New Jersey punk rock outfit best dressed ghost are preparing to release their latest EP Let’s Go Home in the next few weeks, looking to build upon the raucous, mischievous beginnings set out on predecessor Dead Rock. If lead single ‘Funhouse’ is anything to go by, the new EP more than lives up to these ambitions. With equal parts brooding shadow and chaotic energy, the song carries a reckless sense of fun, something accentuated by dashes of surf and skate rock sensibilities, not to mention the anarchic vocal delivery. What emerges is something at once fun and slightly dangerous, a spark which might not last long but is determined to burn as hot and bright as possible in the meantime.

Watch the video created by nino + stef dressed ghost below:

Let’s Go Home will be released on the 12th March, so keep an eye on the best dressed ghost Bandcamp page.

Celestine Manno – If You Were Around

Connecticut-born songwriter Celestine Manno won attention back in 2023 with Once You’ve Seen It All, a distinctively sincere album which sat somewhere between indie folk and Sylvan Esso-esque pop. Now Manno has returned with brand new single ‘If You Were Around’ and the emotional resonance has only grown. A song which not only serves as a remembrance to Manno’s mother but an exploration of how loss might impact our lives moving forward. “My mom felt like California personified. Through stories and photographs, I’ve concocted my own memory of her that’s bright, witty, and effortless,” Manno explains. “Written on the 20th anniversary of her death, ‘If You Were Around’ reflects on the absence of her guidance through womanhood, and acceptance of the passage of time. Who would I have become with her influence? How differently would I have been shaped?”

‘If You Were Around’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Eric Angelo Bessel – Double Helix

“[An] enveloping slice of avant garde ambient, soaring with a weightless grace beyond the suffocating confines of our terrestrial life.” So we wrote of ‘Non-Diegetic Sound’, taken from Eric Angelo Bessel‘s Mirror at Night last year. A sound indicative of the album as a whole. “Nothing is quite what it seems within this space, true to Mirror At Night‘s promise to evade simple description,” we continued. “The futuristic vibe is balanced by the nostalgic tones of the Mellotron, and the synths blur the line between the organic and digital. A record that isn’t one thing or the other but everything all at once, offering different reflections depending on your perspective.” Now Bessel is back with a new 7″ EP Mirror At Night B-Sides to push ever further into this mysterious territory, and lead track ‘Double Helix’ lives up to expectations. Dreamlike and drifting, emerging full of ambiguous meaning as though dug from deep in the distant past or else visiting from some time or space we are yet to encounter.

Garet Camella – Gnats (feat. Mukiss)

Midwest-born, LA-based Garet Camella is preparing to release new EP Just Passing Through, a collection of songs with roots in his early twenties, now revised and recorded to revive something which might otherwise have been forgotten. First taste ‘Gnats’ is a suitably nostalgic slice of folk rock to introduce the project, rising from humble beginnings into a full band duet. Camella is joined by Caeleigh Featherstone, AKA Mukiss (who you might know as part of Saintseneca), and the chemistry between the vocals forms a major part of the track’s development. Camella’s searching, uncertain delivery in the opening minute grows in conviction as Mukiss joins and the instrumentation blooms, the song playing like connection made in real time.

Just Passing Through will be released soon.

Party of the Sun – Abandon’s Grip

We’ve followed the work of New Hampshire-based  folk trio Party of the Sun (Ethan McBrien, Rory Hurley and Garrett Cameron) across a number of years, most recently back in 2024 with the release of double single Giver // River. “Songs rich in invention and always tied to the environment,” we wrote of the project, “concerned with searching for new ways to evoke life in its complicated beauty.” Out via Trailing Twelve Records, Party of the Sun’s new release The Twin EP represents a continuation of this style, dating back as far as 2019 and “shaped,” per the label, “as a single, continuous emotional arc.” With a main body of bodhrán, slide guitar and finger-picked steel string but with a real attention to negative space too, the result is every bit as thoughtful and organic as anything the trio have released to date. Listen to single ‘Abandon’s Grip’ now:

The Twin EP is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

The Pretty Flowers – To Be So Cool

“Written within a city (and wider country) shaken by turmoil, be it the unprecedented wildfires or equally tinderbox political moment, [The Pretty Flowers] found themselves driven by the surrounding atmosphere, the anxiety and chaos of their surroundings seeping into the tracks themselves.” So we wrote of the LA indie rock outfit’s forthcoming album Never Felt Bitter back in January, single ‘Came Back Kicking’ highlighting how they turned to barrelling energy as though in defiance. Latest track ‘To Be So Cool’ is no different, a song bound by an irrepressible sense of forward motion which again carries a rebellious air. “’To Be So Cool” is one of my favorite songs on the album, and it’s a blast to play live,” Green explains. “The lyrics just seemed to kind of flow and I didn’t try and overthink writing them at the time. Some months later when I was watching the film Withnail & I for the umpteenth time, I noticed that the lyrics seemed to connect to the film, in how the “I” character sees Withnail going through life. Maybe a student in a community college English class will tease that idea out in an essay at some point.”

Watch the video directed and produced by Tambi Haron with director of Photography Nate Klein below:

Never Felt Bitter will be released on 27th March. Order it now from The Pretty Flowers Bandcamp.

Swapmeet – I Know!

South Australia four-piece Swapmeet formed in 2021, though really burst on the scene in 2024 with their debut EP, Oxalis. The release shapeshifted between each of its five songs, the quartet managing to capture the spirit of being a young person in the twenty-first century, constantly moving between love, fear, hopelessness and grief and often embracing several simultaneously. Having now signed with Winspear, Swapmeet are now back with new single ‘I Know!’ to introduce the next stage of their career. Again pairing jangle and fuzz with a buoyant energy, the track represents the very best of the project. A sound able to encompass both sardonic slacker bite and cathartic alt rock release, rising from sly, taut beginnings into something with serious size and heft.

If you wanna hurt me
If you wanna try
If I had your heart in my hand
Would you want mine

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

Taroug – Najet

Back in January we introduced Taroug, the recording project of German–Tunisian drummer and electronic music producer Tarek Zarroug, and the new album Chott, forthcoming via Denovali Records. Single ‘1995’ highlighted how Taroug “blends digital and organic sounds to create conceptual soundscapes able to evoke the full richness of personal history,” as we put it. “blending a nostalgic, melancholic minimalism with moments of bright intensity.” With the album’s release on the horizon, latest track ‘Najet’ leads the audience further into this style. The bass-centric, layered sound is adorned with Tunisian instrumentation, melding the traditional and the contemporary and charging the record with a depth that stems in equal parts from culture, history and geology.

Thin Lear – Witness

Back in February we introduced Many Disappeared, the new album from Matt Longo’s Thin Lear with Mothman-themed single ‘Silver Bridge’. The story is just one of a whole file of supernatural stores which came to inspire [the record],” we wrote, “which uses all things weird and unexplained as a way to explore themes altogether more human and personal.” With the release on the horizon via First City Artists, Thin Lear has shared latest track ‘Witness’, a song which delves into an experience far more personal but no less confronting. “My friend and I came across a dying cat on the road,” Longo shares. “My friend was nonchalant. But I was utterly horrified. The incident is still a touchpoint for me, every time I come upon the same powerless feeling, whether it be through the loss of a loved one or the general anxiety that the veil between this world and the next is quite thin.”

Watch the video by Ali Aschman below:

Many Disappeared will be released on the 24th April via First City Artists and you can pre-order it now from the Thin Lear Bandcamp page.

villagerrr – Locket

Following on from 2024 full-length Tear Your Heart Out and subsequent deluxe edition which came out last year, Ohio-based indie project villagerrr will release their fifth album Carousel this May via Winspear. The previous record saw Mark Scott explore his close connection with hometown Chillicothe, and the new record chooses another relationship to put under the microscope. Though this time it is not related to place but the act of making art itself, namely the attempt to communicate in earnest with another person within a world which often seems designed to hinder such a thing. In the spirit of this theme, Scott dropped his guard and opened villagerrr up to outside influence more than ever before, with an enviable list of friends and collaborators joining to elevate Carousel into the project’s richest sound to date. Listen to lead single ‘Locket’ now, a suitably sincere number which risks vulnerability in order to communicate more faithfully.

Watch the video directed by Trevor Hock below:

Carousel will be released on the 29th May via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

Wolfschmidt – file

Born within the industrial wastelands of Gothenburg, which has lately become the artistic hotbed of the Swedish city, Wolfschmidt is a ‘nu-gaze’ quintet following the lineage of contemporaries like OVLOV, DIIV and Nothing. Having developed this style across a number of releases since their inception in 2021, Wolfschmidt are back with new single ‘file’ and the track suggests the band are really finding their groove. It’s an epic alt rock number which faces up to feelings of stasis with a combination of hope and fatalism, looking to break free even while the same cycles seem to repeat. But with a quiet-loud dynamic and a propulsive momentum, the result is ultimately cathartic, Wolfschmidt burning through their frustration through sheer energy.

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

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

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

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

Bleary – bug

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

Exam Season – Dreaming of a Dog

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

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

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

GREBE – Insurance

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

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

Hockitay – over/over

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

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

The Montvales – Carolina

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

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

Nic Panken – Dear Companion

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

No Spinoza – Airport

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

Jupiter’s Great Hurricane will be released soon.

The Same Sky – What’s Left

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

Wendy Eisenberg – Old Myth Dying

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

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

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

 Glom – Below

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

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

Kyle Andrews – Old Fashioned

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

Watch the video filmed and edited by Andrews himself below:

Grab ‘Old Fashioned’ now from Bandcamp.

Membra – Always Blue

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

Molly Drag – Dogfight

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

Mt Fog – Drifting

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

My Dear Companion – These Words

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

‘These Words’ is out now.

Sofia Bolt (ft. Stella Donnelly) – Bus Song

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

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

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

TESHA – Come Down

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

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

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

“Has it been a year or two? Will it be cotton or leather?” asks Abigail Lapell in new single ‘Anniversary Song’. “Mercury and iron, carbon, silver / bind us together.” Taken from the Toronto singer-songwriter’s forthcoming album Anniversary on Outside Music, the song encapsulates the marriage of symbolism and tangibility used across the record. Romantic chemistry as both otherworldly magic and physical reaction. Not that the love on the album is merely of the romantic sort, with a series of personal milestones prompting Lapell to contemplate the phenomenon in all its guises, offering a picture of relationships and commitment with all the complexities left intact.

Agent blå – Rain To You

Last month we wrote about ‘Discount’, the lead single from the upcoming album Stab! by Gothenburg‘s Agent blå on VÅRØ Records (Sweden) and Kanine Records (US). What we described as a song “simmering with eerie menace and charged with forward motion, splitting the difference between familiarity and strangeness.” With the album coming later this spring, Agent blå have returned with second single ‘Rain To You’ to build upon these beginnings. Squally and loaded with momentum, it looks to small details as sources of comfort within an otherwise overwhelming world, and submits itself fully to forces large and mysterious.

Never spoke it with a sober mouth
I’m drawn to the chaos, my sanity grown shy
Keep clinging to no time
You’re the moon to me
I was rain to you

Al Harper – Plaster of Paris

Later this month, San Francisco-based songwriter Al Harper will release album The Analemma Observation League via Take a Turn Records. An album which draws upon the solar phenomenon of its title to explore themes of change and growth. Analemma refers to the figure of eight plot made if one was to chart the sun’s position in the sky from the same position at the same time of day across an entire year, rendering what might otherwise seem a linear process into an infinite loop. Working in such a spirit, Al Harper draws on a variety of memories and experiences to offer the past not as some line trailing ever further into the distance, but rather something forever orbiting around us. Lessons to learn from, patterns to take comfort in. The suitably sunny sound of latest single ‘Plaster of Paris’ is the perfect introduction, and comes complete with a video shot by Harper and Craig Barclift and edited by Simon Linsteadt:

The Analemma Observation League is out on the 23rd February via Take A Turn Records and you can pre-order it now.

bedbug – postcard

We’ve long followed the work of bedbug, charting how Dylan Gamez Citron has taken the project through a trilogy of acclaimed bedroom pop albums before metamorphosing into a full band for a self-titled EP in 2022. This year sees bedbug return with pack your bags the sun is growing, a full-length album which builds more fully upon this change of direction to push the project closer to Cap’n Jazz than the hushed aesthetic from which they originated. A style which only furthers Citron’s ability to weave the personal and the political into a seamless whole. Vitally none of the heart or intimacy is lost in this transformation, as single ‘postcard’ attests, and while any project inevitably passes through various life stages as time goes on, you get the sense Citron and co. are rising towards their fullest potential. The first bedbug to ever sprout wings.

Dead Slow Hoot – Take It Or Leave It

Specialising in a style of atmospheric alt-rock that’s at once melancholy and anthemic, Sheffield/London outfit Dead Slow Hoot draw on a variety of genres to create something unique. Previous releases have drawn on poetic folk, shadowy post-punk and epic post-rock, sometimes within the same song, and new single ‘Take It Or Leave It’ is no different. Opening with just pared-back guitar and banjo, it eventually builds to a dramatic crescendo of wailing guitar and crashing percussion, straddling the line between an intimate acoustic ballad and a monumental rock song. The song is about “making necessary compromises for the good of your partner and growing together through that,” the band explain, “[and also] a more general realism, accepting the ‘competing intentions’ that you might have with another person… and actively engaging with them to make something better.”

‘Take It Or Leave It’ is out now via streaming services.

Emma Geiger – Reverse Bloom

We’ve featured Durham, North Carolina-based songwriter Emma Geiger several times over the last year or so. First with 2022 EP Haven, and then with several stellar singles. Excitingly, Geiger is now putting the finishing touches to her debut full-length, Reverse Bloom, which features those singles alongside four brand new tracks. To further whet anticipation, she has released the title track, a song which moves its focus away from romantic relationships towards the difficult loss of a friendship. Someone Geiger was formerly close to wrote a song detailing the dissolution of their friendship, and this is an exploration of the following emotions. “When I first heard it, I felt her anger, frustration and bitterness,” she describes. “That friendship meant a lot to me, and losing it really shook me. It brought up a lot of questions about who I am, and who I was in that relationship.” Watch the video filmed by Archer Boyette and directed by Boyette and Geiger herself below:

Reverse Bloom is out on 26th April. ‘Reverse Bloom’ the single is available now via the Emma Geiger Bandcamp page.

Eyesore & The Jinx – Float Like a Jellyfish (Sting Like a Subtweet)

“[A song which presents] the gym as the encapsulation of the country,” we wrote of Eyesore & The Jinx‘s ‘Nocturnal Athletes (Ode To Bruno)’ by back in September when previewing their debut album, Jitterbug, “where an assortment of lonely and overworked people run without going anywhere, lift with no purpose beyond some abstract penance, and stare at screens playing Top 40 videos on a loop.” With the record’s release fast approaching, the Liverpool-based outfit have shared final single ‘Float Like a Jellyfish (Sting Like a Subtweet)’, and fans will be reassured to learn it is every bit as twitchy and cutting as we’ve come to expect. Light-hearted, mischievous and a little hyperactive, winding taut with anxious energy to evoke a decidedly contemporary unease.

Jordan Whitlock & Memory Spells – Take My Hand

Memory Spells is the new project of songwriter Matt Bauer which takes the orchestral indie folk he puts out under his own name further towards “his love of contemporary TV, film and video game scores, cinematic post rock, early post punk, and 80s film music.” His latest collaboration is with San Diego songwriter and producer Jordan Whitlock, whose intimate writing and impressive soulful vocals have been wining fans all over. Suffused with the lush, shadowy grandeur of Lynch at his most romantic, latest single ‘Take My Hand’ is what the duo describe as “Emmylou Harris meets Cigarettes after Sex,” not only offering a new dimension to Bauer’s work but opening up a whole world of its own.

You can find out more on the Memory Spells website.

The Lostines – Full Moon Night

The recording project of New Orleans-based songwriters Casey Jane Reece-Kaigler and Camille Wind Weatherford, The Lostines are preparing to release their debut full-length Meet The Lostines this spring on Gar Hole Records. The album draws plenty from the Louisiana landscape, but ultimately conjures a world of its own. One in which time and space has gone a little strange, and a whole host of periods and places layer atop of one another to form something larger than the sum of its parts. Lead single ‘Full Moon Night’ typifies the result, where retro folk harmonies and spectral synths bring to life a languid longing for a love now past.

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Coming this spring on VÅRØ Records (Sweden) and Kanine Records (US), Stab! sees Agent blå expand their reach to include elements of psychedelic and krautrock styles. The result is both their most ambitious album to date and something of a call back to their earliest songs. Single ‘Discount’ introduces the style, simmering with eerie menace and charged with forward motion, splitting the difference between familiarity and strangeness. “I see your outlines in the walls / I see your outlines clearer in the dark,” Alatalo sings, “She’s here / She’s here.” But for all the words’ haunting unease, there’s a cathartic edge to the song too. Finding some kind of comfort or power in delving into the dark.

Pick my brains
Like there’s substance left
Not across
Is my brain across your walls?

She’s here
She’s here

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To introduce the record, My Dear Companion have unveiled a fitting new single—a rendition of the Jean Ritchie song from which they take their name. The track captures everything the band do so well, the seeming simplicity of the acoustic sound belying the track’s nuanced depth, where heartfelt emotion and wistful loss are underpinned by a certain intensity too. As the verses cycle and the vocal melodies grow, it is this intensity that stands out. The spirit rooted in the American folk tradition, where pain and beauty are wrapped up as one.

Oh have you seen my dear companion
For he was all this world to me
I hear he’s gone to some far country
And that he cares no more for me

Photography by Angelica Hvass, layout/design by Christoffer Johansson

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Over the course of three years, the sounds of acoustic guitar, pump organ, piano, banjo and voice were caught on tape, rearranged, processed and, coupled with other sounds and recordings, left waiting for months on end. All the while life changed, relationships ended, new life began and older lives ended. More sounds were recorded, arranged, and left to wait.

Eventually these recordings eveloved into finished tracks, and the band enlisted the expert help of Kristopher Strom, Nils Frahm and Heather Woods Broderick. Said tracks have now been packaged into a full-length LP entitled Teeth Out. You can hear the first track ‘Worry, Glory’, which sees Broderick taking on vocal duties, in the player below:

The Silence Set are due to release Teeth Out on the 6th of November. You can pre-order it now via Mini50 Records.

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