“An introspective view on shame,” was how we described ‘Wave’ from Annie Schultz‘s It Bends Until It Breaks, released via Trailing Twelve Records back in 2023. A song which paired Catholic guilt with a more ecstatic aspect of religious imagery to rise through darkness towards something almost triumphant. Now Schultz is back with ‘MIS’, a similarly evocative track that picks through self-destructive tendencies in something like a lament, swapping guitar for organ to further amplify the sorrowful atmosphere of the Minneapolis-based songwriter’s work. “With ‘MIS,’ I wanted to move away from the guitar-based formula I’m used to,” as Schultz explains. “I filled the song out with Casio organ patches, layered harmonies, and a double bass arrangement, which I later realized was a subconscious influence from songs like ‘Oh Well, OK’ by Elliott Smith.”

‘MIS’ is out now via Trailing Twelve Records and available from the usual places.

Bleary – bug

If Bleary‘s new single ‘bug’ seems to carry a notable sense of depth, then it is with good reason. Featuring on the Nashville group’s full-length Little Brain, coming this May via yk records, the track is part of a larger body of work that was first developed prior to the pandemic. Callan Dwan, Peter Mercer, Taro Yamazaki and Luke Fedorko pushed these songs further in their home studio during lockdowns, before taking them to Joshua Ditty and Mike Purcell to record them in their final, sumptuous form. As ‘bug’ attests, this long gestation period bears real fruit. The Bleary sound packs an emotional punch with its combination of soaring energy and considerable heft. A wall of sound in the truest sense, yet one which boosts the listener up so that they might see further over its height.

Exam Season – Dreaming of a Dog

Ringwood indie pop band Exam Season formed in 2016 and, despite releasing a series of singles and EPs, have never put out a full-length record. That is, until now. The four-piece, Ed Watson (guitar/vocals), Jack Laurilla (guitar), Louis Kneale (bass) and Toby Matthews (drums), have unveiled their first new song in over five years, and with it the promise of a debut record sometime in 2026. You will have to be patient for news on the record, but single ‘Dreaming of a Dog’ should tide you over just fine. It’s a love song, though not exactly a saccharine one. Instead the narrator addresses his significant other and their lives together with all the imperfections left in. “We’re two shards of glass, with a key piece missing,” as he puts it in the final line, “We both feel like dying and that’s what keeps us living.”

The Foot & Leg Clinic – Where did all the fruit go?

Glasgow-based self-described ‘wonk-rockers’ The Foot & Leg Clinic (FKA The Wife Guys of Reddit) are gearing up to release new album Sit Down for Rock and Roll via Bingo Records next month, and the album promises to be something of an inflection point for the band. After a difficult few years of illness, bereavement and general unpleasantness, the quartet (Niamh R MacPhail, Arion Xenos, Angus Fernie and Elise Atkinson) saw the opportunity to re-examine their methods of working and lean into the constraints brought about by change. “We were kind of forced to work at a slower pace, but probably for the better of the final product,” MacPhail explains. And Xenos agrees: “It still feels eclectic, but it’s a little bit more focused. We definitely thought about this as an album project when working on it, as opposed to other things before.” Any fans worried something might be lost in the process need not worry, because lead single ‘Where did all the fruit go?’ finds the band as idiosyncratic as ever. Although the song perhaps represents a newfound sincerity for The Foot & Leg Clinic, some earnest attempt to communicate fighting through the chaotic energy to make itself heard.

GREBE – Insurance

A melting pot of slowcore, shoegaze, alternative and indie rock influences, GREBE‘s 2025 debut EP If You Squint It’s All Soup established the dynamism and versatility of the Atlanta outfit, and now a year later they are ready to let loose full-length Hell Diver to build upon these beginnings and capitalise on the momentum. Coming in April via Indecent Artistry and Rope Bridge, the album sees Kade Whitlark (vocals, rhythm guitar) Logan Neely (guitar) and William Gunnin (drums) match attention to detail with raw energy, practising a tried and tested quiet-loud dynamic to achieve songs of considerable size and cathartic potential. Take ingle ‘Insurance’, a track which simmers with promise before sparking to life periodically, a sound which matches the radical conflagration that’s suggested in the lyrics.

Hell Diver will be released on the 17th April via Indecent Artistry and Rope Bridge.

Hockitay – over/over

Born in Guatemala and now based in Montreal, Hockitay won serious attention with the EP slo mach back in 2025, the release straddling bedroom pop, slowcore, R&B and electronic styles to explore a present moment marked by exhaustion and alienation. Out via Future Gods, latest single ‘over/over’ builds upon these foundations to conjure another very contemporary sound. One where loneliness and restlessness overlap, that curiously digital phenomenon where even an empty room can now be overwhelming. The lyrics dig further into this online world, probing at questions of performance and authenticity (“I haven’t had an opinion / Since high school,” Hockitay sings on one verse. “I wear the jersey / But I’ve never seen them play”), and the result plays like an urgent plea from an otherwise numb persona.

‘over/over’ is out now via Future Gods and available from Bandcamp.

The Montvales – Carolina

Touring in the wake of their successful 2024 album Born Strangers, Knoxville folk duo The Montvales (songwriters Sally Buice and Molly Rochelson) found their journey coincidentally align with the path of a solar eclipse, every stop filled with people gathered for the once-in-a-lifetime event. But that was not the only notable event unfolding at that time—genocide was taking place in Gaza, student protests were being violently quelled in the US, war dragged on in Europe and the cost of living kept on climbing. New album Path of Totality emerged from this period, a picture of an America seized by a variety of spectacles, and haunted by the possibility of a second term Trump. Ahead of release new month via Free Dirt Records, The Montvales have shared single ‘Carolina’, and the single is indicative of the compassionate, unapologetically political brand of songwriting which marks the record. “Written in the wake of Hurricane Helene, ‘Carolina’ explores the creeping feeling that late-stage capitalism has left us with very few places that still feel safe,” Buice explains. “A testament to the folks who forge ahead in beauty.”

Path of Totality will be released on the 20th March via Free Dirt Records and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Nic Panken – Dear Companion

You might know Nic Panken as the lead of Brooklyn folk outfit Spirit Family Reunion, though he has also recorded solo under his own name in recent years, putting out a variety of singles. This spring sees the release of Near Divine or Merely Rhyme, Panken’s debut full-length which makes good on the promise of the initial releases. He enlisted an enviable ensemble of guests to bring the songs to life, with Mat Davidson (Big Thief, Twain), Ken Woodward (Buck Meek, Sam Evian), Austin Vaughn (Cassandra Jenkins, Cass McCombs) and David Christian (Karen O, Curtis Harding) all appearing, alongside others, and the result is every bit as rich as such a line-up suggests. Take the earthy warmth of lead single ‘Dear Companion’, the arrangement wrapping around Panken’s reflective, wistful vocals and elevating the cryptic lyricism into something stirring. “What began as an afterthought became a central part of this record,” Panken explains. “After working through the first batch of songs I brought in, more material was needed, and on a whim I shared an early sketch of an idea with my co-producer Jared Samuel. He grabbed a pair of scissors, directing me to cut out each line, shuffle them all up and piece together something new. In the end we added just a few lines to weave it together, and found a wonderfully mysterious place for it all to land.”

No Spinoza – Airport

The recording project of York-based musician, poet and artist Thomas Pearson, No Spinoza has made a name with an inventive, often conceptual style of music which is more than happy to jump between genres. After Maxim, an album of nursery rhymes recorded together with Drew Worthley, No Spinoza is now preparing to release brand new full-length Jupiter’s Great Hurricane, and lead single ‘Airport’ shows the record is no less ambitious or thought-provoking. “Before leaving for the airport I asked Saint Anthony: how then should I live my life?” Pearson sings in the opening lines over a brooding post-punk/art-rock sound. “He replied: Have no confidence in your own righteousness, your virtue.” The track takes off from this point, continuing its philosophical musings while transporting the listener high above a stark desert landscape via a combination of taut drums, shimmering synths and jazz-adjacent playfulness.

Jupiter’s Great Hurricane will be released soon.

The Same Sky – What’s Left

Based in Montreal and founded by Joseph Simon, The Same Sky is an indie rock outfit which takes elements of shoegaze and post-punk to create what they have labelled ‘outsider pop’. With full-length Haunting in the Mountains coming this April via Casa Joven, The Same Sky have shared new single ‘What’s Left’ to introduce this style. A track where dreamy textures meet an almost mechanical sense of forward motion, and the growing momentum is punctuated by intermittent squalls of noise. Thematically, the single borrows imagery from Greek myth, namely The Odyssey, to explore the experience of a break-up, and the result sits between the real and the fantastical. A voyage forward into the unknown which seems to be both emerging and sailing towards tragedy.

Wendy Eisenberg – Old Myth Dying

Last month we previewed Wendy Eisenberg‘s self-titled album, forthcoming this spring with Joyful Noise Recordings, noting the significance of an experienced, endlessly inventive artist deciding to put their own name as the title of the release, “as though for the first time willing or able to put forward a halfway static vision of themselves within the maelstrom of change.” Indeed, Eisenberg has said the album emerged from a period of self-confrontation, something they liken to “a personal exorcism,” and the result promises to be their most personal and daring record to date. Following the golden classic folk sound of ‘Will You Dare‘ and the Lynch-inspired ‘Meaning Business‘, Eisenberg has now shared new track, ‘Old Myth Dying’. “I wrote ‘Old Myth Dying’ in early 2024 during an insane fever,” they explain. “Although I knew I should have been trying to sleep it off, I wanted to see if I could do this polyrhythmic thing in my right hand and sing over it. Historically, practicing has allowed me to forget that I have a body that feels pain—I disappear into the action, in pursuit of becoming beauty. This time, my lyrics came out straightforward and wary, blunter than usual. They revealed a different pain I was feeling, the pain of actually knowing what you can and can’t control, and what inherited myths have been lies designed to control you all along.”

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“At some very basic and intuitive level, [Will] Kennedy taps into the stuff that’s really important. Getting lost in the present, side by side with those you love.” That’s how we described ‘Bird Sanctuary’, the first single from 22° Halo‘s new album Lily of the Valley, coming this November on Tiny Library Records. The single introduced the style with experience of the natural world, but new track ‘Virtual You’ shows such feelings are not unique to the great outdoors. As the title suggests, the song delves into cyberspace and the abundant nostalgia it offers. But rather than finding melancholy in those old photographs of cherished moments now past, the song is delivered with something brighter. Wistful, yes, and not immune from a certain sense of longing, but always with an overarching gratitude that such times happened at all.

Chris Acker – Shit Surprise

“The most beautiful and poetic song about stepping in dog shit that has ever been written.” That’s how label Gar Hole Records describe Chris Acker’s ‘Shit Surprise’. The first track from upcoming album Famous Lunch, the song is an ode to the cosmic justice which so often comes attached to vanity. How those walking a little too tall will inevitably get slapped down again. Behind Acker’s trademark absurdity is the essential troubadour tale, where the confused dreamer collides with the banalities of life and comes to feel cursed for his failings. And, most importantly, the tongue-in-cheek style sacrifices none of the track’s emotional weight, positioning Acker alongside the likes of Dean Johnson as one of the most authentic and interesting practitioners of contemporary folk.

Watch the video directed and edited by Cooper Kenward with animation by Anubha Gupta below:

Famous Lunch is out on the 11th October via Gar Hole Records and you can pre-order it now.

Liv Greene – Katie

Described as “a reckoning with reality, a vulnerable snapshot of hard-won self-acceptance,” Deep Feeler is the forthcoming full-length from Nashville songwriter Liv Greene on Free Dirt Records. The product of a decision to finally embrace a truer self within her work, the album sees Greene cease attempts to bury personal truths, reframing songwriting from an escape mechanism to a kind of spotlight. Belonging to a rich lineage of songwriters going back through Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch and others, the album emerges defiant in its unguardedness, finding healing within the act of revealing one’s core. New single ‘Katie’ is a great example of the style. A lesson in how learning to be oneself can lead to objective good. “This came out of a relationship that wasn’t my first queer love experience,” as Greene explains, “but it was my first time allowing it to not be a bad thing. It comes from a place of tenderness—of allowing yourself to feel those romantic feelings and really revel in them.”

Deep Feeler is out on the 18th October via Free Dirt Records and you can pre-order it now.

Lutalo – Oh Well

Last month we featured two new singles from Lutalo‘s upcoming album The Academy, coming soon via Winspear. A hint at the spectrum of moods present on the record, with ‘The Bed’ offering a bright folk sound and ‘Broken Twin’ something altogether darker. Latest track ‘Oh Well’ splits the difference between the two, marbling heavy reverb with an almost transcendent falsetto to evoke Lutalo’s teenage years in Minnesota, a time set against the backdrop of his mother’s mental health challenges. What results is a spectrum of emotions packed tightly together, where confusion and desperation sit alongside fondness, and a crushing weight is always threatening to overtake everything.

Molina – Organs

This October Danish–Chilean composer Molina will release debut full-length When you wake up via Escho, an album which looks to in some way transcend the rush of contemporary living via a committed awareness of life’s small details. Thus emerges a layered brand of dream pop which eschews the nostalgia so common for the genre in favour of a close attention to the present. Latest single ‘Organs’ sees ML Buch lend their talents to push this sound further. A song “very much a fusion of our individual approaches to perceiving melodies, recordings and sound in general,” as Molina explains. “We are both fascinated by the ‘pulse’ in music and how a song can be perceived to move at different paces. We also share a mutual attraction to catchy melodies. ML tends to unfold words with the melody in an elastic manner, while I prefer more on-the-note vocals that introduce unexpected harmonic shifts. ‘Organs’ kind of holds all those elements of fascination and exploration together.”

Sam Weber – Tamarindo Sunsets

In recent months we’ve previewed the Clear + Plain, the new album from Vancouver Island-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Sam Weber, first with the evocative ‘Oregon‘ and later the warm and relaxed ‘Void‘. “But while the languid tone might suggest a track of romance and intimacy,” we wrote of the latter, “the lyrics paint a more ambiguous picture, where mortality flashes into view with an unnerving abruptness.” With the album out now via Sonic Unyon Records, Weber is back with new single, ‘Tamarindo Sunsets’. A song about “staring into the digital abyss and being confronted with greener and greener grass,” as he explains. “Reckoning with what it means to find that beauty, peace, satisfaction in your heart.”

Clear + Plain is out now via Sonic Unyon.

Soot Sprite x Muttering – Burn The Leaves

Hot on the heels of recent single I Went Swimming / Home Among Your Bones, which we described as “a refusal to romanticise difficult relationships, a determination to learn lessons and live more healthily,” Soot Sprite are back with For Joy, a new collaborative EP with London‘s Muttering. Again released via Specialist Subject Records, the three-song release sees Elise Cook and Chaz Bush share songwriting duties, with Bush taking the reins for first single ‘Burn The Leaves’. A weighty and cathartic examination of the past inspired by J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country, drawing on the novel’s bittersweet retrospection on a time which could not last. “We all have certain anchor points that you look back on,” Bush explains. “Memories that hold significance and in difficult times often hope to rekindle. The thought of what could have been.”

This Lonesome Paradise – These Western Roads

With forthcoming album Luna Nocturna, California psych-folk outfit This Lonesome Paradise conjure a world worthy of their name, drawing the listener into a sonic environment as stark and striking as the American West of Cormac McCarthy’s oeuvre. Lead single ‘These Western Roads’ offers a path into this landscape. A dark and brooding slice of country noir which simmers with equal parts beauty and foreboding. But more than a lesson in cinematic worldbuilding, the album serves as a meditation on the American Dream with all its brutality, broken promises and betrayals. A project doomed from its very inception, destined to always be haunted by the means in which reached for its goals.

Luna Nocturna is out on the 18th October via Bad Vibes Good Friends and you can pre-order it now.

Why Bonnie – Three Big Moons

“Foregoes easy pigeonholing in terms of style, unified instead by the defiant new self-confidence which underpins it.” That’s how we described Wish On The Bone, the new full-length from Why Bonnie coming later this week on Fire Talk Records, in a preview back in June. A style fitting for the new philosophy of lead Blair Howerton, who is looking to escape preconception and expectation to embrace the freedom of constant change. Take latest single ‘Three Big Moons’, where the old Why Bonnie country twang is repurposed to tell an old story in a different way. Themes of loneliness and isolation are keystones of the genre, but here the dusty roads and full moon heartbreak are swapped out for something altogether more extraterrestrial.

I was a heavy weight
Out there in space
Took one for the team
And took a swan dive into nothing
They pinned a note to my collar
It said “we couldn’t save her”
And dropped down the american flag
Like it was a favor
Walked around a few earth hours
Until my feet got sore
Found a nice big crater
24 by 24

Wish On The Bone will be released via Fire Talk Records on 30th August and is available to pre-order via Bandcamp.

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The recording project of Oakland-based illustrator and lettering artist Kyle Benson, Company Vacation uses music as a way to delve deeper into the everyday, and in doing so invites the listener to notice and appreciate the magic in the small details. Out at the beginning of Feruary, new album Okay Headspace feels like the culmination of these ideas, and succinct single ‘I Have a Little Room in My House’ serves at the nostalgic, buoyant prologue. “As a kid, I dominated the family computer. It was steroids to my tiny brain,” Benson explains. “My parents kept it opposite the TV, centrally located in the family room, to keep anyone from using it to look at porn. Having a computer room felt like the luxury of the rich.”

Lately, I’ve been feeling small
But I feel a whole lot cuter
When I play computer

I have a little room in my house
it has a chair and a desk
it’s where I get on the Internet

Watch the video below, with animation by Jared Clark Gay and illustration by Benson himself:

Okay Headspace is out on the 9th February and available to pre-order now.

 Creekbed Carter Hogan – If I Was

With a self-titled album on its way Gar Hole Records, Austin songwriter Creekbed Carter Hogan has released single ‘If I Was’ to introduce their unwavering style of folk. The record sees the trans artist both catalogue the past and confront the present, with Hogan searching for ways to survive and find community in a society which too often seems to have been built to prevent such endeavours. “If I was a loaded gun / You might / Treat me better,” they sing, hinting at the defiance which sits at the heart of their work, an anti-capitalist song which yearns for something more.

Watch the video directed by Jordan Moser below:

Creekbed Carter is out via Gar Hole Records on the 22nd March and you can pre-order it now.

Den Der Hale – Donkey Skin

With their evocative blend of psych, folk and post-rock, Sweden‘s Den Der Hale established themselves as a mysterious force back in 2019 with EP Harsyra, and having now signed to FatCat Records, forthcoming album Pastoral Light looks set to build upon these foundations to paint a bleak picture of humankind’s decimation of the natural world. After the foreboding simmer of Bela Tarr-inspired ‘Horse From Turin’, the five-piece are back with new single ‘Donkey Skin’. A track which draws on the seventies animation of the same name to create an ethereal sound at once alluring and dangerous, doing for French fairy tales what Lankum do for Irish folk tales.

Hatis Noit – Jomon

Having featured in David Lynch’s Manchester International Festival showcase in 2019 and appearing in Rick Rubin’s Showtime documentary series Shangri-La, Japanese voice artist Hatis Noit released the superlative debut album Aura on Erased Tapes in 2022. “Words cannot describe everything we feel,” she explained in the liner notes. “How can one accurately verbalise the sensation we feel when we’re a newborn and our mother holds us in her arms, and we feel her skin on our cheek […] Music is a language that can translate that sensation, feeling, the memory of love.” The description goes some way to describing the album’s tactile, enveloping sound, one all the more impressive for the fact that it is conjured exclusively from Noit’s voice, looped and layered into entire worlds. Made with Berlin-based Taiwanese-Japanese media artist NAOWAO, the new video for the single ‘Jomon’ brings this to life even further, matching the almost shamanistic sound with visuals every bit as mystical, collapsing the apparently divided spheres of human, natural and spiritual experience onto a single plane.

Aura is out now via Erased Tapes and available from Bandcamp.

Kaia Kater – The Internet

Born in Montreal and now based in Toronto, Kaia Kater makes music inspired by Canadian folk music, her father’s Grenadian heritage and the Appalachian music of her college years in West Virginia. Planning to release a new record sometime in 2024, Kater kicked off the year by releasing a new single, ‘The Internet’. A bright and tumbling folk song, it captures the strangeness of communicating with loved ones at a digital remove, replacing physical proximity with a stream of ones and zeros pinged around the world via satellites and fibre optic cables. “I can only talk to you through the Internet,” Kater sings, “in bits and in bytes and right angles.”

Large Brush Collection – Arm’s Length

Back in September we wrote a preview of Off Center, the forthcoming record by Austin folk rockers Large Brush Collection. “The band combine intuitive rhythms with intricate detail to conjure soundscapes able to explore the most personal of things,” we wrote, impressed with their ability to explore thorny issues with nuance and tenderness. The album comes out at the end of the week, and in anticipation Large Brush Collection have unveiled one last single. Titled ‘Arm’s Length’, it is perhaps the most important track of all. “This was the first song I brought to the group when Dan (Magorrian) and Gaby (Torres) and I began playing together,” describes songwriter/bassist Nora Predey. “And we all really connected over it. In a way, I think it became the foundation of the band.” With Torres’s flute and snaking melodies, the song ebbs and flows between dreamy and anxious, floating along sedately before rupturing with stabs of stormy guitar and clattering percussion.

LOUD HOUND – Comet

The project of New Jersey singer-songwriter Tommy Florio, LOUD HOUND is a project that crafts polished pop songs made emotive and interesting with lo-fi guitar and introspective lyrics. Following last year’s album It’s Okay To Be Lonely Part II, LOUD HOUND has returned with a brand new single ‘Comet’, which exists at the quiet, melancholy end of Florio’s stylistic repertoire. This is due to the circumstances in which it was created. “[I] rented a house in the middle of the mountains of Pennsylvania so I could clear my head after the most gut-wrenching break up,” Florio describes. “I needed to isolate myself from the world to understand what just happened and process my emotions so I could slowly get back to myself.” But it’s not all hushed heartbreak, Florio’s tired voice reaches out for hope and healing, and the energetic electronics that support the chorus suggest they might be on the horizon.

Lutalo & Claud – Running

‘Running’ is a joint single between Vermont-based songwriter Lutalo and Brooklyn’s Claud, a song which lands at the super catchy sweet spot between indie rock and pop. Both artists released records last year, Lutalo with AGAIN on Winspear (which we described as “blend of folk, rock and soul which…critique capitalist and racist systems”), and Claud with Supermodels on Saddest Factory Records, both of which established them as some of the freshest new indie pop talent around. The new single is no different, an upbeat, driving indie pop song which explores a tricky relationship with a domineering parent. It comes complete with a video directed by Eleanor Petry which sees the pair act out this relationship in a beautifully warm and grainy seventies colour palette.

‘Running’ is out now via Winspear. Listen via streaming services and purchase a download from the Lutalo Bandcamp page.

Sam Evian – Wild Days

If the soulful psych pop of 2021’s Time To Melt saw Sam Evian embrace a retro aesthetic, then forthcoming album Plunge sees the New York songwriter take things to a whole other level. Carved from the lush pop that marked the seventies, the record is written from the perspective of Evian’s parents, tracing a story of love in all of its complexities and complications. A team of friends including Liam Kazar, Sean Mullins, El Kempner (Palehound) and Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief) all offered their talents, following Evian’s orders to keep things fun and immediate. “No-one knew the songs or what the plan was,” he explains. “We kept it loose and fun. This was the spirit of the sessions. No headphones, no playback, minimal overdubs, or bleed. Fast and loose.” Lead single ‘Wild Day’ gives a glimpse as to what to expect from the album, where the nostalgic haze is leavened by the spontaneity of the process.

Watch the video by CJ Harvey below:

Plunge is out on the 22nd March via Flying Cloud Recordings/Thirty Tigers and you can pre-order it now.

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Brooklyn-based musician Alexei Shishkin is about to release new record Goodbye Sunrise on Rue Defense, and latest track ‘Froze Up’ serves as an entry point for those unfamiliar with his jazz-inflected pop rock style. With sax and even some neo-soul elements working their way into the mix. Offering direction to the album’s title, the song conjures not so much a bright dawn as a tropical city night. An open-topped car ride through neon-lit streets, perhaps the last people awake and feeling easy with it, as though with a little luck and not much effort the night might just stretch on forever.

Long nights
fast cars
the city bars
are closed up
and I froze up

Corey Gulkin – Half Moon

“How were we before this?” sings Corey Gulkin on the title track of their upcoming LP Anything Bagel. “Was it all so simple?” The album sees the Montreal artist delve into the fully intricacies of the self, disavowing any clear intention or conclusion in favour of something more natural and kind. “I wanted to engage with parts of myself that I was most afraid of and let them speak their mind, without shame or judgment,” as Gulkin explains. “This album overall feels like both a coming out and a coming into myself.” Watch the video for the single below, filmed and directed by Nasuna Stuart-Ulin, with special effects by Dustyn Lucas:

Half Moon is out on the 6th October via on Anything Bagel and you can pre-order it now.

goodgrief – two wheel drive

Be it in his solo work or through bands like Young Elk and The Slow Sound, the music of Ezekiel Rudick always packs a punch of the darkest kind. Songs which reluctantly set out into the shadowy realm of the past through all the lurking traumas, sometimes emerging with some sense of catharsis and others nothing but bitterness. With love birds, the latest record from his solo project goodgrief, coming this September on Rue Defense, Rudick has shared new single ‘two wheel drive’. A continuation of Rudick’s new mission statement to make “happy-sounding sad music” which blends the 90s shoegaze of Low with a Bazan-esque earnest-yet-forthright delivery.

Lee Baggett – All Star Day

“Like a long-lost seventies summer jam complete with a surreal slacker spirit which captures that easy-going West Coast swagger.” That’s how we described ‘Fruit Dog‘, a song from Lee Baggett released last summer. The track captured the spirit of Baggett’s work, having played in various bands in California since the eighties, eventually meeting fellow musician and surfer Kyle Fields and playing with Little Wings and the Be Gulls for going on two decades. With new album Echo Me On coming next winter on Perpetual Doom, Baggett is back with ‘All Star Day’, and the song might just capture the vibe even better than the last. An embodiment of those perfect summer days you had in your youth, and a reminder that such carefree bliss is still available for those willing to search it out. “The song came to me in my head already done,” Baggett explains. “I couldn’t even bend it a little bit.”

Mali Velasquez – Tore

Described as “a perennial introspection into the wild animal of young adulthood,” Mali Velasquez’s forthcoming LP I’m Green on Acrophase Records explores everything from grief to the trials of toxic relationships, though above all works to acknowledge how our biggest critic so often comes from within. Lead single ‘Tore’ takes on self-judgement directly, looking to overcome the unrealistic barriers and expectations we create for ourselves with a mix of gentle compassion and heartfelt catharsis. “‘Tore’ is a song mostly about my own way of self-sabotaging,” Velasquez says. “I have no idea how to combat being embarrassed all the time still, but explaining it some has helped. Being comfortable in my skin is something that feels out of reach a lot of the time. I put a lot of my ideas of not knowing how to feel or what to do or eat or wear into this song.” Check out the video directed by Reed Schick below:

I’m Green is out on the 13th October via Acrophase Records.

Middle Priest – Act Your Age

LA-based outfit Middle Priest are gearing up to release their debut EP, I thought that I was far away, very soon, and have unveiled their very first single to give an indication as to what to expect. Led by Raleigh native Colson Dorafshar, the band offer a bright and emotionally charged sound that lands somewhere between the rich, country-inflected rock of the likes of The Wooden Sky and probing resonance of someone like Sinai Vessel. “How long must I wait for you?” Dorafshar asks in the opening lines. “How long ’til you’re ready to / come home, talk it out? I am a man now, don’t be a child, no / I’ve been missing you.” The song proceeds from this opening, the sound ebbing and flowing as Dorafshar questions and pleads with this significant other. Though no clear answers emerge, there’s nevertheless something affirming in the bright momentum of the sound.

POSTDATA – Try

Though better known as lead of Canadian rock royalty Wintersleep, Paul Murphy has also developed a solo career under the moniker POSTDATA. With new full-length Run Wild coming soon via Paper Bag Records, Murphy has unveiled latest single ‘Try’, and all the elements which have made him such a prominent songwriter in Canadian independent music are present. From his distinctively searching vocals to the melding of pop and idiosyncratic sensibilities, this time to paint a picture of a frustrated musician driving themselves onwards, regardless of whether the terminus is a brighter horizon or total breakdown. “I think this is about following your passion wherever it leads,” Murphy explains. “There’s a sense of humour I think to it and a sense of lightness and darkness and desperation too. Essentially, they are the same lyrics in verse 1 and 2 with a slight twist in perspective or that’s what I’m trying to arrive at.”

Run Wild is set for release on the 22nd September via Paper Bag Records and you can pre-order it now.

Viv & Riley – Kygers Hill

Viv & Riley, AKA Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno, is a Durham-based duo preparing to release new album Imaginary People later this year on Free Dirt Records. The record combines pop, indie folk and traditional country sensibilities to evoke the nuances of nostalgia, and opener and lead single ‘Kygers Hill’ serves as the ideal intro to the sound. It’s a song based around Leva’s experiences returning to her childhood home of Virginia after moving away for college, and how new perspectives of such familiar places can emerge with distance and time. “It’s about missing your old home while trying to make a new one.” As Leva concludes. “It’s about growing up.” Watch the video directed by Leva and Calcagno themselves below:

Imaginary People is out on the 15th September via Free Dirt Records and you can pre-order it now.

Your Heart Breaks – Do you dare to dream with me? (feat. Wynne Greenwood)

We’ve shared a number of pieces on The Wrack Line by Your Heart Breaks in recent months, describing how the album functions as a version of title image, with Clyde Petersen detailing “a lifetime of friendships, feelings and memories, broken free of a gyre and left upon the artists’ shoreline.” Across eighteen tracks and with guest appearances from the likes of Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, R.Ring, Kimya Dawson, and Nana Grizol‘s Theo Hilton, The Wrack Line details not only a life spent on the margins, but also the community which Petersen chose to build there. With the album now out via Kill Rock Stars, final single ‘Do you dare to dream with me?’ invites the audience into this project of building a better world. The dreamily triumphant tones and Wynne Greenwood’s vocals convincing us that the impossible can be brought to life, if only we retain a sense of defiance and imagination.

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Hailing from Montana and now based in Nashville, songwriter Ava Swan combines pop and country sensibilities into something capable of elucidating personal feelings while capturing the alarming state of the world. Latest single ‘Oh My’ focuses on a more hopeful side of this style, exploring how good things can and do happen no matter how bleak the wider picture. It’s song written after a period of depression during the first years of the pandemic which learns to appreciate the small joys amid fear and monotony, ultimately embracing the notion that the worst is not always going to happen.

The mineral mother of all that we know
Covers everything in sight
And quietly she whispers in an ancient voice
“Anyone can fall in love at any time”

‘Oh My’ is out now and available via Spotify.

The Burning Hell – All I Need

Back in June we mention Garbage Island, the latest album from Mathias Kom’s The Burning Hell on BB*Island. Making “everything from tongue-in-cheek anti-folk to racing indie rock,” Kom and co. offered what we described as “a bright and mischievous ode to a pre-apocalyptic world.” Now the outfit has teamed up with Joe Nicolosi for a brand new video for the track ‘All I Need’ to further develop these themes, producing what’s been described as “a cross between WALL-E, Blade Runner and The Brave Little Toaster.” And if that sounds like a bizarre blend of the playful and dystopian, then Nicolosi has done his job. Welcome to The Burning Hell.

All that I need is just you and the sea
And some food and fresh water and something to read,
An endless vista, the fancy pen I got for my bar mitzvah
And a semi-decent pair of water skis:
That’s all I need

Garbage Island is out now and available from The Burning Hell Bandcamp page.

Cinder Well – Two Heads, Grey Mare

This coming April sees the release of Cadence, the new album by Amelia Baker’s Cinder Well. The record promises to build on Baker’s signature stark and doom-laden experimental folk, leavened with more expansive arrangements that evoke the early 70s heyday of LA’s Laurel Canyon. Indeed, California, where Baker grew up, is one of two coastal focal points of the record. The other is her adopted home of Country Clare in Western Ireland, a region whose folklore inspires lead single ‘Two Heads, Grey Mare’. It’s a song about the shape-shifting selkie (a seal able to shed its skin to become human) and the mysterious ancient power of the moon and the tides. Watch the video, made by Jordan Carroll in the Peak District, below:

Cadence will be released via Free Dirt Records on 21^st April. Pre-order it now from the Cinder Well Bandcamp page.

DM Stith – Doomed!

Taken from forthcoming LP Fata Morgana on Historical Fiction Records, ‘Doomed!’ is the latest single from DM Stith, a track which finds the singer-songwriter in new terrain. Written after moving from Brooklyn to Rochester on the shore of Lake Ontario, the song feels suffused with fresh perspective and creative clarity. “Where am I?” he asks in the delicate opening line, before answering himself, “I wandered upstate rising up / evaporating out of my life.” Stith’s music has always held a diaphanous quality, but here the airiness feels more effortless than melancholy, Thomas Bartlett’s production adding an impressionistic elegance. That said, as the title suggests, ‘Doomed!’ is not without anxiety. It’s symptomatic of a record that, despite its lighter tone and subtle pop sensibilities, is ultimately a deep and candid exercise in self exploration.

I shed my skin all over again
All my memories and
All they represent
They hug me like a hurricane wheel
Exploring every inch of me
Hug me like I’m doomed

Esther Rose – Chet Baker

Following recent albums on Full Time Hobby and Father/Daughter Records, country singer-songwriter Esther Rose has announced Safe to Run, her fourth LP, on New West Records. Created in the last two years following a move from New Orleans to Santa Fe, the record promises to be yet another advance on Rose’s already impressive catalogue, introducing pop hooks and a newfound sense of confidence, even as it continues to narrate the messily graceful stories of a life in progress. Lead single ‘Chet Baker’ shows this off expertly—a song written from the depths of a memory rabbit hole induced by a random DM on social media, telling the story of a decade old dive bar and car crash in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Watch the video by Joshua Shoemaker below:

New West Records will release Safe to Run on 21st April and you can order it now form the Esther Rose Bandcamp page.

Floodlights – Lessons Learnt

We’ve been fans of Melbourne‘s Floodlights for a couple of years now, taken by their evocative writing and fusion of post-punk, indie rock and a subtle dusty twang. The band have recently announced a brand new record, Painting of My Time, an album which promises to be both a continuation and an evolution of their signature sound. Latest single ‘Lessons Learnt’ is the perfect illustration, adding layers of additional instrumentation to combine cathartic rock ‘n roll directness with post-punk atmosphere and the creative flair of art pop. As usual, the lyrics are both conscientious and furious, exploring themes of empty promises and recurrent mistakes that can be read at the personal level or as a commentary on Australia (or indeed the world) as a whole.

Lessons learnt, lessons forgot
How can history repeat so often?

Painting of My Time will be released on 21st April. Pre-order a copy now from the Floodlights Bandcamp page.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys – Heaving

A self-described “art pop ambient noise band” based in Berlin, Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys make music that’s full of dramatic atmosphere and enigmatic mystery. Following a trilogy of albums released over the last few years (which you can find on Bandcamp), the band have announced a new LP, titled Heaving, which promises to bring a new physicality to their sound. “I wanted this album to be less ethereal somehow,” Kruger describes. “Rooted in the depths, of my body, of my lover’s body, of the earth, where it is dark and wet […] a lot of the lyrics deal with touch, smell, taste. The body, and all it holds, imagined intimately, almost as landscape, but also for what it is.” The single and title track is a great example, a dark and magnetic piece full of disembodied sighs and distorted guitars. Watch the surreal video by Lena Nerinckx below:

Heaving releases on 7th April and you can order it now from the Lucy Kruger Bandcamp page.

Public Interest – Undone

Led by Chris Natividad (also of Marbled Eye), Public Interest are a post-punk band from Oakland, CA. Although they operate at the dense and gloomy end of the spectrum, their music has a dark and driving pop momentum that brings a glorious anarchic energy. Later this spring the band will release a new record Spiritual Pollution on German label Erste Theke Tontraeger and lead single ‘Undone’ gives a taste of what to expect. A dingy and sinuous slice of post-punk that’s full of razor-sharp guitars and pounding percussion.

Westmoreland – If It’s Over

With full-length album Latino Ballroom on the verge of release, Westmoreland (AKA Seattle-by-way-of-Texas‘s Zach Alva) has unveiled new single, ‘If It’s Over’. Written in the aftermath of losing a parent, the record is one born of grief and the long process of dealing with bereavement, and the new track highlights the grace and heart with which Alva approaches such themes. A slow, lush song of patient richness, coloured by the assured certainty of love but a sense of searching too. As though working through the maddening ambiguity of loss in all of its guises, demanding an answer one way or another.

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To celebrate the arrival of their brand new record, Embody, Hamilton’s Basement Revolver have unveiled the final single, ‘Dissolve’. We previously described how the album displays a “willingness to confront the intricacies of modern life with a newfound steel and depth,” and the new single is full of the compassion and solidarity which makes this possible. An ode to figuring things out together.

Carli & The Dark – Voicemail

Carli & The Dark is the folk rock project of Phoenix-born, Brooklyn-based songwriter Carli Naff. Latest single ‘Voicemail’ concerns losing a parent, specifically that strange half second when the urge to contact them arises out of well-worn habit, a wish to share a simple moment of a day. The song emerges from this brief period where they are still alive, still waiting, and follows it through the renewed sense of loss before culminating in a compassionate group refrain which features Naff’s mother and siblings among other loved ones. “All my peeps who grieved together,” as she puts it. “It’s a little detail that really brings me a sense of safety at the end, of being held.”

Saying my nickname in a voicemail from your car
You were there, there you are
And though you are not around,
You would love this song I found

Cinder Well x Jim Ghedi – I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Ramble

Cinder Well and Jim Ghedi have teamed up for a new two-song single, reinterpreting traditional folk ballads. ‘I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Rambled’ highlights how the pair accentuate the stark loneliness of the material with sparse arrangements haunted by foreboding drone. A song of vast distances and separation, sung into a soundscape as empty and inscrutable as the ocean itself.

I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Ramble is out now via Free Dirt Records and is available from the Cinder Well Bandcamp page.

hemlock – to carry (feat. Laith)

Described as an “interstate phone-fi bedroom folk saga of sorts,” talk soon is the full-band Chicago-based project hemlock. Latest single invites long-time friend and collaborator Laith Scherer and explores the nuances of a relationship as it changes over time and distance. A song of hushed yet heartfelt vignettes which rises toward an impassioned finale, providing snapshots of love in its various guises.

it’s okay
we carry our pain
in separate ways
on different days
but I’ll be there for you

Jeremy Squires – Drift

We’ve written about North Carolina native Jeremy Squires numerous times, an artist working in the American songwriting tradition of sharing heart and soul with generous helpings of grit and honesty. Ahead of a new album, slated for release later this year on Blackbird Record Label, Squires has unveiled a new single, ‘Drift’. It’s a song that finds him at his devastating best, built on just acoustic guitar, harmonica and vocals that quaver with both exhausted despondency and a steely inner strength. “I was sad,” he sings, “Now I’m lost / I forgot where I belong.”

Knuckle Pups – Soft Attraction

Ahead of their upcoming album, TV Ready, Denver “soda punk” outfit Knuckle Pups have unveiled single ‘Soft Attraction’. The track is an encapsulation of what such a genre entails, taking the fizzy energy of indie and adding an anarchic punk edge, though the songs are far from one-dimensional sugar rushes. Principle songwriter Oliver Holloway writes songs spread across the gamut of moods and tones, making room for earnest emotion and ironic playfulness within the same track, and as the new single shows, this often builds into triumphantly cathartic crescendos.

TV Ready is set for release sometime later this year.

Mouse – Pinned To An Avalanche

Based between Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, Mouse formed over a mutual appreciation of noisy DIY music, and thus set about making it themselves. The first single from forthcoming debut Here Was Then on Kitty Records, ‘Pinned to an Avalanche’ is all about escaping worry and doubt through some larger, consuming present, and Mouse oblige by recreating the descending wall of snow with their dense and hefty sound. Check out the video directed by the band and shot by Harley Jones:

Here Was Then will be released by Kitty Records later this year.

nudista – inasmuch

Next month sees the release of nudista’s Halfway Here EP on Sad Club Records, but in the meantime they have unveiled a new standalone single, ‘inasmuch’. The song is a great introduction to Pilar Matji Cabello and Robbie Carman’s work, a clarified dream pop which seeks to communicate directly and honestly. “It is a message to say that we are capable of evolving and moving forward even when it is scary,” as Cabello puts it, the gentle rhythmic pull drawing the listener close and compelling them onward.

Oceanator – Bad Brain Daze

April sees the return of Oceanator with Nothing’s Ever Fine, a brand new album on Polyvinyl Records and Big Scary Monsters which looks to build upon the apocalyptic themes of 2020’s Things I Never Said. Lead single ‘Bad Brain Daze’ typifies the duality of tenuous optimism and crushing pessimism which marks the record. The sound of existing within an unfolding disaster where the conclusion is still unclear, and nevertheless delivered with Elise Okusami’s characteristically triumphant energy. Check out the video directed by Chris Farren below:

Nothing’s Ever Fine is out on the 8th April via Polyvinyl Records and Big Scary Monsters and you can pre-order it now from the Oceanator Bandcamp page.

Sonic Løland – Up to You

Norwegian musician Anders Løland spent much of 2020 experimenting with styles and sounds, building up a library of ideas and demos which would form the basis of And Then The Sun Came Up, the debut album of his Sonic Løland project. Due for release this autumn via Koke Plate, the album shows off the full spectrum of Løland’s inspiration, creating a new brand of indie folk with ambient styles, electronic drums and rich 60s sensibilities, as shown by lead single, ‘Up to You’.

And Then The Sun Came Up will be released by Koke Plate this coming autumn.

Stephen Durkan – Prayer

Combining spoken word with electronic and ambient styles, Glasgow’s Stephen Durkan seems the latest in a long line of cynical Scottish preachers, bitter and sardonic yet bursting with a verbal energy. Written in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist/producer Niko O’Brien and released via Upcycled Sounds Records, his debut EP The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Ourselves both confirms and subverts this label. The anger and frustration are palpable, but beneath this lies something else. A flimsy belief in the continued value of critiquing the society in which we find ourselves, in imagining something new. Check out the first single ‘Prayer’ below:

Teen Idle – Burning

The music of Teen Idle might be an almost entirely solo endeavour recorded in a New Jersey basement, but you’d never guess it from the sound. For Sara Abdelbarry rejects the lo-fi aesthetics of many garage and bedroom acts for something more full-bodied. Take latest single, ‘Burning’, its rich sound featuring electric guitar, bass guitar, keys, synth, shaker, maracas, claps, lighter and sound effects all played by Abdelbarry, with only the drums delegated to Danny Murray. What emerges is an examination of unrequited love in all of its vivid detail, hope, bitterness and unabashed emotion rising into a huge climax.

I climbed up to the top alone
And watch the city burn below
If you won’t help me put her to rest
I’ll dig the hole by myself

The post Weekly Listening: Feb 2022 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Here is a list of songs from 2020 that we liked but didn’t get around to writing about.

If you find something you like, follow the link in the embed to support the artists and labels on Bandcamp. And of course, there is a whole year’s worth of pieces on releases we did manage to write about, so have an explore through our reviews, previews and interviews from 2020.

The post Music We Missed in 2020 appeared first on Various Small Flames.