Hamilton, Ontario indie rock outfit Dark Mean have been making music for well over a decade now, introducing themselves with a self-titled album back in 2011 and returning every few years with new songs to prove the project is still alive and kicking. Their first release since 2016, ‘Working Hard’ feels like a dispatch from a reality faced by a huge number of acts these days, where cycles of inspiration and hiatus are governed by work schedules and personal responsibilities. A song fired by the twin forces of frustration and passion and driven by the urgency of the ticking clock.  “I haven’t forgot your name / I’d give it to you if you ever came,” as one verse plays. “I’ve still got a lot to say / I’ll tell you about it someday.”

Grocer – Caterpillar Pilled

“‘Packrat’ finds Grocer at their most collaborative, trusting in the bonds which have now developed between the members to make something far greater than the sum of its parts.” So we wrote of the first single from the Philly band’s new album Bless Me, coming later this spring on Grind Select, which promises to elevate Grocer’s trademark volatility to new heights. Latest single ‘Caterpillar Pilled’ embodies this spirit, possessing both brash energy and off-the-wall charm. With constant changes of speed, the song is always on the verge of unravelling into chaos but manages to cling on by its fingertips, emerging all the more triumphant as a result. Watch the video by Nicholas Rahn below:

Bless Me is out on the 19th April via Grind Select and you can pre-order it now.

hemlock – Garbage Truck

Back in 2022 we mentioned talk soon by Chicago’s hemlock, describing single ‘to carry’ as “a song of hushed yet heartfelt vignettes which rises toward an impassioned finale, providing snapshots of love in its various guises.” The project has since gone on to put out several further releases, including the single ‘monarch‘, a month-long song-a-day challenge album and a live session, but now hemlock is teaming up with the good folks at Ghost Mountain Records to celebrate the second anniversary of the talk soon release with the album’s first ever vinyl run. To mark the occasion, hemlock has unveiled a video for the single ‘Garbage Truck’ directed and edited by lead Carolina Chauffe and filmed along with Daniel Joseph and Reed Everette. Check it out below:

The talk soon vinyl is out on the 10th May via Ghost Mountain Records and you can pre-order it now.

Lamplight – S/T

Back in January we previewed the self-titled album Ian Hatcher-Williams’s Lamplight on Western Vinyl, what we called “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.” With the record now out, Lamplight has shared the title track as a final single, which serves to not only underline the intentions behind the album but the Lamplight project as a whole. After experiencing a profound mixture of love and grief on contemplating the inevitable end of an intimate relationship, Hatcher-Williams found comfort in the concept of reincarnation, as well as a poem by Mark Strand titled ‘Love Silhouetted by Lamplight’ (from which Lamplight would come to take its name). “I’m too high
the lamp light, you’ve / caught me crying,” as he sings:

now we’re laying here uncovered
our legs braided around each other

i’m fixated on the future
that one day we lose the other

come back to, for a moment
that’s just long enough notice

we’re cosmically together
a bond older than each other

The song comes complete with a video which further develops these themes:

Lamplight is out on now via Western Vinyl and available from the Lamplight Bandcamp page.

Margaux – DNA

Back in 2019 we wrote about More Brilliant Is The Hand That Throws The Coin, the debut EP by Margaux released via Massif Records, describing how the juxtaposition of bright energy and syrupy dreamscape on single ‘Palm’ “serve[d] to bring to the life to duality of people too, as though beneath the outward face of our feelings lies depth more expansive and strange.” With a debut full-length on the way later this year, The Brooklyn singer-songwriter has now returned with ‘DNA’, another nuanced picture where longing and confrontation can occur simultaneously, and a floating drift can quickly escalate towards a cathartic climax. It’s apparently the first song from an album due later in the year, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for more info.

The debut Margaux full-length will be released later this year via Massif Records.

May Rio – Fun!

Stretching the definition of a solo project, New York‘s May Rio sometimes plays with a classic guitar/drums band, and others an arrangement of cello, piano and saxophone. The latter, what she calls the Elegant Ensemble, gives its name to the new May Rio album. A collection of rearrangements of previously released tracks, scrubbed clean of the gloss of studio production and presented anew as an assemblage of their essential parts. There is one brand new track too though. Titled ‘Fun!’ it’s a song about a teenage car accident delivered with the idiosyncratic blend of playfulness and grace which runs through Rio’s work. “The day I got my driver’s permit, aged sixteen,” she describes, “I borrowed my mother’s forest-green Isuzu Trooper for a trip to a new movie showing at the mall,” only the adventure was cut short at a junction.

Sweet sixteen I get to take a spin
Windows rolled down wind’s all on my skin
T-boned by a speeding stoner hard
Momma’s Trooper’s totaled but what’s worse
Is it was fun

Watch the video directed by Ben Gordon below:

Elegant Ensemble is out on the 3rd May.

Meagre Martin – Malcolm

Meagre Martin‘s Gut Punch, released last year on Mansions and Millions introduced the Berlin-based band’s ability to broach the most pressing social themes of the moment with both confidence, fire and relatability. “The gut punch of the title therefore refers not so much to the Meagre Martin sound but rather the subject matter they take on,” as we put it in a preview. “The world as a series of debilitating blows.” New single ‘Malcolm’ continues this style to great effect, leaning into a more guitar-led sound to better evoke the track’s rebellious nature. An ode to Malcolm in the Middle at once fond and discordant, teasing out themes of precarity and generational trauma from within nostalgic memories of the show.

I’m human too,
We break the rules
That’s nothing new
Why settle down
You start to drown
So pull me out

Robert Ouyang Rusli – Elizabeth’s Voicemail

Brooklyn-based composer and artist Robert Ouyang Rusli took on their most ambitious project to date with the soundtrack for Julio Torres’s Problemista, a new film coming later this month via A24, starring Torres alongside the likes of Tilda Swinton. The artist, who also records under the moniker Ohyung, created over fifty songs for the score, looking to match the surreal world Torres has created with something just as agile and inventive. Single ‘Elizabeth’s Voicemail’ serves as an enticing glimpse of the project’s full scope, the film bleeding into the soundtrack in the same manner the music pours into the film. Orchestral arrangements of synths and choral vocals are accentuated with sounds from the colourfully whimsical film-world, creating what the press release describes as “rhythmic backdrops for the bureaucratic nightmares of the American immigration system.”

The Problemista soundtrack will be released on the 15th March, and the film itself on the 22nd.

W. Y. Huang – Life Just Lately (feat. Granata)

Facing the sudden onset of chronic pain, Singapore-born, New York-based singer-songwriter W. Y. Huang turned to music as an outlet. His new EP Knots, coming later this spring, serves as an exploration of pain and healing, as well as the more general transience of things and the ebb and flow of hope. First single ‘Life Just Lately’ introduces this with a bright and breezy indie pop style, welcoming New York rap artist Granata to further the track’s unguarded tone and capture the mood of the release as a whole. “This EP was a deeply personal endeavour, both in how the songs came together and the writing process,” as Huang explains. “It all blossomed from a very vulnerable place.”

‘Life Just Lately’ is out now and available from the W. Y. Huang Bandcamp page. Knots will be released in May.

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Tracklisting:

1. prairie creek redwoods state park, ca – bedbug
2. See the World – Kidsmoke
3. Motion | Sickness – Good Good Blood
4. Downtown – Gabriella Cohen
5. Automatic – Kyle Morton
6. Throwing Roses – Eva Foote
7. vildt+sødt – Eugenia
8. Dicktations Forever – Dicktations
9. Fallen Robin – Wild Leaves
10. Palms – Native Other
11. Not Your Prey – Squirrel Flower
12. Luna – Akira Kosemura
13. Made of Gold – Albert af Ekenstam
14. She Floats – Van-Anh Nguyen
15. Dead Radiance – Ego Death
16. Sponge State – Sløtface
17. Black Mass – Wooden Maria
18. Float – Silver Liz
19. glass machines discovering water – Corvus B.
20. Longshot – The Furious Season
21. The Same Chords – Tiger in My Tank
22. Let’s Go to the Beach – Sophie Longshaw
23. Blue Moon – Many Voices Speak
24. One Footed – MAH KEE OH
25. Country Room – Static Animal
26. The Ground Before Him – Drowning By Numbers
27. Refugee – Cameron James Henderson
28. down (kenny) – ever
29. Strange Tones – Youceff Kabal
30. Don’t Let Love Go By – Golden Suits
31. Sit and Stare – Tiny Dinosaurs
32. Settle Down – Dark Mean
33. telegraph ave. – Betty Becky
34. WEN – glider
35. Nicholas – Holiday Oscar
36. Lyse Striber – True Strength
37. Careless – Stationary Suns
38. Vulnerable – Mark Timmins
39. On & On – Reuben Hollebon
40. Recoiled – William Ryan Fritch
41. Lonely Girl – Praything
42. Drinking the Same Water – Katie Spencer
43. Get It Right – Magana
44. Cheer Up Free Your Mind – Jenny O.

That was October 2016, and if you like what you see/hear, why not check out the other months too?

The post October 2016 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

New single, ‘Settle Down’, is the first material to emerge from a year of steady studio recording, the band fleshing out inspiration captured on cell phones during their busy lives and shared between Ottawa and Hamilton via the magic of the internet. While this might not sound the most ideal of circumstances, the reality is that such means offer a way forward for the modern musician who works full time, holding bands together through the process of Real Life. As Dark Mean describe:

“Years of struggle and extended hiatuses are nothing new for us. That’s how we’ve always operated. Incessant file sharing and e-mails, frustrating Skype calls, relentless attention to detail, and the odd show amidst chaotic life schedules, are just a few ways we’ve not only hung together, but they’ve made it possible for us to keep releasing music”.

And we’re lucky such tactics work, because ‘Settle Down’ is worth the effort. Taking some of the pace off, the song is a slow-burning folk/rock hybrid in which lush instrumentation enters in sequence, gradually building from ambience to guitar to percussion and drums, the impassioned vocals allowed to take centre stage in all their throaty glory.

“Yeah I guess we’ll see what you’re made of
Yeah I guess we’ll see, once you settle down”

The post Dark Mean unveil new single, ‘Settle Down’ appeared first on Various Small Flames.

If you’ve missed the previous editions, then check out January and February right now.

March Mix from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post March 2014 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The preview email we had from the band was an interesting one, with them straight-up admitting that they aren’t looking for a label or record deal, and don’t even plan to have a release show for the EP. Instead, they describe their music as a ‘simple passion’: ’We write music, jam in the garage, and make records with friend and producer, Michael Keire’.

With this in mind, an unenlightened person (with no knowledge of DM or Mr Keire’s talents) might expect the sound to possess a certain… homemade quality. This could not be further from the truth. The band may lack the desire to push their music into money-making realms, but this does not mean they lack ambition in the musical department.

In a world of neo-classical ambient pop and new weird psych-folk, Samuel the Phoenix is a refreshingly straight-forward slice of indie rock, and it comes back to the ‘simple passion’ statement – you get the impression that these guys are doing what they enjoy. The shuffling drums and infectious melodies are peppered with some well placed horns and delicate piano to create something both emotionally charged and uplifting.

You can buy Samuel The Phoenix from Bandcamp for the very reasonable price of $4. Also, if you haven’t yet heard the band’s older material then do yourself a favour.

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Our January 2014 mix is a little light on numbers as during the first fortnight or so we were busy with our year-end lists and whatnot. But there are still thirteen great tracks for you to check out. As always, there’s a variety of genres so you should find something you like.

January Mix from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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While the track is undoubtedly a Dark Mean song, it is a change from their previous work. “We’ve been digging into a new EP that was created while our lives transformed” they explain, “we travelled the world, started families and realized careers. The music we created naturally transformed as we did”. The result is a song that gradually builds from a mellow beginning to a noisy end, complete with horns and distorted guitars.

You can get ‘Albatross’ from the Dark Mean Bandcamp and watch the video, directed by Lee Skinner, below. If you are new to the band then be sure to check out their debut album here.

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