Featuring Dora Noonan, Nat Cimino, Zara Roy and Noah Kelley, Queens-based indie rock outfit blankette combine the irreverence and mischief of twee music with something altogether more cathartic and raw. The result is an unapologetically singular sound able to communicate the full spectrum of emotions. New album doll puts this to good use, exploring knotty ideas of identity, depression and self-actualisation with a decidedly unguarded air, displaying courage in its vulnerability and embracing the communal power of a band. Single ‘after’ shows the kind of mood to expect, a song all about the misplaced suspicion that a simple change might fix your life. It starts out with something like hesitant hope and culminates in a something of an exorcism.

after i stop drinking i’ll feel better
after i stop overthinking i’ll feel better
after i start running i’ll feel better
after i make more money i’ll feel better
after i feel better i’ll feel better

Brimheim – My Collection

“Writing new music had felt like swimming in molasses for months until ‘My Collection’ arrived,” explains Danish songwriter Brimheim of her latest single, a track she considers something of a paradigm shift. “The jazzy direction was surprising to both me and Søren [Buhl Lassen]. It’s a musical tradition I haven’t explored before. Yet somehow, it immediately revealed itself as the most enchanting path we could take. It felt like receiving a gift from the universe.” Where her previous album RATKING sought clarity within the fraught, confusing experience of personal identity, ‘My Collection’ moves in a more ambiguous direction, swapping out the brightness and rhythm in favour of something more fictional and oblique. The story of a perhaps eccentric woman who collects objects discarded by others, valuing the hidden beauty within that which has been rejected, and guarding her prized possessions with an almost maternal instinct.

Watch the video directed by Stine Emil and produced by Monster Crotch below:

‘My Collection’ is out now via Tambourhinoceros and available from Bandcamp.

Caoilfhionn Rose – Horizon

“Some of the lyrics talk about becoming ‘lost inside your own imagination’ and how ‘dreams can seem so real’,” explains Manchester songwriter Caoilfhionn Rose of her fourth full-length, Draw Out Your World, coming early next year on Lost Map Records. “To me, this album is about building a life for yourself, stepping out of daydreams and carving out a path towards a happier future.” Made with husband and collaborator Rich Williams in the years of pregnancy and early parenthood, Draw Out Your World finds Rose working through a tumultuous period with both resilience and curiosity, resulting in a sound that is marked with compassion and always reaching for some brighter, calmer territory. Lead single ‘Horizon’ gives a flavour of what to expect, not least the impact of Danish duo Svaneborg Kardyb (Nikolaj Svaneborg and Jonas Kardyb) who lend their talents to the release and leaven the sound with their ethereal electronics. 

Hank Tree x Peter Broderick – You Can Thrive

Led by Fergus MacDonald (formerly of State Broadcasters), Glasgow‘s Hank Tree first caught our ears back in 2023 with album The Big North. “Hank Tree take folk sensibilities and elevate them into something truly atmospheric with a mixture of field recordings and distortion,” as we wrote, “but amid their invention and subversion of genre, Hank Tree hark back to folk’s best roots, positioning themselves in the long lineage of artists using the form to write about social history and labour movements.” Latest album Care 1 is every bit as thematically challenging and emotionally urgent, a record crafted around MacDonald’s experience working with people with profound learning difficulties and mental health problems. It delves into what it means to care and be cared for within a society which too often seems willing to disregard any semblance of responsibility. This time MacDonald is joined by Clarissa Cheong and Peter Broderick and together the trio conjure a sound that intimate, compassionate and subtly unflinching, as single ‘You Can Thrive’ suggests.

Karen y los Remedios – Mayahuel

Fronted by Mexico City-born, Guanajuato-raised artist and researcher Ana Karen G. Barajas and featuring Z.A.M.P.A. (Guillermo Berbeyer) on guitars and Mexico City producer Jiony (Jonathan Muriel), Karen y los Remedios is a shapeshifting project rooted in cumbia yet fluid and mysterious enough to bring its own mythologies to life. Latest album Bestiaria fulls like the most pure embodiment of the act to date, evoking a series of legendary women from across the world to celebrate femininity in all its desire, sorrow and power. Single ‘Mayahuel’ is a perfect example, “a hypnotic, low-tempo cumbia rebajada that dives into Mexica mythology,” as Barajas explains. “I was deeply moved by her story in the ancient codices—her escape to be with Quetzalcoatl, turning into maguey plants, and the sacred legend of the Four Hundred Rabbits.”

Watch the video directed by Barajas herself below:

Bestiaria is out now via ZZK Records and available from Bandcamp.

LAPêCHE – Parallel Park

“Drawing on shoegaze and post-punk, they make indie rock songs that are both shadowy and catchy, centering on a sense of considered patience that the band says is born from ‘a shared language of healing, honesty and presence’.” So we wrote of Brooklyn‘s LAPêCHE back in July, with single ‘Phantom of Cinder’ introducing the tone of their new album Autotelic on Tiny Engines. With singer and guitarist Krista Diem supported by with Dave Diem (bass), Drew DeMaio (guitar) and Colin Brooks (drums), the entire album channels a nineties sensibility without ever descending to cheap nostalgia, not least thanks to the committed, complex style in which they work. Take ‘Parallel Park’, a song about the end of a relationship which favours emotional honesty over poetic gesture, and thus recognising how any project, be it personal or artistic, relies on a kind of tenacious imperfection in order to move forwards.

Party Dozen – Full Powers

Australian duo Kirsty Tickle (saxophone, vocals) and Jonathan Boulet (drums, loops, production) have recorded under the Party Dozen moniker for near on a decade now, pushing an inventive style of psych rock which leans on improvision. But new Party Dozen album 21 Bum Salute, coming next month via City Slang, finds the band in their purest form, Tickle and Boulet dropping whatever pretenses which might have persisted in their work in order to fully embrace their idiosyncratic vision. Latest single ‘Full Powers’ indicates the raucous abandon of the result, not to mention the ambiguity of record which swings between swaggering confidence and something more volatile, almost dangerous. “There’s ‘Full Powers’ good and there’s ‘Full Powers’ bad,” they explain. “The good is when you’re personally becoming too powerful, an angel pisses on you, everything is going very well and suddenly you’re gliding down the street like King Swinging Dick. The bad is when one side has all the power and more is not enough. Powerlust, greedmongering, gluttonous fiends. This track switches between the two.”

Watch the video below, made with help from John-Henry Pajak and Jos Eastwood:

21 Bum Salute will be released via City Slang on the 6th November and you can pre-order it now.

Samjo – Franconia

Brooklyn born, Lille-based songwriter Sam Rueckert, AKA Samjo, works between folk, indie rock and punk to create songs at once emotive and energetic, as highlighted by 2025 album Barely Even Something. With a new extended edition of the album recently released, Samjo have returned with a video for single ‘Franconia’ to further the life of the record, and the track is the ideal introduction for those who missed the album the first time around. With a slow building and detailed style, the track is a lesson in slow burn, its determined indie rock chug slowly blooming outwards as cinematic strings widen the frame of the arrangement. The style is keyed into the thematic concerns too, the song moving from the doldrums of a particularly bad day towards some appreciation of the universality of misfortune, and in doing so emerging with compassion and solace.

Barely Even Something (Extended) is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Tough Old Bird – Tall Summer Clouds

Tough Old Bird continue their steady stream of new singles with ‘Tall Summer Clouds’. Following on from predecessor ‘Come Back, Come Back‘, a track we described as a poetic narrative that’s at once brooding and compassionate and little world weary too,” the new song again delves into a bittersweet headspace, specifically the strange blend of joy and sorrow which accompanies the passing of time. Written in the weeks before lead Nick Corrigan welcomed his first child into the world, there’s a tension between new beginnings and the inevitable loss which will follow, Tough Old Bird confronting mortality and deciding that life lies not in grand gestures but small moments. Perhaps the humbles snatches of calm are the best life can get.

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Founded in 2018 by musician Adam Kinner and artistic director/writer Jacob Wren, and now expanded into a wider ensemble, The Air Contains Honey is a Montreal-based project which crosses artistic boundaries to meld the musical and the literary in a genuinely innovative way. After gradually evolving over the years, the project is now preparing to release their first full-length, The Air Contains Honey Sings Quotes, via Quindi Records, and the album quite literally lives up to its name. With arrangements orchestrated to be performed by nineteen musicians, the record sees the group sing quotes from across literature and theory (lines from Agnes Martin, Diane di Prima and Chris Kraus feature, to name just a few), resulting in a novel form which sits between indie pop, jazz and something like musical theatre. Lead track ‘Sexuality’ is the perfect example of the release’s ambition and invention. A number built around words from Kathy Acker’s Great Expectations which encapsulates not only the artistic vision of the record but also the welcoming communal spirit with which it is brought to life.

Damn Shame – Making Habits

“Every year that passes / taking stock with where we’re at and / Making plans to break through and make change.” So sings Portland, Maine multi-instrumentalist Robb Paniconi, AKA Damn Shame, on the closing track of new EP For Lack of Trying, out now via Repeating Cloud. As the title might suggest, the release is crafted around this sense of striving, be it towards a better future or healthier version of oneself. But it is forever held back by some self-defeating dimension, or else the hectic distraction that is the contemporary world. ‘Making Habits’ is a summation of the project musically as well as thematically, Paniconi bolstering his songwriting with an array of experimental flourishes, from found sounds and field recording to synths and tape loops. The result is all the more sincere and sympathetic as a result, positioning him alongside the likes of Ben Cooper’s Radical Face or even the slower side of Trace Mountains.

Daniel Glenn Padgett – Geraldine x Rocky Top!

Blurring the lines between DIY experimentalism and classical composition, the work of US-born, UK-based artist Daniel Glenn Padgett draws utilises both analogue and electronic modes to collapse the distance between the past and the present, bringing forward that which seemed lost or else opening up a nostalgic path backwards. Latest single ‘Geraldine x Rocky Top!’ is the ideal introduction to this style, a glitchy dance-based number which opens with a voice note from Parisian photographer Geraldine Morat and grows to incorporate a samples from the anthology of American folk music. On the surface, the result is an infectious slice of pop which hums with a bright energy for its brisk two minute run-time, though delve slightly deeper and the true nature of DGP’s work reveals itself. A cross-pollination between the contemporary and the traditional which charges both which newfound energy, as though commingling these ostensibly mismatched styles allows a kind of mutual invigoration.

David James Allen – So Much Pain

Prince Edward County, Ontario-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist David James Allen has shared a number of singles from his new full-length Jubilation Potpurri in recent months, and now the album is finally out via Littleknown Records, he is sharing one more. Following on from the likes of ‘By Your Side‘ (“an ode to the safe harbour of a significant other, where calm might be found no matter how stormy the outside world might prove”) and ‘Dukes Up (Since You’ve Been Gone)‘ (“a vow to confront life’s struggles head on, standing on your own two feet, fists raised and ready for anything”), latest track ‘So Much Pain’ explores far more uncertain, vulnerable headspace, though you wouldn’t know it from the sound itself. “There’s so much pain / Seen so much pain / It hurts to be alone / Feeling scared on my own,” Allen sings in the opening verse, though the arrangement is full of soulful swagger and confidence, redirecting the needy longing of the lyrics into something altogether different. As though, in voicing such vulnerabilities, Allen isn’t so much underscoring his fear of solitude as championing its opposite, connecting to the universal human experience of loneliness to better communicate the power of connection.

The French – Maybe Tomorrow

The ongoing mission to make Darren Hayman‘s vast back catalogue available online shows no sign going down (read more on the project here), with Audio Antihero now unearthing some deep cuts Hayman’s bands Hefner and The French recorded during sessions with the legendary John Peel. “When Hefner became a ‘Peel band’ and recorded their first session, I felt that a true life goal had been achieved,” he explains. “Many bands, much more revered and successful than myself, would have wished they’d recorded a Peel session. I could die a little happier.” Invited to a session with no record to promote, Hefner instead recorded a collection of gospel singles, with Peel delighted by a band using his sessions to push themselves and break new ground. Hence, when it came time for The French to visit a year later, they followed suit with another experimental idea, this time recording their own versions of four television theme songs, released here as TV Themes. Alongside ‘Crockett’s Theme’ and ‘Theme from Hill Street Blues’ and ‘Big John, Little John’, Hayman and John Morrison also recorded ‘Maybe Tomorrow’, their take on the theme from The Littlest Hobo which shows both the nostalgic spirit of the project and the invention with which they brought it to life.

henry o henry – There

Back in August we previewed henry o henry‘s new full-length Apocrypha, describing how the Dublin-born, US-based songwriter uses “the experience of being an immigrant in America for over thirty years to observe the country from the novel perspective of an adopted son.” After lead single ‘The Fool‘ (“worn and wistful and weathered but with a glint in its eye, moving with a sincerity and easy grace that comes with experience”) came ‘The Parade’, “an example of the careful patience which marks so much of the album,” as we put it, “understated yet strangely hypnotic, as though its mellow rhythms slowly envelop the listener and hold them within their world.” With the record now out via Western Vinyl, henry o henry has shared final single ‘There’. An album highlight which serves as a metacommentary on the creative process which brought it to life, specifically how making art can take personal feelings and transform them into something greater and long-lasting. “It feels like a triumph over something,” as henry o henry says, “even if you’re a bit embarrassed by some of the sentiment.”

Jonathan Something – The Garden

“A prime example of how One More Lonesome Cowboy Song lives up to its name, the track manages to evoke both the intimacy of personal experience and something far larger, bringing in the melancholy of the archetypal wanderer in search of meaning.” So we wrote of ‘Gasoline‘, a single from Jonathan Something‘s new album forthcoming via High Shelter, back in August, a song typical of a record all about yearning for something more. The record’s release is now less than a month away and Jonathan Searles has shared new track ‘The Garden’ to pave the way. “‘The Garden’ is a collection of epiphanies I had regarding self growth while wrestling demons.” as Searles explains. “I kept the conclusions and deeper meaning behind each verse as cryptic as possible to avoid preaching while still resonating as widely as possible. The goal was to offer my hand to hold for those who needed it and a high five for those who just wanna vibe.”

One More Lonesome Cowboy Song will be released on the 16th October via High Shelter.

Josephine Illingworth – Who Burnt The Mountain

After the release of EP Bright Things I Found In The Dark earlier this year, London-based songwriter Josephine Illingworth returns with new single ‘Who Burnt The Mountain’ in partnership with Sounds Right, a global music initiative that allows nature to generate royalties on streaming platforms. Released as part of the Sounds Right and EarthPercent Climate Week NYC releases, the track confronts the urgent ecological crisis by drawing on the sounds of nature itself, though these gradually distort and denature as the song unfolds to mirror the ongoing loss of habitat and biodiversity. “‘Who Burnt The Mountain’ is a rallying call against the desecration of our wild spaces, and an expression of grief that I, as a young woman, feel in seeing the wilderness that has been a space of sanctuary and identity for me being literally burnt out of existence, often thanks to the decisions of distant male politicians,” Illingworth explains. “The song is about wildfire and deforestation, and the flattening and privatisation of these wildernesses in the UK. I gradually distorted the bird field recordings as the song goes on, ending so that they sound almost like human screams.” Watch the video filmed by Reuben Denison below:

Who Burnt The Mountain is out now via Sounds Right, with royalties donated to frontline conservation projects around the world.

MANAS (Tashi Dorji & Thom Nguyen) – 100 sunset

The project of Asheville-based duo Tashi Dorji and Thom Nguyen, MANAS gather threads of free jazz, noise, punk and experimental music into propulsive improvised tracks that pay attention to small details while possessing a physical intensity and unpredictability. “Improvised music, this music-making in the immediacy and now, in the moment, feels way more radical than anything I’ve ever done,” says Dorji. “Making improvised music and creating radical music with the intention of opening people’s ears.” October sees the release of a new MANAS record, The most yielding thing in the world will overcome the most rigid, via American Dreams. The album came into being as the score to 100 Sunset, the debut feature film from director Kunsang Kyirong. Our first glimpse is the opening track, which is named for the film, a 13-minute exercise in restrained forward motion that builds toward a blown-out crescendo, the pair merging guitar and percussion into a single, unified instrument of urgent power.

Melissa Weikart – L’amour se construit

Back in July, we featured ‘Crash’, a single by French-American songwriter Melissa Weikart. Calling it “lush, immersive and slightly warped at the edges,” it was the perfect introduction to an artist who exists “between the poles of experimental improvisation and crowd-pleasing pop.” Weikart has just announced that the song was our first taste of a new album, titled Contact, which will be released via Midnight Special Records at the end of next month. To coincide with the album announcement, Weikart has unveiled a second single titled ‘L’amour se construit’. Translating into English as “love is built”, it’s what Weikart describes as “a plea to not only accept but welcome the inevitable messiness that accompanies our emotions around love.” Musically this translates into something as strange as it is sophisticated, drawing on foundations of both jazz and smooth seventies folk and bending them into dreamlike shapes with a psychedelic flourish. Watch the suitably surreal Ruby Cicero-directed video below:

Contact will be released via Midnight Special Records on 23^rd October. Pre-order ti now from the Melissa Weikart Bandcamp page.

summersets – Forgetting For The Better

“Drunk conversations, uncomfortable truths / Daily routines, bills that are due,” so opens ‘Forgetting For the Better’, one of the standout tracks on Pine Trees In A Perfect Row, the new record from Kalle Mattson and Andrew Sowka’s summersets project. The line is indicative of an album that is very much grounded in reality, exploring the contemporary moment without sanding away its uncomfortable edges. The pair of childhood friends reunited in their northern Ontario hometown of Sault Ste. Marie after being priced out of the big cities, and this frankness and economic realism is littered across the record. Mattson calls it “a (complicated) love letter to Northern Ontario and small town Canadian identity and experience… with the intention of speaking to a (hopefully) universal sentiment: that you never really leave your home.” As that quote might suggest, there is a glimmer of magic braided throughout too. ‘Forgetting For the Better’ is the perfect example, a gentle folk song that explores life’s ups and downs (from car crashes and playoff defeats to “the words that I said”) with a combination of wistful regret and mellow warmth.

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

“Recorded in his own home on a 1920s Martin guitar using a Nagra tape recorder, the song evokes Jimmie Rodgers or the earliest Dylan. Ostensibly little more than a minimalist instrumental sketch, the song nevertheless carries its own narrative weight, proceeding with the reflective, slightly mournful tone of a humble life lived by routine.” So we wrote of Cameron Knowler‘s ‘Placer Camp Blues (Nagra Demo)’ back in May, a track which built upon previous album CRK with real lo-fi charm. Continuing this series of demos, Knowler has now shared ‘El Centro’, another song recorded to Tascam which swaps his familiar acoustic sound for an electric guitar, painting a sparse yet evocative picture of Californian desert life in all its rugged, sun-bleached and almost esoteric personality.

‘El Centro (Cassette Demo) is out now via Castle Dome Records and available from Bandcamp.

JP Harris – Say Darling Say

JP Harris might have been embedded within country music for a decade and a half, releasing records and touring across the states and beyond, but he still feels he sits a slight angle compared to the rest of the scene. An outsider artist in the classic sense, pursuing his own singular, idiosyncratic sound which draws upon everything from old school blue collar musicians to punk rock attitude and the daring of the avant garde. New album Shaving a Dead Man, forthcoming this autumn via Bloodshot Records, collects a series of traditional songs shone through this prism, resting on the classic cornerstones of banjo and fiddle yet emerging sounding fresh and new. Listen to opener and lead single ‘Say Darling Say’ now:

Shaving A Dead Man will be released on the 23rd October via Bloodshot Records and you can pre-order it now.

Kate Prascher – Thousand A Million

“Embodies both the atmosphere and emotional clarity of the release,” we wrote of ‘Jubilee’, the lead single from Kate Prascher‘s upcoming full-length Sunday Afternoon, back in June. “The sound with one foot in the past but always looking forward, allowing memories and hopes for the future to sit side by side.” This collision of the vintage and contemporary is typical of the Memphis-born, Hudson Valley-based songwriter’s work, Prascher finding fertile ground in the ambiguous space between things, be it mystery and clarity or the old and the new. Something again evident on new track ‘Thousand A Million’. A richly warm number rooted in the landscape of the present, the song nevertheless casts an eye back towards those who lived and worked in that very same space back through the generations. “I wrote it with my ancestors in mind and with a feeling of wide, open plains,” as Prascher explains to Glide Magazine.

Sunday Afternoon will be released on the 28th August via First City Artists.

Leilani Patao – what

If you’ve been following the work of Hawaiian-American musician and songwriter Leilani Patao in recent months, you’ll know their music can pack an emotional punch, though often chooses to eschew the usual bombast or melodrama for something more joyful. Released in anticipation of a new deluxe edition of their EP daisy, recent single ‘kiddy scissors‘ typified the style with its celebration of queer love, and though latest track ‘what’ concerns very different subject matter, that sense of heart and control again shines through. “I wrote this song a few years ago when I felt my most frozen,” Patao explains of a track about the helplessness so many of us feel in the face of the contemporary political moment. “I felt really powerless and I felt terrified of what could happen if I started putting these stances into my songs.” But, in true Patao fashion, courage eventually wins out, not least because it becomes clear selfish concern can no longer be enough. “I can’t just protect what I’ve got anymore because it’s being taken away from me anyways. I can’t lay low; I can’t be quiet.”

lonalih – Have You Heard

Selected Short Stories, the new EP from Hamburg folk artist lonalih on new basement, is a release which lives up to its name. Built upon a bed of guitar, piano and strings, and resting on Lina Lohmann’s light yet emotive vocal style, each of the five tracks present their own narrative snapshot of a specific moment. The pieces favour texture and sensation over explicit detail, yet transport the listener all the same. “The songs remind of clear early morning light or an after-hour private choir practice,” as the label puts it. “Words inspired by human bond, girlhood and the motif of true name.” The result is five vignettes painted in the same soft tones as the album’s artwork. Airy, evocative and bright.

Melissa Weikart – Crash

Existing beween the poles of experimental improvisation and crowd-pleasing pop, the work of French-American songwriter Melissa Weikart has long known how to enchant an audience. A sound that welcomes the listener in with an expert sense of control, yet nevertheless constantly surprises, finding a line between craft and spontaneity which proves a fitting vehicle for exploring emotions in all their strange peculiarities and universal pull. Latest single ‘Crash’ is the ideal starting point for the uninitiated, what Weikart herself has described on social media as “a love song to friends near and far, the people with whom we traverse the mundane, the extraordinary, and all the messiness in between.” Lush, immersive and slightly warped at the edges, a world to step inside which always seems ready to shift beneath your feet. Watch the video directed by Pierre Petit, with the help of Filip Rzedzicki, below:

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

Scout Gillett – Gonna Change

Scout Gillett was born in Missouri, cut her teeth in Brooklyn and now finds herself in LA, a fact which seems to inform her second full-length Tough Touch. Released back in March via Slouch Records, the album presents a sense of unfolding momentum, pitching the listener into the ongoing journey of its creator and the heady of mix of experiences which result, making for a sound that’s not afraid to show uncertainy or fragility but always holds an assured confidence too. As though in keeping in motion, Gillett intentionally confronts difficulty and thus enables a sense of constant growth. The fittingly titled single ‘Gonna Change’ is a good place to start, possessing both the vulnerability and soulful swagger that is present across the record, as well as a hard won wisdom that quits fighting against the current of change and instead goes with the flow.

Its always gonna change
Nothing stays the same

Tough Touch is out now via Slouch Records and available from Bandcamp.

Sweetbreads – Ben

Following on from January single ‘Punisher of Love’, which we described as “an exploration of [the] contemporary rat race, delving into the weight of expectations and self-sabotage which results,” Melody Stolpp’s Sweetbreads is back with a brand new track ‘Ben’. Displaying both the storytelling and sincerity which has become a staple of the project, the song is decidedly bittersweet, yearning for the titular character with equal parts bright fondness and melancholic longing. “It’s my one and only unrequited love song,” as Stolpp explains. “Looking back, it feels like a sweet little time capsule for a very rough year. Now I see it as a tribute to my younger self and to all the naive hearts who find themselves in complicated situationships.”

Ben / Satisfy is out now and available from the usual places.

wAHb – Still

wAHb is the self-described “Post Americana” project of Laramie, Wyoming-based songwriter and musician Caleb Bristol and various collaborators. Originally intended as a vehicle for an exploratory, noise-based style of music which drew on sounds from everyday life, wAHb has gradually evolved towards a more considered brand of folk, though the spirit of the earlier era remains in the atmospheric layering of samples fleshing out the arrangements. As latest album Whiteman shows, the result might be born in the country western tradition, but is quick to separate itself from its forebears, losing all the nostalgia and kitsch romance of the genre in favour of something altogether more raw. Take opener ‘Still’, playing as if it has been dug up from someplace deep out on the Wyoming plateau, or else picked up on a lonely radio, its wavelength unknown. A transmission of which Molina himself would be proud, restrained in tone yet weighed by the ache of a lifetime of small heartbreaks.

Whitmer Thomas – Candy Corn

If you’ve spent some time in front of a screen large or small in recent years, chances are you’ve come across Whitmer Thomas, be it in hit films such as Weapons and Friendship, shows like Big Mouth or his own HBO comedy special. But aside from being an actor and comedian, Thomas is also a musician. He has put out a couple of joyously tongue-in-cheek releases which possesses his comic spirit while preserving a sense of earnestness, never descending into parody. Nowhere is this clearer than on ‘Candy Corn’, Thomas’s brand new single and first with the good folks at Fire Talk. A playful but sincere depiction of youth in all its chaos and vulnerability, wrapped in the latent wistfulness present within any act of retrospection. The song comes complete with a suitably zany video, including guest appearances from Joe Pera and Cameron Christopher:

‘Candy Corn’ is out now via Fire Talk and available from Bandcamp.

Winter – hollow (mixtape version)

We last wrote about Brazil-born, New York-based songwriter Samira Winter, AKA Winter, last summer with the release of full-length Adult Romantix via Winspear. “A record concerned with all the pain and potential within a major move in life,” as we described, “evolving the shoegaze/dream pop styles introduced on 2022 debut Some Kind Of Blue with everything from Elliott Smith-esque acoustic emotion to the concision and texture of Rather Ripped-era Sonic Youth.” With a new project on the horizon, Winter has returned with ‘hollow (mixtape version)’, a reimagining of the closing track from Adult Romantix which hints at the future direction of the outfit. Because while the original offered a cloudy, ethereal four minutes, enveloping the listener in its hazy shimmer, the mixtape version is charged with an entirely different energy. A song succinct and bound by forward motion, clocking in at almost half the length of its twin sister yet no less atmospheric for it.

Watch the video directed by Sophie Hur below:

‘hollow (mixtape version)’ is out now via Winspear and available from Bandcamp.

The post Weekly Listening: July 2026 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

With the release of Clipping only weeks away, Special Friend have returned with the title track to further whet our appetites. Crafted around the skeleton of a guitar loop, the single still carries the lo-fi pop DNA which so marked the duo’s previous releases, though extra guitar lines lift the song above this style, and a marked change of tempo two-thirds of the way through expands the emotional landscape of the sound too. Factor in Siracusa’s lead vocals and Ahleson’s light harmonies and the result is yet more evidence of the evolution of the Special Friend project.

Watch the cameoscope video filmed by Jules Vandale and edited by Erica Ashleson below:

Clipping will be released via Howlin’ Banana Records and Skep Wax on the 20th March and you can pre-order it now.

The post Special Friend – Clipping appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Hot on the heels of acclaimed full-length Animal Poem, a record which earned its place among our favourites of 2025, Portland, Oregon-based songwriter Anna Tivel is returning with collection of b-sides from the same recording period to further expand the world and themes of the album. “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,” we wrote in our preview. A song which “pairs a relaxed rhythm and poignant tone with something urgent beneath the surface, a loneliness hurried by the violent pressing of time.” Ahead of its release, Tivel has now ‘Memphis’, another track loaded with equal parts tender emotion and shining intensity, its characteristically nuanced narrative painting life as something so bright it hurts. “I started writing ‘Memphis’ on an airplane after meeting an electric-eyed ex-convict heading to an evangelical gathering in Tennessee,” Tivel explains. “He was magnetic, ecstatic, possibly manic, and so in love with life. He got me thinking about the things we reach for when reality is too painful to accept.”

This Lonesome Paradise – Changelings

“A meditation on the American Dream with all its brutality, broken promises and betrayals.” That’s how we described This Lonesome Paradise‘s 2024 album Luna Nocturna, an almost McCarthy-esque picture of the West in all of its stark and haunted weight. Now E. Ray Béchard and co. are back with Death Motels, a brand new record on Bad Vibes Good Friends which looks to further this aesthetic, positioning the project as one working slightly outside of time with a sound that conjures a mythic past while always facing forwards. Take single ‘Changelings’ and its accompanying video, a brooding, Lynchian number as dark as the night itself, playing like some black mass out in the desert, looking to communicate with some other place or time.

Death Motels will be released on the 12th March via Bad Vibes Good Friends and you can pre-order it now.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys – Damp

With the release of new album Pale Bloom fast approaching via Unique Records, Berlin-based outfit Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys have unveiled latest single ‘Damp’. “Like most of what I write, it’s about a desire for depth and connection,” Kruger writes of the track. “A kind of quiet mocking of the mundane and domestic. The first verse reflects that polite culture of not saying what you mean, of being too afraid to ask for what you need in case you seem too much, or expose the mess of falling apart. There’s a wanting, though—to give in, give up, or simply to give.” This sense of wanting is made palpable across the song, both in terms of the simmering, taut urgency of the sound and the longing loaded into Kruger’s vocals, and the result is equal parts uneasy and mournful. The sad discomfort of revealing a deep part of oneself without knowing if anyone is even looking.

Watch the video below, created by long-time collaborators DTAN (Berlin) and Gaussian Studios (Amsterdam):

Pale Bloom will be released on the 13th February via Unique Records and you can pre-order it now.

MacGregor Burns – The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Released to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the original, MacGregor Burns has unveiled his own reverent version of Gordon Lightfoot’s classic ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’. An impromptu endeavour recorded in a single take, the song sees Burns stick close to Lightfoot’s process, eschewing embellishment or ostentation to keep the focus on the voice. Not an exercise of reinterpretation but devotion. An attempt to channel the spirit of the original and bring it forward fifty years, something which extends right down to the artwork itself.

‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Otracami – Please

We last featured Otracami back in 2023 with the release of touching the stove coil, an album which saw Camila Ortiz confront the past in all of its minutiae with equal parts foreboding and longing. “A strange mixture of pain and pleasure,” marked the record, as we described. “Approaching something which will almost certainly hurt, yet glows alluringly all the same.” Such tension between conflicting states continues on Otracami’s new full-length Runoff , set for via Figure & Ground this spring, as highlighted by lead single ‘Please’. The track uses samples and field recordings to add layers of depth to a full band arrangement, a style which speaks to the album’s concerns with the dynamic between restraint and release. “I was trying out leaving for the first time—people and jobs and situations with family,” Ortiz describes of the period in which the album was written. “It was real trial and error—sometimes that really worked and felt liberating and other times I had to turn around and go back. It was a period of big experimentation.”

The Pretty Flowers – Came Back Kicking

This spring will see the release of Never Felt Bitter, a brand new full-length from The Pretty Flowers, and the LA indie rockers have never sounded so urgent. Written within a city (and wider country) shaken by turmoil, be it the unprecedented wildfires or equally tinderbox political moment, the quartet found themselves driven by the surrounding atmosphere, the anxiety and chaos of their surroundings seeping into the tracks themselves. “There’s a sense of urgency, fear, and confusion in these songs,” explains drummer Sean Johnson. “Like each one might be the last song we write, or this might be the last album. If anything, it’s the most present we’ve ever been.” Lead single ‘Came Back Kicking’ introduces the style, embracing an almost Japandroids-esque momentum to not only burn through the upheaval but offer enough affirming energy to suggest we might be able to stand up to the things which want to drag us down.

We went walking under black skies
We wore out the terrain
It may have taken billions of years
But it had to happen sometime

And you can take it apart or you can blow it up
Either way don’t let it eat you up
Sucked you in to get a better look
And you came back kicking

Richard Walters – Rafts

Created as part of an artist residency for the Solent Seascape Project and the Blue Marine Foundation, Songs From the Solent is a new album from songwriter Richard Walters. The eight-song release incorporates field recordings from the local area, voices from Solent communities (sea swimmers, artists, visitors and more) and contributions from a stellar list of collaborators including Isle of Wight native Jeremy Irons to flesh out its folk sound. The result is something fundamentally rooted in place. Indeed linocut artist Angela Harding has made a bespoke illustrated map of the Solent, highlighting the locations which inspired each track, which will appear on the Solent Seascape Project website. Exploring the decline of migratory birds and featuring samples from Hayling Island nature reserve, lead single ‘Rafts’ shows just how evocative and uplifting this style proves to be.

Watch the video filmed and edited by Matt Jarvis below:

Songs From the Solent is out now and available from the Richard Walters Bandcamp page.

Robber Robber – The Sound It Made

Back in November, we wrote about ‘Talkback’, the fist single from Robber Robber since they signed with Fire Talk. “A song which doubles down on the spontaneous, impulsive style of the previous record,” as we put it, “[Nina] Cates’s vocals spiralling over the wiry rhythm like the contents of a racing mind blown up and projected onto a wall.” Now the Burlington, Vermont outfit has unveiled new album Two Wheels Move the Soul, and have shared opener ‘The Sound It Made’ to further introduce the sound. The record has roots in turmoil, born in a period after a landlord called for the longtime home of Cates and drummer Zack James to be demolished, and sets out to map the experience of living in a world beholden to the whims of the cruel and greedy. As you might expect, the result is chaotic, foreboding and often abrasive, and ‘The Sound It Made’ throws the listener right in from the off. “All systems go again / Will it ever stop?” Cates asks at one point, her delivery carrying the deadpan cool of someone who knows the ways of the world all too well. “Don’t know / Don’t think so / Don’t know what we’ll do if not.”

Watch the video below, by director Wes Sterrs, producer Emilie Silvestri and director of photography Jeff Griecci:

Two Wheels Move the Soul will be released on the 3rd April via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it now.

Sister Wanzala – Don’t Be Good To Me

Following on from ‘Now You’re Mine‘ and ‘Winter Dominos‘, ‘Don’t Be Good to Me’ is the third and final part of a loose trilogy of singles from London’s Sister Wanzala. And it might just be the most surprising track from the project to date, the outfit having made a name with a wry, tongue-in-cheek humour now turning their attention to that most terrifying of things: earnestness. Which isn’t to say the self-deprecation of previous releases has evaporated. The song explores the mystifying sensation of another person extending their kindness towards you, despite all the evidence you have collected to prove you could never deserve such a thing. Yet despite the subject matter, the song proceeds with a sensual swagger, proving that no matter how many times love might make a fool of you, there’s no harm in trying to look cool.

Snake Orange Cake – Vision

Snake Orange Cake, the new project of Åland-born, Berlin-based artist Julia Carlsson builds upon the electronics of previous project leoblu with spoken-word poetry and a newfound narrative focus. After singles ‘Hair‘ and ‘Animals‘ (a track “embedded within a nocturnal, slightly unreal space,” we wrote of the latter, “[dissolving] any distinction between the organic and the digital, as well as the line between waking reality and dreams”), Carlsson has returned with new single ‘Vision’. A self-described “hypnotic ritual in sound” which functions something like an incantation or mantra, the vocals repeating a series of mystical images as though hoping to conjure some mystical effect. The pulsing beat only furthers the mesmeric vibe, leading the listener into a space somehow adjacent from every day reality.

Watch the video by Maren Frey below:

‘Vision’ is out now via the Snake Orange Cake Bandcamp page.

Special Friend – Breakfast

Consisting of Erica Ashleson (drums, vocals) and Guillaume Siracusa (guitar, vocals), Franco-American duo Special Friend, have been making minimalist, lo-fi indie pop since their formation in 2018, releasing an EP and two albums in the process. Now the Paris-based outfit is back with Clipping, a brand new full-length with Howlin’ Banana which finds the Special Friend sound as rich as it has ever been. Drawing on folk, slowcore and krautrock influences, it opts for a newfound layer of attention and polish to the mixing. Single ‘Breakfast’ gives a taste of what is to come, an infectious track on our eroding attention spans which stays true to the band’s lo-fi origins with a delightful camcorder video.

Clipping will be released via Howlin Banana Records on the 20th March and you can pre-order it now.

Sweetbreads – Punisher of Love

“The perfect antidote to the breakneck bluster of the world we call home,” was how we described Out of Range by Sweetbreads back in 2022, an EP which followed its protagonist on her “quest to resist the thankless treadmill of modern living, opting for an unproductive and entirely more positive way of life.” The latest Sweetbreads release sees lead Melody Stolpp continue their exploration of this contemporary rat race, delving into the weight of expectations and self-sabotage which results. Pushing these ideas of further, comedian Clare O’Kane directed a video to accompany the track, casting fellow comedian Nick Naney as a humanoid rat pursuing Stolpp and her partner through the streets of New York. “We wanted to externalize that feeling of being chased by your own worst impulses,” as Stolpp explains. “What better way to do that than with a literal rat man running through Brooklyn?” Watch below:

‘Punisher of Love’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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There is a repeated line, a single word refrain, in ‘The Glow’, the new song from Aïda Mekonnen Caby, which you may have some trouble comprehending. Fjaðrárgljúfur is the name of a canyon in south east Iceland which Caby and her partner visited in the early days of their relationship, and the landmark’s cinematic majesty leaks into the song’s very DNA, transforming a gentle indie folk song into something rich with widescreen emotion. It also represents something of a new dawn. For one, it is the opening track of the debut Aïda Mekonnen Caby album, Mais Uma, which comes out at the end of August via Mtn Laurel Recording Co. But also because the trip that inspired it and the feelings it evokes marked a turning point in Caby’s life too, one which saw her move first to Portugal and then to France. Mais Uma promises to explore this period of personal change and all its associated heart swells and aches, illuminated throughout with that sense of wonder at newfound love.

Dead Tooth – Song of the Weak

Led by New York-based songwriter Zach Ellis, self-described ‘rodeo-core’ outfit Dead Tooth have made a name crafting an atmospheric and often slightly chaotic brand of post-punk, combining the brooding shadow of the genre with raw energy. With their self-titled debut out now via Trash Casual, Dead Tooth have shared single and opener ‘Song of the Weak’ to introduce their work to the uninitiated. A song full of volatility and bite, Ellis’s vocals spiking with frustration as though driven half-crazed by the constant motion beneath him, or else how it never seems to lead to anywhere new. “In so many words [the song is] about struggling with cyclical destructive decision making,” Ellis explains. “Choosing hedonism over looking in the mirror. I’ve spent many years in NY on what feels like a hamster wheel of trying to fill a void or chase some kind of unattainable self/other. A song written for the darker times that in retrospect I feel have eaten too many years of my life.”

Dead Tooth is out now via Trash Casual and available from Bandcamp.

Living Hour – Wheel

Winnipeg’s Living Hour have announced Internal Drone Infinity, their fourth record, which will release later this year. What the band themselves have coined “yearn-core”, their style combines slowcore, indie rock and dream pop into something shaded by the gauzy texture of memory. The record was in part inspired by lead Sam Sarty’s time as a cinema projectionist, and it exists in a similarly otherworldly setting, its dark backdrop illuminated by a wistful glow as the band express what they call “the quiet magic hidden in everyday life.” To celebrate the announcement, Living Hour have unveiled lead single ‘Wheel’, which shows off both the dreamy yearn and crunchy rock sides of their sound very nicely.

The track comes complete with a video by Leigh Lugosi and Brett Ticzon, which you can see below:

Internal Drone Infinity will be released on 17^th October via Keeled Scales, Paper Bag Records (Canada) and Beloved Records (Australia). Pre-order a copy now from the Living Hour Bandcamp page.

Malena Zavala – MELT

Born in Argentina and now living between London and Mexico City, Malena Zavala is a self-taught musician and producer who first caught attention with her 2018 debut, Aliso. Drawing inspiration from both Latin American music and the likes of Devendra Banhart, Beach House and Feist, Zavala’s music layers poetic lyrics over hypnotic and haunting instrumentation. Latest single ‘MELT’, the first single from an EP of the same name that comes out later this year on Zavala’s own new label Paraná Records, is a good example. A soft and cosy love song that Zavala says tries “to express the feeling of being wrapped up in bed,” it’s built on gentle acoustic guitar and her hushed and intimate vocals and accentuated by ethereal harmonies and subtle synths.

‘MELT’ is out now via streaming services

Oh, Rose – For Art

Almost a year on from their last full-length Dorothy, Olympia/Portland mainstays Oh, Rose return in September with For Art, a brand new EP released via the good folks as Antiquated Future Records. The EP finds the band’s members in the midst of some big personal events, like getting married and starting families, and perhaps understandably this has them ruminating on family and relationships. As the label put it, the EP focuses on “themes of long-term commitment and partnership—both in romantic and platonic relationships, as well as to artistic practice itself.” Oh, Rose have released the title track by way of introduction, an unhurried and heartfelt song that captures these themes perfectly. “At first I feel so nervous to be this vulnerable,” Rose sings with courageous clarity, “it’s true that I was thinking about you.”

Routine Caffeine – Green Glass

“A track which marries a taut central rhythm with a dreamy haze, and hints at a sharp bite too, all highlighting just how much control Katie O’Brien Kelley (vocals, guitar), Madison Elizabeth Case (bass, synth, background vocals) and Emma Treganowan (drums) have over the mood of their work.” So we wrote of Routine Caffeine‘s ‘Philodendron‘ back in 2024, a track taken from the Louisville-based trio’s Weeds Under Concrete Stones. Their first release since that EP, new single ‘Green Glass’ is no less evocative, again crafting an immersive atmosphere to explore themes of nostalgia, belonging and the passing of time. “This song has served as a way for me to reflect on my family’s old farm in Michigan, one of my most treasured places,” they explain. But more than a lesson in simple longing for home, the track also charts the changes to the beloved place which accumulate with every return, adding an extra layer melancholy as the familiar slowly shifts into something different, and the past only grows further away.

runo plum – Lemon Garland

Minnesota singer-songwriter runo plum has slowly amassed a following over recent years, her detailed, wistful style of bedroom folk winning plenty of attention online. Having now signed with the ever-impressive Winspear, plum has released new single ‘Lemon Garland’ to celebrate. The first taste of forthcoming debut album patching, the song embodies the fondness and compassion of the runo plum style, as well as the longing for connection which underpins it. “Give me company / barefoot and muddy,” as she sings, “give me pointing / at the birds we’ve never seen before / we’ll stop to pick some veggies / for the big feast at our friendly table.” The result is inherently bittersweet, a hopeful vision of the future shadowed by the suggestion such community remains just a dream, though the lasting feeling is one of affection. As though it wishing for something so simple and fulfilling, runo plum shows our desires need not be so far away.

Watch the video directed by Karlee Boon below:

patching will be released soon via Winspear.

Scree – TV Sometimes

Brooklyn experimental maestros Scree return next month with August, a brand new full-length on Ruination Record Co. The band—that’s primary trio guitarist/composer Ryan El-Solh, bassist Carmen Quill and drummer Jason Burger, plus lots of guests—are hard to pin down, smashing together everything from Romantic classical music, dusty lonesome Americana, improvisational jazz and weighty indie rock to create some of the most interesting and deep instrumental music around. Scree released the title track as the lead single a few weeks back, and have now returned with a second cut, the enigmatically titled ‘TV Sometimes’. The song has been part of the band’s live repertoire for years, and here it gets a richer arrangement with contributions from the cast of collaborators. “It’s something like a love song,” El-Solh describes. “I probably should’ve chosen a more generally intelligible title, but at the time there was really only one person I was trying to reach with this bit of code and she got the message so the title stuck.”

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Gathering momentum after a string of appearances at some of the biggest festivals in the UK (Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds among them), songwriter cathy kio has released a brand new single ‘Last Goodbye’ to reinforce her burgeoning reputation. Crafted with a spare acoustic arrangement and kio’s signature heartfelt vocals, the song digs deep into the aftermath of a relationship in all of its tenderness and longing. A track poignant, aching and not entirely without fondness, looking to salvage all the good from the time now gone while recognising the need to walk away.

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

Clutter – Jesus

Consisting of Hilda Ander, Emma French, Ove Jerndal and Ville Scott, Clutter is a new project out of Stockholm who cut their teeth in the underground Swedish scene but now look set to make waves further afield. Their debut 7″ single, Jesus/Holy Brother, out via via PNKSLM Recordings, underscores exactly why the band have risen to prominence so quickly, offering a noughties-inflected shoegaze style that’s able to sound heavy and playful simultaneously. ‘Jesus’ is a great example of the aesthetic, pairing existential lyrics and grungy guitar with an infectious sense of forward motion, showing Clutter’s ability to pack a punch while still having fun.

Watch the video shot and edited by Majken Bergman with animations by Henry Ander below:

Jesus/Holy Brother is out now via PNKSLM Recordings and available from Bandcamp.

The Convenience – I Got Exactly What I Wanted

The Convenience‘s 2021 debut Accelerator introduced a colourful, endlessly inventive brand of funk-inflected pop, but while follow-up Like Cartoon Vampires continues the imaginative style, the sound is very different. Because, following their artistic intuition, songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Nick Corson and Duncan Troast have pivoted towards new genres, the album reaching out towards post-punk, noise rock and drone in its search for something different. Single ‘I Got Exactly What I Wanted’ shows the wiry menace of this version of The Convenience, though beneath the shadowy mood lies something just as curiosity and playful in its craft as anything the duo have released to date.

Like Cartoon Vampires is out on the 18th April via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

country girl – field day

Back in September we wrote about country girl, describing how single ‘i like that’ tapped into a nostalgic vibe to paint a picture of real fondness. “The nineties aesthetic adds a fresh, wide-eyed quality to the sound,” we wrote, “creating an ode to a significant other as voiced from the heady early days.” With debut EP out now via FADER Label, country girl is back with the equally warm and affectionate ‘field day’. Another song which finds itself reflecting on the joys of a rose-tinted past, looking to preserve that sense of possibility and fun in the face of life’s inevitable progression. Watch the video directed and edited by Emma Callahan below:

meet me at the fountain is out now via FADER Label.

Gum Parker – Two Subarus

Gum Parker is a new project out of Portland, Maine who are preparing to release their debut album The Brakes this spring on Repeating Cloud. Playing what they describe as “jangly songs” about “small disappointments and occasional wins,” the outfit draw on the considerable DIY history of its members to create good old-fashioned indie rock. Lead single ‘Two Subarus’ embodies this spirit both in style and theme, combining unapologetic nostalgic with a sense of momentous immediacy. “This one is thinking back on my first serious band, which would have been in the early 2000s,” songwriter Galen Richmond explains. “Everything was always just teetering on the edge of falling completely apart and it was the most exciting thing ever. It’s easy to be sorta rose-colored thinking back on that time so I’m making fun of myself for it while I totally indulge it.”

Lutalo – I Figured

We featured Lutalo‘s album The Academy several times last year, admiring how the Vermont-based singer-songwriter delved into their past with such intention and fearlessness. Released via Winspear ahead of a headline tour, new single ‘I Figured’ might not have quite made the cut to be included on the record, but it again shows how evocative Lutalo’s blend of rock and folk aesthetics can be. “Heard your train just holler / I just cussed your collar,” goes one of the verses, typifying the smouldering mix of drama and romance across the track. “You say I should come through / I know I shouldn’t want to / I know I shouldn’t but I want // You.”

Watch the video by Noah Lenker below:

‘I Figured’ is out now via Winspear and available from Bandcamp.

Molly Ganley – Who Are You

With debut album Eldest Daughter coming this March, songwriter Molly Ganley has unveiled brand new single, ‘Who Are You’. Another example of her warm, heartfelt brand of folk which celebrates the work previous generations have done to create and preserve a more hospitable world. “It asks the fundamental question: ‘Who are you to say?'”—who gets to make the call that women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and climate action are unimportant, and that millions will suffer due to lack of legislative protection?” Ganley explains. The result is born of both love and defiance, promising to take up the mantle of our forebears to fight for the future we deserve.

naya mö – outsider

“Draws on the grunge and alt-pop of the nineties and the soaring indie rock of the mid 00s, resulting in something that sparkles with possibility despite being coated in gritty fuzz and shadowy reverb.” That’s what we wrote of naya mö‘s previous single, ‘wanderlust’, back in November, and the latest track from the French artist is no less atmospheric. The second single from a forthcoming EP, ‘outsider’ again taps into a gauzy shoegaze style to create an enveloping sense of loneliness, though is charged with enough energy to face this darkness with a steely defiance. “The EP is about the ghosts that haunt my mind and body. Good and bad, dark and light, love and fear,” naya mö explains of this duality. “Shadows of memories, ideas, regret, people linger in my head. I wrote songs about them and drench them in distortion, reverb and fuzz.”

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

OHYUNG – no good

You might know Lia Ouyang Rusli as the composer behind soundtracks such at that of Julio Torres’s Problemista (A24), but they also produce what is described as “experimental and political” under the moniker OHYUNG. Taken from the upcoming OHYUNG album You Are Always On My Mind, latest single ‘no good’ is every bit as cinematic as any of LOR’s scores, enlisting director and designer Day to create a video capable of furthering the song’s portrayal of a quest of self-actualisation. The album itself uses a vivid, trip-hop-inspired sound to chart the process of gender transition, and ‘no good’ explores the strange dualities which accompany such a process, where the desire to become the person you are supposed to be is matched by no small sense of fear. How do we feel when we achieve the very thing we want the most?

You Are Always On My Mind is out on the 28th March via NNA Tapes and Phantom Limb and you can pre-order it now.

Pit Pony – Vacancy

With new LP Dead Stars due for release next month via Clue Records and EMI North, Newcastle‘s Pit Pony have returned with ‘Vacancy’, a track full of wry humour and cutting energy which sets its sights on the cultivated perfection of social media. “My news feed is full of suggested videos of people telling me my life will be better if I buy some leggings or get the ‘off menu’ Starbucks drink. I love an iced coffee as much as the next person but there’s a whole culture of people driving in nice cars drinking coffee and sitting making videos in carparks that I can’t get my head around,” explains lead Jackie Purver. “I feel like it’s opening a black hole somewhere that we’re all going to be swallowed into—a vacancy—like a Dorian Gray painting on a mass scale. I want to derail it, to take things in a different direction, to make it messy.” The song makes good on this wish with a building momentum, resulting in a chaotic crescendo that punctures the fictitious illusion through sheer disordered passion.

Dead Stars is out on the 7th February via Clue Records and EMI North and you can pre-order it now.

since torino – transatlantic flight song

Sheffield‘s since torino are preparing to release their debut EP in the coming months, and brand new single ‘transatlantic flight song’ serves as the ideal introduction to the band for anyone unfamiliar with their work. Opening with a restrained hush, the song sets out a quiet, reflective mood, combining organ and murmured vocals to create an easy meandering fondness, and gradually develops to push the mood further. First with glitched guitars and eventually sweeps of violin, all working together to create a song which aches with the fondness of nostalgic contemplation.

‘transatlantic flight song’ is out now, and you can find since torino at the usual places.

william h. travis – unfuck my mind

Described as “a moniker for a person and a group of friends from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,” william h. travis makes an empathetic brand of folk which walks the line between fondness and disaffection. As such, latest track ‘unfuck my mind’ could be something of a theme tune for the project. A song delivered from a jaded person stuck within the awful present, though nevertheless pining for a return to something more curious and joyful. “Candy cigarettes, big league chew were fantastic / now I can’t even drink water without the microplastic,” as a typical verse goes. “Is it the world or is it me, it’s the two of us probably.”

Zoe Firn – Forever New

The latest single from Brooklyn songwriter Zoe Firn, ‘Forever New’ is a song about the enduring nature of love drawn from an experience of that very thing. The song “is inspired by my grandparents, who were married for over 50 years until my granddad passed last October,” Firn explains. “According to gramgram, she and granddad are together in every life, past, present, and future.” Written from the perspective of her grandmother, the track illuminates this romantic idea further, serving as both a highly personal picture of a treasured relationship and a wider embrace of the hope and joy. “Told the grandkids how we met / in every other past life,” as one verse goes. “Distance never did keep us apart / on earth and I believe / that neither does time.”

The post Weekly Listening: January 2025 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

To close out the year, Mark Trecka has unveiled one final single from the album, ‘New Panthalassa’. Trecka originally recorded the track aged twenty, as part of the song ‘Panthalassa’, though revisits it here as a method of both processing of past traumas and celebrating the friendships and collaborations which have persisted across the years. An Heap appeared on the original and Tesnow joins again, helping build a bed of vintage drum machine, tapes, synth and bass guitar above which Trecka’s crooned vocals soar.

Fool Signals is out now and available from the Mark Trecka Bandcamp page.

Photo by Olivier Nemnom

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“I wanted to write a record that I needed to hear in high school.” That’s the mission statement behind Blvck Hippie‘s Basketball Camp, a new album coming in June on The Record Machine. Backed by Casey Rittinger (drums), Tyrell Williams (bass, backing vocals) and Joe Kyle (guitar, talk box), lead Josh Shaw weaves elements of indie rock, dream pop, post-punk, jazz and emo into a sound as inventive as it is immediate, reflecting on past loneliness with with equal parts sympathy and catharsis. Lead single ‘Streetlights’ introduces the style by musing on a particularly low moment some years previous. “Oh how I wish things could have been different / Why can’t I be what you need?” they sing in the closing refrain, Shaw’s delivery maintaining its sincere yearning quality as the backing vocals descend into desperate yelps.

 Glom – Below

Based in Brooklyn by way of Washington, DC, Glom have established their weighty yet accessible blend of alt and indie rock across a number of releases, managing to repurpose the dark and heavy vibes of the genre into something textured enough to wrap around yourself for comfort. Ahead of a tour later this spring, the band are back with ‘Below’, a new single which furthers this style. A meditation on getting older which takes heart in accepting there might never be a moment where you become the person you always imagined. “I was 29 and creeping up on the next decade of my life, a decade where I thought I would have it all figured out,” they explain. “A year and a half later, I don’t have it “all figured out” and probably won’t for another few years, but the cathartic release of the final chorus illustrates me being ok with the fact that my journey won’t have all the answers I’m looking for right away.”

‘Below’ is out now and available from the usual places. You can find tour dates on the Glom website.

Kyle Andrews – Old Fashioned

“Somebody told you / You were nothing / Why was it easy to believe?” So asks ‘Old Fashioned’ the new single from Wisconsin-based songwriter Kyle Andrews. Having released his first album on Badman Recording Company back in 2006, Andrews went on to set up his own label Elephant Lady Records and put out a string of releases over the years, always sticking to his DIY bedroom recorded roots while pushing the possibilities of such a set up to new heights. Subsequent singles and their accompanying videos have won accolades from the Guggenheim, triggered mass participant water fights and launched cameras hundreds of thousands of feet into the air on a weather balloon. But for all the viral success of such ideas, it is the songwriting which has been the constant, as displayed on the new single ‘Old Fashioned’. The song lands on the reflective, wistful end of Kyle Andrews’s pop-inflected folk style, though is shot through with the kind of authenticity and warmth which has come to mark his every release.

Watch the video filmed and edited by Andrews himself below:

Grab ‘Old Fashioned’ now from Bandcamp.

Membra – Always Blue

The recording project of Brooklyn-based composer, sound designer and filmmaker Ned Porter, Membra utilises the full diversity of its creator’s artistic sensibilities to create experimental pop songs at once intricate and intuitive. Described as “a musical terrarium,” the appropriately titled debut Membra album Blocks of Color Blocks of Sound welcomes the audience into a miniature world which reveals itself in increasing detail the closer you look. Take single ‘Always Blue’, which on the surface can be enjoyed as a left-field pop number, though any listener willing to peer deeper will be greeted with a teaming environment of found sounds and tape loops, elements Porter expertly tessellates into something beyond even the sum of its many parts.

Molly Drag – Dogfight

Michael Charles Hansford’s Molly Drag has been writing atmospheric, often melancholic songs for almost a decade now, first appearing on VSF back in 2015 with Deeply Flawed and more recently in 2019 with album Touchstone. The latter saw a chink of light pierce the project’s gloomy mood for the first time, something subsequent albums have built upon while maintaining the original Molly Drag spirit. Out next month on I’m Into Life Records, new full-length Mammoth represents the next step in this evolution, as highlighted by lead single ‘Dogfight’. The lyrics are full of the visceral emotion and deep yearning which has long marked Hansford’s intimate style, but are delivered here against a sound charged by bright shimmering momentum. What results is a track again centring on raw emotion and suffering, but one which refuses to be buried by the accumulated weight of life, instead reaching towards the surface in search of reprieve.

Mt Fog – Drifting

Described as “a creation of love and a response to the world’s chaos and absurdity,” Seattle‘s Mt Fog employ a combination of folk, pop and electronic styles to conjure the antithesis of such disorder, welcoming the listener into richly woven soundscapes as a kind of safe harbour. With new album ultraviolet heart machine coming soon, the band have unveiled new track ‘Drifting’ as an early taster, and the track is indicative of Mt Fog’s ability to merge the earthly and ethereal. Or rather to position the earthly as its own kind of ethereal space, offering the natural world as a place to escape into and revealing the magic and healing potential therein.

My Dear Companion – These Words

Gothenburg‘s My Dear Companion is the recording project of Lea-Marie Sittler (Lea & The Loved Ones), Agnes Åhlund (Glitterfittan) and Hannah Shermis (Eldstorm), but listen to the way the trio’s vocals coalesce on new single ‘These Words’ and you’d be forgiven for thinking they had merged into single force. A tale of love and loss timeless in its themes yet full of the immediacy of yearning, each of the trio draw from the same well of emotion so as to collapse the space between them. The result is warm and fond and loaded with nostalgia, affirming with the knowledge that such sadness is omnipresence for us all.

‘These Words’ is out now.

Sofia Bolt (ft. Stella Donnelly) – Bus Song

Next month France-born, LA-based songwriter and producer Sofia Bolt will release new album Vendredi Minuit via Born Losers Records. Building upon the nostalgic tones introduced on debut full-length Waves and subsequent EP Soft Like a Peach, the record sees Bolt employ a hazy, reflective tone to explore her relationship with time—from the small personal moments which shaped her to the wider familial and historical forces which mould us all. And if Vendredi Minuit is a tour through the decades, then latest single ‘Bus Song’ encapsulates the theme most directly, inviting the audience onto an LA bus to contemplate life as it passes by the window. Welsh-Australian favourite Stella Donnelly lends vocals too, and the result is a careful balance between tension and catharsis as the taut vocals find release in the chorus’s languid rhythms.

Watch the video by Will Evans below, including Arthur H. Virtue’s footage as part of the Al Larvick Conservation Fund:

Vendredi Minuit is out via Born Losers Records on the 10th May and you can pre-order it now.

TESHA – Come Down

TESHA has made a name crafting evocative and often strange pop sounds, with Growing Pains II channelling the likes of Fever Ray to offer something “ethereal yet rooted in personal suffering” and singles such as ‘Like a Man’ seething with anger both personal and political. Latest single ‘Come Down’ is no less striking, simmering with a latent energy which collapses the difference between sensuality and rage. The final third sees something of a pivot in tone as the momentum decelerates into a languid croon, though the mix of allure and danger at the track’s heart never quite fades away.

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

The post Weekly Listening: April 2024 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Picture this: there’s a big house at the end of the street. When you walk past it, you can’t tell if it’s full or empty. Its two caretakers—who, to add to the uncanniness, wear crimson suits—clean the house, inspect it, and carry out headcounts. Sometimes they only count themselves. Sometimes they count hundreds of people. They don’t know why this is the case, why the house has so many rooms and stories: it’s not their job to know. One day, as you walk past, a void enters and the house explodes. What happens to what’s inside? What impact does it have on your memory?

With Horror Vacui, 9T Antiope paints such a world in all of its strange wonder and dread, evoking the titular fear of empty spaces while simultaneously interrogating exactly why nature abhors a vacuum. The result could be said to teeter on the edge of something—the line between memory and amnesia, growth and decay or order and chaos—but equally there’s a sense of remove. As though the record were a liminal space captured and preserved, a place outside of the ordinary delineations, free to shift as it sees fit. Latest single ‘Mount 22’ presents the style in all of its mysterious weight, where the surface’s fine detail is disturbed by a simmering weight stirring below.

Horror Vacui will be released on 12th April via American Dreams and is available to pre-order from the 9T Antiope Bandcamp page.

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