Back in June we introduced Recurring Common Dream, the forthcoming EP from Great Klons, describing how the release ups the ante on its rather chaotic predecessor. Written and recorded amid a time of turmoil both personal and political, the EP sees Scott Klon and co. expand their already inventive, genre-bending sound to match the uncertainty of the moment. After lead single ‘More Beauty in the Rain‘, Great Klons are now back with follow-up ‘Hidden Signage’. A vivid slice of indie pop rooted in both driving percussion and fresh guitar which uses vocal harmonies and electric violin to further amp up the emotional resonance. And emotional the track is, proceeding with a decidedly wistful air, reflecting on imperfect times with the inevitable fondness we hold for the past.

‘Hidden Signage’ is out now on streaming services.

henry o henry – The Fool

Born in Dublin but now “thirty years a US immigrant,” henry o henry makes music that observes the US from the perspective of an adopted son. He has spent years “absorbing the country’s mythologies” while working various trades across the country (an image that evokes Whitman’s I Hear America Singing), but he has retained ties with his roots too. “Ireland is the DNA of the thing,” as he puts it, “the thing before every other thing.” In September, he will release an album Apocrypha on Western Vinyl. It brings together a collection songs in the lineage of Cale and Drake and Cohen, which function as dispatches from his personal vantage point, or as the press release puts it “the specific weight of being somewhere for a long time without quite being from there.” Lead single ‘The Fool’ is the ideal entry point, a song worn and wistful and weathered but with a glint in its eye, moving with a sincerity and easy grace that comes with experience.

Josaleigh Pollett – Cherry

We’ve written about Josaleigh Pollett‘s new full-length If I Let It Quiet plenty in recent months, with singles like ‘Radio Player‘, ‘The Witness‘, ‘Like a River‘ and ‘Bed of Quiet‘ all suggesting the album will be a fitting follow-up to its predecessor In the Garden, By The Weeds. With the record out now via Audio Antihero and Lavender Vinyl, the Salt Lake City-based artist has shared final single ‘Cherry’ in celebration, and the track is every bit as evocative as we’ve come to expect. Displaying Pollett’s uncanny ability to combine the resonant emotion of memory with the tactility of the present moment, the song emerges through dappled electronics and announces itself with forthright clarity.

We break like belonging,
We’re broken like bread,
When you look you don’t see it,
Don’t know where we’ve been,
From two of us brothers
To both of us dead,
Laid to rest in the 90’s
in the back seat of a van

Jude Brothers – Desire & Devotion

Jude Brothers describes herself as an “Arkansas-forged and New Mexico-moulded folksy leaning singer songwriter with a penchant for whimsy and tender heartedness,” which is just about the perfect introduction. Later this year, she will release Dogwood Maiden Voyage, a collection of timeless folk songs built on the foundations of harp and voice, which she says “reckons with the costs of surrendering wholly to love.” Latest single ‘Desire & Devotion’ does just that, a hymn-like timeless folk song that is suffused with all the doomed romance of a Brontë novel. “How can you doubt me now?” Brothers asks in the line that gives the track its title, “My love ain’t no solemn vow! It is a churning sea.”

King’s Evil – S/T

Stemming from a discussion at a tiki bar back in early 2020, King’s Evil is a new project between Sami Martasian of Puppy Problems and JM Dussault of (T-T)b. The pair, already established as some of Boston‘s most interesting songwriters, imagined a new vehicle for songwriting where the stakes were slightly lower and the scope for invention expanded. A place where they might take risks otherwise avoided in their usual work. The eventual result, a self-titled EP coming via Worry Bead Records, is a testament to the power of such a spirit of working, one which eschews the usual desire to plan and demo songs in order to fully lean into the moment, not to mention that of collaboration. “To hear them say it,” as the label states, “King’s Evil is a project explicitly about the community and solidarity you build in proximity to other artists you admire. Finding energy and freedom in allowing someone else you admire to figuratively root around in your brain.” Listen to the title track now:

Legit Smitty – Picture In My Wallet

Jake Smith, aka Legit Smitty, wrote his forthcoming new record This Living Ain’t That Hard following a serious car accident while on family vacation in Hawaii. Such a near-death event understandably brought a newfound perspective, and the album is an expression of that. As Smith puts it, he is more determined than ever to “continue to share his heart in order that others might feel more at home in their own skin.” Latest single ‘Picture In My Wallet’ is a good introduction, a downbeat but still hopeful song which Smith says “details how his love will remain unchanging, as will his faults.”

‘Picture In My Wallet’ is available now on streaming services. Stay tuned for news on This Living Ain’t That Hard.

oh, hooray – MY BROTHER’S NEW BLACK EYE

A few weeks ago we featured a couple of tracks from the city has teeth i think i saw them once, the new record from Houston‘s oh, hooray. We described those songs as “fatalistic, furious and at least halfway triumphant,” calling them “dispatches from the American present, a time we might label ‘late capitalism’ if only the late didn’t seem such an overly optimistic diagnosis.” That description holds up across the record, but some songs are more personal in scope than others. A good example is ‘MY BROTHER’S NEW BLACK EYE’, which details an exasperating relationship with the title’s mercurial sibling. “‘MY BROTHER’S NEW BLACK EYE’ is about my brother,” describes lead Jamie McDonald. “I love him, I hate him, I am confused by him, I support him, I resent him. No matter how much he has alienated myself or my family, he will always be just that. My Brother.”

the city has teeth i think i saw them once is out now and available from the usual places.

Promiseland BBQ x Tory Silver – Where’d All the Firemen Go?

Promiseland BBQ is the recording project of Ross Weidman, originally from West Virginia and now based in Pasadena. We last featured his music back in 2023, writing about the album Murder In The Friendly City, which explored his parents hometown in blue collar Appalachia following the death of his mother. He released another EP, Promiseland BBQ Airways, last year, and is now back with a new standalone single, ‘Where Did All the Firemen Go?’ Altogether more lighthearted than the last album, Wediman says the song, a full band arrangement including Tory Silver on vocals, “imagine[s] a world where everyone got the job they wanted,” a laidback and swaying country rock jam that sees a cast of characters swap professions and bemoans the loss of a certain brand of smalltown hero.

You can download ‘Where Did All the Firemen Go?’ now from the Promiseland BBQ Bandcamp page.

Sand Duney – Saw You In the Roses

September will see the release of Plant Material, the debut full-length from Sand Duney (Portland, Oregon songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jess Jones), via the triple threat of Orindal Records, Anything Bagel and Bud Tapes. As per the press release, the record “explores a deepening of selfhood, love, and understanding the natural world,” while searching for “hope and a daily rhythm in a world that’s changing in massive and indecipherable ways.” Our first glimpse is ‘Saw You In the Roses’ a giddy, ambling psych pop song that continues the signature Sand Duney style, what we have described in the past as “equal parts meditative and energetic.” Jones plays every instrument, from guitar and bass to pedal steel, organ and drums, layers which reel and swim around her relaxed and composed vocals. Check out the video, directed and edited by Dawn Riddle, below:

Plant Material will be released on 4^th September and is available to pre-order from the Sand Duney Bandcamp page.

Sera Cahoone – Not How I Hoped

Alongside drumming for acts such Carissa’s Wierd and Band of Horses, Seattle’s Sera Cahoone has developed rich oeuvre of solo work, starting with the dusky, melancholic self-titled album back in 2006. Twenty Years on, Cahoone is preparing to release her fifth full-length I’ve Missed You All These Years via Sub Pop, and it seems time has only deepened her warm and aching sound. As its title suggests, latest single ‘Not How I Hoped’ confronts disappointment and regret with unerring candour, the clarity of Cahoone’s voice supported by a vivid arrangement featuring violin, pedal steel, piano and Hammond organ. “This song flew out of my broken heart many moons ago,” Cahoone explains. “It was the first song I wrote for this record. It’s quite sad, but writing it really helped me work through those hard feelings.”

Watch the video below, made by Cahoone herself along with Adam Evarts and Arriba Media LLC:

I’ve Missed You All These Years will be released on the 28th August via Sub Pop and you can pre-order it now.

W. Y. Huang – Running Into Walls

Last month, we introduced On Stranger Hills, the forthcoming new record from Singapore-born, New York-based singer-songwriter W. Y. Huang. Lead single ‘Born to Lose’ “owe[d] a debut to both Daniel Johnston and Adrienne Lenker and drawing on [Huang’s] own immigrant experience,” and now W.Y. Huang has unveiled a second track to further generate anticipation. Titled ‘Running Into Walls’, it’s an introspective indie folk song that the press release says “stages a tender reckoning with inherited trauma and the unbearable weight of survival.” It’s set during a late-night train ride, and captures perfectly the sense of solitude and emotional clarity that such journeys often evoke, mimicking the brain’s tendency to ruminate as the carriage falls silent and dark landscapes fly past the window.

‘Running Into Walls’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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

With singles ‘Everything’ and ‘Closer’, London duo atmos bloom have indicated the dreamy depths of their new album Everythingness, as well as the push and pull between influence and experimentation which marks their shoegaze-inflected sound. “[‘Closer’] finds Gratton and Paterson looking for contentment in the present and the constant change it represents,” we wrote of the latter single, “something achieved with a woozy, almost ethereal sound that sits on a knife edge between lucidity and dreams, sanding the edges off of reality in order to consider it more fully.” With the release of Everythingness fast approaching via Spirit Goth Records, atmos bloom have shared latest track ‘It’s Enough’, and again the song finds itself caught between competing forces. Namely the difficulty of living up to the expectations of different people, each with their own distinctive image of you in their head.

Chris Acker – Overdrafted

“A country-folk lamentation about the cruel thing banks do when you have less than zero dollars.” That’s how the press release describes ‘Overdrafted’, the new single from New Orleans-based songwriter Chris Acker. His first new music since 2024 album Famous Lunch, the song explores what he calls the “half-rotten romance of the unremarkable and unrefined.” As we wrote back in 2024: “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.” But what’s remarkable is, despite the self-deprecation and wry humour, there’s some strange beauty here too, a heartwarming sense of camaraderie with everyone who finds themselves “in the red but still trying to tread.” You certainly won’t hear a more affecting account of having to make do with single ply toilet paper this year.

Jacob Brodovsky – Beneath It All

The songs of Jacob Brodovsky have never been afraid to delve into the personal, with new album Tell The Kids We Tried meditating, as we put it, “on themes of community, connection and family within the tumult that is the present moment,” but latest single ‘Beneath It All’ pushes further than most. Brodovsky had been the proud director of a Jewish summer camp, a place where he had spent over two decades of his life, only to recently face backlash from some members of the wider community for liking a social media post about a benefit show Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. An ugly situation developed, with the pressure tipping over into full-blown harassment, leaving him little choice but to resign and leave the place which had come to feel like a second home. “I wrote ‘Beneath It All’ about trying to hold onto the community that raised me while it shrinks into itself,” Brodovsky explains. “A community of good people, many of whom blinded by trauma, grief, and a refusal to acknowledge harm.” The album track featured the fantastic Charlotte Cornfield, while a new alternate live version sees Keiran Placatka, Dominique Adams and Leith Ross join instead:

Tell The Kids We Tried is out now via Make My Day Records and available from Bandcamp.

Jonathan Something – Country Rose

Recording under the moniker Jonathan Something, singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Searles won acclaim through the late 2010s and early 2020s, writing prolifically across rock, folk and pop styles, though emerged from the period disillusioned with the industry and music more generally. “I was finding it hard to identify with being an artist anymore,” he explains. “It didn’t bring me the same joy or comfort it used to, and I found that the only way for me to really enjoy music again was to stop making it.” Cue several years away from songwriting, a spell only broken when ill health pushed him back towards music, even if at first merely sitting at a piano now caused him anxiety. “Eventually, I realized that I needed to turn it into something useful,” Searles continues. “I needed to use it as a catalyst to start thinking more seriously about spirituality and growth and the changes I needed to make in my life. And that journey became [new album] One More Lonesome Cowboy Song.” The record will be released this autumn via High Shelter, but for now you can listen to single ‘Country Rose’ for a taste of existential, transformative tone which marks the songs. Watch a live performance of the track recorded by Dogstar Films below:

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

LAPÊCHE – Phantom Of Cinder

Brooklyn’s LAPÊCHE began life back in 2016 as the solo project of Krista Holly Diem, but has since grown into a full-blown band. 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.” Back in February, they released a new record Autotelic via Tiny Engines, a collection of emotionally intricate but very much listenable rock songs. One standout was album closer ‘Phantom of Cinder’, a typically restrained track about how we hold on to shards of the past like splinters in our skin. “This song came from feeling haunted by old versions of myself,” Diem describes. “It is about the things we carry, the memories that refuse to disappear, and the moments that shape us long after they have passed. Sometimes healing is not about letting go. Sometimes it is about learning to live with what remains.” Watch the Jacob Halpren-directed video for ‘Phantom of Cinder’ below:

Autotelic is out now via Tiny Engines and available from the LAPÊCHE Bandcamp page.

Mama’s Broke – Build It Up

The recording project of Canadian pair Amy Lou Keeler and Lisa Maria, Mama’s Broke has made a name over the last decade or so with a rootless, ever-searching style of folk music which played like the songs of old. Stories to be shared around campfires and small town bars before packing up and hitting the road once more. Latest album Reunion, coming later this summer via Free Dirt Records and Forward Music Group, continues this style, possessing a timeless quality that suggests these aren’t so much new songs as memories passed down through the ages. As single ‘Build It Up’ attests, the result is at once intimate and urgent, delivered with the earnest conviction of those unwilling to let go of this world we’re slowly destroying. “If you don’t build it up,” as the telling refrain states, “somebody else will tear it down.”

Nick Bellerose – maybe i think

Montreal’s Nick Bellerose spent nearly two decades living a double life. His career as an international diplomat saw him travel the globe, “handling global crises in the foreign service.” But, privately, his true calling was music, something he used as an anchor to himself when thousands of miles from home. A couple of years ago, things changed. A series of tragedies, spearheaded by the death of his mother, led him to pick up a guitar and start to sing, making the decision to swap “the world stage of diplomacy for the visceral truth of the microphone.” Bellerose cites the likes of Elliot Smith, Sparklehorse and Nebraska-era Springsteen as influences, something plainly clear in latest single ‘maybe i think’. Characteristically bittersweet, the track explores heartbreak with a world-weary acceptance, ultimately landing somewhere life-affirming.

Perennial – Modernism

Formed in Connecticut over a decade ago, Perennial are a self-styled “modernist punk” band who have blown away sweaty basement shows across the globe with their punk rock patchwork style that knits together just about every left-field and out-there style you can think of. The press release describes their forthcoming new record (aptly titled Modernism) as “Op art to dance to”, but the better metaphor is the tagline of a “1,200 second action painting”, as Perennial streak and splatter disparate elements of their seemingly endless record collection into hectic patterns that feel at once reverential and totally new. The real triumph is how Perennial keep these eccentric experiments so catchy and immediate (two words you may now immediately associate with sub-2-minute melange of free jazz, ambient electronica, big beat, dub and Musique concrète), as the opener and title track attests. Check it out below:

Sharp Pins – Saturday Sun

The project of Chicago’s Kai Slater (who you may also know from Lifeguard and Dwaal Troupe), Sharp Pins is an outlet for lo-fi garage pop that could have come swaggering straight out of the swinging sixties. Not content with putting out two records last year (which clocked in with a combined total of 35 tracks), Slater is already back at it, announcing plans to re-release the album MOD MAYDAY 23, first released on tape a couple of years ago when he was still a teenager, via K Records and perennial. “[MOD MAYDAY 23 is] The soundtrack to my 18th summer riding a Chinese Taotao 50cc scooter around Taqueria Moran and four tracking my Sta-Prest-Dreams,” Slater describes. “I thought it would be cool to record a bunch of songs that never really got recorded in a semi-more-thought-out-way.” And if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a brand new Sharp Pins single too. Titled ‘Saturday Sun’, it’s another slice of throwback pop music that’s sure to soundtrack the rest of the summer.

‘Saturday Sun’ is out now via the Sharp Pins Bandcamp page. MOD MAYDAY 23 will be released on 4^th September via K Records and perennial.

Siavash Amini & Eugene Thacker – Sigils of Decay (for João da Cruz e Sousa)

Next month, American Dreams will release the third edition of Songs for Sad Poets, a collaborative project between Tehran-based composer Siavash Amini and Brooklyn writer/philosopher Eugene Thacker, inspired by the tradition of poètes maudits or ‘cursed poets’. As Thacker describes, “[the term] referred to obscure or unknown poets who had endured some form of suffering and who felt compelled to write about it.” In the duo’s hands, this inspiration becomes something haunting, soundscapes that mould ideas from poetry, philosophy and music into new forms.  The first two volumes were entirely instrumental, but this new one is a little different. Amini fed Thacker’s poems into voice synthesis software and then processed and layered the output until any notion of “voice” is dissolved in noise. Lead single introduces how this sounds, a tribute to late nineteenth-century Brazilian symbolist poet João da Cruz e Sousa.

Wishy – All The Rage

“An unapologetically romantic track which creates the slightly intoxicated state of the title in all of its headspinning glory, refusing to dial down the lyrics in order to fully embrace the headspace. As though to be in love is to experience everything saturated and bright.” So we wrote of ‘Lovesick’, the lead single from Wishy‘s new full-length Nature’s Pill back in June, the Indianapolis outfit’s first full-length since the celebrated Triple 7 back in 2024. With the album slated for release via Winspear this autumn, Wishy have put out ‘All the Rage’ to keep the anticipation high. Thematically, the track is diametrically opposed to its predecessor, existing in the aftermath of a break-up and seeking solace amid the gloom. However, take a casual listen and you’d never know it. Because, for all of the bummed out frustration and wistful longing of the lyrics, the sound itself is buoyant and bright, a twee spirit which leans into the rhythm of the sound as though to cleanse itself via momentum alone.

Nature’s Pill will be released on the 2nd October via Winspear and you can pre-order it from the Wishy Bandcamp page.

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

“Good luck getting back to me / I’ll go with the dead / Way down where the water’s deep / Way over your head.” The opening to ‘Mountain Stream’, the lead single from Angela Autumn‘s new LP Believer forthcoming via Gar Hole Records, signals the spirit of an album about a retreat to nature and the potential both personal and creative therein. Appalachian native Autumn left her adopted home for a variety of wild spots in order to write the record, bouncing between the Tennessee woodland, an Asheville treehouse and Chattanooga warehouse to centre the wild in the songs. “I like to put myself in extreme situations in order to write,” Autumn explains. “That’s how I wrote songs like ‘Jesus Heist’ and ‘In the South’: by leaving everything behind and going into nature. Without the earth, I probably wouldn’t have any music.” As ‘Mountain Stream’ shows, the result is both richly crafted and emotionally affirming, drawing the audience into Autumn’s natural world so that they might find peace too.

Watch the video by Ives Albert and Ash Wright below:

Believer will be released on the 11th September via Gar Hole Records and you can pre-order it now.

aument – Sam I Am

Ever been so pissed off about something you’ve written a song? ‘Sam I Am’, the title track of aument‘s new EP, originated from exactly that scenario. With the uniquely maddening experience of neighbour trouble escalating when one of the juvenile characters urinated in aument’s garden (while they were sitting mere feet away, no less), they decided to channel their anger into music. With help from Micah Prussack of Youbet (bass) and Zeb Stern of Psymon Spine (drums), the resulting track is raw, immediate and ultimately cathartic. Not a solution to the hostility of the outside world, but a declaration of opposition nonetheless. A non-binary person raising their voice against masculine cruelty and general disregard of others and somehow still finding room to spin something fun from the fury.

Black Duck – Connects By Water

“After touring across Spain with acclaimed Basque musician Elena Setién, the trio felt they had discovered someone else clearly attuned to the Black Duck spirit, and have taken this forward to not only invigorate the project, but to reimagine its very boundaries.” So we wrote of Black Duck with Elena Setién, the new album from the Chicago supergroup (Douglas McCombs on bass/guitar, Bill MacKay on guitar and Charles Rumback on drums) which looks to commit the magic of live performance to tape. After lead single ‘Land of the Many Eyes’, Black Duck and Elena Setién have returned with new track ‘Connects By Water’ to further hint at the depth of the record. McCombs’s fingerprints are clear on the sound, with the composition sharing DNA with those of projects like Tortoise, yet the others breath more space into the sound so that it becomes something altogether more ventilated and welcoming. “Somehow for me, this track is a great respite,” Setién explains. “Like finally coming to a beautiful quiet beach, knowing you can relax.”

Darren Hayman – Little Arrow, Little Sparrow (feat. The Wave Pictures & Rotifer)

Following on from the release of the expanded edition of majestic 2012 full-length The Violence, Darren Hayman‘s present project to make the full breadth of his back catalogue available online continues apace. The Violence was a “complex and emotionally resonant concept album centring on the English Civil War and the contemporaneous witch trials across East Anglia,” as we wrote in our review, but latest single ‘Little Arrow, Little Sparrow’ couldn’t be any further from those themes. Released as part of Vostok 5, an exhibition of music and art “about people and animals in space,” the track moves from base superstition to the far edges of human endeavour, at least ostensibly. Because the title is in fact the translation of Belka and Strelka, the two dogs who became the first to orbit earth and return alive after the Soviets sent them into space, hinting at the prayers and violence behind even the most futuristic of missions.

Hawk & Steel – Caroline

Melding the warm twang of Americana with the rugged drama of the Pacific Northwest, Victoria, BC-based folk rock outfit Hawk & Steel adept at both sweeping weight and emotional depth. More than a decade passed between their previous LP and recent release Ain’t Never Moving On, though the outfit return from their hiatus recharged and ready for a new chapter. Single ‘Caroline’ gives a flavour of what to expect, the song still possessing some of the fitful energy which has long marked the Hawk & Steel sound, while displaying a newfound sense of reflection which suggests the band have been evolving in the intervening years. “I tried to, forget who you were / Forget what your hair smells like,” the opening lines play, immediately introducing the yearning which permeates the track. “Still your voice, rings in my ear / Louder than it was when you were here.” Love might pass but the past is not so easy to shake.

Josaleigh Pollett – Like a River

There was a sense of conviction apparent on ‘The Witness‘, the previous single from Josaleigh Pollett‘s upcoming album If I Let It Quiet, a song about learning to look beyond the usual categories and borders of existence in order to find peace. Latest single ‘Like a River’ concerns itself with similar ideas, indeed is the track which gives the record its title, but comes from a far more uncertain place. A dispatch delivered not with the clarity of distance but the rush and chaos of the present. “’Like a River’ is about an attempt at quieting the noise of my own thoughts and of a chaotic world around me in order to try to be more resilient,” Pollett explains. “A too-late-coffee-fueled yellow-light-lit silent moment—having arrived at myself just in time to feel my pulse speed up and the news of the day sweep me away into frothing rapids. Hoping for the peace of a quiet river bank, only to remember that a river is swift, chaotic, and ever-changing the earth beneath it. Inspired by Paul Simon’s Peace Like a River—a song I’ve always held in my heart as a beautiful protest song.”

Jules Reidy – Shadow Symmetric for JACK Quartet (excerpt)

Jules Reidy‘s Thrill Jockey debut Ghost/Spirit was a deep and often dense exploration of mysticism, the Berlin-based polymath offering a narrative arc which bent through the dark of contemplation towards eventual transcendence. Therefore, while it might be tempting to view the altogether lighter tone their new record Clerestory, coming again via Thrill Jockey later this year, as something of a pivot away from its predecessor, in actuality it feels like the perfect continuation. The clue is in the title itself, a clerestory being a high wall set with windows, often in a church, which serves to imbue a space with light and fresh air. This image which embodies the sound of the release, as though the path Reidy established on Ghost/Spirit has merely continued onto a new canvas, angling upwards towards the light. Of course, with light comes shadow, and no-one familiar with Reidy’s work would expect anything other than a sound full of the weight of contradiction. But the overarching sense is a record on the edge of transcendence, one foot on earth, the other stepping towards something altogether more spiritual. Listen to ‘Shadow Symmetric’ now for a taste, recording with the renowned JACK Quartet:

Marika Che – Edge of the Storm

You might recognise Marika Justad as the frontwoman of indie rock outfit Tangerine, but she has recently returned as a solo artist, under the moniker Marika Che. Debut album Bright Flame introduces the style of this new era, displaying a warm yet confessional style of folk rock which sits somewhere between Waxahatchee’s country-inflected rock and something closer to dream pop. As single ‘Edge of the Storm’ attests, the result packs an emotional punch yet delivers it within a breezy warmth, drawing the audience in with an easy-going rhythm and assured vocal style. A debut this might be, but there’s clear experience within its craft, and you’d be hard pushed to find a more pleasant soundtrack as summer blooms.

Pale Ramon – The Mirror

Founded by Kevin Plessner and Emanuel Ayvas, Brooklyn‘s Pale Ramon have made a name with an amalgamated style of indie rock, taking the usual energy and emotional heft and adding in post-punk angles and layers of sax and strings. This autumn, they are set to release their brand new full-length The Yawn, and have recently put out the album’s lead single ‘The Mirror’ to give an indication of what to expect. Building with admirable patience, the track is indicative of the band’s craft, with a lush atmosphere gradually tipping towards something more urgent, a style followed by the vocals too. What emerges is a picture of something like desperation, told with both the immediacy of the moment and the fondness of personal history. Watch the video produced by Andrew Marfoli and Brian James below:

The Yawn will be released on the 6th November and you can pre-save it now.

Tough Old Bird – Wednesday’s Child

Founded by brothers Matthew and Nathan Corrigan and now expanded to include Ricky Bechard (drums) and Brendan O’Shea (bass), Tough Old Bird is a Buffalo-based folk rock band who offer both rich narrative lyricism and atmospheric arrangements. Latest single ‘Wednesday’s Child’, the first of what promises to be a steady stream of releases throughout the coming summer months, marks something of a new era for the project. Their first as a four-piece, and thus newly detailed and rich, the kind of sound that every prior release from the Corrigans seems to have been building towards. Another stellar entry in this year’s bumper crop of electrically charged country rock, standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Thomas Dollbaum, Sluice and Brown Horse.

Zoon – You Can’t See Me (This Low)

“There might not be an easy answer at the end of the Happy Thought School, indeed the fact that things remain unresolved might be a central facet of the project as a whole. But if Zoon has communicated anything with their releases to date, it is that the only way to reckon with difficult histories is to delve into them regardless of whether answers might be salvaged from the wreck.” So we wrote of the new album from Zoongide’ewin’s Zoon back in May, with singles ‘One Too Many Nights‘ and ‘I Was Younger’ picking through the ruins of a relationship. With the album not out via Paper Bag Records, Zoon has shared final track ‘You Can’t See Me (This Low)’, a fittingly confessional number which confronts heartbreak, relapse and recovery which characteristic candour.

Happy Thought School is out now via Paper Bag Records and available from the Zoon Bandcamp page.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2026 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Back in 2023 we wrote about Somethinghood by A Box of Stars, an album which saw “the Burlington outfit weave what is best described as a sense of complete attention,” as we put it, “a focus which elevates what might seem ordinary situations into something almost sublime.” Now Macaulay Lerman and co. are back with Walnut Street, a brand new record which doubles down on the style to capture both the beauty of life’s smallest details and the implicit sadness which stems from the knowledge that everything will one day fade away. Single ‘Remain’ is the ideal place to jump in, a typically lo-fi and authentic track which carries a flame of love despite the looming threat of loss around.

Alden Hellmuth – Microfictions

“Tether is a fitting name for the release,” we wrote of Alden Hellmuth‘s new album on LEITER back in May, “speaking to both the connection between Hellmuth and her supporting cast—bassists Logan Kane and Miller Wrenn and drummer Justin Brown (Thundercat, Aja Monet)—and how group, and indeed the audience, act something like a leash within the spontaneity of improvisation. The musicians might play themselves out into unexpected territory, but there’s always a line to bring them back into the heart of the group.” After single ‘Face the Wall’ kicked things off, Hellmuth has now shared latest track ‘Microfictions’. The opening number on the album, ‘Microfictions’ wastes no time in pitching the audience into the depths of her adventurous approach, drawing on Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music to create a style of improvisation centring on melody. Scurrying percussion adds a sense of urgency, while Hellmuth’s trademark sax skates over the surface with virtuosic personality.

Tether will be released on the 26th June via LEITER and you can pre-order it now.

Cheekface – I Don’t Work Here

LA trio Cheekface have made a name in recent years with mischievous brand of indie rock. Their music combines post punk angles and playful pop bounce with a droll talk-singing style of vocal delivery to create something sometimes caustic, often irreverent and always dialled into the ridiculous age we call the present. For anyone left uninitiated, latest single ‘I Don’t Work Here’ bundles up the Cheekface aesthetic into a tidy three minutes, railing against everything from the surveillance state to the steady creep of the corporate into civic life with equal parts swagger and seethe. A world where everyone is watched yet perpetually lonely, and unrealistic demands come from bosses and customers alike.

Dog Shaped – Please Hold

In part rising from the ashes of former band Sue Your Landlord, Dog Shaped is songwriter Emily Cabarle alongside Nicholas Djukic Cocks (lead guitar), Michael McCanna (lap steel), Matt Shuham (drums), Angelo Ross (keys, backing vocals) and Freddy Haug (bass). With an EP slated for release next month, Cabarle and co. have shared single ‘Please Hold’ to introduce their sound. A song described by the band as “a power ballad about wanting to be close and connect with friends/lovers but being scared of what happens when you’re vulnerable,” it confronts the needling doubt of fearing you are too much for those around you while pining for acceptance and connection. Watch the video produced and directed by Mars Alba below:

‘Please Hold’ is out now via streaming services.

Jacob Brodovsky – Kids

Back in April we introduced Tell The Kids We Tried, the forthcoming full-length from Winnipeg songwriter Jacob Brodovsky, describing how the album “meditate[s] on themes of community, connection and family within the tumult that is the present moment,” with a set of characters “attempting to build a life within a world where the future seems unwilling or unable to materialise.” Latest single ‘Kids’ addresses this style more directly than anything on the record, written while Brodovsky was wrestling with what it meant to have a young child and another on the way while the future of civilisation seems so bleak. “For me, having children has been a massive source of both optimism and dread,” he explains. “Being around children and watching them discover themselves is such an incredible gift to behold, while also terrifying to realize all the ways they could hurt themselves and the limits of my own abilities to protect them.”

Tell The Kids We Tried will be released on the 10th July via Make My Day Records and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Kate Prascher – Jubilee

Later this summer, Memphis-born, Hudson Valley-based songwriter Kate Prascher will release new full-length Sunday Afternoon. The follow-up to 2024’s Shake the Dust, the record sees Prascher build upon her distinctively honest, unguarded style of folk. Lead single ‘Jubilee’ embodies both the atmosphere and emotional clarity of the release, the sound with one foot in the past but always looking forward, allowing memories and hopes for the future to sit side by side. “I wrote it while walking on an old train trestle in Rosendale, New York, a town ringing with the eerie history of a stone quarry, carrying memories of my hometown across it,” Prascher explains. “By the time I climbed down from the track, the song was mostly written. It’s a lyrical exploration of the word ‘jubilee’ as both a signal of celebration and of forgiveness.”

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

MEGGO – just my luck

Following on from 2025 EP eavesdropper ;; death stories, Montreal-based songwriter MEGGO is returning this summer with the next chapter of a trilogy of releases, with lead single ‘jaws of life‘ giving a taste of what to expect earlier in the year. Now she is back with new track ‘just my luck’, a song which allows repressed anger to bubble the surface, not only as a form of simple catharsis but also to clear the ground in order for the process of healing to begin. “There’s a part of me that needs to yell and scream. I don’t call on her that often, but she’s in there!” MEGGO explains. “‘just my luck’ is what comes from that inevitable explosion. It’s about letting go of grudges and making room inside yourself for forgiveness. It acknowledges where there is pain, looks right at it, and lays it bare so that it no longer needs to be carried. What’s left is compassion and peace in its wake.”

Two Runner – Strawberry Rhinestone

Described by label Gar Hole Records as “a warm reassurance for anyone who’s gotten dressed up just to come home alone,” ‘Strawberry Rhinestone’ is the lead single from Two Runner’s upcoming new album Porchlight. The Northern Californian duo, songwriter Paige Anderson and fiddler Emilie Rose, have lived a life steeped in folk music, growing up in the mountains and playing from a young age, and the experience shines through in the Two Runner sound. The single is a slice of lively barroom bluegrass, equal parts wistful and reassuring as it delivers a message both wise and world weary. “”Love is in your favor if you can outlast the bad ones.”

Some lovers are like the mountains
Some lovers are like the ocean
Some of them stick like velcro
And some leave in mysterious ways

‘Strawberry Rhinestone’ is out now via streaming services.

W. Y. Huang – Born To Lose

We last wrote about Singapore-born, New York-based singer-songwriter W. Y. Huang back in 2024 with the release of the EP Knots. The release possessed “a fluidity and ease suggestive of an artist who has spent time exploring their tastes and honing their craft,” we wrote. “One ready to share something intimate.” Fast forward a couple of years and W. Y Huang is preparing to release his debut full-length On Stranger Hills, and lead single ‘Born To Lose’ suggests the album will be even more honest and personal. With a lo-fi sound which owes a debut to both Daniel Johnston and Adrienne Lenker and drawing on his own immigrant experience, Huang “explores the loneliness and anxiety of what it means to be invisible in a foreign land,” as the album notes explain, “tracing the edges of belonging, where memory and place begin to blur.”

‘Born to Lose’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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Now Creekbed Carter Hogan is set to return with Peasants Revolt, a brand new full-length via Gar Hole Records which builds upon these beginnings to conjure their most ambitious and stylistically diverse release to date. Written within the span of an array of transitions, which saw Hogan undergoing gender affirming treatment and living/moving between the North and South while the entire world seemed to be lurching towards something newly frightening, the record embraces multiplicity as a kind of remedy. As though to refuse to be reduced to any one thing is to stand in opposition to the central tenets of capitalism and imperialism. To move beyond the confines of individual isolation and into a teeming world, and indeed a teeming history, full of radical potential.

Hence Peasants Revolt contains Medieval ballads and Appalachian strike songs, finds inspiration in everything from the Haitian Revolution to Ethiopian jazz. And, crucially, is far more than a solo record. The almost overwhelming community of collaborators includes Britton Beisenherz, Lindsey Verrill and Jeff Johnston (Little Mazarn), Carolina Chauffe (Hemlock), Beth Chrisman (Lost Patterns, Missy Beth and the Morning Afters, Willi Carlisle, James Hand), Nora Predey, Zack Wiggs, Sarah Schultz (Sun June), Hunter Prueger (Middle Sattre), Gabriela Torres, Jude Brothers and Hot Dog Choir. “Building such a rich world takes artists who understand music isn’t just ornamental,” as the album notes put it, “but fundamental to survival.”

To set the tone before the album’s release this summer, Creekbed Carter Hogan has shared the lead single, ‘Cutbank of Cleves’. Described by the label as “a rollicking, medieval-Americana fable sung by a jester in the halls of a dying empire,” the track embodies the spirit which runs through the entirity of Peasants Revolt. The sense that, though the world is falling all around, there has never been a better time to come to together. To create, to dance, to scheme, to fight. To refute those forces which have come to shape the dismal present, and to remember, in spite of everything, to still make space to live.

Watch the video by by Lexi Kiecker below:

Peasants Revolt will be released on the 24th July via Gar Hole Records and you can pre-order it from the Creekbed Carter Hogan Bandcamp page.

Album artwork by Jammy Violet

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“Rise in the west, set in the east / do what I want, go where I please / just gravity keep holding me.” So sings Abbey Blackwell on ‘Rise and Set’, the lead single from the Seattle-based artist’s forthcoming album Dream a Day. Emerging from the aftermath of a relationship, the song is at once playful and heartbroken, existing in that disorienting space where everything you thought you knew is upended and you are left to hope at least physics will hold true. The arrangement is built to support Blackwell’s distinctive vocals, building from acoustic beginnings into something far richer with the help of Norman Robbins (electric guitar, lap steel) and Evan Woodle (drums, percussion). The result transforms a decidedly personal experience into something universal.

DoYeon Kim – The Beats of Distant Thunder

It is telling that Brooklyn-based composer, improvisor and vocalist DoYeon Kim is one of, if not the only, Gayageum player within contemporary music. Her embrace of the centuries-old Korean zither within her boundary-pushing work is indicative of Kim’s willingness to harness both cultural traditions and cutting edge vision in order to bring to life her singular sound. Her first release as a bandleader, forthcoming album Wellspring is an encapsulation of this spirit and sign of its radical potential. Because, with Tyshawn Sorey (drums), Henry Fraser (double bass) and Mat Maneri (viola) in support, the record sees Kim utilise these sensibilities to create something of a sonic manifesto. A desperate, timely plea for humanist connection within an otherwise fractured world. “This is the first time I open my hand to the world, a first greeting,” Kim explains. “I wish people hearing this music [receive] energy and comfort. I want to be there with them.” Listen to first single ‘The Beats of Distant Thunder’ now:

Mudgoose – Yum Cha Takeover

The recording project of Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington-based songwriter Fletcher Ng, Mudgoose put out album Chasing Horse a few weeks ago, introducing a sound that sits somewhere in the middle grounded between slowcore, bedroom pop and alt-country, with sprinklings of a slacker vibe thrown in for good measure. Recorded to tape with a Tascam 4-track, the songs are textured, hazy and patient, delivered as though through the fog of memory and further clouded by a drink or two. Single ‘Yum Cha Takeover’ is a good place to dive in, the opening so slow its almost sedated, the vocals emerging from beneath these rhythms with what might be resignation or desperation. “[The] lyrics are loosely based on an embarrassing moment in which I screamed at a group of strangers to get out of my kitchen during a party,” Ng explains, though the resulting track is by no means a funny anecdote. More a murmured plea from the end of a rope, one last attempt to communicate something before fatalism settles for good.

Otracami – Perfect Reach

We’ve featured a couple of singles from Otracami‘s new album Runoff in recent months, first ‘Please‘ back in January then ‘Sirens’ a few weeks later.  Taking the story of Persephone from Greek myth, the latter saw Camila Ortiz weave “mythic elements with personal reflection,” we wrote, asking “How far do the obligations of loyalty extend? […] When you are linked to a person involved with something bad, how much responsibility are you expected to take?” With the album coming this week via Figure & Ground, Otracami is back with ‘Perfect Reach’. A song written during a winter School of Song class with Adrianne Lenker and partly inspired by the novel Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, it sees Ortiz lean into a darker, almost threatening atmosphere. “I was writing in a way that was less directly narrative and more vibes-based, using images, feelings, textures,” she explains, though a narrative thrust is implied by the very mood. A certain sense of guilt, even villainy marks the shadowed sound. The sensation of having committed a regretful act and having to acknowledge the fact.

Ramsey Thornton – Rocking

Back in October, we featured ‘Riverside’, a single by Tulsa-based songwriter, banjoist, and drummer Ramsey Thornton. It was released to announce his signing with the good folks at Gar Hole Records, and at the time we mentioned how a full-length record was in the pipeline. Well that time has now come. Titled I Called It! and set for release in May, the album collects 13 songs that perfectly introduce Thornton’s warm, down-to-earth sound. “I like my music to sound natural,” he describes. “These are songs that I wrote around my kitchen table. I recorded them with my friends. I hope they just sound like me.” New single ‘Rocking’ is a great example, Thornton’s fingerpicked guitar backed with drums, bass and lap steel to conjure something that feels both understated and emotionally deep.

runo plum – butterflies

Following on from 2025 full-length patching, an album we described as “equipped to elucidate the highs and lows of life,” Minneapolis songwriter runo plum is sharing brand new EP Bloom Again this May via Winspear. Released in support of an upcoming West Coast tour and SXSW, the EP sees plum expand upon her diaristic, emotionally-charged style, as introduced by lead single ‘butterflies’. “I showed you butterflies / You took ‘em in and burned them alive / In a house buried in smoke,” she sings in the song’s opening verse, “shoved myself to the ground to lay low.” The blunt, bleak lyricism is juxtaposed with the warm richness of the sound itself, the track playing like a confession or unburdening, runo plum unveiling all of her doubts and disappointments as though the only path to new growth is by clearing the ground.

The Same Sky – Sad Songs

Montreal ‘outsider pop’ band The Same Sky have a new record, Haunting in the Mountains, on the way via Casa Joven. Following lead single ‘What’s Left’, which we described previously as “a track where dreamy textures meet an almost mechanical sense of forward motion,” the four-piece have now unveiled a second preview, titled ‘Sad Songs’. Existing at the heavier end of the post punk / shoegaze spectrum, the song is soaked in fuzz and noise, siren-like guitar riffs and violent percussion carrying the minimal lyrics toward something almost ritualistic. “The track moves through hypnotic repetition like a ritual, closer to a chant than a traditional song,” describes lead Joseph Simon. “Unless ‘traditional’ means a psychotic monk howling through a wall of distortion.”

This Lonesome Paradise – Unending

When previewing This Lonesome Paradise‘s upcoming release Death Motels back in January, we described how the album “position[s] the project as one working slightly outside of time with a sound that conjures a mythic past while always facing forwards.” Following on from single ‘Changelings’, what we called a “brooding, Lynchian number as dark as the night itself,” This Lonesome Paradise have shared new single ‘Unending’ to celebrate the release of the record. Another shadowy slice of desert rock which plays as something both stark and romantic, the cinematic sound and E Ray Béchard’s pathos-filled vocals combining into an evocative picture of America. A landscape littered with broken dreams and unrealised futures, dark and dangerous and haunted by the ghosts of all that was sacrificed to establish itself upon the world.

Watch the video directed, shot and edited by David Lampley on Super 8 film below:

Death Motels is out now and available from the This Lonesome Paradise Bandcamp page.

Thomas Dollbaum – Dozen Roses

Born in Tampa and now based in New Orleans, songwriter Thomas Dollbaum has put out several releases in recent years, 2022 LP Wellswood and 2025 EP Drive All Night, though grew frustrated with the slow process as recording was hampered by a variety of factors. For latest album Birds of Paradise, coming this May on Dear Life Records, Dollbaum was determined to buck this trend. After writing for no more than three months, he enlisted the help of most trusted collaborators Nick Corson, Josh Halper and MJ Lenderman and travelled to Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Mississippi to work with producer/engineer Clay Jones. There, the album came to life in a handful of days, the recording process finally matching the urgency and charge that Dollbaum’s style of music demands. Lead single ‘Dozen Roses’ serves as a window into the album and its themes, tapping into the magic and beauty of the natural world to enliven personal memories, and ultimately displaying the lightning-in-a-bottle intensity these songs promise to bring.

Watch the video by ALLUVIAL below:

Birds of Paradise is set for release on 22nd May via Dear Life Records. Order it now from the Thomas Dollbaum Bandcamp page.

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What emerges is a picture of a day which might appear ordinary on the surface, yet is churning with the small dramas and existential currents beneath the surface. A day, that is, like any other. “I had no choice on Riverside / Saw it in the last few moments of its life / There was no way that I could stop / But now I am frozen,” as Thornton sings in the opening lines, voice wavering with sincerity as though urging the listener to grasp the gravity of the moment. “Now I can’t get past the thought / This doesn’t feel very fair at all / I know that there must be a spot / In heaven and he is chosen.” The tone of the Ramsey Thornton project is embodied by the these first verses, possessing all of the closeness, heart and longing which underpins his work.

Now all I wanna do is just pull over
Turn off my radio and sit here for an hour
When I left home today I figured I’d just keep hanging out

Watch a live performance of the track captured by Calebe Severo below:

‘Riverside’ is out now via Gar Hole Records and available from the Ramsey Thornton Bandcamp page.

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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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I’m so glad I met you
Our love was a dream come true
It’s not gonna fade away
Just lives in a different place
Our hearts aren’t broken
No, they’re growing

I’ve been trying hard to try harder
I stretch and drink my eight cups of water
I put down my phone, made me smarter
I’ve been trying hard to try harder

Shadow On My Light will be released via Gar Hole Records on 16^th August. Pre-order a copy now from the Maddy Kirgo Bandcamp page.

Album art by Emma Ledgerwood, Feed My Ego

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Last year, East Vancouver post-punks Aversions put out the full-length You Wanted The Bike, an album which “combine[d] heavyweight riffs, pounded percussion and acerbic vocals to comment on our contemporary moment,” as we put it in a preview. Songs like ‘Undecider‘ channelled this raw energy into a sound of “anxiety and latent violence, drawing on a whole host of political and social themes in three and a half minutes of Strummer-esque polit-punk.” Recorded at the same time as that album but not quite sitting right among the rest of the tracks, latest single ‘Wormhole’ sees the three-piece reaching further afield for their stylistic influences, dialling back some of the ferocity to allow in alt-country sensibilities. But the lyrics are as cutting and contemporary as ever, charting the rise and fall of an internet personality who, after selling their soul for recognition, is left lonely on the other side of fame, banging the locked door leading back to normal life.

Blue Canopy x A Beacon School – Bright Spot II

When Blue Canopy‘s Alex Schiff asked Patrick Smith of A Beacon School to remix single ‘Bright Spot’ after its release back in 2022, he probably didn’t quite expect the level of collaboration and vision which followed. Fast-forward eighteen months and the result has now been released as a single via Grind Select. ‘Bright Spot II’ is not so much a remix as a reimagining, a sister track which drags a cover of darkness over the original’s sunny wistfulness, carving out a nocturnal space of electronics which further amplifies the themes of regret and longing in a song about facing difficult periods with a long-term partner. “I just wanted everything to be OK between us,” Schiff explains, “and this song sorts through my feelings throughout that time, hoping for a resolution.”

The song comes complete with a video by Ebony Davies with additional edits from Chase Wagner:

‘Bright Spot II’ is out now via Grind Select and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The Dead Tongues – Body of Light

“Baby there ain’t no rules here / we can just slide / keep bending and drawing new lines / all shapes defined.” So opens ‘Body of Light’, the title track from one half of the upcoming double record from Ryan Gustafson’s The Dead Tongues on Psychic Hotline. Described as a pair of “interweaving and disparate albums,” the release embraces the diaphanous, intangible sentiment offered in those opening words, refusing to calcify into solid form in favour of something ephemeral. As the lead single suggests, the result is something intuitive and ever-shifting, mapped along the unseen currents of both our own interiors and the natural world. “Maybe you don’t know what to call it,” as Gustafson sings, “or it ain’t got a name / i’m here for it all just the same / all colors and shades / i’m just a body of light.” Watch the video by Gustafson and Cat Siravantha below:

Body of Light will be released digitally on the 14th June, and physically as a double album with I Am A Cloud on the 9th August via Psychic Hotline. Pre-order it now.

dog eyes – fair

dog eyes is the recording project of Oakland‘s Davis Leach and Haily Firstman which started when Leach helped produce Firstman’s previous project Mr Marigold. The pair soon realised their collaborative chemistry could stretch much further. Following on from the earnest, delightfully lo-fi debut good, proper sendoff on Grand Jury Music, new single ‘fair’ continues to develop the dog eyes sound. A track about friendship and its strange ebb and flow, the childlike wonder of the vocals is shaded by a lingering wistfulness, as though every perfect moment foreshadows its inevitable end. “When you’re a kid and you make a new friend you think they’ll be your friend forever and often they are not, the band explain. “They were there for a season. A love or crush can be the same.” Watch the video directed by Ev Fitzpatrick below:

‘fair’ is out now and available from the dogs eyes Bandcamp page.

Joy Guidry – I Will Always Miss You

Writing in March, we described how Brooklyn-based bassoonist and composer Joy Guidry was releasing new album AMEN via Whited Sepulchre Records, where Guidry experiments with the multitude of Black American music styles to create something new. Previous single ‘Members Don’t Get Weary’ combined jazz and gospel music into something impassioned and triumphant, whereas new track ‘I Will Always Miss You’ takes an entirely different path. Built upon a foundation of lush ambient synths and boasting some of the most evocative bassoon you are likely to hear, the instrumental piece offers a meditative space that’s rooted within the wider experience of life—where mourning and joy marble into a single whole.

Lake Michigan – Rituals

Described as an album about “love, OCD, class, addiction and probably a couple of other things too,” La Madrugada is the latest full-length release from Mexico City-based Lake Michigan on Start-track. The record continues the project’s gloomy, intimate bedroom pop style, with arrangements stripped back to their sparest elements to sound like raw messages as voiced in the latest hours of the night. Focusing on OCD and the general unease so intrinsic to the condition, single ‘Rituals’ is great entry point, its vocals emerging through the lo-fi sound as barely a murmur, heavy with weariness yet afraid of relaxing, as though compelled by the need to balance the world.

Mr. Sam and the People People – Go People Go (Part One)

This summer sees the release of Again! Again!, the new full-length album from New Orleans-based songwriting project Mr. Sam and the People People on Tape Dad (distributed by Gar Hole Records). Opening single ‘Go Baby Go (Part One)’ introduces the compassionate tone with a mindful reflection on the beauty inherent in simple things. Mr. Sam Gelband’s vocals land somewhere between Dean Johnson and Frederick Squires in their fond baritone. “I wrote ‘Go Baby Go’ to honor […] my closest people, the lake, the porch, the mountain, the shoreline, the neighbourhood, the quiet moments with myself,” Mr. Sam describes. “I know now that these things are the keepers of my truest joy, and I thank them.” Watch the video by Mayme O’Toole and Sam Gelband below:

Again! Again! is out via Tape Dad on the 11th June and available for pre-order now.

shn shn – Glimmer

We’ve covered the work of shn shn several times in recent years, always admiring how Toronto-based producer, singer-songwriter and creator Shanika Lewis-Waddell reimagines what the project might be with each release. “[shn shn] aims to do more than merely convince the listener to examine themselves,” we wrote of Form(s) last year. “Rather, it allows them to drift off to new frontiers. That is, to dream.” With its expansive ambient tones and idiosyncratic details, new single ‘Glimmer’ furthers this aesthetic. A meditation on the power of patience and understatement which coalesces into something quietly triumphant. “Building up gradually,” Lewis-Waddell sings, “unexpectedly found myself /so close yet so far / to a glimmer of hope.”

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