This spring sees Dana Gavanski return with LATE SLAP, a brand new record on Full Time Hobby born of a newfound experimentality. Using Logic for the first time allowed Gavanski to work in ways previously out of reach, opening up new avenues of playfulness and invention to bring to life the full spectrum of contradictory moods which make up any person, and thus explore the sheer strangeness of being alive more fully. “This album is my take on the tension between cynicism/despair and openness/trust,” Gavanski explains. “It’s about tenderness in a world that’s constantly trying to desensitize us.”

Latest single ‘Ears Were Growing’ typifies the record’s ambiguity. A track at once buoyant, whimsical and deceptively dark which straddles a variety of competing wishes. Dreams of escaping one’s surroundings are presented in all their contradictory nature, the allure of change both thrilling and tormenting as the realisation of being stuck in reality dawns. But running counter to this frustration is a certain relief too, the sense familiarity carries its own comforts, no matter how dull or despairing that familiarity might be.

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The project of Gothenburg-based musician, producer and visual artist Lela Amparo, Amparo is an outlet for atmospheric and cinematic music that blends electronic, ambient and folk. Taken from new album Day and Night, out now on Bikiniwax Records, latest single ‘After Ours’ is a great example. Drawing on the likes of Bonobo and The Cinematic Orchestra, the song builds from simple guitar and plaintive strings into a rich, jazz-inflected track that’s thick with a sense of late-night drama and emotion. ‘After Ours’ is “inspired by a night spent in Paris before changing the course of my life,” Amparo explains. “It’s about being in the moment and knowing nothing will ever be the same.”

 Getdown Services – Cream Of The Crop

If John Cooper Clarke’s ‘Evidently Chickentown’ conjured the end days through pictures of a tedious, ruined Britain, then ‘Cream of the Crop’ by Bristol’s Getdown Services offers a new vision of the non-future. A world polished to within an inch of its life and then polished a bit harder. A stage of capitalism so late they’ve stopped updating the time on the board. Think branded boozers and no-change-from-a-tenner street food cuisine. The milieu is brought to life by shiny disco beats, though it is the conversational snark of vocalist Josh Law the grabs the attention. A figure who finds himself in a place so soulless he’s not sure whether to self-immolate or burst out laughing. Either way, he’s stuck there and so are you. Roll up everybody, Chickentown’s had a fresh coat of paint.

Jeffrey Silverstein – Cowboy Grass

Later this spring, Jeffrey Silverstein will release Western Sky Music, his second LP for Arrowhawk Records and first full-length since 2020’s You Become the Mountain. Promising an evolution of Silverstein’s cosmic brand of country, the album again features contributions from Barry Walker Jr (pedal steel) and Alex Chapman (bass), and also adds Akron/Family’s Dana Buoy on drums, as well as guest appearances from William Tyler and VSF fav Karima Walker. Lead single ‘Cowboy Grass’ is our first taste, a song with a little more dust and dirt and barroom boogie than anything Silverstein has made to date. Watch the video, directed by Austin Abbott and starring Eric DuRant, below:

Western Sky Music releases via Arrowhawk Records on 12th May. Pre-order a copy now from the Jeffrey Silverstein Bandcamp page.

Melati ESP – BAHASA BARU

With LP hipernatural coming soon on Carpark Records, Indonesian-American experimental pop artist Melati ESP has unveiled new single, ‘BAHASA BARU’. The record is notable in the way it draws on the breadth of Melati’s cultural influences to achieve its vivid sound (Javanese radio Dangdut, gamelan cassettes, Moving Shadow-era liquid jungle and Japanese chill-out are all listed as inspirations), and the new single serves as the ideal introduction to a style which exists outside of the usual categorization of genre or geography. “It’s a personal statement of intent,” Melati explains, “being comfortable in occupying the third space, and creating new ways of communicating that are tethered to intuition, empathy and understanding.” The song comes complete with a video, directed by Melati’s sister Kathleen Malay, which celebrates this embrace of otherness despite, as Melati puts it, “mostly feeling like a baby alien while growing up in Jakarta, always between two worlds.”

hipernatural is out on the 28th April via Carpark Records.

The Saxophones – Desert Flower

Released to announce their third album, coming early this summer on Full Time Hobby, ‘Desert Flower’ is the new single from The Saxophones. For the uninitiated, The Saxophones is the project of married duo Alexi Erenkov and Alison Alderdice, who make slinky Lynchian lounge music that’s dark and velvety, confronting existential concerns with a smoky sophistication. What Erenkov describes as “about avoidance and fear impeding personal growth and the deepening of relationships,” ‘Desert Flower’ is no different. Creeping and cryptic, it blends the material and the mystical, eventually swelling to emotive peaks as Erenkov’s croon gives way to radiant sax. It’s an intriguing glimpse of what promises to be a strange and sublime record.

There are symbols everywhere
signs that even I can’t deny.
Only if they aligned,
I could lift away the veil.

To Be a Cloud will be released via Full Time Hobby on 2^nd June. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Strange Ranger – Rain So Hard

Strange Ranger are a band who have been defined by a sense of self-reinvention. Winning initial acclaim within the spheres of indie rock, 2019’s Remember The Rockets saw the first shoots of shoegaze and pop influences breaking the surface, and by No Light in Heaven the following year they were entirely rebranded as an experimental electronic outfit. New single ‘Rain So Hard’, out via Fire Talk Records, emerges from this electro ground, its lush and layered sound playing as some nameless immensity above the vocals, be it a looming cityscape or wide open sky. This overwhelming scale registers as a kind of melancholy, the vocals adrift within something to large for them to navigate or control. “How do I get out of this movie now?” asks the repeated refrain, hoping for nothing more than another person to cling onto for the ride. Watch the video directed by Ben Turok below:

‘Rain So Hard’ is out now via Fire Talk Records.

Women Tied to Railroad Tracks – Fake Tans

Back in 2019 we wrote about Women Tied to the Railroad Tracks, describing the sound of their album And Levitating as “indie pop that sits in a strange space between mundane reality and freaky dreams.” With their debut record on the horizon with Anxiety Blanket Records, the LA outfit have shared the brand new single, ‘Fake Tans’. A bright summertime track loosely based on Doris Lessing’s novel The Golden Notebook, where the protagonist speaks of an encounter with a man with a crack in his personality: “like a gap in a dam, and through that gap the future might pour in a different shape—terrible perhaps, or marvelous, but something new.”

Yael S. Copeland – Pool

Having made a name fronting Borito, Tel Aviv’s Yael S. Copeland is setting out alone for her first solo release. If the Borito sound occupied a colourful, retro bracket of the dream pop/rock genre, then Copeland’s solo work turns more toward the intimate and lo-fi, having more in common with Alex G and Elliott Smith. With an album set for release later this month, latest single ‘Pool’ shows how this stripped back style is no less immersive or heartfelt, the lyrics playing like something between a daydream and a poem in their gentle reflection, the sound still managing to envelop the listener in its lush layers.

big sky
like a big pool
blue and clear
but I can’t see my
reflection when I look down here

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As well as being a part of Friendship and 2nd Grade, JR Samuels has a made a name with his experimental, improvised releases, as captured by 2019’s In Brend on Dear Life Records. “An eight-song album of improvised guitar that exists for no purpose beyond enjoyment and intuition,” as we put it. “Ambitions are dropped, artistic ideals and intent left behind, the songs allowed to flow.” Out next month on Lily Tapes & Discs, Spasm sees Samuels push further into this intuitive space, delving deep within himself and presenting whatever he finds, unfiltered and in real-time. What emerges is an at times dense, undeniably strange record, though one somehow more human for its refusal to shape itself for mass consumption. Listen to the short single, ‘Wearing a Groove’, below.

KT Laine – Again

Drawing inspiration from contemporaries like Big Thief and classics such as Judee Sill, KT Laine is a songwriter from Victoria, BC who is soon to release her debut full-length Knock Knee on Victory Pool. New single ‘Again’ is the perfect introduction to the nuance of her work, its warm fondness complicated by uncertainty, lending the track an inscrutable air which never quite reveals its hand. ‘Again’ centres on a relationship in some kind of turmoil, its pieces pushing apart, though it is never quite clear if the longing at the track’s heart wants to reconnect these parts or sever the ties for good.

‘Again’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Langkamer – Total Motion

We last featured Bristol‘s Langkamer back in May, when we wrote about their single ‘Soul Bucket’, what we described as “a bit of folk, a bit of indie rock, a ton of playful personality.” Now Langkamer have announced a brand new EP on Breakfast Records. Titled Red Thread Route, the record promises to expand on the band’s signature combination of slacker era indie rock and easy country-influenced melodies, albeit with a few surprises up its sleeve. Lead single ‘Total Motion’ is a great introduction, its twisty, loud-quiet dynamic giving way to an anthemic singalong chorus. Willie J Healey provides guest vocals, one of several guests of the EP seemingly cherrypicked from Bristol’s music scene. Check out the video by JJ Jarman and Jimmy Taylor below:

Red Thread Route comes out on 30th November via Breakfast Records. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Leggy – Lipstick on the Mic

We first covered Cincinnati‘s Leggy back in 2019, describing how the innate tension of single ‘Taffy‘ offered “a tautness that always appears on the verge of snapping.” While the rambunctious punk rock style of that track has been swapped out in favour of something more languid on new single, ‘Lipstick on the Mic’, the sense of building pressure remains. This time a sensuous combination of desire and frustration, the song sitting on the knife edge of pleasure and pain yet wrapped within a hazy shawl. A sense of remove which allows a view into the paradox of the situation even as it plays out. “I love to be alone,” as the chorus puts it, “why do I live to be in love?” Check out the suitably sultry and surreal video by Twenty Twenty Productions below:

‘Lipstick on the Mic’ is out now and available from the Leggy Bandcamp page.

Levi Thomas – Shasta

The title track of the third album from Oakland‘s Levi Thomas, ‘Shasta’ is a song seized by the sublime scale of the American West. “The neons fade / To the pink cascade / And right now I can’t feel a thing,” Thomas sings. “The sun don’t rise / Under wild skies / All the shit just starts to shine.” The revelatory experience is captured with a decidedly seventies style, equal parts classic country and cosmic psych which invites the listener into the moment, never losing control of its relaxed rhythms despite everything.

My mind left my body north on the five
And I feel like the last man alive

Macie Stewart – Defeat

Released on Orindal back in 2021, Macie Stewart‘s Mouth Full of Glass was a journey in solo creation after a career of collaboration. The sound of “an artist surveying their own inner workings through considered and open-ended exploration,” as we put it. “Leaning into solitude as a medium of discovery and learning from all that has occurred before without ever becoming beholden to the past.” The album is getting a new release next month via Full Time Hobby, and has been expanded to include two new singles. One of the tracks, ‘Defeat’, is a direct confrontation of the stresses of working with others, warning of the dangers of overcommitting and how it can end up withering the very creativity is should foster. Stewart takes on all the instrumentation on the song, with the exception of flutes from V.V. Lightbody, and sings with the calm of a lesson learnt. “Composing a word to take back the meaning,” she sings, “I promised my best and that’s not what I’m giving.” Watch the video directed and edited by Sid Branca below:

‘Defeat’ is out now and available from Bandcamp., and the expanded edition of Mouth Full of Glass is available from Full Time Hobby.

Michael Cormier O’Leary – Heard From The Next Room

To describe the work of Michael Cormier O’Leary takes some time. From the playful warmth of last year’s solo album More Light!! to the almost fragile intricacy of Hour, not to mention his work in Friendship, Cormier O’Leary spans the full spectrum between free and controlled. Out next month of Lily Tapes & Discs, new solo release Heard From The Next Room moves completely toward the former, an exploratory, spontaneous collection of improvised piano compositions recorded on a single day earlier this year. The resulting two pieces live up to the release’s title in their unguarded charm, following the haphazard rhythms of the moment without any sense of outside audience, and thereby capturing an easy comfort only possible at home. Hear an excerpt from the first below:

Volunteer Department – Swell

Back in September we wrote about ‘Make It Easy‘ by Nashville‘s Volunteer Department, the first track from a forthcoming release on Like You Mean It Records. A scathing track with vocals “barely more than a whisper,” we wrote, “almost unpalatably bitter in [its] acerbic tone.” Latest single ‘Swell’ might possess a brighter rhythm, but thanks to the wry and fatalistic songwriting, the sour tone remains. “I’ll cut my fingers off and mail them to France,” sings Oliver Hopkins, “at least then some small part of me won’t be stuck here arguing the ins and outs of something which has no shape.”

Wayne Graham – How Was Your Night?

With new album ISH on the horizon via K&F Records, Wayne Graham have shared one last single as a final taster of what to expect before release. Primarily the project of brothers Kenny and Hayden Miles, the Whitesburg, Kentucky outfit wrote a new album in the years since previous record 1% Fruit, though decided to change course for what would eventually become ISH. What emerged was something more intimate and ambitious, drawing on science, fiction and scripture to search for meaning in this strange world. ‘How Was Your Night?’ not only opens the album but poses the question which hangs over everything which follows.

Don’t you know I’m not alright?
Can’t you taste my mind?
Just trying to make it through the night,
no reason and no rhyme

ISH is out on the 11th November via K&F Records.

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Back in February, we wrote about Dana Gavanski‘s forthcoming album When It Comes on Full Time Hobby, describing the record as “more unguarded and ambitious than its predecessors.” With its delicately eerie tones, latest single ‘I Kiss The Night’ is another example of Gavanski’s commitment to sitting with vulnerability on the new record, practising an instinctive and honest examination which roots itself in the voice. It possesses a sense of hushed, late-night seclusion, that unique lonely feeling experienced only when it feels like the rest of the world has gone to bed. But far from an ominous experience, the song is “an ode to the night,” as Gavanski explains, “learning to lean into its magic, and the magic and spookiness of solitude in a winter storm.”

Fresh – Babyface

Writing of the single ‘Morgan & Joanne‘ back in December, we described a new positive side to London punx Fresh. The track, which displayed a willingness to subvert “traditional narratives to develop a truer picture of the queer experience,” held a distinctively upbeat, celebratory tone. The vibe might not always be so sunny and playful on new record Raise Hell, to be released this summer on Specialist Subject Records, but something of the brightness is retained on latest single ‘Babyface’. A song described by lead Kathryn Woods as “a cry for help masquerading as a pop song.”

FonFon Ru – Fatty Tissue Thorn

Ahead of their fourth record Collapse Of The Silver Bridge, out next week on Repeating Cloud, Maine trio FonFon Ru have shared latest single, ‘Fatty Tissue Thorn’. Barrelling headlong into the spiralling chaos of a hypochondriac mind, the track spikes its indie rock energy with an anxious post-punk needle, the building momentum falling somewhere between catharsis and catastrophe as it gathers its volatile motion. Check out the video directed by drummer Wes Sterrs below:

Collapse Of The Silver Bridge is out on the 15th April via Repeating Cloud and you can pre-order it now from the FonFon Ru Bandcamp page.

JoJo Worthington – The Divide

Based in Montreal, songwriter, composer and producer JoJo Worthington works at the intersection of pop, folk and ambient styles. Utilising an array of technological techniques to conjure songs both mysterious and intimate. Soundscapes as a kind of emotional geography. Latest single ‘The Divide’ turns its attention to the partisan nature of contemporary society, and how between the fervour and bombast of its extremes stretches a deep and lonely canyon. “You know in movies when there’s an earthquake and the earth splits open and it separates the protagonist and the love interest and then sometimes you see people fall in the gap?” Worthington asks. “[The song is] kinda about the people in the gap and trying to find a home there.”

When there’s so many delusions
When there are so many truths
Maybe I’m confused
Sometimes I don’t know what to think or do

Nancy Mounir – Khafif Khafif

Described as “a remarkable communion with ghosts,” the debut record of Egyptian composer Nancy Mounir juxtaposes its microtonal and non-metered arrangements with recordings of artists from back in history. Titled Nozhet El Nofous (‘Promenade of the Souls’), the release is in dialogue with a different era of Arabic music, one before the dominant maqam (modal systems) were established and creativity reigned. First single ‘Khafif Khafif’ highlights the blend of haunting emotion and steely defiance which underpins Mounir’s work.

Nozhet El Nofous is out on the 3rd June via Simsara Records and you can order it now from the Nancy Mounir Bandcamp page.

Panda Riot – E.S.P.

This summer sees the return of Chicago‘s Panda Riot with a brand new album, Extra Cosmic, and lead single ‘E.S.P.’ throws listeners head first into their detailed yet immediate sound. After a period of experimenting with increasingly complex guitar pedal work, the song finds the band at their most intricate, but everything is tied together by an intuitive forward motion, a sense of release which lines up with the cathartic epiphany of the themes. “‘E.S.P.’ is a song about trying to connect with someone and never quite getting there,” the band explain. “Every time you think you’ve got it, you realize you’re still passing one another by and not quite syncing up.”

Extra Cosmic is out on the 10th June and you can pre-order it from the Panda Riot Bandcamp page.

Party of the Sun – Hymns Forgot

Despite having released new EP Capsule I barely a month ago, New Hampshire‘s psychedelic folk outfit Party of the Sun are not ones to rest on their laurels. Out via Trailing Twelve Records, latest single ‘Hymns Forgot’ is the most recent in a series of monthly releases, a self-described ‘nylon boogie’ which stitches together layers of bright guitars, shuffling percussion and lush harmonies to evoke an easy springtime warmth. Lyrically, the track explores an urban life removed from the peace of the natural world, and charts this disconnect through historic cultural violence. “Was it mine to take or yours to find?” they ask, “Maybe the one who chose to give it.”

Sailing down
Never would I have come
To the land devotion lost
Giving power to a sun

‘Hymns Forgot’ is out now via Trailing Twelve and available via streaming services.

Pet Deaths – swingtime

Following their acclaimed 2019 album to the top of the hill and roll…, London duo Pet Deaths return this spring with a brand new record, unhappy ending. The release takes inspiration from the likes of Alice Coltrane and Miles Davis to conjure an exploratory and colourful sound, a kind of spiritual freedom which carries the highly personal lyricism of lead Liam Karima beyond its immediate resonance. The result, as single ‘swingtime’ shows, is often intimate and surreal, something captured in the video by photographer Kulbir Thandi and Karima himself.

unhappy ending is out on the 27th May and available to per-order from the Pet Deaths Bandcamp page.

Rose Brokenshire – Better Now

Splitting the year into summers as a firefighter and winters making music, BC‘s Rose Brokenshire has learned to embrace larger rhythms within her work. The path has seen her develop her folk style into a more ambient-based sound, something patient and compassionate gained only through experience. Looking to accept the past in all its nuanced truth, latest single ‘Better Now’ utilises this wisdom to offer a salve against suffering. As though embracing the emotional volatility of life can provide its own balm. “I wanted to make something that honoured the journey of growth,” Brokenshire explains. “Something that expressed love for both the ups and downs, the light days and dark days, and the tools I found most healing during a more desolate chapter of my life.”

‘Better Now’ is available from the Rose Brokenshire Bandcamp page.

WILDES – Woman In Love

The first new release since 2020 EP Let You Go, London-based singer-songwriter WILDES has returned with single, ‘Woman in Love’. Taking inspiration from the defiant work of artists like PJ Harvey and Patti Smith, the track confronts suppressed emotions with an unerring eye. The vocals emerge through smoky layers of the sound with a searing honesty, what begins stripped-back and taut eventually blossoming into something lush and soulful. “‘Woman In Love’ is a song of anger,” she explains. “It’s all about the façade presented by someone who isn’t all that happy, and the rage that lies under the glassy exterior.” WILDES is here to crack the glass, to feel the empowerment of release.

Bitter memories, digging up the treasure I sunk
Love your enemy, maybe you can keep them infront
How would you know what I’ve seen, what I’ve done?
How would you know I’m a woman in love?

‘Woman in Love’ is out now and available on streaming services.

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This spring sees the release of a brand new Dana Gavanski record, When It Comes, again released by Full Time Hobby. But, it represents more than the next step in the evolution of her sound thanks to a process of healing ‘lost’ vocal cords. “In many ways this record feels like it is my first,” Gavanski explains. “When I could use my voice, I had to focus so there is an urgency and greater emotional trajectory than before… it’s very connected to vocal presence, which extended into an existential questioning of my connection to music. It felt like a battle at times, which I frequently lost.”

What emerges is a record more unguarded and ambitious than its predecessors, following a strengthened trust in intuition gained through this newfound focus on the voice. Take single ‘Indigo Highway’, a Moog-centric track that captures the sincerity and playful absurdity of a dream. Not only does it push far beyond the pop structures of Yesterday is Lost, but the subject matter is equally challenging. A tribute to a childhood relationship now lost forever. Plunging back through time—through the events that followed, the changes inside and out—to return to the innocence of those days.

“From the beginning of my interest in songwriting, I’d tried many times to write about this relationship and never could,” Gavanski explains. “It felt too fragile, too fraught with experience and distant in many ways.” However faraway the time feels, no matter what came next, ‘Indigo Highway’ endeavours to return to what made the relationship special. “This song is like a prayer,” Gavnaski continues, “or a way back, temporarily, to innocence and silliness and sunshine on a field.”

when you come over
and visit me
we’ll sit by the willow tree

i’ll find your face
it’s changing in different ways
and i’m looking around to see

Check out the video directed and edited by Daisy Dickinson below:

When It Comes is out on the 29th April via Full Time Hobby and you can pre-order it now from the Dana Gavanski Bandcamp page.

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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.

Gavanski went into the record with a desire “to make something bigger, more thought through,” and the sentiment is clear in the sound. Co-produced by Toronto-based musician Sam Gleason, Mike Lindsay (Tunng, LUMP) and Gavanski herself, the album was hammered into shape by different tastes and influences, taking something new from each collaborator. However, this was balanced against the desire to retain the organic simplicity that made Spring Demos so captivating, the trio aiming to “fin[d] essential things, not overblowing, keeping things bare and letting the elements speak for themselves.”

The result is a more mature record, one which shows the development of Gavanski’s artistic vision and practice. Which is not to say it is free of uncertainty, far from it, but now such doubt is not ignored or airbrushed but embraced as a fundamental part of art and life itself. For being an artist does not mean complete dominance over one’s creations. “Transforming a burning desire into something clear and tangible is a vulnerable and delicate act,” Gavanski explains. “You have to be able to let things happen, to accept losing control.”

Such ideas work their way into the themes of the record too. Living up to its name, Yesterday is Gone is ostensibly an album about the past—how we find ourselves governed by it, longing for it or fearing it. But just as Gavanski has learn to step back from that which she cannot control in her creative process, the songs offer a new mode of thinking about the past. One in which you let go, surrender to knowledge that there is no going back, and refocus your energy in a new direction. Yesterday is gone after all.

This is introduced in the delicate vulnerability of opener ‘One by One’, a story of a relationship that has faded to nothing, and continues through the psych-inflected folk of ‘Catch’ and the 60s pop-inspired title track. ‘Good Instead of Bad’ wrestles with potential actions in the aftermath, asking if it’s possible to move on with kindness instead of anger or sadness, and the playful energy of ‘Small Favours’ attempts to escape the weight of emotions by placing them is some sort of context. The yearning for what has been might remain, but it need not drag up or down completely. For with Yesterday is Gone, what Dana Gavanski offers is a transformation of longing—changing it from a paralysed act of retrospection to just another facet of ourselves, and a key component of our journey forward into the future.

Photo by Tess Roby

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Around the same time, female voices in literature became a source of inspiration and sanctuary. Von Schleicher cites the likes of Carmen Maria Machado, Rachel Cusk and Rebecca Solnit, and upon reading a piece on Vertigo by the latter, Von Schleicher began to join the dots. Solnit’s essay uses the film to explore the dichotomy between modes of romance; “communion,” i.e. mutual respect and understanding between both sides of a relationship, versus  “consummation,” a term Solnit uses to describe the “wandering, stalking, haunting” pursuit of love depicted in the film. “Told from the man’s point of view, Vertigo is awash with romantic fog,” Solnit describes, “but from the woman’s perspective, it’s about being forced to disappear.”

Taking this idea as a starting point to delve into more private thoughts, Consummation is a formidably personal exploration of trauma which promises to see Von Schleicher “blast past the lo-fi power ballads” of 2017’s Shitty Hits, swelling in various directions both sonic and thematic.

In anticipation, Von Schleicher has released the album’s first two singles. ‘Caged Sleep’ came out a few weeks ago, a song based on a mysteriously significant dream. “While the rest of the songs were being mixed, I had a vivid dream with a snake the color of lapis lazuli,” Von Schleicher describes. “That became ‘Caged Sleep,’ an ode to a dream that ended a period of my life.” It’s something like a pop song, upbeat percussion skipping beneath synths and sax and Von Schleicher’s dream-like croon. This surreal edge is amped up in Matt Strickland’s video, which sees shadowy scenes illuminated in hues of red and blue and sickly green.

The second single is ‘Nowhere,’ a track about both embracing and trying to overcome “the close and tight feeling of being alone.” The dreaminess is softer, less ominous, as Von Schleicher sings of being home by herself before leaving to drive through the night alone, and the song suggests a slower side to what is shaping up to be one of the year’s most ambitious and interesting albums.

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In March, The Saxophones will release their sophomore album, Eternity Bay, on Full Time Hobby. The follow-up to their 2018 debut Songs of The Saxophones, the album was made following the birth of the couple’s first son, an event which understandably influenced Erenkov’s writing. “My music has always grappled with mortality and the meaning of existence,” he says, “but the birth of our first son and the imminent arrival of our second has greatly heightened my sensitivity to these themes.”

Today we have the pleasure of unveiling the album’s second single, ‘Lamplighter’. Rich with the band’s distinctively Lynchian blend of romantically unhurried instrumentation and syrupy vocals, the track plays subtle percussion and barely-there guitar against smooth, slinky sax.

“The song takes its name from a bar on the misty Washington coast where I spent an evening drinking with close friends,” Erenkov describes. “The night and the following day’s walk on the beach were both enjoyable, but I was particularly struck by how much my conversations, thoughts, and actions were avoidant of the present. Whether through alcohol or simply distracting myself with thoughts of the future, I find ways to fight reality.”

There has always been a quiet grandiosity to The Saxophones, their sound taking inspiration from West Coast jazz, ’50s exotica and ’70s Italian lyricism—a kind of velvet sophistication that holds each song. But there’s a darkness hidden in the folds too, and in the case of ‘Lamplighter’ this comes in the form of self-delusion and the ephemerality of all things, even concepts as big and supposedly lasting as love.

“While indulging, I often convince myself that I’m on some kind of path to enlightenment,” says Erenkov, “that I’ll find an escape from impermanence and be able to touch the eternal. But all of my hedonistic impulses lead me back to the same reality. And I’m left to face the fact that even the truest love is impermanent.”

Eternity Bay will be released on Full Time Hobby on the 6th March and you can pre-order it now from selected outlets or via The Saxophones Bandcamp page.

Photos by Conner Sorenson

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Mess – Cave

Mess are a quartet from Kansas City who are gearing up to release their debut album Learning How to Talk later this year. In the meantime, the band have released a new single ‘Cave’ as something of a taster to keep your appetites whetted over the summer.

“‘Cave’ is a snapshot of a toxic relationship,” explains songwriter Allison Gliesman. “It was written in a tense head-space, characterised by the helpless feelings paired with watching someone you love be controlled.” Which goes some way to explaining the dichotomous nature of the track, the tender-yet-fierce sound portraying two levels of a relationship—the old, true affection driving a desperate plea for change. However, through the tumultuous crescendos, Gliesman’s vocals remain steady and bright, a lighthouse in the storm hoping to aid navigation, and welcome their dear person to safety on the other side.

Learning How to Talk is due out this autumn, so be sure to keep an eye on Mess’ Facebook and Soundcloud pages for more news.

Foundlings – Misery / Your Sister

Foundlings are a new four-piece out of London who released their debut single this spring. Put together at Marketstall Recording in Bermondsey, the tracks have an insistent, guitar-driven energy across which the vocals are lifted, setting the tone somewhere between urban style and sweet nostalgia. ‘Misery’ places itself firmly within the later category, the frenetic guitars and drums creating a semi-dangerous swagger, while ‘Your Sister’ is altogether brighter, a time viewed in retrospect—the edges softened and rounded, the primary emotion that of fondness.

Head to the Foundlings Bandcamp page to buy both tracks.

Squirrel Flower – Conditions

We’ve featured Squirrel Flower, the project of  Ellä Williams, several times here at VSF, covering both ‘Not Your Prey’ and ‘Daylight Savings’ from their debut EP, Contact Sports. This summer sees the re-release of that EP on vinyl, complete with shiny new artwork and two previously unreleased tracks.

In order to celebrate the release, Squirrel Flower have put out a video for the track ‘Conditions’ by Williams and Helena Gruensteidl, which serves as a great introduction to the style and sound for those who might have missed it the first time around. Straddling a brooding sense of emotion with an earnest openness, Williams’s vocals soar through the moody guitars with a calm conviction, though as the track progresses a vague sense of threat comes to the fore, as though the track is trying to persuade and warn simultaneously.

Contact Sports is set for re-release on the 20th July and you can pre-order it now via Bandcamp.

Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread – Less Than Positive

After time fronting Page France and Cotton Jones, Michael Nau set out solo in 2017, releasing the well-received album Some Twist and The Load EP. Forming a band of the same name, this summer sees Nau put out a brand new record, Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread, building upon his previous work to form a layered, sprawling record of poetic folk rock.

The lead track from the self-titled album, ‘Less than Positive’ finds Nau tucked into the space between carefree cheer and suffocating gloom, as though these opposite poles depend on one another for existence, and to fall into one completely would be to fall into nothing. Better then, to toe the line right the way down the track, to try to figure out the big picture while embracing the rhythm of life.

Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread is set for release on the 3rd August via Full Time Hobby.

Samia – 21

New York-based songwriter Samia makes music pitched somewhere between ironic and sincere, or perhaps embracing both poles simultaneously. Her brand new single ’21’ is no different, combining an intense sense of feeling with wry humour that makes the overall tone hard to pin down. At times her vocals have a carefree swagger, though this can shift just as quickly into a keen desperation, as though certain lines are dragged from within her chest by some external force. The result could be described as adolescent, where moods swing in an attempt to best frame an insistent rage, though the self-conscious lyrics hint at an over-arching intelligence operating behind all this too.

“I weigh a hundred and fucking something pounds,
That makes me almost good.
It is nice to be a hero,
but it’s better to be anything
that anyone could want in a woman.”

Samia is on Grand Jury Music and you can find her on Bandcamp.

Hop Along – How Simple

Hop Along’s 2015 album Painted Shut cemented their place amongst the very best in the indie rock genre, with the songwriting and vocal delivery of Frances Quinlan and distinctive and captivating as any in the field. This spring saw the release of Bark Your Head Off, Dog, the long-awaited follow-up album that retains all of the immediacy and spirit of previous records, and pushes the boundaries of the Hop Along sound with new, varied sources of inspiration.

While we hope to get a full review up at some point, for now let us point you toward lead single ‘How Simple’ as the perfect demonstration of what make Quinlan and co. so noteworthy. Complete with a video by Derrick Belcham, the song marries every aspect of the holy trinity of music—a keen sense of energy, emotional immediacy and clever lyricism. As such, the song disproves any theory that aiming for a sense of movement and catchy chorus means sacrificing any complexity or depth in terms of writing or feeling.

Bark Your Head Off, Dog is out now via Saddle Creek and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The Duke of Norfolk – Dylan Thomas / Bitter Bitter

“I’ve long been fascinated by Dumas’s idea that there’s neither happiness nor misery,” says Adam Howard of The Duke of Norfolk. “There is only the comparison of one state to another.” Such nuance and thought is intrinsic to Howard’s sound, as new single ‘Dylan Thomas / Bitter Bitter’ attests. Blending the intimacy of folk with a grand orchestral sound, The Duke of Norfolk follow the likes of Typhoon in building a kind of ‘sublime folk’—songs that seem to coalesce from the surrounding landscape, channelling energies far older than the music communicating them.

Inspired by ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, the poem Dylan Thomas wrote after the death of his father, Howard’s single alters Thomas’ call for rage into one of mournful sadness to create a requiem for his own terminally ill father. However, that is not to say the track comes off morose, with the instrumentation swelling around the profoundly personal lyrics to creating a soaring, transcendental response to loss and grief.

The Duke of Norfolk are releasing a new full-length, Attendre et Espérer, on the 15th June and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Valley Queen – Chasing the Muse

LA-based Valley Queen are readying their debt full-length, set for release in the summer, and have released the first single, ‘Chasing the Muse’ in anticipation. Continuing the throwback folk-rock of their EP Destroyer, the song sees lead Natalie Carol deal with the aftermath of a break up in a way that’s at once reflective and swaggeringly defiant.

“One part anger , two parts heartbreak
Three parts relief
I’m escaping this reality we made
Four parts fear
I’ve made a terrible mistake but
only a fool would stay”

The album is going to be released on Roll Call Records, and you can pre-order it now from the Valley Queen Bandcamp page.

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