The recording project of Chicago-based songwriter Ben Groth, The Child of Eve is preparing to release the full-length Sozo this summer. The record was brought to life together with Grammy Award winning engineer Ben Rawlins and Northern Ireland Music Prize winning engineer Caolán Austin, not to mention drummer Matt Carroll (Finom), bassist Eli Broxham (The Arcadian Wild), vocalist Sara Di Bella (Anuna) and violinist Gareth Quinn Redmond (Glen Hansard, Ye Vagabonds), and the result is every bit as assured as you might expect from such a talented outfit. Take latest single ‘I’m Here’, a song which explores feelings of fear and the ways in which can come to influence our very identity. “This song addresses a kind of fear I wrestle with,”  Groth explains. “One that convinces me to question my worth, to wear a mask and hide myself away. That I’m embarrassing to others.” But rather than allow himself be consumed by the fear, he instead confronts the feeling. Decides to walk through it no matter how uncomfortable it might be.

Dog Shaped – Reason

Rising from the ashes of Sue Your Landlord and featuring Emily Cabarle, Dog Shaped is a new band announcing itself on the New York scene, and debut single ‘Reason’ serves as their calling card. Described by the band as “a love letter and a longing to reconnect with lost childlike wonder,” the track looks to wriggle free from the difficulties and isolation that so often comes with adulthood and instead return to something more tender and curious. What if loneliness need not be the default setting of our existence? What if there’s a path back to kindness and connection once more?

Ead Wood – Emmeline

“A bittersweet slice of wistful reflection, with Soles evoking that strange mix of comfort and loss inherent within any spot of natural beauty.” So we wrote of Ead Wood‘s single ‘Peace in the Pines‘ back in 2024, describing how the Bristol-based project utilised an Americana-adjacent sound to achieve a mood simultaneously upbeat, melancholic and often a little absurd. With new EP Wild Water coming soon via Breakfast Records, Soles and co. are back ‘Emmeline’, a single which continues the introspective nature of the project while widening its focus, serving as a bridge between previous record Cash Mountain and whatever new territory Ead Wood charts next. “I wrote ‘Emmeline’ during a time when I was touring a lot and constantly heading off somewhere else,” Wood explains. “It made me think about what that experience must feel like for the person staying behind. The song is written from my partner’s perspective—that feeling of watching someone rush out the door again while life at home carries on. It’s about love, patience, and the quiet strength of the person who’s always there when you return.”

Eliza Edens – Leash

More than three years since releasing last record We’ll Become the Flowers, Brooklyn‘s Eliza Edens has returned with brand new song ‘Leash’. The standalone single suggests an evolution in style, moving away from the introspective glow of the previous record and stepping into a newfound sassy confidence. “I’m a goddamn killer, ended many things,” they sing in the opening line which rather nicely sets the tone, “fucked up your mind and stole your parents’ wedding ring.” Insistent bass and peppy percussion buoy things along with irrepressible energy, licks of guitar bursting in at intervals as if a metaphor for the abandonment of self-control at the track’s heart. ‘Leash’ “is a tongue-in-cheek, breezy rock song that celebrates the shadow self,” Edens describes, “our darker impulses, the devil on the shoulder, and the cynic inside us all.”

Eric Angelo Bessel – Upstate

After lead track ‘Double Helix’ introduced Mirror At Night B-Sides, a song “dreamlike and drifting,” we wrote, “emerging full of ambiguous meaning as though dug from deep in the distant past or else visiting from some time or space we are yet to encounter,” Eric Angelo Bessel has now shared its partner single ‘Upstate’ to cap off the release. Fans of the project will relish the opportunity to step out of the frame of ordinary existence and delve into this otherworldly soundscape once again. “’Upstate’ feels like a quiet transmission from somewhere beyond time,” Bessel explains of the track, “where memories blur, dreams surface, and sound moves like breath through spaces you can’t quite place but somehow recognize.”

Helenor  Windshield

The recording project of Brooklyn-based songwriter and visual artist David DiAngelis, Helenor serves as a vehicle to explore the twin threads of stasis and change that run through any life, and provides space to reflect on age old existential questions with a fresh, contemporary edge. Released via Mtn Laurel Recording Co., new single ‘Windshield’ is the ideal introduction for the uninitiated, exploring the ways in which we may or may not alter as we grow and come of age, and the curious comfort which might be found in the answer. “I’ve been spending a lot more of my time with children lately, which feels like a portal but also a mirror,” DiAngelis describes. “The mirror part has me feeling like—damn, I’m really not even that much different than who I was at that age. I guess the only way for me to reconcile this is to just remember that every other self-important someone walking by me in New York City is actually just one gigantic child in disguise.”

Mark Trecka – Wake Dance Romance ft. Lead Into Gold

Chicago-born writer, sound artist, performer, and activist Mark Trecka has a new record, ROMANCE WAKE NAMING, coming out next month via LA label The Garrote. Long-time readers will be familiar with his work which roams the outer edges of post-punk, neo-classical and avant garde, combining themes both personal and political in a sound which have said previously “utilis[es] sound to explore a diverse set of styles and themes in a practice as inventive as it is ambitious.” Collaboration is key to Trecka’s practice and the new record is no different. This time industrial music legend Paul Barker (Ministry) both produces and features under his alias Lead Into Gold, helping to create a trip-hop-influenced sound that’s as big and immediate as it is nuanced and experimental. Lead single ‘Wake Dance Romance’ throws the listener headlong into this style. Check it out below.

Pearla – Loved By Me

Pearla has shared a couple of singles from her upcoming new album Song Room in recent weeks, with ‘Be Around‘ and ‘Imagine Your Face‘ introducing a record which inverts the outward view of predecessor Oh Glistening Onion, The Nighttime Is Coming to instead offer a more introspective style. “A survey not of the exterior but interior,” we wrote, “though one which nevertheless finds a vast world full of strange beauty.” With the release fast approaching, Pearla is now back with new track ‘Loved By Me’ which further grounds the emotional core of the record. “This is a song of unconditional love for someone who is used to measuring their worth by external factors,” she says. “I wrote a lot of the songs on this record guided by the question, ‘What is it that my body needs to sing?’ In this case, it was an expression of love, directed toward the more tender parts within myself and the people in my life.” Watch the video by Enne Goldstein below:

Song Room will be released on the 24th April and you can pre-order it now from the Pearla Bandcamp page.

Polhawan – No Sweat

You might know Tim Rowing-Parker as the songwriter behind acts like Woahnows and Immy, the Bristol-based artist using the later to put out a series of scrappy, surf-inflected releases in recent years. His new project Polhawan is both an evolution and revolution of this style, looking to preserve the immediacy and DIY spirit of Immy while pursuing a newfound polish and depth. The result is clearly Rowing-Parker, but also Rowing-Parker as never seen before. Cryptic, strange, fresh and confident. Take single ‘No Sweat’ from debut EP Wild Mountain Time, coming this May via Breakfast Records, which takes a sunny, surfy sound and applies it to something altogether more supernatural. “After a few years living in the country, I moved back to the city, and honestly it kinda freaked me out,” he explains. “To take the edge off the train station each morning I’d block out the noise with headphones, and for some reason this led to listening to loads of supernatural podcasts. It’s quite funny that people recounting the scariest shit that has ever happened to them seemed more comforting to me than existing alongside fellow commuters in the light of day.”

Rare DM – Compliment

The moniker Rare DM might be cryptic (does it refer to direct message? Dungeon master? Dance music?), but the music of Brooklyn-based singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erin Hoagg is anything but guarded. Leaning mainly on synths, Rare DM creates an immediate, emotionally charged sound which seduces the listener into its embrace before bearing its messy heart, no matter how revealing or intense the process might be. Later this spring, sees the release of new full-length Attention, and single ‘Compliment’  is typical of its sensual, confronting style. “It is inspired by when you are in a relationship, and someone who you had eyes for (before meeting your s/o) suddenly pays attention to you,” as Hoagg expands. “I was sent a suggestive message from someone, and wasn’t single anymore. As the lyrics share: ‘don’t you worry about it for a second, I can take a compliment’ because hey, I don’t want them to feel embarrassed or bad, they didn’t know that I met someone! This all being said… I can’t control if they are thinking of me. ‘You can’t have it… but you can imagine it’.”

Watch the suitably surreal, suggestive video by Lisa Saeboe below:

Attention will be released on the 29th May and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Shaina Hayes – Flourish

When not writing songs or touring, Québec-based artist Shaina Hayes runs a vegetable farm in her hometown, a fact which is more than an interesting tidbit to add to a bio. Because spend any time with Hayes’s music and you’ll come to appreciate a kinship between both of these pursuits: an attention to detail, a deep-rooted connection to the land and its life, not to mention an overarching patience that allows her to reflect upon the present with admirable clarity. In preparation for her third full-length, coming soon via Bonsound, Hayes has returned with ‘Flourish’, a suitably earthy, emotive slice of folk which highlights this style perfectly. A well-timed evocation of spring and all of it inherent hopefulness, blooming with an easy warmth as it gestures towards a brighter future of healing and growth. Watch the visualizer by Flavie Lemée below:

‘Flourish’ is out now via Bonsound and available from the usual places.

Will White – When To Stop

Songwriter and composer Will White has long been known for his work with other artists. The Maccabees, 86TVs and Great White Shark are among the acts he’s collaborated with, and he runs a residency at Ron’s cafe in Peckham which has welcomed everyone from Jasper Llewlyn (of Caroline), Katy J Pearson and Will Rees (Mystery Jets) to Florence Welch, Dry Cleaning and Sam Akpro. Even his own project BLANc practised a certain level of distancing from his personal self. But this May sees White step out into the light on his own for the first time with the release of his debut solo album It’s Easy To Let The Thoughts Gain Ground on state51. A record which takes all of the knowledge and experience gained through years spend in the heart of the UK’s artistic community and applies it to his own intimate, reflective brand of indie rock. Latest single ‘When To Stop’ captures the spirit of the release, offering a decidedly compassionate tone that is nevertheless shot through which a rising tension too. Like a picture of someone caught between the shadows of the past and an obscure future, wishing to hope for something better while the world rocks and burns.

Watch the video made by White  alongside Rosie Terry-Toogood below:

It’s Easy To Let The Thoughts Gain Ground will be released on the 1st May via state51 and you can pre-order it now.

The post Weekly Listening: March 2026 #5 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Again released via Breakfast Records, latest single ‘Peace in the Pines’ sees Ead Wood continue to work this fertile ground, maintaining a certain brightness even if the style is not quite as light-hearted as ‘Menu’. Instead we’re given a bittersweet slice of wistful reflection, with Soles evoking that strange mix of comfort and loss inherent within any spot of natural beauty. “‘Peace in The Pines’ is a song inspired by a month-long cycle trip I did last year, traveling through Spain and down the coast of Portugal to Lisbon,” Soles explains. “It’s about the desire to maintain a sense of adventure and not conforming to the status quo by writing your own narrative. There is always pressure to ‘settle down’, buy a house, get a steady job but it’s just as important really to find space for new adventures and experiences, if not at least that sense of wonder and beauty that can only be found in nature.”

The post Ead Wood – Peace In The Pines appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The recording project of Chicago-based violinist and songwriter Mallory Linehan, Chelsea Bridge is something of a shapeshifting entity. One as likely to entice the listener in with hazy dreamscapes as it is blast them with intense noise, willing to present sensual and detached sensibilities side by side. Perhaps not a shapeshifter, then, but rather something fluid, an amorphous thing able to exist across and between fixed points. It is therefore fitting that new album K, coming next month via Whited Sepulchre, could be described as both the most accessible and experimental Chelsea Bridge record to date. A collection of songs which sees Linehan reach for pop sensibilities as naturally as she might classical or avant garde, as though to prove such a distinction is of little consequence to an artist fully embracing an intuitive mode of working. Single ‘The Morning’ introduces the result, where plucked violin seems to work hand over hand to tease a lush pop soundscape into life.

cryer mya – Leylines

Based in south London by way of Bristol, cryer mya is the new recording project of songwriter Rishi Saluja. Having previously played in bands with psychedelic influences, Saluja uses the moniker to combine such sensibilities with more personal tastes in soul and folk, resulting in a richly realised sound sure to grab the ears of fans of Sam Evian and Alice Phoebe Lou. Lead single ‘Leylines’ provides the first taste of the cryer mya style, taking a languid summer rhythm and populating it with vocals both heartfelt and searching, the easygoing warmth belying the depth of a track which explores themes of spirituality and mystery.

‘Leylines’ is out now and available from the usual places.

 Ead Wood – Menu

Ead Wood might hail from Bristol in the UK, but their Americana-inflected sound positions them closer to acts like Friendship than any of their British brethren. Following on from last year’s EP A Sparkling Gift, the outfit have returned with new single ‘Menu’ on Breakfast Records. A song which typifies the balance between sincerity and playfulness which marks the Ead Wood sound, delving into an ostensibly mundane situation to reveal the deeper meanings beneath the surface. “‘Menu’ is a (somewhat) lighthearted song about decision making anxieties,” as lead Ed Soles explains. “[That feeling] of being frozen in fear of making the wrong choice, even in those situations where it may not seem to even matter. This is never more apparent than ordering at a restaurant, where I often get the same as whoever I’m with to avoid having to make my own decision, even if it’s not something I want.”

‘Menu’ is out now via Breakfast Records and available from Bandcamp.

Holy Matter – Prince Gloom

This autumn, Leanna Kaiser will release her debut album under her Holy Matter moniker. Titled Beauty Looking Back, the record explores “the changing seasons of life and the passage of time,” featuring intimate meditations on the cyclical patterns of past, present and future that attempt to capture the paradox of time and how we experience it. Namely, how things seem at once immutable and ever-changing. “Holy Matter comes from Leonard Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers,” Kaiser explains. “There’s one passage that has stayed with me, since – a page with the repeated mantra ‘I change; I am the same.’ This, I would say, is the best description of what this album is about.” Latest single ‘Prince Gloom’ is dreamy and diaphanous, unfurling in a slow, almost tropical swirl.

Japandroids – Chicago

Seven years after their last record, Vancouver indie rock legends Japandroids have announced one last album before they lay the project to rest. Billed by duo Brian King and David Prowse as a parting gift to fans, Fate & Alcohol seems intent on going out in a blaze of glory. “On our last record we wanted to broaden the definition of a Japandroids song,” King explains, “and purposely left our demos quite open and malleable so that we had more flexibility to experiment in the studio.” If lead single ‘Chicago’ is anything to go by, this translates to a sound that’s bolder and more widescreen than anything Japandroids have made to date. Which is saying something for a band who have always been unapologetically maximalist, combining punk rock energy with good-time, fists-in-the-air classic rock.

Kitty Fitz – Laughing Stock

Inspired by both 90s power pop and contemporary pop songwriters like Lorde and Caroline Polachek, the work of London’s Kitty Fitz combines a sometimes chaotic, danceable energy with candid and introspective explorations of turbulent relationships and self-doubt. Less poppy than last year’s debut EP All My Own Stunts, new single ‘Laughing Stock’ has been honed on the live circuit for over a year, forgoing the more bombastic synth pop elements in favour of something a little more poignant. What Fitz describes as “the epitome of me attempting to pass off my own fear of commitment and rejection as character flaw, as being cool and aloof, or once again feeling in a way ‘unloveable,'” the song’s breezy surface is something of a facade, beneath which squirm anxious thoughts and fears.

Maya Ruth – oblivion

“Chapped lips / But nothing like the harshness of smoke / We fall asleep restlessly / Counting the years on our toes.” So sings Maya Ruth in the opening of new single ‘Oblivion’. A song which began life as a poem before morphing into a grungy rock hit, the track mines the banality of every day life for its inherent absurdity, offering a bittersweet sound of sweet textures and edgy bite. The result is both alluring and slightly unnerving, as though beneath the monotony of our normal experience lies something more exciting, something more dangerous. “Die with me here / And you’ll be asking for more,” as Ruth sings in the chorus. “Doesn’t it scare you? / But don’t you feel good?”

‘Oblivion’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Merce Lemon – Backyard Lover

Following recent single ‘Will You Do Me a Kindness’, what we called “a song that ebbs and flows between quiet introspection and a wild, barely-restrained energy,” Pittsburgh songwriter Merce Lemon has announced a new record, Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild. Released via LA label Darling Records, the album promises to marry quiet vulnerability with cathartic power, something immediately apparent on lead single ‘Backyard Lover’. What starts as a warm and swaying country song, complete with propulsive percussion and wistful pedal steel, gathers into a sharp point of wailing guitar and emotional release. It’s a glimpse at a theme that winds throughout the record, and Lemon’s work in general.  “So many of my songs are touched by and explore death, specifically in relation to the loss I experienced of my best friend when I was fifteen years old,” she explains. “That loss has forever changed me and who I am in my relationships to lovers, friends, family.”

Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild will be released on 27^th September via Darling Records. Pre-order a copy now from the Merce Lemon Bandcamp page.

Nuisance – Holy Basil

Over recent years, few could have done more to work against the traditional studio-based recording process than William Seidel and Ryan Weber of Nuisance. Whether working as part of Eric & Magill or REW<<, Weber has created albums in some of the world’s remotest areas while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer, while Seidel has worked on music in hotels and mini-cab taxis during his extensive travels. Not to mention their development of the virtual sounds database Poetic Devices which underpins Nuisance releases. The pair are now back with Squash Blossom Necklace, a new full-length which furthers their exploration of possibilities within this frame of working, bending genre conventions in order to incorporate pop, folk, electronic and classical sensibilities into something unique to them. Listen to single ‘Holy Basil’ now:

Sylvia – Found and Lost

With members hailing from all over Australia, Sylvia is a Melbourne/Naarm-based band which is equally diverse in its points of reference. Gemma (vocals/guitar) is one half of dream pop duo Earache, Murray (drums) used to power Brisbane noise-rock outfit No Sister, Dee (bass) also plays in dystopian industrial band Red Hell while Sean (guitar) spent time in powerviolence as part of Canberra’s Hygiene. United as Sylvia, the result draws on all of this past experience to create something straddling shoegaze, power pop and indie rock, while maintaining a certain intensity of noise too. New EP II is a good place to jump in, with single ‘Found and Lost’ seeing noisy rock and twee pop collide in a short, sharp burst.

variety – Plover

Earlier this year, Austin-based outfit variety—That’s Jordan Emmert (Porcelain/Pleasure Venom), Nick Stout (New Strangers), Rhys Woodruff (Borzoi/Leche) and Zach Wood (Borzoi)—released ‘Plover’, the first single of their forthcoming album pencilled for release this autumn. A twitchy rush of anxious energy, the song uses the titular wader and ornithological themes more generally to paint a picture of an ecosystem gripped by a constant tension. As though every environment is a network of individuals with competing desires, be they animal or human, and each organism is set on edge by the presence of everything else. Watch the video directed by Taylor Browne below:

‘Plover’ is out now and the variety album is coming soon.

Wild Pink – The Fences of Stonehenge

Following on from 2022’s hit ILYSM and John Ross’s successful collaboration with Laura Wolf under the moniker lilts, Wild Pink have signed with the good folks at Fire Talk and announced new full-length album, Dulling The Horns. But if Ross’s recent output has seen discursions into dreamy and often ornate pop styles, the new record is a recentering of Wild Pink as a rock band. One ready to be more immediate, less polished and finely crafted. “I wanted to make economical songs,” as Ross explains. “Music that is very much at its core three or four people rocking.” First single ‘The Fences of Stonehenge’ leads the way, heralding not only a fresh collection of songs but what feels like a new era for the band. One which finds them revitalised and ready to commit wholeheartedly all over again.

Dulling The Horns is out on the 4th October via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it now.

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