The project of Agriculture’s Leah B Levinson, Cali Bellow makes music concerned with the tension and interplay between the interior and exterior, real and fictional. Thematically, new album Ciao Bella owes as much to Dark Souls and The Muppets as it does Ursula Le Guinn and Joanna Russ, not to mention the environment of Altadena, California. A deep consideration of ideas of artifice and abstraction which always challenges limitations, be they of genre, gender or spirituality. Taking inspiration from songs like ‘Full Of Happiness’ by H.O.T. and ‘I, Me, Mine’ by Godflesh, as well as the hyperactive soundtracks of games like Sonic, new single ‘Goldin Scepter’ is a microcosm of the wider album. A myriad of influences deconstructed and rearranged in order to build a world of its own. “I wanted to pull on the zany character that a lot of ska, funk and pop music teases and push it to a more monstrous effect,” as Levinson explains.

country girl – your favorite girl

Blending an upbringing in classical music with a present love of pop, country girl creates music to bring to life those small personal experiences which make life worth living. Having recently signed with the FADER Label, the project is now back with a new single ‘your favorite girl’, the ideal introduction for anyone unfamiliar with the project. “A song about the movie scenes we film, direct, and act in our heads while in the frenzy of a crush,” as the artist explains. That pressing desire to be a main character in story, however small that story might be. Even if it just means being someone else’s favorite girl.

I wanna look you in the eye
Oh man it gets me every time
I wanna shine inside your world
I wanna be your favorite girl

‘your favorite girl’ is out now via FADER label and available from the usual places.

Death And The Maiden – Waratah

Based in Port Chalmers, Dunedin, Aotearoa/New Zealand trio Death And The Maiden take not only their name from an engraving by Edvard Munch, but their entire atmosphere. A meeting of strength and vulnerability, shadow and light. Moreover, a willingness to embrace ambiguity within a sound which draws upon everything from electronic, folk and psych to house and dance. Released via Fishrider Records (southern hemisphere) and Occultation Recordings (northern hemisphere), new album Uneven Ground is perhaps their most experimental to date, though conversely sees them embrace pop too. Single ‘Waratah’ displays such contradictions in all their alluring layers, allowing freedom and restraint to sit side by side.

dog eyes – drive

“A reach towards an almost cinematic brand of pop that leaves none of the emotion behind,” we wrote of ‘moment’ by dog eyes, “where friendship is at once the most intimate and soaring experiences one might be lucky enough to hold in their life.” The song typified the Oakland band’s new album holy friend, which explores how relationships and connection not only shape us but morph over time. With the record now out via Grand Jury Music, dog eyes have released a new single, ‘drive’. An example of the more folk-adjacent side of the album, the song tells the story of a road trip into the mountains with all the quiet seclusion of the leafy backroads, gentle guitar and ramshackle percussion sparkling sleepily behind sincere vocals. The result feels like a small and sweet moment grasped in its moment of transience and fixed to tape.

I would not say words if I did not mean them
Tired of monotony
Just drive this Sequoia please
To some distance where I cannot see
Where I’ll forget how to tell where I am

Dogwood Tales – driver’s side fantasy

Based in Harrisonburg, Virginia, Dogwood Tales originated in 2016 with Ben Ryan and Kyle Grim and soon expanded to become a full band with the addition of Danny Gibney (bass), Stephen Kuester (pedal steel) and Jake Golibart (drums). Working within a country-inflected rock style, the project has released a number of albums and EPs, most recently Rodeo via WarHen Records, and is putting out a brand new tape later this summer. Latest single ‘driver’s side fantasy’ introduces the sound, occupying that post-Drive-By Trucker’s sphere alongside the likes of MJ Lenderman. Watch the video filmed by Travis Legg below:

‘driver’s side fantasy’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Dwi Riana x Orkes Garasi – Ku Bisa

Indonesian-Canadian artist Dwi Riana has made a name for working across genres, finding inspiration in everything from folk, hip hop and traditional music to bossa nova and jazz, and new single ‘Ku Bisa’ is the project of yet another direction. “I had the amazing opportunity of composing for an Indonesian short film titled A Day Apart on the Seventeenth, directed by Noel Pendawa,” they explain, a process which saw them team up with Toronto-based Indonesian Keroncong band, Orkes Garasi. Channelling the themes of Pendawa’s film, the song explores ideas of homesickness by melding Keroncong and folk styles, and the result sees the narrator turning to dreams as their only mode of escape.

‘Ku Bisa’ is out now via streaming services.

Mother Sun – Giant Bog

“I think with these songs we wanted to create a record that sonically speaks to the magic that is constantly unfolding all around in the natural world.” That’s how lead Jared Doherty describes Mother Sun’s latest album, Meadow 6, which is coming soon via Earth Libraries. Fittingly, many of the songs originated when playing guitar outside in the garden, with the Kamloops, BC outfit not only exploring the diversity of nature but humanity’s relationship with it. Something to escape into, to explore and study, cultivate and exploit. Crafted from a vivid psych-rock sound that reaches towards jazz, krautrock and retro folk, the album comes to form an environment of its own, as captured by new single and closer, ‘Giant Bog’. A sprawling track which serves as a kind of retro-futurist hothouse within which all manner of things can sprout and grow wild.

Stephen Becker – I Held An Echo

This October, Stephen Becker is releasing his new full-length Middle Child Syndrome via Record Euphoria. The album sees the LA-born, Brooklyn-based songwriter work in the indie-psych tradition of the late noughties/early 2010s, adding jazz and baroque pop sensibilities to a more traditional singer-songwriter style. An effort, at least in part, to rise above the mundane present, as though to be trapped within conventions is to be restricted by the same inability to communicate effectively that haunts our everyday lives. Single ‘I Held An Echo’ hints at the widescreen scope of the resulting sound, though the glitch and shimmer of the dreamlike arrangement hints at the precarity of any attempt to escape our usual constraints.

Middle Child Syndrome is out on the 25th October via Record Euphoria and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Yammerer – ESZ – Erth Station Zebra

How do you convince people to engage with album-length work in this age of streaming and algorithmic playlists? Liverpool’s Yammerer have one potential solution. Erth Station Zebra might be packaged as an album on Bandcamp and the like, but the release is intended as a single composition. Or as the band put it, “a transcendent odyssey” which runs through six movements across its forty-four minutes. Previous releases like Reality Escape Resort might have positioned them in the contemporary post-punk revival, but there was always something different about the outfit. An extra level of ambition and invention. Erth Station Zebra sees them embrace this side of their work wholeheartedly, leaning into transportive psych to not only revitalise the appetite for in-depth pieces of work, but position themselves as one of the UK’s most interesting projects to keep an eye on moving into the future.

The post Weekly Listening: August 2024 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

This month sees the release of Quotidian, a brand new Marlin’s Dreaming record that further develops their distinctive sound and pushes into overtly dream pop territory. Lead single ‘Outwards Crying’ is the perfect introduction, described by Brooklyn Vegan as “widescreen and hazy” with its epic soaring style, though other tracks occupy the languid meandering spirit of Lizard’s Tears. Rather than superficial reinvention between records, Marlin’s Dreaming are a band working on a considered evolution, ambitious and far-reaching yet never sacrificing their core spirit.

Today we’re delighted to share ‘Alike’, the latest single from the album. Opening with brashly angular guitar and settling into a tight rhythm, the track is both mischievous and ominous, a duality that forms a key component of the track. “I wanted to personify two different characters,” Maiai explains. “The bleating high pitched character, and the dark, arrogant character. Both characters are people in my life that… I guess piss me off enough that one day I decided to write about them; or should I say write for them.”

The result of contradiction, of competing forces. Brightness and darkness. Mischief and menace. The wound tension of the verses and the unraveling release of the chorus. A dichotomy that extends right through the themes and intentions of the track. “‘Alike’ is our most zestful single,” Maiai continues. “Very guitar and vocal driven. I guess sort of an optimistic, catchy song, but digging deeper, I find that what it’s actually about slightly disturbing.”

The post Marlin’s Dreaming – Alike appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘D’You’ is a laid back track built from a bright acoustic strum, McCall’s voice gentle and calm if not quite as buoyant as the instrumentation. Indeed, the vocals are what elevate the track into something more complex, a certain nostalgia (and therefore sense of loss) allowed to infiltrate the otherwise warm scene, although it’s far more than a simple juxtaposition between light and dark. Instead, we find McCall on the other side of something, the pain and longing long since eroded to a soft-edged pebble, tepid and tactile and and fitting right into the palm of his hand.

Speaking of hands, the second single is based around them entirely. ‘Ideal Hand’ is slower and sadder, pulling the opposite effect to the opener in that hope or happiness is left to appear between the lines, within the light flicks of instrumentation which appear staccato amongst the melancholy mood. As such, the sense of warmth from the first track persists, albeit threatening to leak away, meaning listening is like lying on stone warmed by summer sun as evening descends.

“Don’t have a plan,
come make one.
Got two ideal hands,
you can take one”

The post Premiere: Fazed On A Pony – D’You | Ideal Hand (Double A-Side Single) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Hunch is out on the 19th of June and you can pre-order it right now both digitally and on limited-edition cassette, via Fox Food Records.

The post Fazed On A Pony appeared first on Various Small Flames.