In the lead up to the release of new applied communications album applied communications bites the big one via Rare Noodles and Bar/None Records later this month, Max Wood has been sharing a number of singles, most recently ‘tarot sans tinseltown‘ back in August. A track inspired by a trip to LA which delved into the almost hallucinogenic nature of the city, an encounter with Beck over a free lunch at the Scientology celebrity centre being only the start of it (“however idiosyncratic the track might seem,” we wrote, “it is only bringing to life the bizarre details of the time and place which inspired it”). But if you thought US hyperreal strangeness was specific to California, then think again, because latest single ‘donna deegan’ jumps to the other side of the country yet is every bit as zany. “Donna Deegan is the current mayor of Jacksonville, FL,” Wood explains. “She used to be a news anchor who was married to the sports commentator and there was a wild local scandal in which she was caught having an affair with the weather man, whom she later married. anyway, she’s great and this song is a scatterbrained tribute to growing up in my hometown.”

applied communications bites the big one will be released on the 25th September via Rare Noodles and Bar/None Records and you can pre-order it via the applied communications Bandcamp page.

Asha Wells – Gift Horse

“Highlighting how thinking outside the box can lead to the more intuitive, authentic expressions of emotion, and collaboration need not preclude a singular style.” So we wrote of The Lesson by Asha Wells back in 2025, a three-song collection which used both personal idiosyncrasy and communal cross-polination to build on Wells’s debut full-length Water Words and evoke its own distinct world. Now Wells is preparing to release Sleeping Sand, a brand new album with Anxiety Blanket Records which looks to build upon these foundations and offer a proper follow-up to her debut. As lead single ‘Gift Horse’ shows, the result is equal parts ethereal and tactile, working to dissolve the boundary between dreams and the physical world in order to more fully explore the subconscious. “‘Gift Horse’ is a final fleeting glance at a once love,” as the artist explains. “Lyrically alluding to what goes unquestioned in our lives. A returned glance towards a former love. Dallying in a slice of life romanticism. A picture of unapologetic reflection, and the clarity that hindsight can bring.”

Sleeping Sand will be released via Anxiety Blanket Records on the 13th November.

Essy Sparrow – Naked As We Came (Iron & Wine Cover)

Hot on the heels of of recent single ‘Weak at the Knees’, which we labelled “a bright folk song in which any bittersweet rumination or self-deprecative confession is vastly outweighed by the fondness at its core,” British songwriter and multi-disciplinary artist Essy Sparrow has shared her own version of Iron & Wine’s ‘Naked As We Came’. The cover is part of Best Day of All Time, a new compilation album featuring over thirty covers of iconic tracks from the 2000s. The likes of Jackie Oates, Eliza Carthy, Alice Faye, Beans on Toast and Chisara Agor feature, with takes on songs by Lily Allen, Beyoncé, Outcast, System of a Down and more. Sparrow’s offering is the ideal introduction. A song every bit as earnest and honest as her own work which paints a picture of a living relationship in little over two minutes.

Best Day of All Time is available to pre-save now. Sparrow’s Gossip From a Coastal Town will be released on the 2nd October and you can pre-order it now.

The Human Hearts – Still In Error

After leading SoCal rock band Nothing Painted Blue through the nineties and then recording under his own name, indie songwriting stalwart Franklin Bruno formed The Human Hearts, a new full band featuring Matt Houser (drums), Pete Galub (guitar), Brandon Kalber (bass) and Bob Bannister (bass). At once socially aware and dialled into the joy of good old fashioned rock and roll, the outfit have released a number of albums in recent years, each as urgent in theme as style, though never heavy-handed or ideological. The sound has been perfected on The Human Hearts’ latest full-length, Faith and Credit, an album which draws influence from a wide gamut of rock predecessors to paint a picture of life in the US today. With the release coming this autumn via Dromedary Records, Bruno and co. have shared lead single ‘Still In Error’, complete with a video directed by Scott Jacobson (The Daily Show, Bob’s Burgers) which sees Bruno learn to ride a bike for the first time.

Faith and Credit will be released on the 13th November via Dromedary Records.

Jan St. Werner – Squares Will Fall 7″

After making a name as half of celebrated Düsseldorf electronic duo Mouse on Mars, Jan St. Werner is set to announce himself as a solo artist this November with the release of debut album Squares Will Fall via Thrill Jockey. The record has been in the works for over a decade, originating in a thirty-minute composition made back in 2012 which went on to form the spine of an improvisation by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and St. Werner when Mouse on Mars were in Vernon’s Wisconsin studio to record 2018 album Dimensional People. From here, ‘Squares Will Fall’ became multidirectional loudspeaker choreography for the Ural Industrial Biennial in 2021, before St. Werner headed to the studio with fellow Mouse on Mars member Andi Toma in 2026 to hone the work into an album, which represents both a continuation of this journey and a musical adventure in its own right. Listen to the title track now:

Margo Cilker – Molly and Me

Next month, Margo Cilker will release new album Little White Cross via Fossil Records, the label she set up with fellow alt-country artist ISMAY. “You could definitely call it a concept record,” Cilker describes wryly of the album. “If that concept is that I got really sad and went to Texas.” That’s because she travelled to The Bunker in Lockhart, TX to work with Bruce Robison (who has written and produced for the likes of Charley Crockett, Lee Ann Womack, George Strait, and The Chicks), and together they worked through Cilker’s heaviest and darkest material to date. Latest single ‘Molly and Me’ is a great example, a sober and emotional song about the sister of a suspected spree shooter. It’s told from the perspective of a third character, a woman now in her thirties thinking back to her relationship with Molly when they were teenagers. There’s a Nebraska-era Springsteen feel to the song’s narrative focus, which retains an impressive understated quality even as it reaches its shocking denouement. “I often feel haunted by stories,” Cilker explains of this urge to share stories that move her, “kept up at night by a kind of external pressure to tell them. I’ll write a song just to alleviate the grip it has on me.”

Oldest Sea – Lake Spooky (original recording)

“A vessel built to navigate the heaviest seas of experimental folk, pushing into dark, tempestuous waters in order to most fully explore soundscapes at once elemental and otherworldly.” So we wrote of Sam Marandola’s Oldest Sea back in 2024 upon the release of Judith Slaying Holofernes, a double single featuring Have a Nice Life. A number of releases have since followed, including a live version of Judith Slaying Holofernes, a tribute to Jason Molina and a track featuring Kathryn Mohr, but the latest Oldest Sea song ‘Lake Spooky’ is in fact the very first. Recorded over a decade ago, the track is a fascinating window into the project, lacking the sonic heft and depth that would come to mark Marandola’s work, yet somehow possessing the suggestion of that they were to come. A stark, imperfect germ from which a wider body of work would emerge. “[The song] was never intended to be released—I recorded it simply to document the song, and it sat quietly in the archive for a decade,” Marandola explains. “There’s room noise, imperfection, and no attempt to polish away the moment. Listening back now, I realized that’s exactly why I wanted people to hear it. It feels less like an old demo to me than a small artifact from the beginning of Oldest Sea.”

Slow Rosary – Melanie

Described as “an album of encounters with individual people, known and historical,” ALL TROUT is the third full-length from Rene Duplantier’s Slow Rosary, a release which uses acoustic guitar, a Casio keyboard, a DAW and recordings from friends to portray meetings both real and imagined and thus dig into the complicated layers of human connection. The figures in the songs range from next-door neighbours to John Prine and Jackie O, but lead single ‘Melanie’ keeps things very close to home as Duplantier focuses on his then girlfriend (and now wife) to offer a typically compassionate and humanistic view of a close bond. Despite the relatively humble components, the arrangement is suitably rich in execution, inviting the audience into a warm flow as though to mirror the safe harbour of the relationship depicted. The song “is about domestic bliss and being thankful for what you have, even when you’re depressed or need therapy,” he explains. “In the song and in life, I am astonished by the good times and try not to dwell on the bad. I am looking forward as best as I know how.”

Stella Dunai – Move On

Naarm/Melbourne-based songwriter Stella Dunai has announced herself with a couple of singles in the past year, songs like ‘Can’t Sleep’ and ‘I Love You Too Eagerly’ introducing a decidedly warm and compassionate style, and new track ‘Move On’ continues this thread. With the likes of Adrianne Lenker and Haley Heynderickx as touchstones, the song is an ideal introduction to Dunai’s ability to weave both atmosphere and narrative within her tender folk sound, celebrating the importance of friendship with a refreshingly optimistic air. “People come into our lives for different reasons and lengths of time and those exchanges shape who we are and who we become,” as Dunai says. “I find myself taking pieces and inspiration from the friends in my life and feel so honoured to see how we all shape and support each other every day. This song celebrates that constant evolution, while holding onto the joy, the silliness and innocence of meeting someone new, like making a friend on the playground as a child.”

The post Weekly Listening: September 2026 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

There’s a new Jane Schoenbrun film hitting theatres right now, and like We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow before it, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma comes complete with a score by Alex G. Waxwork Records will be putting out two releases in support of the movie, first with a soundtrack that collects several of Alex G’s compositions along with needle drops from the likes of Okay Kaya, R.E.M. and Counting Crows, then a full score later in September. Single ‘Pain Is The Heart of Love’ introduces the tone, a song crafted by Alex G with vocals from The Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan which encapsulates the alluring mix of physical and ethereal which has long marked Schoenbrun’s work, as well as the blurred line between reality, memory and dreams.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) will be release on the 21st August and you can pre-order it now.

Bonnie Hook – songbird

Back in 2025, Bonnie Hook (AKA Detroit songwriter Katlyn Sartor) released diadem, an EP which introduced an experimental brand of folk music which draws upon everything from ambient to psych. The result was something simultaneously personal and mysterious, intimate in its intention yet unafraid of pushing towards ambiguity. Set for release next month, Bonnie Hook’s new full-length whitelodge builds upon this style, further widening the sound and increasing its transportive qualities. Take single ‘songbird’, a lush and patient track indicative of the kind of richness Sartor can conjure, its lyrics stripped back to a poetic abstraction yet never lacking for emotional clarity.

songbird you’ll wait to fly
into our string of time
open foreboding eyes
though it may take a while
to coo

Cooper Kenward – Bit Better

“Step outside, walk the dog / SSRI shades on / Feel alright, feel okay / Nothing new just another day.” So sings Cooper Kenward in the opening lines of ‘Bit Better’, the first taste of a new album coming via Soggy Anvil Records which sees the Northern California songwriter employ an ostensibly sunny sound to delve into some rather deep, existential themes. Indeed the first verse encapsulates the mood of the track, where a sense of self-reflection meets the inherent hope of a new day, a vibe as bound up in the country twang as the lyrics themselves, though never without a certain tongue-in-cheek fatalism chasing behind. The result plays as both an optimistic mantra for the depressed person and wry joke at the end of the world, though in Cooper Kenward’s hands, these two things need not be mutually exclusive.

History, they say is dead
Images mean nothing at all
Music is just a bore
Ring cam shows horsemen
at the doooooor

And I’m sure we’ll get another chance soon
To do what we’ve done
But a little bit better

‘Bit Better’ is out now via Soggy Anvil Records and available from the usual places.

Essy Sparrow – Weak at the Knees

This October, songwriter and multi-disciplinary artist Essy Sparrow will release new EP Gossip From a Coastal Town. As the title suggests, the album is deeply rooted in a sense of place, not only painting a picture of life within a Cornish town but evoking its wider landscape of heritage and history, the myriad of personal memories and narratives which weave together to form the story of any given environment. “Some of these songs are true, some are exaggerated and some are straight up lies for fun,” Sparrow explains. “I became obsessed with the idea of writing music like rumours—emotional snapshots rather than perfect autobiographical truth.” The result is often whimsical but never lacking heart, as displayed by latest single ‘Weak at the Knees’. A bright folk song in which any bittersweet rumination or self-deprecative confession is vastly outweighed by the fondness at its core. “I wanted it to sound like a traditional coastal wedding by the sea,” Sparrow continues. “A village showing up to watch a couple renew their vows on a hillside. I wanted to sum up love, summer and the feeling of the UK coast as much as possible.”

Gossip From a Coastal Town will be released on the 2nd October and you can pre-order it now.

Lane Hartley – I Am Not Ashamed

No Home, the forthcoming new record from LA-based artist Lane Hartley, is something of a team effort. It features contributions from a long list of musicians, including Mary Lattimore, Seth Kaufman of Floating Action and David Hartley of The War On Drugs, who elevated the collection of ten songs with a combination of collaboration and intuition, taking Hartley’s often dark lyrics and brightening them with lush arrangements and a community spirit. “All of the players on this record really brought it to life in such a cosmic way,” says Hartley. “They instilled so much childlike wonder and fun into the making of the album. It inspired me to keep going.” Lead single, ‘I Am Not Ashamed’, which takes its name and ethos from the memoir by fifties Hollywood star Barbara Payton, is our first taste. A breezy and timeless folk rock song, it possesses a tough defiant streak, a dogged determination not to be cowed by shame. As Hartley describes, “It’s about knowing that whatever you’ve done to survive, you still deserve love.”

Lost Film – Blossom Rot

‘Blossom Rot’, the new single from Western Massachusetts indie pop band Lost Film, is in some ways the perfect late summer indie pop song. As the title suggests, it is inspired by gardening (or more precisely, learning to be more laidback and trusting to avoid losing fruit to the titular rot), but there’s something more than that too. Wrapped in Casio arpeggios and a sweetly pensive shimmer, it captures the carefree contentedness of a warm and quiet evening as the sun begins to set and paints everything in a rosy, nostalgic glow. Indeed, nostalgia is perhaps the key emotion, due in at least some small part to the band’s choice of background entertainment while recording. “While Max (Newman, who adds percussion) and I were tracking this one,” explains lead Jim Hewitt, “we had Disney’s 1994 Summer classic, Camp Nowhere on which really set the tone for the session.” Jordan Lawlor (of M83) then came on board to lend his mixing talents, which only amps up the effect further.

The Male Pattern – I’m a Soldier

We’re not certain a satirical concept album described as “Springsteen meets Ween” was on our bingo card of releases in 2026, but sometimes you only realise you’ve been waiting for something when it finally arrives. I Was Shot in the Heart! by The Male Pattern is exactly that, telling the story, as per lead Will Schwartz, of “an unnamed suburban dad as he navigates his acrimonious divorce, spends too much time watching TV and on the computer, gets addicted to pills, loses his job as a mortgage broker, shoots and kills a small-time drug dealer, finds God, and commits suicide by cop at a 24/7 Stop and Shop in White Plains, NY.” Featuring Daniel Bateman of Frog fame, single ‘I’m a Soldier’ sets the tone of the record, where the undeniable irony and playfulness do nothing to undermine the heartbreaking loneliness running through its heart. An anthem of America in 2026, where vapidity, ridiculousness and mean-spirited self-interest feel like symptoms of some dark, cursed pathology lurking beneath the surface.

Ok Cowgirl – Rock N Roll Ruined My Life

Led by Leah Lavigne, Brooklyn‘s OK Cowgirl released their debut Couldn’t Save Us From My Gut back in 2024, winning acclaim with an unguarded, often introspective style of indie rock. Set for release this month via Easy Does it Records, follow-up Rhinestone Cowgirl builds upon these foundations with new levels of confidence, both increasing the scale and widening the scope of the songs to create a bona fide slice of American rock. The result is understandably conflicted in tone, set as it is within a country rigged against so many of its people. Yet it is the energy and drive which most catches the attention, Lavigne and co. pressing on with life and grasping its joys as their own display of revolt. Take new single ‘Rock N Roll Ruined My Life’. “I wrote this song to myself and to so many friends who have struggled to justify staying the course while pursuing this precarious path of being an artist,” Lavigne explains. “It is not an easy path, and as an artist with a day job I have had periods of time where I’ve grown resentful of music for taking up all my time-off requests and keeping me in a job without healthcare. I wrote this song to vent those feelings, and every time I sing the tongue-in-cheek hook I am reminded how untrue it is. Music is the most fulfilling and joyful part of my life. That’s the beautiful thing about giving yourself space to feel your challenging feelings–you’ll often find they’re misnamed.”

Watch the video directed, filmed and edited by Matt Birkenholz below:

Rhinestone Cowgirl will be released on the 21st August 21st via Easy Does It Records.

Paul Spring – Tell Me That You Love Me

The work of Saint Cloud, MN-based songwriter Paul Spring is nothing if not varied. His work shifts from project to project with the idiosyncratic vision of a true artist. The last time we featured his work, he was “combining electronic and Medieval influences,” as we wrote of 2022 release Thunderhead, “casting Spring as some strange bard that wanders into your village with tunes so odd and unfamiliar they sound like sorcery,” but latest full-length Barnstorm is very different. After meeting a group of Irish musicians and developing a working chemistry when touring in 2025, he wanted to make the most of the encounter, returning months later to record the album in Inchiquinn in County Galway. Tadhg Ó Raghallaigh (Uilleann piper), Ben Duffy (drums), Sam Wright (bass) and Macdara Ó Faoláin (bouzouki) joined to flesh out the sound, creating a cross-pollinated style born of folk and baroque traditions. The result is varied and ever-changing across the record, but latest single ‘Tell Me That Your Love Me’ captures the detail and drama perfectly.

Routine Caffeine – Porcelain Doll

We’ve covered Louisville trio Routine Caffeine several times in recent years, from 2024 EP Weeds Under Concrete Stones to the 2025 single ‘Green Glass‘, each utilising a blend of dreamy haze and forward motion to explore themes of nostalgia, memory and the passing of time. Now the band are back with brand new single ‘Porcelain Doll’ and the track again exists within the push and pull between the past and the present, its insistent rhythm softened by an almost ethereal air, all while a sense of tension simmers beneath the surface. The result is beguiling and ominous in equal measure, something only amplified as the song progresses towards its evocative conclusion. “Dancing inside a frame / The roses bloom, then fall away,” Katie O’Brien Kelley sings in typical cryptic fashion. “Echoing, spiral stairs / Oh, how it was to walk in there.”

Slow Down Molasses – Follow (Eric’s Trip Cover)

We last featured Slow Down Molasses back in 2021 with the release of their album Minor Deaths, an album of clever details and visceral weight which explored the dark contemporary moment. “There is no prevailing mood or conclusion,” we wrote, “just a committed decision to embrace the energies of the contemporary moment in all of their frustrations, aggressions, vulnerabilities and dread.” Something of a hiatus has since followed, though now the Saskatoon outfit are back and gearing up for what promises to be a busy new era ahead, promising some of their most succinct and ferocious songs to date. To celebrate this return, SLM have turned to what they consider to be one of Canada’s most iconic acts, Eric’s Trip, recording a cover of the gloriously boisterous ‘Follow’ together with old friend Jeanette Neufeld. As they explain:

To say Eric’s Trip and their various members’ bands made an impact on me would be a massive understatement. There may not be a more important and more loved Canadian band for us than Eric’s Trip. They blew my teenaged mind and opened up an amazing world of lo-fi, noisey, but tuneful music for me. Inspiring quiet mornings listening to gems like Behind the Garage and Allergic to Love, road trips listening to Forever Again straight through, late nights blasting ragers like Follow, Anytime You Want and Sunlight and many, many hours letting my guitar feedback swell into the perfect lo-fi My Bloody Valentine moments that filled Eric’s Trip records.

The post Weekly Listening: August 2026 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.