Now General Absurdity & the Open Source has returned with two new singles, and the tracks really hint at the invention and intention behind the project. First is ‘Seeing Clear Through Goggles’, a song indicative of Feldman’s rich and carefully crafted folk style which displays how the esoteric and emotionally resonant can sit side by side. Slow-burning and brooding and loaded with strange imagery, the track is charged with a kind of personal urgency. As though faced with the dire present, an impetus to seize the moment emerges like an epiphany. “The mirror it filters out shame and distraction,” as Feldman sings. “You can think and talk all you want but neither compare with our actions.”

But if you thought ‘Seeing Clear Through Goggles’ pushed Feldman’s style in new directions, then ‘Attention! Blues’ sees it flying out to the edges of what folk music can be. A vast spoken word epic that mixes sardonic humour and cosmic psych to offer a blunt condemnation of the US’s imperialism and less than subtle embrace of fascism. The result is perhaps the longest calling card ever offered. An introduction to General Absurdity & the Open Source that demands a little effort and attention, thus combining style and substance into a cohesive whole. If this moment we find ourselves in, this moment of AI, MAGA and unbridled consumerism, is flat and banal and stupidly evil, then the antidote must be the opposite. Something thoughtful and finely crafted. Something which requires a little work.

‘Seeing Clear Through Goggles’ and ‘Attention! Blues’ and are out now and available via the General Absurdity & the Open Source Bandcamp page.

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The recording project of Teague Cullen and various friends, Foot Ox has made a name with an experimental style of folk, exploring age-old themes of love, loss and longing with rich arrangements and surreal storytelling. Written during extensive travels of the West, new album A Lighthouse with Silver Dog Eyes (forthcoming via Ernest Jenning Record Co.) utilises a genre-spanning style to reckon with the past and present of the area, and ultimately how the mythology of the American West shifts and persists. Following previous single ‘Horseshoe‘, new track ‘Bed of Violets’ shows the nuanced, layered nature of the record, able to recognise the beauty of the landscape while confronting the malevolent forces which haunt it. “‘Bed of Violets’ is a pretty dark song for me, even if it doesn’t seem that way on the surface,” Cullen explains. “It’s about the struggle of facing a dark force in life and overcoming it. Even though the lyrics themselves might not be overtly hopeful, I feel like the orchestration and the strings bring a sense of something vast and beautiful.”

A Lighthouse with Silver Dog Eyes out on the 11th August via Ernest Jenning Record Co. and you can pre-order it now.

General Absurdity & the Open Source – Limestone Ghost

A self-described “CommUNITY Psych-Folk Music Rebel, Performance ARTeest, Pre/Post Historic Bluez, Multi-dimensional BEeing,” General Absurdity & the Open Source is the new project/alter ego of  Lexington, Kentucky songwriter Derek Feldman. Long time readers might recognise Feldman as Doc Feldman, who we last wrote about back in 2021 with the release of A Healthy Dose of Anxiety, an album recorded with full band Doc Feldman & the Alt + Cntry + Delete. “Progressing with what might at first seem like pessimism, decrying magic spells and empty prayers, [single ‘‘Receiving (for Rollo May)’] repurposes such disillusionment into human solidarity,” we described. “Clasping hands not in plea to God but to pull another out of the shit. If we have control over anything, it is what happens here around us.” The mystical bent of General Absurdity & the Open Source might indicate a brand new stage for Feldman, yet this core message remains. Folk music which belongs alongside contemporaries like Will Johnson and strives for human connection within this lonely world.

People Mover – Cane Trash

Brisbane trio People Mover—that’s Lu Sergiacomi (vocals, guitar), Dan Sergiacomi (drums) and Billy McCulloch (bass)—are preparing to release their new album Cane Trash via Little Lunch Records next month, and have unveiled the title track as an introduction. It’s an inherently nostalgic track that draws on memories of the ash which filled the air of hometown Bundaberg during the burn-off of sugarcane before harvest, the bright, upbeat surface belying the melancholic weight at it heart. Which isn’t to say the juxtaposition of joy and sadness is in any way peculiar, for what else is fondness but the persistent presence of those very emotions? “‘Cane Trash’ gives into memories of where you came from and how you used to feel,” as Lu Sergiacomi explains. “It analyses where we go when we need to reset. Is it home, or can it be somewhere that reminds you of it? That memory is an analogy for the album—things are fragile, special and fleeting.”

Shrunken Elvis – K-House

Spencer Cullum, Sean Thompson, and Michael Ruth (AKA Rich Ruth) are all renowned musicians in their own right, be that with their own work—Cullum releasing solo material via Full Time Hobby, Thompson forming bands like Gnarwhal and Promised Land Sound, and Rich Ruth putting out acclaimed albums with Third Man Records—or supporting a wide range of well-known artists in recording and touring. So bringing the three together was always going to be a recipe for success. Under the moniker Shrunken Elvis, they have united to explore their shared passion for experimental music, merging their talents in order to transcend genre and create something new. The project “represents a rare opportunity to create purely for the sake of collaboration and curiosity,” as the album notes put it, the trio drawing on everything from Michael Rother, Alice Coltrane, and Pat Metheny to Can, Ashra and KLF to inform their sound, not to mention inspiration beyond music, be that visual art or the films of Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman. A self-titled album is on the way via Western Vinyl, and you can listen to single ‘K-House’ now. A track which takes something of the nocturnal urgency of eighties cop show theme tunes then expands its horizons with lush psych and cosmic tones.

Stella Donnelly – Baths

Three years after the release of her last full length, Flood, Naarm/Melbourne songwriter Stella Donnelly has returned with a new double A-side single, Baths / Standing Ovation. Both songs are stripped back relative to her previous work (at least until the back half of ‘Standing Ovation’), with a patience and stillness that gives them a sense of meditative clarity. ‘Baths’ in particular stands out, almost acapella as Donnelly’s vocals stand front and centre over barely-there keyboard notes. The music has the effect of incidental ambient noise and this is no accident, as the track was conceived as the sounds of the world seeped in. “I came up with this melody while I was swimming laps at the Brunswick Baths,” Donnelly explains. “The pool filter was making a humming sound on one note which allowed me to sing a melody over the top. “It then continued when I got home and had a shower with the bathroom fan on… I finally sat with a keyboard and held a note and it all just came together.”

Tim Carr – Alone Playing Piano

Though Tim Carr has made a name as part of other projects, be that Perfume Genius, Hand Habits or collaborating on records like Rebecca Schiffman‘s recent LP, Before the Future, he also has a rich solo career too. His debut release might have followed a folk tradition, but Carr’s sound is one in constant evolution, and new full-length Pleaure Drives leans into digital pop and electronic music. Recorded in the Crescenta Valley, the album draws on the LA golden hour in its romance and mystery, Carr intentionally working from a position of celebration rather than melancholy. “Pleasure drove this album to completion,” as he explains, “as it was made from a playful place as opposed to a melancholic state or being smothered by perfectionism.” Latest single ‘Alone Playing Piano’ encapsulates this spirit both in terms of lyrics (“Alone playing piano / getting into it / hitting wrong notes / trying to find the right ones / let it happen when the time comes”) and sound, the track not living up to the apparent austerity of its title but instead offering a shadowy Lynchian waltz.

villagerrr – Ride Or Die w/ Lydia

“Zeroing in on life’s small, ostensibly ordinary moments to find the meaning within.” So we wrote of villagerrr‘s Tear Your Heart Out in a list of our favourite albums of 2024, a record which saw songwriter Mark Scott embrace his Midwestern roots with a country-inflected brand of indie rock. “The result is a decidedly empathetic collection of songs able to zoom close to the smallest details of small town life,” we continued, “be it light through a sunroof, the smell of cut grass or pencil drawings made in an effort to preserve memories.” Having now signed with Winspear, villagerrr is releasing a new deluxe version of the album featuring a handful of previously unreleased bonus tracks, including new single ‘Ride Or Die w/ Lydia’. Featuring feeble little horse‘s Lydia Slocum, the track is characteristically fond and compassionate, sitting in that liminal space between summer and autumn, where the shadows grow long and the colours tend towards a sepia glow.

Watch the video edited by Trevor Hock below:

Tear Your Heart Out [Deluxe Edition] will be released via Winspear on the 10th October and you can pre-order it now.

Weakened Friends – NPC (feat. Buckethead)

Ever feel like life isn’t quite as real as many like to believe? That unfolding events are predestined, not so much by cosmic fate but something more computational? These are the ideas worrying Weakened Friends on new single ‘NPC’, a decidedly existential track featuring guitarist Buckethead inspired by the reality-bending simulation theory. But far from some exercise in idle sci-fi daydreaming, the song is urgent, defiant and cathartic. Fatalistic, but delivered with the kind of full-throated passion that can only exist in those still with the spirit to fight. This tone runs through Feels Like Hell, the Portland, Maine outfit’s new album coming soon on Don Giovanni Records, where every soul-destroying facet of our present moment is used as fuel on the fire. The hegemony of global capitalism, complete with its mass surveillance, environmental destruction and rampant inequality, is enough to drive anyone to despair, but Weakened Friends are determined to deny it that one last victory. Better to scream, yell, bring the whole thing crumbling down with us.

Maybe I’m just fucked in the head
Here daydreaming of annihilation
Maybe we should just hit reset
It’d be the best thing

Watch the video by SunBronx & Olise Forel below:

Feels Like Hell will be released on the 9th October via Don Giovanni and you can pre-order it now.

Wombo – S.T. Tilted

We’ve covered a number of singles from Wombo‘s new full-length Danger in Fives in recent months, noting how the release sees the Louisville outfit push the envelope rather than resting on their laurels. “I don’t want to be in a band that’s confined to one form of writing,” as vocalist and bassist Sydney Chadwick says. “Where’s the fun and the creativity and the exploration in that? You have to push yourself and try something new.” With the album out now via Fire Talk Records, Wombo have shared new single, ‘S.T. Tilted’ as if to prove this sentiment. “It’s the first song we wrote after the Slab EP that made it on Danger in Fives,” as guitarist Cameron Lowe explains. “We weren’t sure it was going to work, but all the contrasting parts ended up being cool. It’s rare for a Wombo song to be written on guitar first like this one, with some of the bass and drum parts jammed out in the basement afterwards. The wacky guitar part came last.”

Watch Lowe’s video below:

Danger in Fives is out now via Fire Talk and available from the Wombo Bandcamp page.

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Now recording as Doc Feldman & the Alt + Cntry + Delete, Feldman returned this spring with a brand new record, A Healthy Dose of Anxiety, on Shaker Steps Records. With more of a full band set up, the album sees a continuation of the inventive spirit that marked the debut, further developing the dark Americana sound by branching out into psych and seventies rock. The result is something far richer but no less evocative, a sound capable of presenting sadness, bitterness and love in one heady hit.

Take ‘Screwed’, its sleek and sinuous retro tones offering a real counterpoint to Feldman’s distinctively brooding vocals, a deceptively laidback shuffle over which his vocals emerge impassioned and caustic. “Ain’t it just like life to put the screws to you?” goes the opening line, “As if you aren’t already screwed? / I’m still trying to find that line between losing my shirt and losing my mind.” This is the mood of A Healthy Dose of Anxiety. A piercing sorrow with the way things are, a tangible fury that it was allowed to ever be. A deep desire for action yet a nagging inability to enact change. This is typified by ‘Heavy Edges’, which sets its sights on directly on whatever stage of capitalism we’re calling this now.

Of course your left hand don’t know what your rights been doing
Who’d want to see such feats of inequality?
So don’t pretend to want to deliver on your promises of deliverance
when all you do is keep feeding the machine

But where there is feeling, there is still hope. The bluesy swagger of ‘Receiving (for Rollo May)’ passes through desperation and loneliness via dogged determination, while folk rock hymn ‘Help Never Comes from Above’ reworks the cynicism of the title into a celebration of other possibilities. Progressing with what might at first seem like pessimism, decrying magic spells and empty prayers, the song repurposes such disillusionment into human solidarity. Clasping hands not in plea to God but to pull another out of the shit. If we have control over anything, it is what happens here around us. “Help never comes from above,” Feldman sings, “and if it does give thanks for the grace of earthly love.”

For all of the record’s dissatisfaction, Doc Feldman repeatedly finds this other side of the deal. Not an answer as such, but at least a direction in which to channel one’s energies. Be it the wistful warmth of piano-led ‘San Antonio Missions’ or the bright rhythm of ‘Straight Talk / Fully Wired’, A Healthy Dose of Anxiety transcends the bleak world in which it lives through sheer grit and determination. Succumbing not to easy fantasies but the call of hard, imperfect work. A willingness to stare down the worst of things, find motivation there. “I’m just hoping the pain can be a driving force,” he sings on the latter. “For our solutions to find their course.”

A Healthy Dose of Anxiety is out now and available from the Doc Feldman & the Alt + Cntry + Delete Bandcamp page.

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“I like the listener to create their own narratives and take what they will from what I have written… I write it purposely in a way that the listener can get their own deeper meaning from the songs and still relate” 

Shadows opens with ‘Carry You’, a hushed acoustic introduction which has a dark and shadowy southern Gothic vibe, the lyrics of heartbreak and loss seemingly straight from the pages of the best uncompromising, honest-to-goodness American literature, “I stood alone there waiting / I saw your tail lights fade / Burn out like the stars / But here I remain”. ‘Hourglass’ follows a similar pattern, something of a coming of age tale of tough living that could be taken straight from the pages of Larry Brown’s Joe or Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson (for example: “And I thought about when I was a kid / and I thought about what my father did / and what he didn’t do”). The reminiscent tone remains during ‘Your Love’, a song about the things that could have been, all nostalgic memories of childhood and lingering regret. It’s a great example of Squires’ ability to tell a story using the minimum number of words.

“Halloween when we were kids
playing in the woods, covering my lips when breath escaped your mouth
we’re strangers now and all that faded away
all that faded away”

‘Glisten’ is another sad song, this time with sorrowful piano behind the guitar. It’s the first track to feature additional vocals from Anna-Lynne Williams, aka Lotte Kestner (someone who has been really good to us at WTD). ‘Alone’ has a bit more pace and a noirish country twang, the lyrics like something from the nebulous mind of William Gay, all desperate terror and merciless Biblical hellfire. “The pearly pearly gates where there ain’t no hope for me,” Squires sings. “The Lord cast me down into the fiery lake / Through the pentecostal flames in the sky behold my name / the words written in the smoke from effigies.” The lyrics are at the forefront too on ‘Open’, a poem by Williams that Squires has set to music. The track returns to the gentle tone, the words as soft and fragile as the moth wings they reference.

“I forget there are so many ways in
to where I live
the air doesn’t seem to move
in the daytime
but like ghosts
I can trust the leaves and moths
to find all of the
shimmering portals”

Following is one of my favourites on the album, ‘After All’, a lovely song that conjures images of dusty and familiar rooms, spaces coloured special through memory or sentiment. This itself could serve to describe his songs as a whole, tales of common heartbreak and suffering made memorable, somehow more human, life exuding from every tiny detail, every poetic turn of phrase.

“There’s an old painting of Jesus
on a wall
and a tapestry that hangs by a cross
that weighs heavy on my shoulders
now and then
I get caught up with why the things we love ain’t never last”

‘Patterns’ is quiet and intimate, like a lonely porch-sat dawn, full of memories of things now gone, a mingling of past happiness and current regret. “Once you stood beneath the noisy life,” Squires sings, “and now it’s quiet and the silence gets to you sometimes / it was summer in the yard catching lightning bugs in jars / and the reflection of them in your daughters eyes.” It’s an incredibly poignant and candid song, achieving what all good music/literature can in painting a character in several deft strokes, portraying a myriad of thoughts and feelings in a manner never sickly or overwrought. The final track ‘Woven’ is a perfect ending, encapsulating everything that is great about Jeremy Squires’ writing. Here the mood is morose but not depressed, the song a long hard look into the beauty and tragedy of a life which is familiar with both.

“Fall’s burning those embers
drifting off
you ain’t but a fire on my lazy day

Through the wildwood and brambles to a city of ghosts
down where nobody lives anymore
this old house is in shambles, it’ll rattle your bones
when it won’t, it won’t matter no more”

Basically, Shadows is great. It does what the very best folk music can do, an outpouring from one human being to a multitude of others. It’s a record borne out of legitimate heartbreak, the end of a marriage and the death of a loved one, a brave and honest attempt to deal with big life-changing events. The beauty of it is that the finished work is not just healing and revelatory for the artist. It can help us too. All of us. As Squires put it in our interview, “it is the most personal record I’ve ever written. I wanted people to hear it though and I felt the listener could take something positive from all the loss or darkness that this album conveys”.

Shadows is out now on Shaker Steps Records. Get it via the Jeremy Squires Bandcamp page, as well as via iTunes or Amazon.

Album art by Barney Bodoano

The post Jeremy Squires – Shadows appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The album is out later this month, and Jeremy was kind enough to speak with us in anticipation of its release. 

1. Hi Jeremy, thanks for talking with us! How’s life in North Carolina this time of year?

Hi! Life is going pretty good right now. Where I live is pretty quiet and it’s been a little cold so I’ve had some time to reflect lately.

2. As someone from the UK, whose knowledge of certain parts of the US comes almost exclusively from music and books, the album seems evocatively American. Does the landscape and its people have a conscious impact on your writing, or is it just part of who you are and therefore shines through in your songs?

That’s a great question. Actually, I’m sure somewhere subconsciously it may… But I think it’s just a part of who I am. Where and how I write changes from time to time and I’m sure that the scenery and my experiences here have some sort of impact on my writing on a deeper level.3. The album, Shadows, is a great example of giving and withholding information to create a narrative flow. Do you work out the fully fleshed-out stories in your head? Or do you leave it up to the listener to create the narratives that exist beyond the moments captured in your lyrics?

No, I don’t ever write with a concept in mind. Sometimes it comes out (lyrically) in pieces and I have to figure out what and where certain things are coming from (like therapy) or a puzzle… I like the listener to create their own narratives and take what they will from what I have written. I use a lot metaphor in my lyrics but yet I still try to express a reality (my reality) to the listener. But I write it purposely in a way that the listener can get their own deeper meaning from the songs and still relate… If that makes sense?

4. The songs are often incredibly intimate and confessional, sharing thoughts that many people (especially men in certain communities) would usually feel they had to keep to themselves. Do you find it difficult to share these songs with other people? Do you ever consider the positive, comforting impact they could have on the listener?

With this new album Shadows. Yes and yes. It was very difficult. It is the most personal record I’ve ever written. I wanted people to hear it though and I felt the listener could take something positive from all the loss or darkness that this album conveys. Shadows was recorded over two years ago and during the process my marriage of 13 years ended, my mother passed away and I have tried to move on and all of this change and the struggles are openly shared throughout this record.

5. This is your third full-length album. How do you feel your music has evolved as you’ve gotten older? And do you think it will change drastically in the future? I mean, should we expect a Father John Misty-style reinvention?

Well, I definitely believe that all the changes and different experiences (divorce, death, birth, life in general, change, kids) that come with age have shaped my sound into what it is. I’m sure my music will change a lot more because nothing stays the same. Life and music would be quite boring if it did. I am currently finishing up with another record titled Collapse and it touches on some really personal experiences and issues as well. I don’t think I will go as drastic as “Father John Misty” but who knows?6. Anna-Lynne Williams features on several of the tracks and ‘Open’ is one of her poems that you’ve adapted into a song. How did this collaboration come about? Is she someone you’ve known a long time?

I’ve been a huge fan of hers for awhile. Since her previous band Trespassers William back in the 90s. I was fortunate enough to become friends with her a few years back and after we both contributed songs to a Damien Jurado project for the blog Slowcoustic. I reached out to her to sing on my last album When Will You Go and she loved the songs and we became mutual fans of each other’s work. So I knew I wanted her to sing on Shadows too. One day I had finished up the music for a song and I had the vocal pattern down but no lyrics yet… I just happened to see Anna-Lynne had posted a new poem titled “open” and knew instantly that those were the words I had been searching for. I love that poem and it feels personal to me and I feel that I made it my own. She is a great writer.

7. Finally, could you recommend 4/5 bands or artists you’re into at the moment? They can be brand new or long dead, smash hits or garage-recorded hidden gems.

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