The change is not only in terms of sound. Conor Lynch has until now worked almost entirely solo, playing a variety of instruments, recording and producing himself. But Slow Country sees a turn away from this practice in favour of a newfound spirit of collaboration. Hence a line-up of guest musicians which features Ryan McDonald (pedal steel, saxophone, aux perc, accordion, mandolin, backing vocals, drums), Kaysen Chown (fiddle/violin), Joey Fortino (drums), Edie McKenna (backing vocals), Reuben Stump (upright bass), Danny Keyes (trombone), Jacob Ward (clarinet), Byran Valentijn Hall (flute) and Sam Smith (trumpet). Couple in the fact recording sessions were spaced months apart and a new dimension of Lynch’s work makes itself apparent. A newly attentive style which forgoes the creative rush in order for something unhurried and considered.

Though it is the album’s closer and the title track which encapsulates the spirit of Slow Country. “Ain’t it funny, ain’t it strange / I’ve been waiting my whole life to feel this way,” Lynch sings over the leisurely arrangement. “Now I can rest my head for days / and the willow trees keep me cool in the shade.” The prominence of pedal steel shows itself, a signature of the album, winding out towards the listener as though to welcome them into the landscape it evokes

don’t know how long i can stay
‘least a minute lasts an hour in this place

something cold touches my face
in the slow country i’ll die and feel no pain

The song comes complete with a video, filmed and colored by Will Spurrier, featuring the abandoned Fisher Body Plant in Detroit. Watch below:

Slow Country is out on the 29th March via Devil Town Tapes and you can pre-order it from the Conor Lynch Bandcamp page.

The post Conor Lynch – Slow Country appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘Patterns’ is a song that I wrote about navigating relationships while in a depressive episode,” explains Annie Schultz of their first single on Trailing Twelve Records. “My songs often subconsciously end up being letters to myself, observing shifting dynamics with the people I love and posing questions about why I choose to make certain decisions.” Having cut their teeth in the Minnesota DIY scene, the Olympia-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist set about crafting a sound somewhere between indie folk and classic goth and punk, allowing for the kind of soul-searching so apparent in the new single. A song about being there for friends when it feels difficult enough to even be kind to yourself.

‘Patterns’ is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

Haley Blais – Matchmaker

“It’s a love song about being so confident and safe in a relationship that you start to look for cracks out of fear,” explains Haley Blais of new single, ‘Matchmaker’. The Vancouver artist has made waves with her emotive, cathartic style, though one which always possesses a certain playfulness too. Having signed with Arts & Crafts and preparing for a full-length, the single finds Blais at the peak of her powers, combing sincere emotion with a certain impish charm to explore the pressures social and cultural expectations can place on a relationship. “And I read somewhere on the internet / That if we have kids, then they won’t exist,” she sings. “And then I’m the bitch who ruined your family line / It’s nobody’s fault, though, but somebody’s pissed.” Watch the video below, directed by Jacob Pascoe and edited by Haley Blais & Jacob Pascoe:

‘Matchmaker’ is out now via Arts & Crafts.

Kylie V – Runaway

Based in Vancouver, Kylie V is a singer-songwriter looking capture the joys and angst of young life. Following on from 2021 debut Big Blue, they recently returned with The Runaway EP, a collection of four songs which further develops their self-described “overemotional indie folk rock.” The title track typifies the style, casting its eye over the trials of falling in love after one too many burns, and how romance can be curdled by the presence of anxiety and OCD. “What if we don’t get too far and I leave it in ruins cause / these days my body’s struggling to cope?” as Kylie V asks, though the rest of the track plays as a slow lesson in giving in to feelings of comfort and love. Check out the video by Malcolm MacMaster below:

The Runaway EP is out now and available from the Kylie V Bandcamp page.

Luka Kuplowsky – Sudden Reach from the Inner World

Following on from previous single ‘The Spirits Are Busy’, Toronto-based songwriter Luka Kuplowsky has returned with new single ‘Sudden Reach from the Inner World’ on Mama Bird Recording Co. and Next Door Records. The previous track offered a dappled, jazz-inflected sound around Kuplowsky’s distinctive almost-spoken vocals to conjure something at once laid back and esoteric, and this duality is again present in ‘Sudden Reach’. A song which pushes into almost ambient territory in its intuitive warmth, with Bahamas’ Felicity Williams again offering heavenly backing vocals. “This was a beautiful accident,” as Kuplowsky says of the track. “The lyrical imperative of trusting the immediacy of new love seems fitting for a song that’s creation was so sudden and surprising.”

Soft buzz of a summer day
Compassion of a silent kind
Birds meet and disperse
They astound me every time
Sudden reach from the inner world sudden reach

‘Sudden Reach from the Inner World’ is out via Mama Bird Recording Co. and Next Door Records and is available from Bandcamp.

Noah Roth – C U Tomorrow

When moving back to the Chicago suburbs after five years in Philadelphia, Noah Roth was on a bit of a downer. They’d just gone through a break-up, had to leave the place they’d called home to return to their childhood bedroom, and had been working on their last album Breakfast of Champions for so long that they’d fallen into a burnt out disillusionment. But borrowing equipment from a sibling, Roth began experimenting with Ableton and found new songs pouring forth with an unexpected ease. Three weeks later the basis of a new record, Don’t Forget to Remember, had solidified. Lead single and opener ‘C U Tomorrow’ hints at the album’s new direction, set for release on Devil Town Tapes, foregoing any agonising over fine details in favour of a direct expression. “I wanted to make something that was kind of quick and dirty, and doing it myself the way that I used to do when I was a teenager,” as Roth explains.

Plastic Cactus – Year of the Rat

Portland, Oregon outfit Plastic Cactus are gearing up to release their debut full-length album, and new single ‘Year of the Rat’ is the first taste of what to expect. Together, Brooke Metropulos (guitar/vocals), Michaela Gradstein (guitar/vocals), Bill Willson (bass) and Tyler Brown (drums) take equal parts cosmic desert rock and languid surf pop and submerge everything in vocal harmonies, creating a sound which owes as much to spaghetti westerns as it does the polish of classic pop.

‘Year of the Rat’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Rin McArdle – Something Blue

With a self-titled album coming later this summer, Naarm/Melbourne-based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer Rin McArdle has released new single, ‘Something Blue’. The album spans the emotional gamut from searing anger to tender vulnerability, and the track shows off the latter side of the work, tapping into a nineties aesthetic to bring to life its searching, therapeutic sound. Camp Cope’s Georgia Maq joins on vocal duties too, charging things with an impassioned intimacy. “It’s a really personal song so I wanted to get someone close to me to sing on it in a kind of conversational way,” McArdle explains. “I thought Georgia would be perfect, our voices are quite different, there’s a contrast to them that I really like.”

The song also comes with a video directed by Louis Oliver Roach which takes imagery from  Norwegian black metal band Immortal and transplants it into the Australian bush.

Rin McArdle is out on the 28th July and you can pre-order it now.

Sea Lemon – Cellar

Having just signed with Luminelle Recordings, Sea Lemon (AKA Seattle‘s Natalie Lew) has unveiled a delightfully ethereal new single, ‘Cellar’. Dream pop in an almost literal sense, where weightless textures bely the ominous weight within, and close-held impulses make themselves known in strange ways. “‘Cellar’ was inspired by my love of really classic horror and thriller films, like Blow Out and Misery,” Lew explains, “and how loving scary movies can sometimes feel like something is wrong with you.” A compulsion to seek out the dark and disturbing aspects of life that’s often mirrored within the movies themselves. Characters who allow their morbid curiosity to get the better of them, drifting toward what they already know to be bad news as though a certain inevitability exists within the situation. Watch the video shot and edited by Natalie Lew and Abe Poultridge below:

‘Cellar’ is out now via Luminelle Recordings.

Sleepy Gonzales – Skylight / Freaking Out

With EP Mercy Kill coming next month on Light Organ Records, Vancouver‘s Sleepy Gonzales have unveiled a double single, ‘Skylight/Freaking Out’. A pair of tracks which act as a kind of yin and yang, the first slower, heartfelt and emotive, searching for illumination within an otherwise gloomy environment, while the latter is the polar opposite. A racing track which taps into darker interiors, finding catharsis in allowing the less than positive feelings out into the world. “Maybe they balance each other out, or maybe one eventually destroys the other,” as the band explain. “That depends on you.” Watch the video for ‘Skylight’ filmed by Ethan Andrews below:

Mercy Kill is out on the 30th June via Light Organ Records.

The post Weekly Listening: May 2023 #5 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

This balance between various states of being is central to the record, as the Philadelphia-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist explores how what has been not only continues to bubble forth into the present but actively shape it, ultimately coming to understand the self as a fluid and ever-evolving thing. Greg Mendez is therefore a self-titled album which very much warrants its title. A record which portrays its creator as he was, is and potentially could be.

Latest single ‘Maria’ recreates the immersive nature of memories with a hazy, melodic sound, representing a sonic equivalent of the kind of transportive reverie a certain thought can conjure. But within this encompassing mood is something more subversive, the very first lines calling into question the veracity of memories and our attempts to mould the truth in our favour. “Every time you say you wanna know me I get anxious,” Mendez sings with the guarded uncertainty of someone wary of opening up, “cause I would probably tell you about some dumb shit.” But despite this emotional circumspection, it’s ultimately a song as richly evocative as the memories it talks about.

Watch the video by Luke LeCount below:

Greg Mendez is out on the 5th May via Forged Artifacts and Devil Town Tapes and you can pre-order it now.

The post Greg Mendez – Maria appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“Thriving on a diversity of influences and intentions and underpinned by the constant desire to invent new things.” That’s how we described Hybrid Dimension II by The Allegorist, an album which highlighted the visionary style of Berlin-based artist Anna Jordan. One so committed to the world it created, it was performed in an entirely fictional language. Forthcoming album TEKHENU promises to be no less ambitious, again using narrative-based compositions to conjure a mythical world at least partly inspired by ancient Egyptian imagery and shaped by metaphors for human connection. Latest single ‘Howling With The Wolf’ finds such common bond in the animalistic drivers at the heart of every human, re-establishing our connection to the natural world and embracing the wilderness as a plane of interconnection.

TEKHENU is out on the 5th May via Awaken Chronicles and you can pre-order it now.

American Grandma – Stone Cross

The slowcore project of Denver‘s Jensen Keller and Caden Marchese, American Grandma is prepping to release their brand new album Rare Knives of Light later this spring, and single ‘Stone Cross’ finds the outfit at their shimmering best. Positioning itself at the ambient end of the spectrum, the song does not eliminate the dark heft of the genre so much as leaven it, the ascending tones lifting the entire weight of the sound, shadows and all. So as Keller asks a series of cryptic questions, what emerges is curious blend of the physical and intangible—a mirage you can feel between your fingers, a dream or prayer brought to life.

Does the sun shine bright forever?
Will I commemorate you with a painted sign?

Constant Follower & Scott William Urquhart – Waves Crash Here

Last summer we featured Constant Follower and their beautiful record Neither Is, Nor Ever Was. As we described, the project represents “a struggle between calmness and distress, between the real and imaginary, and indeed between the desire for and fear of such clear boundaries.” But ultimately “embraces this turmoil, and in doing so offers a fundamental reimagining of memory, of the past and future, the real and not.” The band are now gearing up to release Even Days Dissolve, a new album in collaboration with Scott William Urquhart, and lead single ‘Waves Crash Here’ shows a continued engagement with both memory and the natural world. With its evocative sweeps and fine detail, Urquhart’s guitar evokes the duality of permanence and ephemerality of the environment which inspired it, and Constant Follower’s Stephen McAll again turns to the poetry of Norman MacCaig to guide his moving, precise writing. Watch the video by animator George Farrow-Hawkins below:

Even Days Dissolve is out on the 14th April and you can pre-order it now.

Eyesore & The Jinx – An Ideas Man

Liverpool post-punk trio Eyesore & The Jinx return this May with a new double-single 7″ An Ideas Man / Do What You Love. We’ve previously described the outfit’s work as “cutting and hysterical, as though the banality of society has pushed them over the edge,” and ‘An Ideas Man’ finds them no less enraged with the world unfolding around them. It’s a twitchy song about “cult of landlordism and a parasitic ideology which has become pervasive in its wake,” as Josh Miller explains, taking on the voice of the titular figure in all of its self-congratulatory smarm. The sound’s taut angles threaten to spill over into some violent climax, and in a world in which men will kick you repeatedly on a punctual monthly rota and pretend they are doing you a favour, how else should our songs sound? As Miller concludes: “In short, it’s about how much I fucking hate landlords.”

Greg Mendez – Goodbye / Trouble

Later this year, Philadelphia‘s Greg Mendez will return with a self-titled full-length via Forged Artifacts and Devil Town Tapes. Following on from 2020’s Cherry Hell, a record we described as “taking the themes of Townes Van Zandt, Connie Converse and Elliott Smith and casting them in the bedroom pop spirit of today,” the new album sees Mendez continue this honest reflection, digging into the past to re-examine painful experiences while never losing a wry edge too. “There’s a lot of pretty bleak memories in the songs,” he explains, “but one thing that I hope comes through is that nothing is ever fully dark.” Lead single ‘Goodbye / Trouble’ captures the style perfectly, a lo-fi pop number rooted in memories while waiting for some present transcendence. Watch the video by Video by Doug Dulgarian (of they are gutting a body of water) below:

Greg Mendez is out on the 5th May via Forged Artifacts and Devil Town Tapes.

Kassi Valazza – Corners

Back in January we introuduced Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing, the forthcoming album by Portland artist Kassi Valazza on Fluff and Gravy Records (US) and Loose Music (UK). Writing of lead single ‘Watching Planes Go By’ we described how her timeless country singer-songwriter style “bears all the hallmarks of the best retro tracks while refusing to fall for nostalgic imitation.” Now Valazza has unveiled the record’s second single. Titled ‘Corners’, it’s a tender but tentative love song that again draws on psych-styled folk as much as it does from Americana, unfurling with an easy emotional ache as though from a decades-old dusty radio. Valazza’s voice sits at the sweet spot between soft and strong, tired and heartsick but holding onto a golden romantic hope.

I wonder if I called you
would it be alright
to say I loved you

Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing will be released by Fluff & Gravy Records / Loose Music on 12th May. Pre-order it now from the Kassi Valazza Bandcamp page.

Monde UFO – Government Employee

As their name might suggest, there’s something otherworldly about the work of LA‘s Monde UFO, but new album Vandalized Statue To Be Replaced With Shrine, out next month via Quindi Records, shows just how varied this ethereal mood can be. First single ‘Visions of Fatima’ led the listener into a decidedly downbeat mystery, channelling the miracle of its title to speak of shifting wonders and cloaked truths. But described as “a sun-kissed trip of low-key lounge surrealism, bizarro storytelling and shuffling exotica splendour,” latest track ‘Government Employee’ shows off a different dimension to the record. One where the laidback rhythms evoke an alternate version of visitation, the lyrics playing with an almost Pynchon-esque restlessness beneath the languorous surface.

Nyokabi Kariũki – fire head

Last week, Kenyan composer and sound artist Nyokabi Kariũki released FEELING BODY, her debut full-length album on New York label cmntx records. Combining everything from experimental electronic, contemporary classical and East African traditional music, the album explores Kariũki’s experience of living with long-COVID for the entirety of 2021. The record is built around a central motif of the voice, utilizing Kariũki’s full vocal range as well as spoken word recordings and text-to-speech software, what she describes as “a way to express visceral feelings and noisy thoughts.” It also features contributions from violinst Yaz Lancaster and trumpet player Michael Denis Ó Callaghan, their playing manipulated to echo symptoms of the persistent illness. Nowhere is this clearer that on standout track, ‘fire head’, a genuinely unsettling piece which layers a field recording of Ó Callaghan disassembling then reassembling his trumpet with a cacophony of automated voices repeating the line “They stopped asking if I was ok.”

Shalom – Lighter

Later this week, Brooklyn-based Shalom will release her debut album Sublimation on Saddle Creek. We wrote a preview of the album last month, describing it as “a bracingly honest exploration of a young life,” that “combin[es] stories of partying and trauma, love and breakups and feelings of disaffection,” and admiring its mixture of bold, direct indie pop and emotional nuance. Ahead of the record’s release, Shalom has unveiled the final single ‘Lighter’. It’s probably the most pop-oriented song on the album, the carefree atmosphere masking its themes of discontent. “So done with being myself,” Shalom sings in the chorus, “I’d rather be anyone else, I’m tired of being a fighter.” Watch the animated video by Rory Alene below:

Sublimation releases 10th March via Saddle Creek. Order a copy now from the Shalom Bandcamp page.

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Both releases which hinted at the stylistic breadth of the Air Devi project and this month sees Majeske return with Rooting for You, a brand new EP on Devil Town Tapes. Described as a reflection on themes of “connection, empowerment and hope,” the release again sees Air Devi combine her roots in classical Indian music with a decidedly punk outlook, with musicians Jacob Hershman (guitar, trumpet), Jay Fein (drums), Seth Fein (bass) Siddharth Ashokkumar (violin) and Hari Khatri (tabla) all lending their talents to bring the vision to life.

After opener ‘Ashrita’, the title track offers a bittersweet reflection on love and distance, while ‘Fatal Flaw’ looks to move beyond longing toward something more self-assured. Closer ‘It’s Over’ reaches acceptance on this front, but the EP’s standout ‘Dharti’ is far less conclusive. Confronting the roulette wheel of circumstance, the song centres on inequality and the resulting feelings of helplessness, like ‘Ashrita’ before it placing Majeske into a lineage of strong, struggling women. What results is an expression of frustration and solidarity in the face of injustice. “Are we parts of the same string?” as the closing lines ask:

We keep spinning round and round
And in my voice I hear you sing
At night you learned to weave
that’s the way that you could be free
woven in tapestry
Ah! Something’s gotta change

Rooting for You is out now via Devil Town Tapes and available from Bandcamp.

The post Air Devi – Rooting for You appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Only it’s not. Because both terms come with their own associated baggage, and neither quite manage to communicate the project’s ambition and inventiveness. Listen to Myths and Legends of Wales, the debut full-length Milkweed album coming next month on Devil Town Tapes, and the immediacy of slacker spirit might be apparent, but none of its careless, hard-hearted process. Similarly, though ‘Trad’ might evoke some of the release’s historic flavours, it does nothing to elucidate the weird, mystical and sometimes subversive tone of the songs. ‘Slacker trad’ Milkweed might be, though they are also so much more.

Based on a book of the same name by Tony Roberts, Myths and Legends of Wales sees Milkweed adopt a novel MO: concept albums sourced from single works of esoteric literature. The duo lean fully into the constraints of the method, with everything included on the record lifted from the text, be it the stories and artwork or the very words themselves. But far from suffocating under the confines of such a practise, the resulting album emerges curiously alive. As though in forcing themselves into such a strict process of creation and committing so completely to the source material, some of the strange energies described in Roberts’s work are channelled back into the world through the songs.

This effect owes much to the wider methods the duo employ. Working on their houseboat home, Milkweed recorded the album live in a single day without overdubs or even prior demos to which to refer. With idiosyncrasies and imperfections left intact, the result plays like something emerging from the day in which it was created, the songs a series of ephemeral moments captured in all their fleeting magic, as spontaneous or fated as any preternatural event. The paradox of unintentional things rising from an intentional process. As though the creators are finding out the shape of their creation along with the audience. Not artists so much as conjurors, performing the rites and observing whatever happens to be called forth.

Today we have the pleasure for sharing ‘Yellow Plague’, the first single from the release and the ideal introduction to its tone and mood. A song both rough and strangely vivid, the offering of some travelling medieval troupe arriving in the village square with what might be arcane histories or visions of what is to come. In this case king of North Wales Maelgwyn who, seeking refuge from the mysterious illness referenced in the song’s title, took to a church in Llanrhos, Conwy. Only Maelgwyn couldn’t resist looking upon his kingdom through the keyhole, which was apparently enough for the plague to reach and ultimately kill him.

Yellow plague,
A column of vapour
spreading all along the ground
made men faint,
women barren
no cure was ever found

Seeing as the album revolves around myths and legends, it seems fitting to start with its own history. What’s the origin myth behind Myths and Legends of Wales?

The origin myth of the album is that it’s all sourced from the book Myths and Legends of Wales by Tony Roberts, which we found in a charity shop. Which isn’t to say that the actual finding of it was particularly important or that the book made an impact on us when we bought it.

Because we live off grid we do our recordings in summer, when the solar panels are getting enough charge, and in winter we write new material. So when last winter set in and we knew we wanted to make an album, we just used one of the few books that we had on our boat, we hadn’t even read it. And when I did read it I wasn’t even sure it was a good book. It was only after spending six months working through it that I’ve now come to think of it as something special.

Was this turn toward the esoteric purely coincidental upon finding the book, or is your interest in that sort of thing more ingrained?

The purpose of Milkweed as a project is to utilize esoteric material. There are a lot of folk musicians who also have an interest in really minor or archival works, but it just always surprises me how many times people will keep recording versions of Willie o’ Winsbury. And there is nothing wrong with that, it’s beautiful, and I genuinely love hearing all of them! But the notion that there is now an established canon, like this is the stuff that matters, when there is so much material!

And not just songs. When we first started this project we were going to the Cecil Sharp House and trying to find songs we didn’t know, or alternate versions, but eventually started feeling kind of limited in that. It’s been really freeing to realize that we could literally use anything as source material, we don’t have to find more song books. That’s just adopting a folk mindset, realizing everything that has come before, really everything everything: poems, recipes, journals, police records, text books, is there to explore and use. Really what we’ve done now seems so straight to me I can’t wait to keep exploring further out.

You only need to look at the song titles to get an idea of what’s in store. ‘Yellow Plague’, ‘The Wild Red Men’, ‘Bowl of Piss’, there’s lots going on. Do you have a particular favourite story in the collection?

‘The Wild Red Men’ is the story that convinced me that I could make songs from this book. That one was already so balladic in the way it was written, I really hardly had to cut or adjust a single word. And also I just find it very poignant. You have a woman who watches as her sons are hanged and rips her top off to screams, “These breasts have suckled those that you are murdering and those that will wash their hands in your blood!” Fantastic!

Could you talk a little about the recording process? I understand you tried to make it as immediate as possible?

You know what it is, after you’ve spent months composing and running through some songs, you just know that this is it, this is all they will ever be. We literally did not make any demos as we were making these songs, I just really didn’t want hearing them recorded to influence my opinion. If it felt good in the room, then that’s it. Even if it’s flawed, so be it, you made a flawed work. Fine. Move on. Put the effort in to write it, but then just record it fast and call it a day.

There are also some self-destructive tendencies in that, out of our own stubborn ideas about things. Like I personally really don’t like super produced albums, I want to hear the rawest version of what people sound like. I want to hear the parts of the performance they’re insecure about. There’s real vulnerability in not hiding the weaknesses in what you do.

So I can get a bit overblown with those ideas and refuse to exercise the smallest effort to make the work cleaner. Like deciding to not move the boat a half mile down river so we aren’t under a railway bridge. And that’s the way it is. Trains and all.

Finally, we can’t talk about this without asking about your own encounters with the stranger side of life. Do you have any myths and legends of your own? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen or been told?

The strangest thing that ever personally happened to me was that one time in the blackberry bush.

Myths and Legends of Wales is out via Devil Town Tapes on 16th September and you can pre-order it now from the Milkweed Bandcamp page.

The post Milkweed – Yellow Plague 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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As displayed on debut Everything Tastes Bad, an album released in 2018, there’s a certain bounce to the instrumentation, be it with a playful garage rock edge or almost pop punk-style propulsive momentum, and Della Monica helps develop something of a sixties sensibility too with vivid vocal harmonies. All in all, it mark Snowhore as the best of both words, experimenting with style without ever sacrificing the intimacy of tone.

Because Everything Tastes Bad is an inherently personal album, crafted around a variety of relationships dear to Isley. This might be the end of dear friendship, the trials of unrequited love, or the relationship between family members when tested by addiction and suffering. “Without much intention,” Isley explains, “each song ended up being a testament to the impact that, for better or worse, each relationship had on my life.” The result is wide ranging and conflicted, where love, resentment and pain are not mutually exclusive, or even clearly distinctive from one another in the shapes they come to take.

This month sees Snowhore team up with the good folks at Devil Town Tapes for a special edition reissue of the record, including the first physical release with lilac and transparent pink versions of cassette. We’re delighted to share the release, and decided to ask Isley a few questions about Snowhore and the record’s new lease of life.

Thanks for speaking with us, and congratulations on the release. Why did you decide to reissue the album, and how did the partnership with Devil Town come about?

Hi Jon! Thanks for having me! The two actually sort of go hand-in-hand. Jack reached out to me at the end of 2020 about reissuing the album as a tape release. When the record first came out in 2018 we opted to just put it up on Bandcamp, play a release show and call it a day. I was kind of hesitant to reissue at first because this record is full of some of the first songs I ever wrote, so it’s a little like looking back at pictures of yourself from middle school. But I was also excited about the idea of a physical release, plus I didn’t think Jack would offer to release it on DTT if he didn’t see something in it. Everyone he’s put out thus far has been awesome, from Bedtime Khal to Greg Mendez to Omes. So here we are!

How do you work on writing songs as a band? Do the others have input too, or do you write the songs first and give everyone input from there?

I’m kind of a creative hermit and I’ll only really write a song when I have the space. If I like what I get from that process I’ll bring it to Kaytee and Greg and just ask them to play what they hear or feel. They’re both insanely talented and intuitive musicians and I feel super lucky to make music with them. Snowhore wouldn’t be what it is without them.

There’s a candid quality to the writing that proves striking – pretty much every song on the EP is about a relationship of one kind or another. Did you set out to create something so personal and forthright? Or does your life just seep in when you’re writing?

I am a messy songwriter and I kind of do everything at once. The melody informs the music informs the rhythm and I’ll play with fake words the whole time until something sticks. And then I guess it’s just word association? I think in that way my life kind of just seeps in, like subconsciously I know what story I’m trying to tell and then as I write it I start to understand what I’m saying. I think like most creative people I am sensitive with a capital “s.” I’m usually using songwriting in one way or another to process something that’s hard for me to talk about.

On ‘Sad Song’ you sing about being twenty-three and nothing having changed, and it got me wondering how it feels revisiting such personal songs now, with a certain amount of time having passed? Does there feel like there’s any distance between then and now, or are the tracks as emotionally immediate as ever?

Kinda dumb, but I was actually twenty-two when I wrote that song but thought “twenty-three years” was a better lyric. My life was in a state of really tumultuous transition where I was cutting out a lot of people and things that were not good for me. Looking back on that period of time feels like looking at someone else’s life because I’m in such a wildly different place than I was when I wrote these songs. I think in that lyric about nothing changing I was acknowledging that yeah, I’m not a homeless junkie anymore but I’m still utterly fucking miserable. Sad Song is actually especially loaded for me. So many things about myself and my life that needed to change have changed since then and I’m really grateful for that.

Do you have any idea what comes next for Snowhore?

Hopefully we’re gonna start recording a new record this year! I think we’ve grown a lot as a band and I’m really excited to share the songs we’ve been working on. Thanks again for having me and for the thoughtful questions.

Everything Tastes Bad is out now, and you can get it from Devil Town Tapes (UK) and the Snowhore (US) Bandcamp page.

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To be released next week on Devil Town Tapes, his latest full-length record, Fake, builds upon what came before and continues to break new ground. The folk leanings of the previous albums are dialled back, but only so as to open a heavier sound palette and wider spectrum of influences. Elements of indie rock, electronic pop and country can be found across the songs, as well as a Pinback-esque emo spirit too. What results is Conor Lynch’s most adventurous and accomplished record to date.

Lead single ‘King of It’ stands as proof. Taking the Pinback influence and directing it towards self-deprecation, the song faces up to the endless string of calamities we call life with something like a grin. With a laid-back lilt and catchy refrain, it’s easy to see the track as Lynch finding a wry kind of peace in accepting the bad luck blues, though the frantic final seconds reinject a certain anxiety into the mood, and let ambiguity reign.

Days are billboards
Side of the road
And I’m driving
With my eyes closed

This is my pile of shit
But I’m still the king of it
Standing on top of it
Looking down at the valley below

Check out the video below, with visuals compiled and edited by Doug Dulgarian (of They Are Gutting a Body of Water):

Fake is out via Devil Town Tapes on the 26th February and you can pre-order it now via the Conor Lynch Bandcamp page.

Photo by Alyssa Strasser

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Fast forward a year, a boxset is back with batch_six, a brand new EP to be released on Devil Town Tapes. Not one to rest on his laurels, the album sees Dunphey jettison the structured songwriting approach of the previous record in favour of something more instinctive. And the result is perhaps boxset in its truest form, indebted to no conventions or expectations, allowing their sound to flow naturally and following the current.

Lead single ‘jar’ gives a glimpse of the result. Despite the slightly heavier, grungier tone, the song agile and bright. The carefree motion and sun bleached charm point to a slacker rock influence, but there’s an added edge to both the guitars and vocals that avoid the genre’s most ironic side. Which is not to say the track is not playful. Its strange lyrics tell the tale of scavenging ants and the casual cruelty of higher powers, lending a surreal atmosphere that lifts the track above its contemporaries and marks Dunphey as a songwriter to watch.

heading out early
lighting all around me
sun is beating on me
the maker left something in my way

can i head over?
i think i’ll head over
i’ll let the others know
what was sent

i saw it there
above me
my skin is burning
a lens is burning

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