Best Fern is the ambient pop collaboration between New York’s Alexia Avina and Montreal’s Nick Schofield. The pair met while in residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where they drew on the surrounding Rocky Mountain landscape to devise a style that sits in the ethereal middle ground between ambient and pop. The debut Best Fern album, Earth Then Air, releases early next year on Backward Music and Youngbloods, and lead single ‘Way Inside’ is an indicator of what is to come. A track at once soaring and earthy, the fecund mistiness eradicating any distinction between organic and dream matter. The song comes complete with a video directed & edited by Hugo Bernier. Watch it below:

Earth Then Air releases on 3^rd February via Youngbloods. Preorder it now via the Best Fern Bandcamp page.

CO-ED DORMS – Milk Drinker

Part of what they call the “Neo-Classical Post-Industrial Post-Punk Revival,” English four-piece CO-ED DORMS have shared new single ‘Milk Drinker’ as a statement of intent. A finely crafted track which grasps for a number of stylistic influences, the lush instrumentation held in line by almost marching percussion, while the near spoken-word vocals are sardonic and playful and wry.  Think Black Country, New Road fronted by Mark E. Smith, this time sponsored by Big Dairy. Drink the damn milk.

Cynthia Hamar – Where Your Love Lives

Back in June, we wrote about Alberta-born Métis singer-songwriter Cynthia Hamar, labelling single ‘Shaken’ as “a track which finds a balance between soulful confidence and poignant sadness, led by the kind of bitter assurance gained only from learning the hard way.” Again out via Neon Moon Records, latest track ‘Where Your Love Lives’ is no less mature and reflective in its tone, taking a nostalgic look at the past in all its bittersweet glory. Charting the things gained and lost along the way, and the slow change constantly unfolding. The song’s video furthers this excavation of bygone years, with director Korban Hamar and editor Jessica Lowe creating a collage of home videos from Hamar’s family collection.

‘Where Your Love Lives’ is out now via Neon Moon Records and you can listen in the usual places.

Dunebug – Still Dreaming

Now based in London, Dunebug is the project of Manchester-born Chi Limpiroj. Regular readers will be familiar with her work as we’ve covered a couple of singles in the last few years which, along with a self-titled EP released in 2019, have established a distinctively bittersweet lo-fi indie pop style. Now Dunebug has returned with a new single, ‘Still Dreaming’, the latest release ahead of a forthcoming debut album. Limpiroj describes ‘Still Dreaming’ as “a song about being afraid to sleep due to recurring nightmares of an abusive past lover,” but despite this heavy subject matter it’s presented as a surprisingly sweet laidback pop song. The track comes complete with a contradictorily bright video by Alyssa Mello, which you can check out below:

‘Still Dreaming’ is out now and available from the Dunebug Bandcamp page.

Esme White – Pearly Gate Crashers

Hailing from New York and now based in London, singer-songwriter Esme White started writing during the early months of the pandemic and has worked with Spiritual Records in Chalk Farm on new tracks. Single ‘Pearly Gate Crashers’ is a great introduction to White’s sound, an infectiously upbeat folk rock track with real narrative weight. God is real but heaven is closed, great crowds gathering at the gates demanding to be let in. Shady snakes in suits bribe angels for backdoor entries as old ladies threaten to burn the whole thing down, the rhythm building as a sense of desperation grows.

Yeah I may be human
but that’s not on me, that’s on you, man

‘Pearly Gate Crashers’ is out now. You can find Esme White on Instagram.

LIES – Camera Chimera

The new project of Mike and Nate Kinsella, LIES have won attention with a string of singles which combine beauty and strangeness into something fitting for the contemporary moment. Latest track ‘Camera Chimera’ further develops this style, an exploration of life online which starts out seductively mellow and soon morphs into something dark and unnerving. “It’s about not only feeling manipulated by others, but also being confronted with the reality and consequences of your own lies and manipulation,” Mike Kinsella explains, “and how that can mentally and emotionally cause one to spiral.” The song comes with a video directed by Rachel Cabbit of POND Creative which furthers these themes, amplifying the mood of shadowy mystery by printing and scanning frames to produce a distorted, lo-fi style.

‘Camera Chimera’ is out now via Polyvinyl Record Co. and available from the usual places.

Mizan K – Go

‘Go’ is the latest single from New York’s Mizan K, an effortless pop song that bubbles with quiet energy that she describes as a “four-minute fever-dream inspired by fragments of fantastical children’s novels.” Built on an infectious melody and adorned with quirky embellishments, the track is a strange, kaleidoscopic commentary on our hyperactive, money-focused world. As Mizan K goes on to explain: “A dozen celestial characters including myself, float in a space-casino and chase their fate in a speedy and unstable world. The singer (me) is a trickster, presenting glimmers of opportunity, then changing voices to relay worldly wisdom and warnings of failure. The song winds its way through a frantic universe while angling towards fun and optimism.”

My Politic – Cursing at the Night & the Morning

Next month, Nashville-based duo My Politic will release Missouri Folklore: Songs & Stories From Home, an album grounded in the landscape of the Ozark Mountains which looks to explore the nuanced and often conflicted identities of those who call Missouri home. “There are songs about judgment, existentialism, forgiveness, love, death, growing, and healing,” as Kaston Guffey explains. “It’s a lot of material focused on the nuance and mundanity, in some sense, of being a person.” Latest single ‘Cursing at the Night & the Morning’ captures this spirit of imperfection with a keen eye and careful charm, steeped in the wistful ache of all the best folk music but choosing to confront this nostalgia too.

What I know and what I’ve heard
Are different things I’m sure
But the differences all blur
Cuz time’s a warping glass

Siv Jakobsen x Ane Brun – Sun, Moon, Stars

With new album Gardening coming next January on The Nordic Mellow, Oslo songwriter Siv Jakobsen has unveiled latest single, ‘Sun, Moon Stars’. With Jakobsen joined by renowned Norwegian songwriter Ane Brun, the track weaves a plaintive mood scored with careful details and evocative harmonies. An ode to the people who stand steadfast through the worst moments, reliable points which allow us to navigate our own ways through. The song is “inspired by my least favourite month of the year and the heaviness I tend to feel during it,” as Jakobsen explains, “as well as the beauty and hope I’ve found in a companion that has the ability to pull me out of the dreariest corner of my mind, even during the darkest month of the year.”

Gardening is out on the 20th January via The Nordic Mellow.

The post Weekly Listening: November 2022 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The work of Royal Leamington Spa’s Bastien Kalb has always reached wide in search of inspiration, be it toward Zinedine Zidane for 2015’s Dinking In The Shadows of Zizou or Giallo and 70s crime flicks for 2020’s The Killing of Eugene Peeps. Latest record Organ Recital, out next month on Gearbox Records, is no less ambitious. Something of a sequel to Eugene Peeps, the album is conceived as a fantasy world beyond our own, a dimension distinct from reality if not entirely insulated from it, various elements leaking through just as real sounds and sensations might enter a dream. Single ‘In The Woods’ displays just how immersive such a style can be, VHS textures and cinematic strings combining into a collision of real and unreal.

Cynthia Hamar – Shaken

Cynthia Hamar is a Métis singer-songwriter from Alberta who has just released brand new single ‘Shaken’ on Neon Moon Records. With its languid rhythms and evocative delivery, the track finds a balance between soulful confidence and poignant sadness, led by the kind of bitter assurance gained only from learning the hard way. “‘Shaken’ is an internal conversation about trauma,” Hamar explains, “recognizing the deep groaning and the need to let go of the pain to embrace a brighter future.” Hamar wrote the song over a period of years, addressed to herself amid changing family dynamics and relationship issues. “It’s written from a point of exhaustion,” she continues, “surrendering to a solution and I hope it inspires the listener to process their own pain and see the comfort in choosing to forgive and move on.”

Rise up and take the place you been
Designed for from the start
Leave the haunted place behind my friend,
Boldly make your mark
But you gotta let it go
love knows when to let it go
I know

Dolfiin Alexander – Free Wheeler

Dolfiin Alexander is set to release new album Free Wheeler via Anxiety Blanket Records on the 1st July, with the title track offering a glimpse of what you can expect. The release was for the most part written and recorded during a summer road trip through Germany, Italy and Estonia, and the single possesses that hybrid blend of wonder and melancholy unique to travelling. Its lo-fi textures and heartfelt vocals capture a heightened awareness of both the surroundings and the self, appreciative of the small moments yet already mourning their passing.

Free Wheeler is out on the 1st July via Anxiety Blanket Records and you can pre-order it now.

Emily Fairlight x The Shifting Sands – Head Above

Ahead of collaborative album Sun Casts A Shadow on Fishrider Records and Occultation Records, Emily Fairlight and The Shifting Sands have unveiled brand new single, ‘Head Above’. The track serves as a perfect introduction to the stripped-back intimacy of the album, where stylistic excesses are stripped away in favour of direct emotion. “We never meant it to result in an album,” explains The Shifting Sands’ Mike McLeod. “We went to record a song or two and got on a roll. After making heavily layered sonic pop albums with the Sands, where I’d hide behind my songs with layers of guitars and synths and bury my vocals, I wanted to get past that. This album sounds like playing in your lounge, a complete work that captures a special moment.”

Free Lunch – Burnt O

Bournemouth duo Free Lunch are set to release mini-album Dumbwaiter this July on Devil Town Tapes, and single ‘Burnt O’ gives an indication what to expect from the release. Drawing from their parents’ record collection (Neil Young and Supertramp are cited) and possessing a rich country twang, the song builds with a loveably leftfield sensibility, harking back to the lo-fi beginnings of the Free Lunch project and culminating with best duelling banjos this side of the Chattooga River. Just one slice of a release described as “an audio scrapbook of characters—mostly loners and oddballs, but each with a heart of gold.”

Hunter Ellis – For the Beast (feat. Lady Dan)

Later this summer, Earth Libraries are releasing Princess Daddy, the new album from songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Hunter Ellis. Recorded between Prairie Sun and Hunter’s own Koala Pocket Studios and featuring an array of friends and guests, the LP draws on Ellis’s Californian roots to develop a psych- and surf-inflected sound. Single ‘For the Best’ shows how such a sound can produce a nuanced and immersive atmosphere, with labelmate Lady Dan lending vocals to a soundscape simultaneously stark and colourful.

Princess Daddy is out on the 26th August via Earth Libraries and you can pre-order it now from the Hunter Ellis website.

Matthew Bailey – Full – Time Hobby

Matthew Bailey views forthcoming album Peachfruit as a collection of short stories. The Toronto-based songwriter, guitarist, producer and recording engineer uses each track to interrogate the influence memories can have on our sense of identity and history. Written while on tour playing guitar for Andy Shauf, single ‘Full – Time Hobby’ wrestles with Bailey’s experiences in the music industry, and how its insidious facets, be they rooted in finances or pride, can wither the purity of creation and lead the artist away from the reason the work started in the first place.

Melanie MacLaren – Orion

Back in August we wrote about Nashville-based songwriter Melanie MacLaren with the single, ‘Graveyard Shift‘, a song which “possess[ed] the timeless country spirit without sacrificing any sense of immediacy.” New track ‘Orion’ lives up to this style, its slow, rich opening soon giving way to a palpable urgency. A declaration of love and intent rising on a bed of synths and pedal steel, MacLaren’s voice at once affectionate and fierce. “And I know I said that I would die before I settle down,” she sings, the sentimental tone wielding a cynical edge, “but Jesus Christ, its just nice when you’re around.”

‘Orion’ is out now and available to purchase from the Melanie Maclaren Bandcamp page.

Sigh Down One – Durocher

Sigh Down One is the recording project of Vancouver resident Sasha J. Langford, who this month released their latest album, Desire, or a Common Place. Signalling something of a pivot away from the ‘contemplative grunge’ of previous records, the album sees Langford embraces a vivid dream pop aesthetic, swapping out raw energy in favour of drifting richness. Single ‘Durocher’ channels the Lynchian brand of dream pop, its tender tones possessing a certain otherworldliness which gradually gathers a sense of weight, taking the listener by the hand to show them something new.

Slim Wrist – The Soft

Consisting of Edinburgh duo Fern Morris and Brian Pokora, Slim Wrist combine the organic and the digital to conjure an unconventional pop somewhere between Sylvan Esso and Kraków Loves Adana. With album Closer For Comforting forthcoming later this year, the pair have released new single ‘The Soft’, a perfect introduction for those unfamiliar with the band’s dreamy and dramatic style. A sound at once spacious and detailed, its glitching electronics washed with lush textures, the fragmented beat eventually making good on its promise to kick into rhythm as Morris’s vocals soar above.

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