Back in March we introduced the self-titled debut EP from beaming, the new project of Derek Ted and Braden Lawrence, sharing single ‘slow sinkin’. “With Field Medic adding guest vocals, the track possesses all of the earnestness fans of Ted and Lawrence’s solo work will know well,” we wrote, “the bright rhythm and heartfelt tone the sonic equivalent of shaking clarity into a clouded mind.” With the EP out now via Rose Garden, beaming have unveiled new single ‘4U’. “This song is about falling in love and needing to confess how you feel,” Ted explains. “We wanted it to live in a space between glitchy digital sounds and acoustic moments. The chorus is meant to feel like an avalanche of relief—like everything just opens up once you finally say what’s been on your mind.” Watch the video directed by Olivia Alonso Gough and edited along with Braden Lawrence below:

Beaming EP is out now via Rose Garden and you can buy it now.

Don’t Worry – This Time

We’ve been building up to the release of Don’t Worry‘s new album Idealism in recent months, sharing a number of singles which suggest the record will find the Essex punks exploring new sonic ground while furthering their signature blend of sincerity and playfulness. Taking inspiration of the 90s/00s alt golden age, latest single ‘This Time’ sees the outfit reach towards the likes of Smashing Pumpkins in its sense of scale and weight. The result is as cathartic as anything in the Don’t Worry catalogue to date. “‘This Time’ is a song about learning from bad experiences and making sure you don’t make the same mistakes again,” explains songwriter Ronan Van Kehoe. “It’s about growing as a person and coming out of a rough period into a better time.”

DUG – Livelong Day

Having signed to legendary Irish label Claddagh Records, folk duo DUG have shared a new single ‘Livelong Day’ in preparation for their much anticipated debut full-length. Comprised of Jonny Pickett and Lorkin O’Reilly, the project has quickly risen to prominence in the contemporary folk scene, seeing them earn two Grammy nominations and support slots for the likes of Willie Carlisle and Iron & Wine. Though the new track offers a glimpse at a so far unseen darker dimension of DUG, it is easy to see why they have earned such acclaim. A reimagining of the old folk tale ‘The Legend of Knockgrafton’, the song finds its protagonist sobering up amid a drunken dance in a faerie ring. And while the tone might be slightly heavier than previous tracks, it is one nevertheless leavened by its playful spirit.

‘Livelong Day’ is out now via Claddagh Records.

Kaycie Satterfield – ford falcon

Following on from 2024 album Rosie, a release with Earth Libraries we described as “a record which sets out to explore large themes through a personal lens,” Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Kaycie Satterfield is back with brand new single, ‘ford falcon’. A song full of attitude and honest truths which faces down the expectations placed upon women with a mix of sardonic humour and steely defiance. “I’m not your fucking mother,” as Satterfield says in the opening lines. “I can’t come tuck you in.” She’s not your daughter either, nor your lover, just a woman in the same room. And she’s here to make sure you realise the fact, even if it is the last thing you do.

kissing other ppl – Ashes of American Flags

Last month we introduced the self-titled covers record from kissing other ppl, the new project that brings together folk duo Viv & Riley and singer songwriter Rachel Baiman. The lead single was a take on Dr Dog’s ‘Where’d all The Time Go’, adding a timeless folk style to the original, and now the trio are back with their version of Wilco classic ‘Ashes of American Flags’. It’s illustrative of the outfit’s experimental sense of collaboration, as Viv jumps behind the drum kit to play a “no holds barred snare smash,” while Riley adds distorted fiddle and Baiman gives her all with the vocals. Altogether, it’s a worthy homage to the original, which is no mean feat. “Growing up in Chicago, Wilco were royalty,” Baiman describes of the source material. “The line at the end about fallen leaves in shopping bags brings up such strong childhood imagery for me.”

kissing other ppl is available now from Bandcamp.

Old Man of the Woods – Meditation

“With a languorous, enveloping sound, again the mood is undeniably ghostly, though its eeriness carries not so much fright or unease as a sense of possibility,” we wrote of ‘Amber‘ from the new Old Man of the Woods full-length Tendrils last month. “As though in connecting the long-dawned past with a gesture towards the future, [Miranda] Elliott invites us to consider just how interconnected the stages of so-called linear time might be.” With the album now out, Elliott has shared latest single ‘Meditation’, a self-described  “breathy, minimal ritual” which performs its own form of transubstantiation, taking a desire which might otherwise appear absurd and changing it into something charged and devotional. Built on strangely hypnotic percussion that wobbles and clatters throughout, it’s almost a dance track, but Elliott’s vocals remain ethereal as ever, drifting in and out like curtains of mist.

Rebecca Schiffman – Bubble of Love

“The record sees the LA-based songwriter grapple with what it means to live a moral life within a society that can appear hellbent on compromising our personal values.” So we wrote of Before the Future, the new album from Rebecca Schiffman coming later this summer with Lost Sound Tapes. No stone is left unturned across the songs, with everything from motherhood, grief, family vacations and the ethics of the pet-owner relationship explored. Latest single ‘Bubble of Love’ employs a peppy rhythm and sweet vocals to turn its attention to the familiar arc of romantic love. The song “traces a relationship from the honeymoon phase when you could spend all your time with someone and anything is possible,” as Schiffman explains, “to a time when it feels claustrophobic and you want to pop the bubble.”

Watch the video by Renata Zeiguer below:

Before the Future will be released on the 25th July, including a cassette via Lost Sound Tapes, and you can pre-order it now.

Snake Orange Cake – Stitch

When covering the work of Berlin-based artist Julia Carlsson in the past, it has been for leoblu, a project we’ve described as making “ambiguous and atmospheric music which situates intimate emotion against the more mysterious forces at work around us.” But now Carlsson has branched out towards a new sound, and has thus adopted a brand new moniker. Snake Orange Cake sees Carlsson elevate her experimental electronic style with spoken-word poetry and extra narrative thrust. The first tase of a forthcoming EP, new single ‘Stitch’ offers a glimpse of the invention and playfulness which underpins the new project, weaving a detailed, rhythmic sound over which Carlsson’s spoken vocals play with disarming closeness.

Star Moles – Fate

“The oeuvre is a lesson in the potential of bedroom pop, refusing to settle for genre conventions to push the style in new directions.” So we wrote of the work of Emily Moales’s Star Moles back in May, describing how single ‘Key Change’ embodied Moales’s “growing boredom with idealised romance of polished pop, choosing to instead get its hands dirty and dig into the messy guts of what love really means.” Now Star Moles has announced full-length album Snack Monster, coming later this summer on Earth Libraries, and opener and latest single ‘Fate’ serves as a mission statement for the release. A song which looks to address contemporary neuroses via traditional styles, looking to break free from the strictures of established narratives and reclaim agency from the impression of predetermination.

Xol Meissner – Hunt [97]

The recording alias of Swiss-born, NYC-based composer Mauro Hertig, Xol Meissner pairs baritone vocals with a singular hammered lap-steel style to create soundscapes as evocative as they are otherworldly. New album Excess of Loss might be Hertig’s debut under this moniker but arrives fully formed, each track functioning with the eerie, unnerving logic of a dream. Take single ‘Hunt [97]’, a song sedate in rhythm, drifting within its own textured arrangement, yet shot through with imagery both violent and strange. “Open field vision / we access the graveyards / ancestors aim / at the holes in our hearts,” he sings in one such typically striking verse. Or elsewhere: “The bodies pile up / to a sculpture of justice / fathers are holding / the hands of their sons.” The result is mythic. Oddly timeless yet sonically unique. Weighted with a meaning slightly beyond our understanding. Something which lingers at the edges of our reality. Alluring, terrifying and sublime.

Watch the video by Camille Henrot (director), Ben Scofield (director of photography and colourist), Mauro Hertig, Camille Henrot (editors), Marie-Christine Statz and Gauchère (costume) below:

Excess of Loss is out now and available from Bandcamp.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2025 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

A collaboration between multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Tessa Collins and drummer Andrew Wilkinson, Altai create music that lands somewhere between dream pop, post-punk and folk. Both members live on farms, and say their forthcoming debut EP was created “between dodgy Wi-Fi and driving tractors.” Lead single ‘Like You Need It’ is a good introduction. Released just as the southern hemisphere moves into autumn, the song is suffused with a romantic nostalgia and the gnawing melancholy of the changing seasons. “Wanting to be wanted, feeling woeful as the cheery summer days come to an end,” the band describe. “You turn to your partner for affectionate reassurance that might just ease the seasonal blues.”

‘Like You Need It’ is out now via Broken Palace.

Ava McCoy – More Than a Friend

Described by the artist as “a patchwork quilt of me post-college,” Ava McCoy‘s forthcoming album Dragonfly “run[s] the gamut between hushed folk and driving indie rock to offer a sonic palette wide enough to paint a diverse collection of scenes and feelings,” as we wrote in a preview. With the record set for release via Acrophase Records at the end of the month, McCoy is back with ‘More Than a Friend’, another square in this mosaic which focuses on a Christmas spent in the UK reflecting on past loves and the compromises which came with them. But with a propulsive energy and bright jangle, the track finds freedom in the situation, embracing the agency of being single.

Don’t Worry – Unbelieveable

“Balancing heart-on-the-sleeve emo confession with a distinctively British self-deprecation.” So we wrote of Don’t Worry‘s forthcoming album Idealism back in April, a full-length which sees the Essex outfit evolve their sound while staying true to the spirit that has won them fans with previous albums. With the record set for release this summer on Specialist Subject Records, Don’t Worry are back with ‘Unbelievable’, a song which evokes the dystopia of lockdown-era Britain with a disarmingly bright and sunny sound. The single therefore owes an equal debt to the romanticised past and soul-sapping present, the warm Beatles-esque tones belying the cold hard reality of the contemporary moment.

Frankie Cosmos – Bitch Heart

New York indie favourites Frankie Cosmos are returning this June with brand new full-length Different Talking on Sub Pop, with the ever present lead Greta Kline joined by Alex Bailey, Katie Von Schleicher and Hugo Stanley in the project’s current iteration to create what might be their most collaborative record to date. The album collects a myriad of memories and images into a cohesive whole, exploring growing older amid the unstoppable passage of time, and latest single ‘Bitch Heart’ centres on the competing allures of comfort and raw experience which push and pull a person over the course of their lives. The track comes complete with a video by Eliza Lu Doyle which further pushes into these ideas, all shot on infrared and thermal cameras to position it firmly within a surreal space. “To me the song is about being torn between the comforts of domesticated life and your innate wildness,” Doyle explains. “There’s a yearning for a more feral time—before you touched your fucking phone all day. So we made Greta into a dog-shepherd, someone who straddles those two realms.”

Different Talking is out on the 27th June via Sub Pop and you can pre-order it now.

Fuubutsushi – Loop Trail

This June sees the release of Columbia Deluxe, a live release by ambient jazz quartet Fuubutsushi, via American Dreams. Taken from a show at the Columbia Experimental Music Festival, the project’s only live performance to date, the collection finds the quartet working to adapt tracks recorded remotely for the live setting, drawing from the breadth of their work and allowing intuition, risk-taking and collaborative spirit to flourish in close proximity. Half the magic of the release is the way in which the tracks flow into one another across the performance, meaning it is best experienced as a whole. Though lead track ‘Loop Trail’ offers a suitable snapshot of what to expect. A number indebted to both the patience of ambient aesthetics and old-school punk ethos, drawing the audience into a soundscape at once poignant and meditative.

HLLLYH – Uru Buru

Last month we introduced HLLLYH, a project risen from the ashes of 00s favourites the Mae Shi which is preparing to release brand new album, URUBURU. What the band describe as “an end-of-the-world story written on a mobius strip” the record lacks none of the invention and personality which made the Mae Shi stand out so clearly from the crowd of indie buzz bands. Released as the latest single, the opener and title track shows such a spirit is present from the very start, the newly invigorated outfit wasting no time to establish their fist-pumping charm and offering a timely reminder that energy persists irrespective of everything. “We’ve been eating our own tail for as long as i remember / We’ve been doing it wrong right from the start,” as the opening verse states. “But one thing I know / one thing that’s sure / one light outshines.”

URUBURU is out on the 27th June via Team Shi and you can pre-order it from the HLLLYH Bandcamp page.

Hudson Freeman – Good Faith

Combining the atmospheric intensity of slowcore with the closeness of bedroom pop, the work of Hudson Freeman pushes boundaries in terms of genre conventions while maintaining a direct emotional resonance. Later this month the Springfield, Missouri songwriter will release Is A Folk Artist, a brand new album which employs this style to explore some of the largest themes possible. Because though the record is situated within a coming-of-age experience, it probes deeper than the usual uncertainty and angst of young life. Rather, Freeman follows the likes of David Bazan in using the period to reflect on the metaphysical as well as the personal, drawing on a religious upbringing to explore how meaning might be located within the digital present. Check out latest single ‘Good Faith’ now:

Is A Folk Artist is out on the 29th May via Mendel Records.

Jack Goldstein – MUD MICE

The music of Margate’s Jack Goldstein is nothing if not ambitious. He bends the pop spectrum into a perfect circle and makes himself comfortable at the point where both poles—earworm commercial and oddball avant garde—meet. Forthcoming album HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER COWPUNCHING JEWBOY is a case in point. Goldstein describes it as ​”a fever dream in a parallel dimension where Britney Spears makes a fully fledged country and western album around the time she shaves her head—the moment this cosmic heartache begins to envenom the world.” If that’s hared to envisage, then give lead single ‘MUD MICE’ a spin. A ludicrously infectious and imaginative song that displays both a  country twang and pop polish.

HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER COWPUNCHING JEWBOY is out on the 20th June via Fabulous Things.

Juan Wauters – Dime Amiga

Although now based in NYC, Juan Wauters was born in Montevideo and, for the first time in his career, returned to the Uruguayan capital to make album MVD LUV, coming via Captured Tracks. Created not just in his own studio, but also the city itself (on sidewalks, rooftops, in the homes of friends), the album has a sense of Montevideo in its very bones. Latest single ‘Dime Amiga’ is a good place to start. Sung in Spanish, it’s a gentle and heartwarming song about the importance of loved ones. “‘Dime Amiga’ is a song that sparked while seeing my daughter cry,” Wauters sings. “The chorus just came out as we were there. I wanted the song to highlight life’s difficulties and how important it is to have a friend on your side if it ever gets hard.” His daughter also has a starring role in the video (written and directed by Lucía Garibaldi, Fatos Marishta, Eric McLeland, Matthew Volz and Wauters himself), which sees her wander off into the bustle of New York as Wauters’s busks for donut money.

MVD LUV will be released via Captured Tracks on 27th June. Pre-order it now from the Juan Wauters Bandcamp page.

Mourning [A] Blkstar – Letter To A Nervous System

We’ve covered a couple of singles from Mourning [A] Blkstar‘s new full-length Flowers of the Living in recent months, first the patient and quietly radical ‘Stop Lion 2‘ and then the striking ‘Let ‘Em Eat‘. The latter “pivots from bright, affirming beginnings into something else entirely,” we wrote in our piece, the song staying “true to the visionary, boundary-pushing spirit of the project” by shifting the vibe entirely and welcoming rapper Fatboi Sharif for a closing verse. With the album out later this week on Don Giovanni Records, MAB has unveiled final single ‘Letter To A Nervous System’ and the track is no less inventive. Another lesson in the power of understatement, the languid rhythm and crooned vocals full of assured confidence and aching longing.

Flowers of the Living is out on the 16th May via Don Giovanni Records and you can pre-order it now.

Snake Lips – Thumbs Up

This summer sees the return of Portland, Maine indie punk outfit Snake Lips with Cat Beach, a brand new full-length on Repeating Cloud. Previous release Happy Anxious was an album “delivered with both volatility and wry humour,” as we wrote in a preview, “as though strung out between hope and despair and choosing to ride the instability,” and the new record looks to build upon these foundations, as introduced by lead single, ‘Thumbs Up’. It’s a surf-inflected slice of garage rock which again embraces the danger and thrill of sheer momentum, burning bright and quick no matter consequences and ultimately revealing the real threat comes from within. “Brake check / I’m driving in the wrong lane / Blacked out / Alcohol and cocaine,” as the song opens. “So cool / I’m calling you the wrong name / Too bad / I’m the only one in my way.”

Watch the video by Ninety-Five Films below:

Cat Beach will be released on the 25th July via Repeating Cloud and you can pre-order it now.

Will Orchard – Nothing Fog

“A dream-folk track which preaches the benefits submission within an overwhelming world, complicating the lines between playfulness, sadness and acquiescence.” So we wrote of Will Orchard‘s ‘Down‘ back in April, what has since been revealed to be the closing track of his forthcoming third album, Behind The Shadow Glass. To announce the record, Orchard has shared another single, ‘Nothing Fog’. Again presenting a nuanced atmosphere, the track uses a decidedly sincere style to explore a sense of uncertainty, its confessional tone unafraid of revealing its own vulnerabilities and loss of confidence. Yet it is the sound’s brightness which persists in spite of all of this, leading to something ultimately affirming. “‘Nothing Fog’ expresses something very central to my struggle as a human,” as Orchard puts it. “The feeling of pushing your own wants and needs aside, and always trying to consider every perspective, until you can no longer recognize your own.”

Yoshika Colwell – A Poem About Walking

In April we introduced On The Wing, the forthcoming release from Yoshika Colwell on Blue Flowers. An album, at its heart “about acceptance and release, and freedom from old binds,” as Colwell herself describes, collecting a series of key experiences and events from across the years in order to not only process the journey so far but to chart a more hopeful path forward. Latest single ‘A Poem About Walking’ embodies the compassion and self-acceptance of this endeavour, finding its subject at the rock bottom of a troubled relationship though still holding onto small embers of possibility. The hope, that is, to achieve a more fulfilling and healthy existence, even if it means passing through a period of solitude and reflection in order to map out its shape. Watch the video by Tilly Wace below:

On The Wing is out on the 25th July via Blue Flowers and you can pre-order it now.

The post Weekly Listening: May 2025 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

New single ‘Middle Finger’ gives a hint at the direction the trio are taking this time around. “The earliest iPhone demos of this song were way back in 2022,” as songwriter Ronan Van Kehoe explains. “It’s gone through the mill a few times since then. Alex [Reed] took the song in the synth-heavy 80s inspired direction that you hear on the final version, and we’re really happy he did that. We think this song showcases another different sound that’s present on our 3rd album Idealism, and there are several other new flavours to come.”

Fans of Don’t Worry will be pleased to hear the familiar spirit of the band persists through the stylistic changes, Van Kehoe’s lyrics again balancing heart-on-the-sleeve emo confession with a distinctively British self-deprecation. A fitting tone for a track all about the imperfections that can haunt a life, and even overwhelm it should the sufferer not be careful. “Despite its name, ‘Middle Finger’ isn’t about swearing or hand gestures,” as Ronan Van Kehoe continues. “It’s a song about acknowledging that even when life goes the way you want it to some of the time, it’ll never go the way you want it to all of time, and that’s ok.” So even if the minor curses of finger cysts, astigmatism, less-than-perfect hearts and chronic overthinking can come to colour one’s sense of identity and self-esteem, Don’t Worry regain a sense of agency within the arrangement with their signature blend of unapologetic intimacy and ironic distance.

The post Don’t Worry – Middle Finger appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Montreal artist Cassandra Angheluta uses the moniker APACALDA to create an atmospheric blend of shadowy indie pop and emotive indie rock. Early next summer, she will release There’s a Shadow In My Room and It Isn’t Mine, a much-anticipated album that explores a person’s journey from unblemished purity to marked and bruised with life’s burdens. Displaying this dark mood in full effect, latest single ‘Dead Weight’ is a song about watching helplessly as a loved one spirals into addiction. “True love, whether romantic or platonic, can be imprisoning,” APACALDA explains of the song. “There are journeys—like addiction—that people ultimately have to face within themselves to find healing. Watching them go through this is incredibly hard because you’re constantly battling the fear of losing them.”

There’s a Shadow In My Room and It Isn’t Mine is due to be released in June next year.

Blood Lemon – Perfect Too

Uniting over a shared love of Kim Deal and 90s Riot Grrrl music, Boise three-piece Blood Lemon burst onto the scene in 2021 with their self-titled debut, combining musical expertise with political urgency to create a searing sound. Now the trio—Lisa Simpson (Finn Riggins, Treefort Music Fest), Melanie Radford (Built to Spill, Marshall Poole) and percussionist Lindsey Lloyd (Tambalka)—are preparing to release new EP Petite Deaths on Moon Ruins, and lead single ‘Perfect Too’ sees an escalation of this style. A seven-minute behemoth which sets its furious sights on the dead end of greed and endless treadmill in search of perfection.

Watch the video directed and edited by Grant Osman with animation by James W.A.R. Lloyd below:

Petite Deaths is out in the 17th January via Moon Ruins and you can pre-order it now.

Daneshevskaya – Scrooge

Daneshevskaya‘s Long Is The Tunnel was one of 2023’s most inventive and ambitious releases, using rich arrangements and distinctive vocals to present the individual experience as a patchwork of histories and hopes for the future. Again out via Winspear, new single ‘Scrooge’ is no less layered and finely crafted. Drawing loosely on the titular figure, the track brings to life a sense of growing alienation within a relationship, as though the significant other is slowing deforming into a stranger in real time. “Ebenezer, I wish you wouldn’t stay,” admits the opening line, and the rest of the track is equally frank. “When you talk like that I don’t recognize you,” as the chorus goes. “When you move like that I don’t recognize you / I don’t even think you notice.” Watch the video below, directed by Madeline Leshner and Zach Stone with cinematography by Stone and Isaac Berner:

‘Scrooge’ is out now via Winspear and available from the Daneshevskaya Bandcamp page.

David Allred – Oh Lauren

“Death, grief and loss are understandably key moods, but perhaps the most striking emotion is that of longing,” we wrote of David Allred‘s forthcoming album The Beautiful World on Erased Tapes. “Not only a desire to return to the past and that which is lost, but also for something better in the future.” After the title track weaved seemingly mundane details into a picture of a fulfilling life, new single ‘Oh Lauren’ continues this spirit with an even more direct focus. Dedicated to a childhood friend who took her own life at a young age, the song collects the tangle of competing emotions surrounding the event and aims to communicate them as honestly as possible. Mourning and confusion, a desire to understand, as well as the enduring sense of gratitude for having known her at all.

Don’t Worry – Ever So Clear

Released to coincide with the ten-year anniversary of the band and in preview of a third full-length album scheduled for sometime in 2025, ‘Ever So Clear’ sees Harlow, Essex indie rockers Don’t Worry continue the sense of heartfelt emotion and playful humour which made 2022 album Remorseless Swing so special. “All night I’m thinking for England / I can’t be with you at all,” sings songwriter Samuel Watson, casting an unflinching eye on a personal situation and reporting back every uncomfortable detail. The result might not be the most romantic of pictures, but the earnest delivery lends an affirming edge, and positions the singalong refrain as something between a promise and a plea.

I just need a little time
Stay with me
I just need a little time

 Free Lunch – rosebud

The recording project of Bournemouth brothers Henry and Ted Scanlan, Free Lunch rose from the ashes of two solo outfits—Sprog and Wilder respectively—and has come to welcome an array of friends and collaborators such as Michael Rea (Symbol Soup) and Dave ‘The Attic’ Mountain. New single ‘rosebud’ highlights the atmosphere and versatility of the resulting sound, building from warm, relaxed beginnings into something altogether deeper. A middle lull shimmers to near-silence as though to herald what is coming, and the closing third of the track makes good on the promise with a climax full of weight and soaring release.

Leif Vollebekk – Peace of Mind (Morning)

Leif Vollebekk‘s new album Revelation, out now on Secret City Records, is one keyed into mystery and ambiguity, drawing on Jung’s Dreams, Memories, Reflections to explore themes such as alchemy and the unknowable divine. The sort of release which appears to be inching closer to some truth with every listen. It is fitting then that Vollebekk has returned to some of the tracks again, recording different versions as though in search of that elusive perfection. ‘Peace of Mind (Morning)’ offers an acoustic take which looks to carve out its own space away from the album. A small pocket of calm to be maintained and returned to. Watch the visualiser by director, cinematographer and editor Andy Mann and colourist Beatrice Tremblay below:

Revelation is out now via Secret City Records.

leoblu – PEACHES

Following this summer’s EP Blu Lucid Nightmare and a recent collaboration with World Wide Web, leoblu (that’s Åland-born, Berlin-based producer and artist Julia Carlsson) returns with new single ‘PEACHES’. Making what we described previously as “ambiguous and atmospheric music which situates intimate emotion against the more mysterious forces at work around us,” leoblu specialises in the dark and haunting, and ‘PEACHES’ is no exception. An indie pop song filtered through a digital prism, it combines synths, beats and Carlsson’s signature vocals to create something at once emotional and oddly mesmerising.

‘PEACHES’ is out now via streaming services.

MacGregor Burns – Can’t Go Back

“Stretch[es] the gamut between despondent, desperate and something like tenuous hope as they strive towards a truer version of self, whatever that might look like.” So we wrote of MacGregor Burns‘s ‘Silent Answers’ back in September, introducing the artist’s idiosyncratic personality. Combining nostalgic nods to the likes of David Byrne while forging a new path forwards, latest single ‘Can’t Go Back’ looks for further clues in the fertile space between the familiar and the new. Going back might not be possible, but there’s no harm in looking to those who have walked before us for indications of what direction we might take next.

Pleasure Systems – Merry Christmas

Described by label Primordial Void as “not quite Christmas music,” ‘Merry Christmas’ is the new single from Clarke Sondermann’s Pleasure Systems. It’s our first glimpse of his new working relationship with producer Ivan Berko, and channels the signature Pleasure Systems ruminative indie pop towards the layers of bittersweet memory that the festive season can often break open and reveal to us. Grant Chapman provides drums and May Rio sings along as Sondermann reflects on Christmases past, pairing a warm nostalgic fondness and moments of small beauty with a sharp pang of loss. The 7″ single and digital download comes complete with a b-side ‘Signing in My Sleep (Demo)’, so be sure not to miss out on that too.

The storm took down the power lines
it ripped the needles off the pines
but I see you at the door
and I couldn’t ask for more
Merry Christmas

winded – wish on the mezzanine

Based in Miami, winded was originally the solo project of lead Thrin Vianale, but has since expanded into a four-piece featuring Nick Cody (guitar) James Sturges (bass) and Gunther Schenk (drums). Their latest release, a double single featuring the tracks ‘wish on the mezzanine’ and ‘mercy 27’ is therefore something of a reintroduction. The ramshackle lo-fi pop of 2022’s schwartz provides is levelled up into something with genuine mass, pairing thick noisy fuzz and shredding guitar with hooky melodies and bright harmonies. ‘wish on the mezzanine’ is the perfect introduction—power pop meets shoegaze meets crunchy lo-fi rock.

Yoshika Colwell & The Vernon Spring – This Weather

In early December, English songwriter Yoshika Colwell will release a collaborative EP with The Vernon Spring (London composer and producer Sam Beste). The record finds the pair’s creative spirits coming together in an effortless flow, The Vernon Spring taking Colwell’s classical folk songwriting and spinning it off into new, daring territory. The focus was very much on intuition and improvisation, from snippets of melodies that arrived as if from the ether, to the lyrics themselves. “I sang without letting my analytical mind get in the way,” Colwell explains. “The words came out like in a conversation or thought, complete with strangeness and non sequiturs and contradictions.” Take a listen to the title track for a taste of what this sounds like.

The post Weekly Listening: November 2024 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The result is undoubtedly playful (“You said that you’d never seen Mary Harron’s year 2000 horror comedy starring Christian Bale…” goes the first chorus. “Better put that on now”), though beneath this lies something more disturbing. The corners of rooms are haunted by spiders, the corners of mouths by painful ulcers. The home, and even the body, are not quite safe. There is no place in which to retreat. “I wrote [‘Every Corner’] in one sitting during the first lockdown in 2020,” explains lead Ronan Van Kehoe. “Not being able to go out and see people was driving me crazy. I was having trouble sleeping one night, and all the lyrics just came in one go.”

I’m feeling pretty queasy now and I don’t know how
But there’s an ulcer in every corner of my mouth
It’s like I can’t unwind
It’s difficult to find a quiet place in any corner of my mind

The post Don’t Worry – Every Corner appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Binker & Moses – Accelerometer Overdose

The recording project of saxophonist Binker Golding and drummer and composer Moses Boyd, Binker & Moses are representative of a new wave of acts within London who look to combine the jazz tradition with hip-hop, Caribbean rhythms and various electronic styles. The latest single from forthcoming record Feeding The Machine on Gearbox Records, ‘Accelerometer Overdose’ welcomes the tape loops of Max Luthert, pushing things into ambient territory and further increasing the possibilities of the Binker & Moses sound.

Sun June – Somewhere + 3

Last year saw the release of Sun June’s excellent album Somewhere on Run For Cover Records, which recently featured on our Albums We Missed in 2021 feature. The record was released from isolation, and when the band were finally able to get back together they channelled both the frustration of those lost months and the joy of being reunited into new songs. The result is Somewhere + 3, a deluxe edition of last year’s record with three previously unreleased tracks.

The vibe of these new songs is captured perfectly on lead single ‘Easy’. “[It] is a romantic struggle song,” explains says Laura Colwell. “It’s about love and partnership and longstanding arguments that are hard to get past.”

Want it to be easy
Swore we’d be better by now
Picture of your mother
In Vietnam, 1977

Widowspeak – Everything is Simple

“Everything is simple ’til it’s not,” sings Molly Hamilton of Widowspeak on ‘Everything is Simple’, the lead single from the New York duo’s forthcoming album, The Jacket. It’s a song about how things grow complicated with time, how even situations which begin as pure potential eventually become knotted with limitations, and how, unreliable narrators that we are, we often bend reality to adapt. But despite that, the song sounds surprisingly vibrant, unfurling with a patient confidence that we’ve come to expect from Widowspeak. Check out the video, directed by OTIUM, below:

The Jacket is out via Captured Tracks on the 11th March and you can pre-order it now from the Widowspeak Bandcamp page.

Good Good Blood – The Dizzying Parade

Back in November we introduced you to The Dizzying Parade, the latest album from Good Good Blood on Team Love Records, with single ‘Green Bank’. “A densely layered track which balances a propelling drum beat with an dreamy weightlessness,” we described, “Smith’s vocals finding that neo-psychedelic line between attitude and ethereality.” Ahead of the album’s release this week, Good Good Blood have unveiled the title track. Another propulsive song which gradually builds in intensity as it unfolds, the tension growing and growing before unravelling into a sonic kaleidoscope of colour and sound. A finale as disorientating as the title suggests.

Allegra Krieger – Taking It In

Brooklyn-based songwriter Allegra Krieger is back with Precious Thing, a new LP out via Northern Spy Records this spring. Lead single ‘Taking It In’ introduces the album’s distinctively inviting and wistful sound, Krieger’s gentle croon sitting within a changeable arrangement of strings that conjure the sense of memories ebbing and flowing around the present moment. “Where am I now? Where was I three years ago?” she asks, “Where is my mother where is anyone I know?” Check out the video by Samuel Ogoe, Melissa Lozada-Oliva and Koa Ho below:

Precious Thing releases via Northern Spy Records on the 4th March and you can pre-order it now from the Allegra Krieger Bandcamp page.

 chores – Trip Wire

chores are a post punk slash dream pop band from Rochester NY. They recently released their debut single, ‘Trip Wire’, taken from a forthcoming EP. It’s a wonderful introduction, the kind of lo-fi indie pop gem that would be right at home on an early 90s Sarah Records sampler. As the title suggests, it’s a song about trying to avoid all those little everyday triggers that spark anxiety. As lead Heather Swenson sings “it’s a thick mire, avoiding any tripwire / that could signal friendly fire somewhere in my brain, so many times a day.”

Melk – Yankee Division Highway

Self-described “aspiring optimists” from Washington D.C., Melk make dreamy, punky indie pop that nevertheless traverse some pretty serious emotional depths. Comprising of Melissa Kain (guitar & vocals), AJ DiGregorio (bass) and Alex Scheuer (drums), Melk have just released their second EP, a three-song collection called Somebody, Nobody, Anybody. The standout is the slow-burning final track, ‘Yankee Division Highway’, a song the band say is “about how apathy can erode the trust you have in loved ones.” Kain guides us through the patient build, matching the intensity of the instrumentation before drifting into a rueful croon.

Carrie Biell – See Through the Trees

“I’ve been living my whole damn life trying to make everybody feel alright,” sings Seattle-based singer-songwriter Carrie Biell in latest single, ‘See Through the Trees’. “Maybe I’m sick of trying.” The line captures the track’s strange relationship between uncertainty and conviction, where beliefs are felt with palpable force even when solutions might not be easy or accessible. “This is about feeling maxed out in life by people and life commitments,” Biell explains, “but still trying to open up and be vulnerable in a new relationship. It’s about responding to your own needs while also giving to a new partner and learning to trust.”

Modern Nature – Performance

Rising from the ashes of previous band Ultimate Painting, Modern Nature is the new moniker of London‘s Jack Cooper. A project which takes the compositions and songwriting developed with Ultimate Painting and builds upon them with a newfound willingness to improvise and experiment. This month sees the release of latest record Island Of Noise on Bella Union, with lead single ‘Performance’ offering a glimpse of what’s to come. A song “written from the perspective of someone seeing or realising something overwhelming for the first time,” as Cooper puts it, consisting of a multitude of moving parts that mimic a kind of irrepressible curiosity.

Check out the video by Conan Roberts, Phoebe Cooper and Cooper himself below:

Island Of Noise is out on the 28th January via Bella Union and you can pre-order it from the Modern Nature Bandcamp page.

Pompey – Overwhelmed

Montreal based artist Pompey has played in a variety of acts within the city, lending his talents to the likes of Thanya Iyer, Corey Gulkin and Paper Beat Scissors, but Overwhelmed is the first full-length album of his own. Released by Anything Bagel, the record is a self-professed pandemic album. A product not so much of the prolonged anxiety of the present but rather Pompey’s methods of coping. A deliberate search for comfort and kindness within the constant pressure, carving out a space in which to rest. The title track illustrates the mood as good as any on the record, delivered with a deliberate tenderness which invites the listener to share the safe harbour for a while.

I try not to frown
Smile spreads light throughout my crown
I will trust myself
Over time

Nuisance – Kuchisabishii

A collaboration between William J. Seidel and Ryan E. Weber (REW<<, Eric & Magill), Nuisance craft a version of dream pop coloured by folk and classical sensibilities, though the process is far more notable than that. Weber spent two years recording instruments and coding them into software, building up a library of sounds which can be downloaded at Poetic Devices. After such a laborious process, the pair decided their first use of the program should be as immediate as possible, and the first Nuisance album Kuchisabishii, (out now via Katuktu Collective) came together in just two days. A shifting, impressionistic exploration of intimacy and immediacy, it’s a wonderful example of music made from the ground up, from atomic level building blocks to an album-sized ecosystem.

Don’t Worry – Crushing Weight / Head’s Chocka

Fronted by co-leads Ronan Van Kehoe and Samuel Watson, Don’t Worry have won recognition with their blend of wry observation and nostalgic charm. Following last year’s single ‘As If By Magic‘, the outfit are returning with full-length Remorseless Swing on Specialist Subject Records, and the first singles suggest the Don’t Worry style is evolving in several directions beyond their indie rock/emo roots. Be it the poppy (or poppier) rhythms of ‘Crushing Weight’ or the sweet romance of ‘Head’s Chocka’, though the lyrics still have signature flashes of wit.

Why can’t we just take this moment
Flatter it with rapturous applause and leave early doors
Listen, my head is chocka
But I can no longer forget here and now

Oh, how
I’m tongue tied over you

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‘Deep End’ was first written way back when Van Kehoe and Watson were fresh in university, negotiating the changes such a move entails, and is emblematic of the early 2010s indie trend of youthful anxiety and disillusionment with growing up in a post-Crash world. After uploading it to Soundcloud, they got interest from Rough Trade New York, and though the funding for that fell through, the good folks at 80N7 went ahead with the compilation anyway. Don’t Worry weren’t the smash hit they could have been, but they were born nonetheless.

Though years have passed and a number of releases on Specialist Subject have followed, the ‘Deep End’ story feels relevant in light of the latest Don’t Worry single, ‘As If By Magic’. “With social media we’re now constantly reminded of the recent past and recent versions of ourselves,” Watson explains. “When I wrote this song, I’d been thinking a lot about how jarring that can be and how relentless the passing of time can feel.”

The single takes this on from both directions, exploring the double bind of such experiences, where the present is both constantly changing and inevitably worse than what has gone before. “On the one hand ‘As If By Magic’ deals with a dissatisfaction with a present moment that is overly compared to the ‘good times’,” Watson continues. “But it’s also a reminder not to swim too long in the warmth of nostalgia and to recognise the value in all experiences. There will always be an opportunity to change things up.”

This hope is made all the more important when set against the themes of the early single. Because we still feel too young and adrift, beholden to the same forces and disenchanted by the false promises they offer. The early 2010s threatened change, but in reality none was forthcoming. The same dead ends and roundabouts, the same hope for some magic intervention. Whether the name Don’t Worry is sincere or ironic depends on your point of view, but either way they are going through it too.

We had it good for a little while
Shaking the ground with popped tricks and the sound of an 808
There was a place where we all felt safe but eventually learned that square pegs don’t fit round holes
So get me a job in the big grey pound-shop warehouse
Homogenise with the sky

Dive into the rat race
Chop of the top of my head
Find whatever meaning in that which presents itself
I’ll find the time to look inside

Photo by Oli Cox, artwork and logos by Bethan Jones

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Some of the bands are pretty familiar to us here at WTD, including the likes of Gorgeous Bully, Diveliner and The Golden Dregs. Listen to the shoegazey jangle of Gorgeous Bully’s ‘925’ below:

But there are also lots and lots which are completely new to me. The diversity of sound is impressive, and it’s a thrill to hit play from the beginning and wait to see what comes next. It kicks off with a slick 80s pop tune from Lovepark, before a segue into the easygoing indie pop of Spring King. Moats take things up a notch with their dynamic indie rock before London’s Happyness offer a slice of real subdued beauty with their track ‘Full of Minnows.’

Other stand-outs include the half-pace R&B of Mirror Signal, the short-bu-sweet weird pop of Total Playtime and some really nice bedroom pop melancholia from Don’t Worry.

You can order the compilation on double cassette via Rough Trade, or download it for as much as you like via the 80N7 Bandcamp page.

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