Building on the acclaim earned by Animal Poem, Anna Tivel is now set to return with a set of additional songs from the recording period. Fittingly titled Animal Poem B-Sides, the EP will not be released until next spring, though lead single ‘Swan Song’ shows the new tracks are just as evocative and finely crafted as their sisters on the main album. Described by Tivel as “a rumination on ephemerality and all the ways this life will move us before the whole thing flies away,” the song pairs a relaxed rhythm and poignant tone with something urgent beneath the surface, a loneliness hurried by the violent pressing of time. “The trumpeter swans leave the past in the fields / and head for a better unknown,” Tivel sings, “everything moving, a madness, an engine / flying down the road to forget that it’s ending / a star in the night is just air in the morning / up there burning alone / and you will be here ’til you’re gone.”

The post Anna Tivel – Swan Song appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“i am a water polo instructor and a horse rider / i’m a duplicator and a sex addict / i am an architect and a dog sitter.” So opens ‘water polo instructor’, the latest single from kids on coke by Swedish artist and poet daniel d. hedin. You might know Hedin as the force behind Le Days, which put out its own album Are You Here? back in February, but while that release offered a shadowy, almost orchestral style of melancholy, this is very different. ‘water polo instructor’ is a bare spoken word track which plays like something between a surprise voicemail and oral short story. The monologue of a character which not only digs deep into their personal identity but also their relationship with a significant other, as odd as it is lonely and packed with the kind of strange details which evoke a far wider story in the margins.

i am a wine drinker
a recovering consumerist
and a clown maker
i am a tv conductor
and a manuscript writer
i am a feet enthusiast
and a cat whisperer

Eliza Noxon – You

Songwriter Eliza Noxon has been working towards debut full-length Monsters With Bad Habits for a number of years, having last put out the EP Save Your Breath back in 2017. What began as an attempt to chart a fairly typical experience of growing up and leaving home soon became something else entirely, when the sudden loss of her brother completely changed her life. Written a little over a year after this bereavement, single ‘You’ finds Noxon still in the dark depths of loss, isolated by grief and unable to move beyond it. But it also represents the first steps towards that goal. “In writing this song, I found a way to scream and kick and channel all the rage and fear and loss that I felt into something I could use to connect with people,” she explains. “But, I think the song really came alive in the studio, with the addition of Jake Reed’s gorgeous, driving drums, and Pierre de Reeder’s masterful production. When I play or listen to the song today, It feels like a mass catharsis—I hear the voices of everyone who’s ever lost their person and had to figure out how to keep living with that hole in their heart.”

Hank Bee – Corner

The project of Liverpool-based Hannah Brown, Hank Bee is an outlet for a distinctive brand of indie rock that is very much influenced by folk and country traditions. “I liked the idea of an androgynous queer woman going by Hank,” Brown explains of the project’s name. “It harks back to male country singers of a certain era, but I’m not a man and I don’t make traditional country music. It makes me giggle to think of someone seeing the name and expecting a fella in a cowboy hat.” In January Hank Bee will release a sudden hankering, a five-song EP on Memorials of Distinction that promises to be the wider world’s introduction to an act that’s already well established in its hometown. Lead single ‘Corner’ is our first taste, what Brown says is about “that point of transition—being at the corner of something, at a crossroads,” but still sounds warm and welcoming to my ears.

Jeffrey Martin – 1519

“The climate is collapsing, diseases rising, robots striving to take over the globe, and still there’s not enough money for the people who actually need it,” we wrote of Jeffrey Martin‘s Thank God We Left The Garden back in 2023, and while his latest single ‘1519’ sets its sights on a different era entirely, it still looks to evoke something of the politics of the present day. Inspired by Buddy Levy’s book Conquistador about Hernán Cortés, the track looks to both occupy the mind of its colonial subject in all of its faults and folly, and draw lines to the forces of exceptionalism and greed which mark the present day. “From his own letters [Cortés] seemed blindly certain that his mission, no matter how brutal to the people he met in the Americas, was a righteous one,” Martin explains. “That with God and Spain on his side he was infallible. It made me wonder what we are blind to today that future historians might look back on in disbelief and disgust. ‘1519’ is an attempt to place myself on the boat, to stand next to Cortés, to feel him as a man instead of some unreachable, towering, historical figure.” The track is part of Alive July 25, 2025, new live album coming early next year on Fluff & Gravy Records.

Major Murphy – Like A Wrecking Ball

Following on from the success of 2024 mini album Fallout, Grand Rapids outfit Major Murphy have returned with brand new single ‘Like A Wrecking Ball’ on Winspear. The band have always been hard to pin down, Fallout, as we put it in our review, “stitching together a patchwork of styles into a cohesive album,” and the new track sees them lean closer than ever to folk and alt country. A bright if wistful acoustic number not afraid to take its time, slowly drawing the audience in with an easygoing rhythm before packing its emotional punch. And, clocking well over seven minutes, the track is certainly immersive, core members Jacob Bullard (vocals, guitar), Jacki Warren (vocals, bass) and Chad Houseman (drums) joined by Mark Lavengood (steel guitar, mandolin, percussion) and Dutcher Snedeker (piano, organ) to lift the sound towards its full richness.

Mol Sullivan – Dog

We featured Mol Sullivan numerous times last year, with album GOOSE landing itself a place among among our favourites of 2024. A record which “serves as a portrait of a person within the arc of great change […] written in the aftermath of a relationship and during a nascent sobriety,” as we wrote. “An artist moving forwards and looking back, reflecting on who they were and who they want to be, reaching beyond stories of love and addiction for a more nuanced picture of life.” Of course, such personal change rarely comes without support from others, and new single ‘Dog’ is an ode to one such crutch amid an otherwise tragic time. “This song is a love song to my dog who came into my life in the last year of severe alcoholism and was with me through the bitter days of early sobriety,” as Sullivan describes of the Americana-tinged track. “In May of this year, there was a horrific fire in my home on the same day as my mother’s funeral and we lost my partner’s dog to it. My partner and I had been working on my next record but decided to throw ourselves into the recording and release it early as a way to process our grief.”

Robber Robber – Talkback

Burlington, Vermont quartet Robber Robber made a splash in 2024 with the release of their debut record Wild Guess, Nina Cates, Zack James, Will Krulak and Carney Hemler rejecting genre conventions for something looser, instinctive and curious. Post-punk by way of art rock and a few other styles besides, the songs felt delivered straight from the central nervous system, all reaction and twitch and pure feeling. Having recently signed with Fire Talk, Robber Robber have shared new track ‘Talkback’ in celebration. A song which doubles down on the spontaneous, impulsive style of the previous record, Cates’s vocals spiralling over the wiry rhythm like the contents of a racing mind blown up and projected onto a wall.

Oops I thought you wouldn’t see this
Start into it
Think twice look again
If I had come to this, to this
It would’ve been the perfect talkback, perfect quip
Stand clap from all around,
Gold win
So quick, hard stop, land flat, good talkback,
Clever, quick, the double threat, I win

Watch the video directed and filmed by James and Cates themselves below:

Talkback is out now via Fire Talk and available from Bandcamp.

Zoya Zafar – Strange Heaven

We’ve followed the Lahore-born, Orlando-based songwriter Zoya Zafar for a number of years, applauding how she uses “a controlled, unadorned style to communicate a considerable depth of feeling.” Latest track ‘Strange Heaven’ is both another lesson in the power of minimalism, and proof that restraint need not sound austere or stark. “I wrote ‘Strange Heaven’ from the liminal place where grief turns memories into dreams and dreams into memories,” Zafar explains. “After losing my father, I dreamt of him in soft cinematic flashes that were pulled from both real life and invented by my mind.”

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

The post Weekly Listening: November 2025 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“A small piece of the colossal, communal whole demanded of us. The imperative to celebrate life and warn of its fragility. To remind everyone of just what we stand to lose should the malevolent forces of this world be allowed to grow.” That’s how we described Anna Tivel‘s new album Animal Poem last month when writing about the lead single and title track. A grand statement perhaps, but anyone familiar with the folk songs penned by Tivel will know she always aims high. With the album forthcoming via Fluff & Gravy Records, latest single ‘White Goose’ is a track described by the artist as ‘a song about the way the natural world shapes our understanding—of life, death, truth and meaning.” The song embodies the spirit of the collection. An attempt to reach beyond the surface of the moment, be it made of petty grievance, mortal dread or chronic suffering, in order to connect to something deeper, richer and more fulfilling.

Watch the accompanying short film, directed Ryland Bouchard and starring Anastasiia Duvallié, below:

Animal Poem will be released on the 29th August via Fluff and Gravy Records and you can pre-order it now from the Anna Tivel Bandcamp page.

Caged Animals – Alligator

“Think JJ Cale scoring a Flannery O’Connor reading,” is how the press release describes ‘Alligator’, the latest single from Vin Cacchione’s Caged Animals. There’s a strong Canadian influence to the release—recorded with Jon Mckie in the Canadian Maritimes with Steven Lambke as a guest and released with You’ve Changed Records—but the song’s Southern Gothic vibe is decidedly American in flavour. A surreal tale of an encounter between two, contrasting Americas that only reinforces disconnection between them, delivered with Cacchione’s playful tones. “Well he was parked there to watch Daytona melt /  He had a pistol hanging off his derriére weighing down The Bible Belt,” as one verse goes. “I told him, ‘love dear is a superpower’ / And he just said, ‘love here gets hungry every hour’.”

The Cindys – Eternal Pharmacy

After a number of years recording complicated, challenging music under the moniker Birth Fury, Bristol’s Jack Ogborne yearned to return to something simpler and more immediate. Enter The Cindys, a brand new band led by Ogborne featuring Naima Bock, Finlay Burrows and members of Belishas which helps scratch this itch, owing more to the retro indie sensibilities of C86 and Flying Nun. With a self-titled mini album coming later in the year via Breakfast Records (UK) and Ruination Record Co. (US), The Cindys have shared debut single ‘Eternal Pharmacy’, a song inspired by Ogborne’s experiences as a touring sound engineer. “‘Eternal Pharmacy was written about the first proper European tour I went on,” he explains. “Seeing places I never would have been able to see otherwise, being spoiled by promoters with 3 course meals and unlimited drink, seemingly living a life of excess while simultaneously being totally broke. The song was an attempt to get a firm grip on the rapid change happening around me.”

Watch the video by Ogborne and Burrows below:

‘Eternal Pharmacy’ is out now, and the debut album from The Cindys will be released later in the year via Breakfast Records (UK) and Ruination Record Co. (US).

Drench Fries – Camera

“The solo project of Brooklyn-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Levi Nattrass, Drench Fries has carved out a niche within a country-inflected indie pop,” we wrote back in 2024, his work “offering equal doses classic western longing and a more coastal sense of brightness and pep.” Now Drench Fries are back and sounding better than ever with ‘Camera’, a song written back in 2019 but not quite coming to life until a full band got their hands on it. Enter Jason Altshuer (pedal steel), Evan House (drums), Alex Heubel (synthesizer), Stephen Vincent Ibanez Jr. (guitar, bass) and Sam Peterson (guitar), all getting behind Nattrass to bring to life the most rock-oriented Drench Fries track to date.

Eydís Evensen – Dimmuborgir

Living up to its title is the mission of Oceanic Mirror, the third full-length from Icelandic pianist and post-classical composer Eydís Evensen, forthcoming this autumn on XXIM Records. An album which looks to reflect the true power of the sea—its power, its depth, its constant movement and mystery—in order to push past the trivialities of contemporary existence and reconnect with the sublime of the natural world. Featuring renowned fellow Icelander Ásgeir singing one of Evensen’s poems, latest single ‘Dimmuborgir’ hints at the scale and beauty of the record, evoking not just the epic expanse of the ocean but also the themes of mortality and renewal it represents. Watch the suitably evocative video filmed by Einar Egils below:

Oceanic Mirror is out on the 10th October via XXIM Records.

FONTINE – Good Buddy

Winnipeg-based songwriter FONTINE is preparing to release new full-length Good Buddy this autumn via Birthday Cake Records and has released the title track as an introduction. Titled after CB radio slang for ‘gay’, the album plays like a series of dispatches from the road, be it touring her own project or as a collaborator with artists Boy Golden, Kris Ulrich, Begonia and Georgie Harmer, and plays with the stereotypes of such imagery. It sits at the intersection of big rig bravado and unashamed sentimentality, using a blend of good time rock and bedroom pop sensibilities to explore ideas of love, friendship and self-actualisation. The title track embodies the style perfectly, and hints at the record’s cathartic promise

In The Pines – Flyin’ Nowhere

Cincinnati psych outfit In The Pines have a slightly different origin story to most bands. The group run the boutique vintage pro audio repair shop Foleytronics, one of the few places in the world able to restore vintage digital effects, tape machines and synthesizers. As you might imagine, such a job accumulates a plethora of musical equipment. In The Pines’ forthcoming album Sunbeam Dream was recorded entirely with such hardware, the instruments and devices once destined for landfill salvaged, lovingly restored, then put back to use. The result is DIY in the purest sense, the band literally building their own sound in real time and working around (or, more aptly, embracing) the inherent limitations. The result bears the fruit of such a degree of control, as typified by lead single ‘Flyin’ Nowhere’ and its heady combination of energy, texture and detail.

Watch the video directed and edited by Adriana Noritz and Michael Shular below:

Sunbeam Dream will be released on the 12th September and you can pre-order it now.

John Calvin Abney – Last Chance

In September, Oklahoma‘s John Calvin Abney will release new record Transparent Towns on his own Tin Canyon Records label, via Well Kept Secret / Secretly Distribution. The folk artist’s seventh studio album, it was conceived during what he calls “a period of introspection and convalescence,” after undergoing vocal cord surgery. Forced to exist in near total silence, Abney used the quiet to delve back into his past, dwelling on the accumulation of small moments of both growth and loss that mark the passage of time. Lead single ‘Last Chance’ illustrates this perfectly, looking back at Abney’s Oklahoma youth and the then-unknown moment when beloved things slipped away. “When you come back to a love, a land, friends, family, or even a bar or a cafe that you spent a brief passage in, you’re never quite sure of the exact moment that marks the end of your chapter there,” he explains. “I try not to be these days, but sometimes I am caught dwelling in the space between now and then, thinking about where I stand today and those final seconds before everything became different.”

LUCKY – Falling Through

“A song full of backward looking despite its forward motion, resulting in a mood at once wistful and affirming.” That’s how we described ‘Traveler‘, the debut single from Bay Area supergroup LUCKY back in April. Consisting of Half Stack‘s Peter Kegler, Andrew St James and Zach Elsasser (Affectionately), the project utilises the experience and ideas of its cohort to bring its folk rock sound to life. Again released by Royal Oakie Records, latest single ‘Falling Through’ builds upon the style, a lesson in the value of intra-band chemistry which imbues its country rock sound with equal parts laidback swagger and earnest emotion. A track earthy and immediate but not without a certain wry self-awareness, especially in the near-spoken sections of the verses.

Lutalo – Cracked Lip

“Described as a time capsule of lessons learnt in their first chapter of life, the album sees the Vermont-based singer-songwriter delve into their past and invite the audience along for the ride.” So we wrote of Lutalo’s full-length album The Academy back in 2024, songs like ‘The Bed‘ and ‘Broken Twin’ highlighting the variation across the release. But the album only scratched the surface of what Lutalo has to say, something indicated by the new deluxe edition of the record which comes complete with four brand new tracks. With the release coming soon via Winspear, Lutalo has unveiled new track ‘Cracked Lip’. A song warm in tone but ambiguous in meaning, highlighting the project’s ability to combine abstract poetry with emotional immediacy. “The walls surround me / I’d like to think that I’m different from you,” as one typically cryptic verse goes. “Oh now you found me / I like to slip that salt in my shoes / And just move.” Watch the video by Noah Lenker below:

The Academy is out on the 19th September via Winspear and you can pre-order it now from the Lutalo Bandcamp page.

Snake Lips – Happy II

In recent weeks we’ve shared a couple of singles from Cat Beach, the new album from Portland, Maine outfit Snake Lips on Repeating Cloud. Both the hectic garage rock number ‘Thumbs Up’ and surf inflected ‘East Coast’ presented a band at the height of their powers, Cody Mitchell and co. burning through a myriad of hang ups and frustrations with good old fashioned rock energy (“There might be no means of fixing this predicament, but the song can remedy one part of it,” as we wrote of ‘East Coast’). With the record now out, Snake Lips have shared the album’s closing track ‘Happy II’ as a new single, and it seems wrestling demons via unapologetically raw indie rock might have therapeutic value after all. Because while the verses are essentially a list of regrets and apologies, the song turns into an expression of gratitude for the small (often four-legged) consolations that help us learn to accept ourselves.

But I’m happy where I’m at
I got the sunset and the dog in the yard
And my two best friends my cats
And I’m finally cool with me
I got the one I love, the dog in the yard
And my friends are hanging out
On cat beach

The post Weekly Listening: July 2025 #5 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Back in May we introduced Part Of The Problem, Baby, the new full-length from Fortitude Valley coming this August on Specialist Subject Records, with single ‘Sunshine State‘. “A track which finds [lead Laura] Kovac addressing her younger self,” we described, “delving into the person she was before and during her move from Brisbane to the UK, and how the competing desires for home and escape never really go away.” With the album’s release edging closer, Fortitude Valley are back with new track ‘Video (Right There With You)’. “The song is about trying to get inside the head of someone you love, and how hard it can be surviving together in what feels like an increasingly hostile and scary world,” Kovic explains. “It also plays into the central theme of the album, which is about feeling distant from people you care about, both literally and figuratively.”

Watch the video directed by Stuart Laws below, shot as the band performed at the Machynlleth Comedy Fest and starring comedian Celya AB.

Part Of The Problem, Baby is out 1st August on Specialist Subject Records and you can pre-order it now from the Fortitude Valley Bandcamp page.

 French for Rabbits – Gold and Blue

Ahead of the Matariki holiday and an upcoming winter tour around Aotearoa, Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington-based outfit French for Rabbits have returned with brand new standalone single, ‘Gold and Blue’. Written by lead Brooke Singer in a prolific period before the birth of her son, the track meditates on the future and the mysterious ways in which it realises itself, be it through chance, fate or an intuitive reaching forward. The song comes complete with a video by director Martin Sagadin and cinematographer Bill Bycroft. “For the video, we wanted to throw the listener through time and space,” Singer explains, “feel a gasp for breath as they tumble them through the present and past to moments of change, connection, and fluctuation.”

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

Glenn Echo – Give + Take

The project of Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist Matt Gaydar, Glenn Echo is an outlet for patient and introspective folk music. Gaydar has just released a new Glenn Echo EP, No Believer, a collection of five songs recorded with help from Will Stratton that showcase this style perfectly. Second track ‘Give + Take is perhaps the standout, opening with the warm country croon of guitar before settling into a slow, contemplative momentum. “Been driving away, over the county line,” Gaydar sings in the opening line which immediately captures the song’s sense of night-time hush, “past the firehouse, all through the night, blind driving, silent.”

Jess Kerber – Tropical Storm

We’ve written about a number of singles from Jess Kerber‘s debut album From Way Down Here in recent months, describing how the Nashville-based songwriter melds traditional folk and contemporary electronic sensibilities to bring her emotive style to life. ‘Next to You’ rose from a dreamy haze to clarity, while ‘Never Again’ introduced the themes of loss and belonging so central to the record. With the album now out via Felte Records, Kerber has released latest single ‘Tropical Storm’. Another poignant, wistful slice of nostalgic longing, rooted in the specific imagery of memories as imprinted on the young mind. Watch the video edited by Kerber herself below:

From Way Down Here is out now via Felte Records and available from the Jess Kerber Bandcamp page.

Jeffrey Martin – Edge of Lost

With albums like One Go Around and Thank God We Left The Garden, Portland, Oregon songwriter Jeffrey Martin has developed an evocative brand of folk concerned with both the personal and the societal, centring the classic Americana style within the unique circumstances of the present (“The climate is collapsing, diseases rising, robots striving to take over the globe, and still there’s not enough money for the people who actually need it,” as we wrote of the latter album, “still the future holds a distant promise, the past haunts with its glory and regret”). Out via Fluff and Gravy Records, new single ‘Edge of Lost’ is every bit as heartfelt and urgent. Inspired by Davey Schaupp’s No Place to Grow Old, a documentary interviewing people experiencing homelessness or the threat of it across Portland, the song explores the strange contradictions of such a life. Where existence is at once heavier than it should be yet also translucently thin, the eyes of society sliding past as you though barely exist at all. “I tried to capture the chasm between the housed and unhoused,” Martin explains, “and how the psychological burden of that divide is a very difficult thing to hold as people try to navigate their way out of homelessness.”

Jillian Lake – Tactile

“There’s a city in my head,” sings Jillian Lake on latest single ‘Tactile’, a line repeated across the track in what might be warning or explanation. Based in Vancouver, the singer-songwriter has made a name with intimate, personal folk songs, though has increasingly pushed her sound into richer, more urgent territory without sacrificing any of the heartfelt charm. The new single is a lesson in how effective such a combination can be. Indeed, the refrain can be held as a key to the song’s spirit, presenting an exploration of grief in all of its complexity, an emotional landscape as bustling, nuanced and contradictory as any urban space. ‘Tactile’ is about how grief is this invisible and intangible thing that is so hard to navigate,” Lake explains. “A scraped knee, a black eye, a broken arm—is so much easier to make sense of than something you can’t pinpoint. Something you can’t bandage or brace.”

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

Jouska – Flower Moon

Jouska is the recording project of  Norwegian songwriter and producer Marit Othilie Thorvik. Originally a duo, the project started out making pop-orientated electronic music, but now that it’s Thorvik alone, the atmosphere has evolved into something more intimate and introspective. New single ‘Flower Moon’, Jouska’s first since 2023 record Suddenly My Mind Is Blank, leans into dream pop dimension of the project to invoke a sense of detachment, the vocals drifting through a wash of ethereal tones as though untethered yet longing for solid ground. “I was anxious,” as Thorvik explains, “distracted by things at home. Physically in one place, emotionally somewhere else, missing out on both.”

múm – Mild At Heart

Icelandic experimental royalty múm have established themselves as one of the most interesting and atmospheric projects since their inception in the nineties, each of the six previous albums building upon the last while always exploring new territory. Their first full-length in over ten years, History of Silence finds the band as ambitious as ever. An album “recorded, deconstructed, put back together again, refined and finished over the course of two years,” the release blends electronic and analogue sounds to explore ideas of distance in our fast-changing world, the songs rejecting linear progress to instead embrace tangents and digressions. Take the way lead single ‘Mild at Heart’ shifts and drifts across its length, a controlled, ever-curious track that shows the power of understatement while also reaching towards new ground.

Watch the video filmed & edited by Sigurlaug Gísladóttir below:

History of Silence will be released via Morr Music on 15th September. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

The Noisy – Twos

Back in 2024 Philly dream pop outfit The Noisy released The Secret Ingredient is More Meat, an album written for and funded by the queer community which served as a celebration of their kinship, performance, joyous excesses and plurity. Now The Noisy are preparing to release a deluxe version of the record via Audio Antihero, appropriately titled The Secret Ingredient is Even More Meat, offering reimagined versions of the songs. Single ‘Twos’ and its gloriously cinematic video by Sam Cush indicates the new direction they take. “I wrote this song like a pop song but wanted the production to bend towards Mannequin Pussy with sludgy guitars and twinkly keys,” frontperson Sara Mae Henke explains. “The music video literalizes the too much-ness of the story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Grey Gardens meets two dates to the prom.”

‘Twos’ is out now via Audio Antihero and available from Bandcamp.

Tyler Bradley Walker – Because of the Many

We introduced The Sun The Moon The Earth and Me, the debut solo album from Tyler Bradley Walker, back in May, describing how the artist best known as one half of electronic rock duo Gone to Color was every bit as ambitious and adventurous in his solo work. ” Single ‘Moon Broke Quiet’ offered “a spacious, evocative soundscape which seems to sit at an angle to reality,” we wrote, “everything a little stark and surreal and strange […] occup[ying] that nocturnal liminal space between waking life and dreams.” With the album now out, TBW has shared opening track ‘Because of the Many’ as a new single, an experimental pop protest song that takes aim at modern day USA. The track’s idiosyncrasy and slow-burn intensity is intensified with a video every bit as odd.

Out gunned, not done
The fucking light is green
No one eats their eggs that way
Wise man funny man
Write your own story
Very large worlds untouched untouched

Watch the video directed by Andrew Petersson and produced By Carson Cox (Mod Visual) below:

The Sun The Moon The Earth and Me is out now and available to purchase from the Tyler Bradley Walker Bandcamp page.

Will Orchard – Something’s Gotta Go

If you’ve been reading VSF over the last few months, you may know that Nashville-via-New England songwriter Will Orchard has a new record, Behind the Shadow Glass, coming out later this year. The initial two singles ‘Down’ and ‘Nothing Fog’ gave a pretty good idea of what to expect, and now we have a third cut to further whet appetites. Titled ‘Something’s Gotta Go’, the song finds Orchard with his sleeves rolled up as he digs through the dirt. Crunchy Americana meets Neil Young folk rock which sees him picks through internal knots and tangles that have been tripping him up over the years. “[The song] is a cathartic release, and an acknowledgement of self-inflicted pain.” Orchard describes. “It’s about getting into the pattern of never being satisfied with yourself. Calling the song finished was somewhat of a challenge because of how raw and in some ways, non-poetic it felt. But that’s the spirit of the song, just putting it all out there and letting go of your will to try so hard.”

Wombo – Neon Bog

“Feeling every inch the product of a band nearing ten years together, [Danger in Fives] finds the Wombo sound realised in its purest form,” we wrote of the Louisville trio’s new album coming later this summer on Fire Talk Records, “combining the experimentation and risk-taking which marked their earlier releases with the growing confidence so evident on Fairy Rust. That is, the sound of project which has come to understand its spirit and ambitions and is now committing to them with total conviction.” Latest single ‘Neon Bog’ shows just how deep such conviction runs, the band embracing happenstance and happy accidents during the recording process to create something as atmospheric as it is idiosyncratic.

The song comes complete with a video directed by Cameron Lowe along with assistant director Scotty “Sleepy” Anderson. The film leans further into the haunting tones of the song, using practical effects a la Michel Gondry. “I’ve been watching a lot of the TV show Ghost Adventures and have been somewhat haunted by the implications of the paranormal,” as Lowe explains. “I thought the video was a good outlet for expressing that in an abstract way.”

Danger in Fives is out on the 8th August via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it now from the Wombo Bandcamp page.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2025 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Anna Tivel’s latest full-length Animal Poem , forthcoming later this summer on Fluff & Gravy Records, is not so much an answer to this question as one artist’s small contribution towards one. A small piece of the colossal, communal whole demanded of us. The imperative to celebrate life and warn of its fragility. To remind everyone of just what we stand to lose should the malevolent forces of this world be allowed to grow. As Tivel continues:

I think about being here. How brief it is. How incomplete our understanding. I think about history. All the worlds we’ve created and broken. Revolution and renaissance. Hope and humility. Everyone here is living a creative life—teachers and parents, kids and convenience store clerks. We’re all tasting this wild existence, finding ways to express how much it hurts and moves us. This work is my own small addition to that communal story. The water we swim in. The way our attention molds our truths. Humanity is unfolding as we describe it. We’ll never get it right, but the attempt is everything.

The first single and title track both introduces the tone of the album and serves as its mission statement. What Tivel describes as “a meditation on the stories we tell ourselves and each other” in order to persevere in a painful, disheartening present.

courage is a tired mom, milk crate and a cardboard sign
trying to find a story for her daughter
this is how the world exists, let me spin it for you kid
in a way that’s easier to swallow

Watch the video by Kale Chesney below:

Animal Poem will be released on the 29th August via Fluff and Gravy Records and you can pre-order it now from the Anna Tivel Bandcamp page.

Photo by Matt Kennelly

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The resulting songs felt rhythmic and vital, with more melody and soaring chorus than I’ve explored in the past. There was no way and no means to gather a full band, and I brought the songs to Shane’s doorstep knowing and fully trusting the skill and exuberance of his creative imagination. Shane stripped everything down to the studs and we rebuilt it together, just the two of us for a month in his garage studio, Shane dreaming up each sonic layer while I chased the lyrics to one last double chorus.”

Recent single ‘Disposable Camera’ introduced what to expect from the record. It’s a song every bit as finely crafted as anything on Outsider, displaying Anna Tivel’s signature talent to ride the eddies and rapids of a sentence to charge her lines with tangible life. “Nobody tells it like it is / they say don’t rock the boat and shut up kid / but that big black train is rolling,” she sings, words gathering momentum like an engine of their own, “and that deep down scream is growing / a hurricane come howling / a shot heard from the mountain / a blessing and a burden / i swear this will be worth it.” The song is one “for the everything of it all,” as Tivel puts it. “For the wild science fiction of coming into the world. For the way it will break your heart. For the way it will make it race.” Watch the video filmed and produced by Kale Chesney below:

taking a picture to pass the time
a disposable camera and sore eyes
you’ll be leaning your head in the half light
what a feeling to be alive

Coming just before ‘Disposable Camera’ on the tracklisting, latest single ‘Desperation’ can be viewed as a kind of prequel to its tenacious energy. The despair at ground zero, where the only way to process the sense of injustice is a mental escape.  “Close your eyes and go somewhere, the windy coast, the forest floor / an airplane, another world, a dream.” But as the song progresses it lifts itself, the sound of a beaten body rising from the canvas again, as if the mere spark of imagination was enough to convince it to give life another shot. “Future vision is forever married to imagination,” as Tivel puts it. “This is a song about being born into a harsh reality, about struggling to imagine something better than you’ve seen. Poverty, inequality, disenfranchisement—all these dark systems that devalue human capacity, crush human spirit and soul. To be born in that darkness, to see it mirrored all around you in the lives of everyone you love, is to read an unjust story about yourself that takes herculean strength to change.”

Living Thing will be released on the 31st May via Fluff and Gravy Records and you can pre-order it now from the Anna Tivel Bandcamp page.

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Latest single ‘Paper Crown’ continues this pattern, using its stark simplicity to engage with the ever more complex society in which we live. “This is a simple song that fell out of a complicated moment,” Martin explains. “We are in this mad race of technology and progress, and the pace of it can feel dizzying at times. ‘Paper Crown’ is a hopeful reminder that contentment is found in all the little ways we step outside of the rat race. It takes vigilance and courage to not be consumed by the machine we’ve created: vigilance to keep your heart elevated above the noise and courage to acknowledge everything you still don’t understand.”

The result is melancholic yet undeniably compassionate, not to mention simmering with a certain anger too. A hand extended to those who feel lost and left behind, as well as a confession to feeling the same way. “It’s staggering how much posturing is built into our society,” as Martin continues. “Everything from how we dress, to the titles we give ourselves at work, to the books on our shelves, the paint on our houses, the cars we drive, the degrees we earn—all of it to maintain the illusion that anyone has the first clue what is really happening here. And yet, in the privacy of our aloneness, most people feel desperately lost. Completely bowled over by the sheer amount of what they don’t understand. ‘Paper Crown’ is an attempt at celebrating that unknown, as opposed to fearing it and trying to hide it away.”

Thank God We Left The Garden is out via Loose Music and Fluff & Gravy Records on the 3rd November and you can pre-order it from the Jeffrey Martin Bandcamp page.

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This November sees Jeffrey Martin return with Thank God We Left The Garden, an brand new record again on Fluff & Gravy and Loose Music. The album is an attempt to confront the drastic changes the world has experienced in the interim while still dealing with the old themes too. The climate is collapsing, diseases rising, robots striving to take over the globe, and still there’s not enough money for the people who actually need it. Still the future holds a distant promise, the past haunts with its glory and regret. The album was recorded live and alone with two microphones, a simplicity at odds with the spiralling complications of the world in which it was born. “I’ve been chasing this record since my very first recordings,” as Martin explains:

I wanted to really see what I could do, just my guitar and my voice and little else. I don’t think it was conscious. I think maybe it was a reaction to the pace of life these days. The churning news and entertainment and politics and violence of it all. I needed to know that even in this day and age, just a few simple ingredients still hold up.

Lead single ‘There Is a Treasure’ is a case in point. An attempt to disconnect from the overwhelming anxieties of our time by imagining those forces larger than us. Call it nature, call it time, call it God Himself and all he created. “This is a thankful ode to all that remains out of reach,” as Martin puts it. “To the brief glimpses of a place beyond time and worry, beyond death even, where we live purely and forever in the here and now and it stretches out past all measure. And in that place we feel ourselves as beautifully unimportant, untethered from the din of our daily angst, a single part of the huge mystery of existence.”

There’s a treasure we all know but we can’t have it
It’s a place beyond the measure of our minds
It is where we go when we forget we’re living
It is where we go when we forget we die

Check out the video featuring Anna Tivel below:

Thank God We Left The Garden is out via Loose Music and Fluff & Gravy Records on the 3rd November and you can pre-order it from the Jeffrey Martin Bandcamp page.

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“Thriving on a diversity of influences and intentions and underpinned by the constant desire to invent new things.” That’s how we described Hybrid Dimension II by The Allegorist, an album which highlighted the visionary style of Berlin-based artist Anna Jordan. One so committed to the world it created, it was performed in an entirely fictional language. Forthcoming album TEKHENU promises to be no less ambitious, again using narrative-based compositions to conjure a mythical world at least partly inspired by ancient Egyptian imagery and shaped by metaphors for human connection. Latest single ‘Howling With The Wolf’ finds such common bond in the animalistic drivers at the heart of every human, re-establishing our connection to the natural world and embracing the wilderness as a plane of interconnection.

TEKHENU is out on the 5th May via Awaken Chronicles and you can pre-order it now.

American Grandma – Stone Cross

The slowcore project of Denver‘s Jensen Keller and Caden Marchese, American Grandma is prepping to release their brand new album Rare Knives of Light later this spring, and single ‘Stone Cross’ finds the outfit at their shimmering best. Positioning itself at the ambient end of the spectrum, the song does not eliminate the dark heft of the genre so much as leaven it, the ascending tones lifting the entire weight of the sound, shadows and all. So as Keller asks a series of cryptic questions, what emerges is curious blend of the physical and intangible—a mirage you can feel between your fingers, a dream or prayer brought to life.

Does the sun shine bright forever?
Will I commemorate you with a painted sign?

Constant Follower & Scott William Urquhart – Waves Crash Here

Last summer we featured Constant Follower and their beautiful record Neither Is, Nor Ever Was. As we described, the project represents “a struggle between calmness and distress, between the real and imaginary, and indeed between the desire for and fear of such clear boundaries.” But ultimately “embraces this turmoil, and in doing so offers a fundamental reimagining of memory, of the past and future, the real and not.” The band are now gearing up to release Even Days Dissolve, a new album in collaboration with Scott William Urquhart, and lead single ‘Waves Crash Here’ shows a continued engagement with both memory and the natural world. With its evocative sweeps and fine detail, Urquhart’s guitar evokes the duality of permanence and ephemerality of the environment which inspired it, and Constant Follower’s Stephen McAll again turns to the poetry of Norman MacCaig to guide his moving, precise writing. Watch the video by animator George Farrow-Hawkins below:

Even Days Dissolve is out on the 14th April and you can pre-order it now.

Eyesore & The Jinx – An Ideas Man

Liverpool post-punk trio Eyesore & The Jinx return this May with a new double-single 7″ An Ideas Man / Do What You Love. We’ve previously described the outfit’s work as “cutting and hysterical, as though the banality of society has pushed them over the edge,” and ‘An Ideas Man’ finds them no less enraged with the world unfolding around them. It’s a twitchy song about “cult of landlordism and a parasitic ideology which has become pervasive in its wake,” as Josh Miller explains, taking on the voice of the titular figure in all of its self-congratulatory smarm. The sound’s taut angles threaten to spill over into some violent climax, and in a world in which men will kick you repeatedly on a punctual monthly rota and pretend they are doing you a favour, how else should our songs sound? As Miller concludes: “In short, it’s about how much I fucking hate landlords.”

Greg Mendez – Goodbye / Trouble

Later this year, Philadelphia‘s Greg Mendez will return with a self-titled full-length via Forged Artifacts and Devil Town Tapes. Following on from 2020’s Cherry Hell, a record we described as “taking the themes of Townes Van Zandt, Connie Converse and Elliott Smith and casting them in the bedroom pop spirit of today,” the new album sees Mendez continue this honest reflection, digging into the past to re-examine painful experiences while never losing a wry edge too. “There’s a lot of pretty bleak memories in the songs,” he explains, “but one thing that I hope comes through is that nothing is ever fully dark.” Lead single ‘Goodbye / Trouble’ captures the style perfectly, a lo-fi pop number rooted in memories while waiting for some present transcendence. Watch the video by Video by Doug Dulgarian (of they are gutting a body of water) below:

Greg Mendez is out on the 5th May via Forged Artifacts and Devil Town Tapes.

Kassi Valazza – Corners

Back in January we introuduced Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing, the forthcoming album by Portland artist Kassi Valazza on Fluff and Gravy Records (US) and Loose Music (UK). Writing of lead single ‘Watching Planes Go By’ we described how her timeless country singer-songwriter style “bears all the hallmarks of the best retro tracks while refusing to fall for nostalgic imitation.” Now Valazza has unveiled the record’s second single. Titled ‘Corners’, it’s a tender but tentative love song that again draws on psych-styled folk as much as it does from Americana, unfurling with an easy emotional ache as though from a decades-old dusty radio. Valazza’s voice sits at the sweet spot between soft and strong, tired and heartsick but holding onto a golden romantic hope.

I wonder if I called you
would it be alright
to say I loved you

Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing will be released by Fluff & Gravy Records / Loose Music on 12th May. Pre-order it now from the Kassi Valazza Bandcamp page.

Monde UFO – Government Employee

As their name might suggest, there’s something otherworldly about the work of LA‘s Monde UFO, but new album Vandalized Statue To Be Replaced With Shrine, out next month via Quindi Records, shows just how varied this ethereal mood can be. First single ‘Visions of Fatima’ led the listener into a decidedly downbeat mystery, channelling the miracle of its title to speak of shifting wonders and cloaked truths. But described as “a sun-kissed trip of low-key lounge surrealism, bizarro storytelling and shuffling exotica splendour,” latest track ‘Government Employee’ shows off a different dimension to the record. One where the laidback rhythms evoke an alternate version of visitation, the lyrics playing with an almost Pynchon-esque restlessness beneath the languorous surface.

Nyokabi Kariũki – fire head

Last week, Kenyan composer and sound artist Nyokabi Kariũki released FEELING BODY, her debut full-length album on New York label cmntx records. Combining everything from experimental electronic, contemporary classical and East African traditional music, the album explores Kariũki’s experience of living with long-COVID for the entirety of 2021. The record is built around a central motif of the voice, utilizing Kariũki’s full vocal range as well as spoken word recordings and text-to-speech software, what she describes as “a way to express visceral feelings and noisy thoughts.” It also features contributions from violinst Yaz Lancaster and trumpet player Michael Denis Ó Callaghan, their playing manipulated to echo symptoms of the persistent illness. Nowhere is this clearer that on standout track, ‘fire head’, a genuinely unsettling piece which layers a field recording of Ó Callaghan disassembling then reassembling his trumpet with a cacophony of automated voices repeating the line “They stopped asking if I was ok.”

Shalom – Lighter

Later this week, Brooklyn-based Shalom will release her debut album Sublimation on Saddle Creek. We wrote a preview of the album last month, describing it as “a bracingly honest exploration of a young life,” that “combin[es] stories of partying and trauma, love and breakups and feelings of disaffection,” and admiring its mixture of bold, direct indie pop and emotional nuance. Ahead of the record’s release, Shalom has unveiled the final single ‘Lighter’. It’s probably the most pop-oriented song on the album, the carefree atmosphere masking its themes of discontent. “So done with being myself,” Shalom sings in the chorus, “I’d rather be anyone else, I’m tired of being a fighter.” Watch the animated video by Rory Alene below:

Sublimation releases 10th March via Saddle Creek. Order a copy now from the Shalom Bandcamp page.

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Out this autumn via Loose Music and Fluff and Gravy Records, the debut Margo Cilker full-length Pohorylle is very much rooted in these themes. The record assembles a stellar band, with Jenny Conlee (of The Decemberists) joining on keys, Jason Kardong (Sera Cahoone, Son Volt) on pedal steel, Rebecca Young (Lindsey Fuller, Jesse Sykes) on bass, Mirabai Peart (Joanna Newsom) on strings, Kelly Pratt (Beirut) on horns and Cilker’s sister Sarah on backing vocals, not to mention John Morgan Askew (Neko Case, Laura Gibson) who plays multiple instruments and engineered the album. Together they create a rich country sound capable of capturing not just the human spirit of the songs but the landscapes that inspired them.

Nowhere is this clearer than on latest single, ‘That River’. Written as Cilker returned from Spain to settle in Oregon, the track positions the dynamic present within a history of such journeys. “The road from California across the Great Basin to Oregon has been travelled, often afoot, by countless Basque expatriates,” she explains, “so much so, that in the early twentieth century it was said most Basques in Spain could name only two American cities: New York and Winnemucca. I drove that road a few years ago after returning from Bilbao to move to a small town in Northeastern Oregon and wrote this song on the drive.”

The song is therefore both highly personal and rooted in common experience, and in channelling the timeless features of the road it evokes something older and lasting. “I feel the band really captured the feeling of wide-open sagebrush desert and winding canyons in the moonlight,” Cilker continues. “I still can’t tell you if this is my own story or some other character speaking through me; some ghost of a well-travelled bride-to-be laying down to take her rest in Jordan Valley.”

Pohorylle is out on the 5th November via Loose Music (UK) and Fluff and Gravy Records (USA) and you can get it from the Margo Cilker Bandcamp page. or via the Loose website if you’re in the UK.

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