicks in around halfway through and refuses to let up) packs a punch of which Sigur Ros would be proud.

2 will be released via GEMS on 3rd July.

Eliza Edens – Garden of Sound

Raised in Massachusetts and currently residing in Philadelphia, Eliza Edens weaves a delicate, finger picked brand of folk music. Taking inspiration from the slower rhythms of geological time, her debut full-length Time Away From Time removes itself from the rush of modern life to probe and ponder at a more leisurely place, finding beauty and melancholy in both nature and the process of living.

Lead track ‘Garden of Sound’ welcomes you into this world. Carved from a wistful fondness, the song balances intuition with mystery, offering a natural ambiguity where knowing and unknowing marble into something wonderful.

I lay down
In a garden of sound
And I remembered
I remembered
Inside of you
Is a place that has never been wounded
Don’t you remember?

State Park Ranger – Mountain Kin / Anodyne

Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, State Park Ranger are a folk rock duo with an added bluesy streak. Released last month, Days Gone is a three song EP that’s paving the way for a forthcoming full-length, and each of the tracks capture a different side to the outfit that suggest the album will be both versatile and ambitious.

There’s much to admire in the gentle acoustic strum of the title track, and the hauntingly spacious hymn ‘Bright Morning Stars’, but the slow-burning ‘Mountain Kin / Anodyne’ really stands out. Shaking into life with a lazy flow, there’s a deep-set anger at the heart of the track, one that is allowed out not in melodramatic bursts of noise but rather the flat delivery and spikes of guitar. “‘Well it never ends’ is all I’ve been thinking lately,” they explain, referencing the opening line of the song. “Being caught at the bottom of the economy never allows for a break. Even being at home now, I am spending borrowed and stolen time. I don’t own my time, I’m a thief for resting, and I’m lazy if I do not desire more than what I need. Capitalism is unsustainable.”

Renée Reed – Out Loud

Born and raised in southern Louisiana, Renée Reed makes music as a continuation of a rich cultural lineage. She is the granddaughter of Cajun accordion player Harry Trahan and both her parents are Cajun musicians too. Reed is currently studying Traditional Music and French at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and working in the Archives of the Center for Louisiana Studies, in some ways following in the footsteps of another family member, great-uncle Revon Reed who was a folklorist from Mamou, Louisiana.

Adapting the blueprint of contemporary artists such as Cate le Bon and Jessica Pratt, Renée Reed uses her music to bring this sense of history and culture into the present moment, resulting in what she describes as “dream-fi folk from the Cajun prairies.” ‘Out Loud’, Reed’s first single on the reliably excellent Keeled Scales, is a wonderful introduction. It’s a beguiling and magnetically dreamlike folk song which Reed says is about “surviving an unhealthy relationship… by embracing and being yourself fully.” Check it out below:

‘Out Loud’ is out now on Keeled Scales. Get it from the Renée Reed Bandcamp page.

That’s all folks for Vol. 34! Be sure to check out the Reviews and Previews sections for more in-depth writing, and do let us know what you’ve been listening to on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

The post Bright Sparks: Vol. 34 appeared first on Various Small Flames.