“There’s something of Kraftwerk in the sound, a smidge of Suicide and no small amount of Lou Reed, though the blend of digital and organic tones is clearly the product of a singular imagination.” That’s how we described the work of Turin-born, Toronto-based ‘poetic jazz rock’ songwriter Fortunato Durutti Marinetti back in 2023, writing about the album Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean. Now FDM is returning with new album Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter, what label Quindi Records describe as “his most sweeping, absurd, and emotionally acute statement to date,” and lead single ‘Full of Fire’ hints at the maximalist style at its heart. A song which takes inspiration from iconoclasts like Annette Peacock, Rickie Lee Jones, Donald Byrd, Brigitte Fontaine and Fabrizio De André to paint love as something equal parts fond and fatal.

Green Gardens – Stroom

Leeds ‘feudal indie rock’ outfit Green Gardens have been sharing new material in recent weeks, with singles ‘Year of Love’ (which saw the band, as we wrote, “swapping out some of the grand scale in favour of increased intimacy”) and ‘Ghost of a Tree’ (a song “embodying the spirit of a band who make no distinction between the intimate and the sublime,” as we put it, “positioning an individual’s loves and losses within an almost geolgical span of time”) introducing a slightly new direction for the outfit. The releases have been building up to the announcement of Thistlesifting, a brand new full-length coming later this simmer via Tiny Library Records, and now Green Gardens have unveiled latest single ‘Stroom’ to further whet appetites.

Watch the video made by Joel Johnston and Chris Aitchison below:

Thistlesifting will be released via Tiny Library Records on the 25th August and you can pre-order it now.

Greg Freeman – Curtain

Later this summer, Burlington, Vermont songwriter Greg Freeman is returning with Burnover, a brand new full-length via Transgressive Records and Canvasback Music. It’s a record which pairs laidback country twang with indie rock momentum, furthering the singular style Freeman introduced back in 2022 with previous LP I Look Out. New single ‘Curtain’ captures the mix of playful lyricism and charged energy which makes up the release, Sam Atallah’s piano driving proceedings but Freeman’s vocals stealing the stage. Assured and surprising verbose, like a stream of consciousness unfurling with equal parts conversational immediacy and poetic grace.

My thoughts die out slowly on the blood swept plains where I see you every night
And to the lonely hours, it’s like burning the furniture to keep the house bright at night

The night is getting late and the horns have all been blown
And the drummer’s looking cock-eyed on his rusty metal throne
And I’m somewhere in the distance and you’re somewhere at home

Watch the video directed by Carl Elsaesser below:

Burnover will be released on the 22nd August via Transgressive Records and Canvasback Music and you can pre-order it now.

John Also Bennett – Easter Daydream

His first album for Shelter Press since 2019 solo debut Erg Herbe, John Also Bennett returns this July with new full-length Ston Elaióna. The record—titled ‘in the olive grove’ in Greek—sees the US-born, Athens, Greece-based composer, flautist and multi-instrumentalist blur the lines between the ancient and the contemporary, the physical and metaphysical, with electroacoustic compositions every bit as precise and spacious as fans of JAB will have come to expect. Lead single ‘Easter Daydream’ welcomes the audience into the world of the record, a soundscape built from subtle bass flute and synth which allows the real world to bleed in. Namely the bells from a procession captured during Orthodox Holy Week down the road from Bennett’s apartment in Athens, sounds which have a strangely dualistic effect on the mood, both haunting the track and charging it with immediacy.

Michael Beach – Poison Dart

We’ve long followed the work of Naarm/Melbourne-based songwriter Michael Beach, with 2021 record Dream Violence winning a place among our favourite albums of the year. “Beach reaches into the grab bag of rock history and fashions what he finds into something timely and unique,” we wrote. “Imagine Neil Young meeting The Velvet Underground on a dark and hopeless night in our late-capitalist hellscape to muse on the meaninglessness of existence.” Such a description might have captured the record’s searing heart, though does a disservice to the overall tone of Beach’s work. Because while there is an undeniable darkness, it is often sublime in nature, and certainly anything but nihilistic in its intentions. A fact made clear by new record Big Black Plume, coming soon via Poison City and Goner Records, which works with perhaps the only form of optimism left.  “I was wrestling with the beauty and intensity of the natural world and coming to grips with the human destruction of it,” as Beach explains. “I have an overwhelming sense that humans will come and go, and the world we depend on will outlast us.” Listen to new single ‘Poison Dart’ now:

Watch the video below, directed by Alexandra Millen with cinematography from Claire Giuffre:

Big Black Plume will be released on the 25th July via Poison City and Goner Records and you can pre-order it now.

Omo Cloud – Ultimate Love

Later this month sees the release of Mausoleum, the debut album from Cole De La Isla’s Omo Cloud on Dusty Mars Records. The album sees the San Diego songwriter reckon with their past with the intention, as per the title, of burying it and moving on. The result, as shown by lead single ‘Ultimate Love’, is every inch as bittersweet as that might sound. Enduring the painful process of returning to old traumas in order to redefine the present and future. “I feel like I spent a lot of my teenhood being very angsty and existential and cynical in a lot of ways, but I don’t want that to be the takeaway of the record at all,” De La Isla explains. “I feel the takeaway is actually a very optimistic one. We’re all capable of growth and change, and it is a lot of work, but it is worth it. I want people to trust their gut. I want to help people connect with hard emotions—and I want people to be inspired.”

Mausoleum is out on the 27th June via Dusty Mars Records and available to pre-order now.

Pacing – Nothing! (I wanna do)

Led by Katie McTigue, Pacing has been catching our eye for a number of years with a sound at once fun, idiosyncratic and deceptively heartfelt. “[Pacing] follows in the playful, tongue-in-cheek tradition of the likes of Kimya Dawson,” as we put it back in 2023, “yet always nudges the ideas further to be more than mere twee humour or sardonic fun.” After a number of successful collaborations and a high profile tour with Cheekface, this summer sees McTigue return with PL*NET F*TNESS, a new album on Asian Man Records, and latest single ‘Nothing! (I wanna do)’ suggests Pacing is firing on all cylinders. Inspired by a brain-numbing commute along Highway 85, the song is described as “a classic upbeat depression banger” (“we are all entitled to one per album, and I’m using mine now,” as McTigue says), and embodies the mission which has long lurked beneath the surface of the project. Because, when you peel back the wry humour and off-the-wall personality, it becomes clear Pacing is asking how we are supposed to live beneath the weight of all that is asked of us. How might we find meaning in a banal world?

Watch a live video for the single below, with gig footage by Hali Tauxe and b-roll by errbody:

PL*NET F*TNESS is out on the 25th July via Asian Man Records.

R&D – Everything Becomes a Sign

We’ve long followed the work of Dan Knishkowy (Adeline Hotel) and Rebecca El-Saleh (Kitba) in their own respective projects, with the latest Adeline Hotel full-length Whodunnit making our list of favourites from 2024 and the Kitba’s exceptional self-titled record winning our praise in 2023 (“Proof that art can offer a picture of identity more nuanced than simple labels,” we wrote of the latter. “A deeper understanding reached via an embrace of confusion. Identity as an ongoing thing”). So it is most welcome news the pair have teamed up under the moniker R&D to create improvised, instrumental songs which further delve into the themes they have explored individually. Because while upcoming album I’ll Send You a Sign marks something of a departure from what we might expect from Knishkowy and El-Saleh in terms of style, its thematic concerns feel more like a continuation or deepening. Take the spare, probing single ‘Everything Becomes a Sign’, which mines patience and sensitivity for all of their exploratory potential.

Rival Consoles – Jupiter

We’ve featured a number of tracks from Rival Consoles‘ forthcoming album Landscape from Memory in recent weeks, with tracks like ‘Catherine‘ and ‘Known Shape‘ finding Ryan Lee West working at the intersection of the human and the digital, crafting soundscapes full of euphoria, melancholy and restless motion. With the release approaching via Erased Tapes, West has shared latest single ‘Jupiter’. A song which embodies the album’s spirit in its combination of repetition and variation, its intricate detail and overarching brightness. “At the heart of this piece is a call and response,” as he explains. “The main idea is changing but the response is always the same, this is connected to life and nature. I wanted the music to feel like materials, bending, distorting, shimmering, colourful shards of glass and metal. To me it feels like the sun touching objects with its warmth and power.”

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

Now Green Gardens are back with ‘Ghost of a Tree’, another track which further solidifies this change. While This Is Not Your Fault displayed a certain level of spareness within its evocative sound, the latest track highlights the wider palette of their new material. Lo-fi guitars conjure a soundscape akin to those of The Microphones, while the insistent drum beat builds in intensity as the vocals rise across the track, embodying the spirit of a band who make no distinction between the intimate and the sublime. Indeed, such a balance between mundane human experience and something far larger and sweeping sits at the heart of the track, positioning an individual’s loves and losses within an almost geolgical span of time.

“’Ghost of a Tree’ feels to me as a layering of things, like sedimentary rock or bodies trapped in bogs,” as vocalist and bassist Jacob Cracknell explains. “I like seeing time illustrated so bluntly by those things and sometimes that can hit you hard in their rigidity. They don’t tell you that winter can drag its feet, they just show years pass all the same. I heard someone on the radio recently talking about how they can tell when solar flares happened centuries ago due to the rings in trees and I sometimes wonder if my head when I sleep is laying where one of those trees was swelling and growing. These things make me feel significant, part of it all.”

Watch the video by Joel Johnston with scans by Jacob Cracknell below:

‘Ghost of a Tree’ is out now via Tiny Library Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The post Green Gardens – Ghost of a Tree appeared first on Various Small Flames.

San Diego-based songwriter Bella Cloud sits somewhere between contemporaries like Phoebe Bridgers and Merce Lemon, grafting pop and shoegaze sensibilities onto an indie folk style to create something both emotionally charged and richly immersive. With new EP The Limerence on the horizon, Cloud has shared new single ‘The Littlest Death’, and the track is the ideal entry point for newcomers. Spencer Dugan (guitar), Jeremy Field (viola) and Rebecca Sykes (drums) lend their talents too, helping to create a sound vivid enough to match the sense of reflection and longing which runs through the vocals.

The Limerent is coming soon and you can find Bella Cloud in the usual places.

Green Gardens – Year of Love

“Combining swaying, laidback harmonies with fuzzy guitars and an almost Medieval preoccupation with heavy themes and gothic imagery.” That’s how we depicted the work of Leeds outfit Green Gardens when writing of their album This Is Not Your Fault back in 2023. The self-described feudal post-rock outfit are back with new single ‘Years of Love’ with Tiny Library Records, a song which both continues this style and makes certain alterations, swapping out some of the grand scale in favour of increased intimacy. “’Year of Love’ is a step away from the live room,” the band explain. “The guitars and drums suddenly felt too far away, so we brought them and the small room where we recorded them right in to our ears. It’s about the dogs, and it’s about the flies, and it’s about the trees. I’m happy this song is out while the winter closes, and those things grow again.”

Helena Deland – Silver and Red / Bigger Pieces

“When I finished recording what I thought would be my first album, I was faced with a miscellaneous bunch of songs,” describes Montreal singer songwriter Helena Deland. “Instead of wiggling them into the expected format, I released them as a series of short EPs called Altogether Unaccompanied.” Several years since the previous instalments, Deland has released the fifth volume of Altogether Unaccompanied, two songs that very much deserve to see the light of day. ‘Silver and Red’ is wan and wintry, a lo-fi acoustic track that put’s Deland’s vocals at the forefront, while ‘Bigger Pieces’ fleshes things out with contributions from Alexandre Larin (guitar), Francis Ledoux (percussion) and Cédric Martel (bass). Check out Nik Arthur’s video for ‘Silver and Red’ and listen to ‘Bigger Pieces’ below:

Altogether Unaccompanied, Vol. V is out now via the Helena Deland Bandcamp page.

Joni – Things I Left Behind

Having spent the best part of a decade writing songs for other people in New York and Los Angeles, a move to London, a difficult break up and feelings of pandemic-based isolation pushed Joni back to making music of her own. In April she releases Things I Left Behind, her debut LP, via Keeled Scales and Hand in Hive, a collection of ten songs that look backwards in order to move forwards. The latest single and title track is a good example, exploring life’s ever shifting nature via those pieces of oneself cast overboard in the name of pressing on ahead.

Lavender Blue – Scarlet Blood

Next month sees the release of The In Between, the new album from Asheville, NC artist Lavender Blue on Ghost Mountain Records. Previous single ‘Wishbone’ offered what we described as “a sound that owes as much to emo as it does folk or dream pop, combining sharp and smooth textures to evoke the duality at the track’s heart,” and though latest offering ‘Scarlet Blood’ opens with a far more restrained, acoustic style, it sacrifices none of the emotional intensity. For while the initial mood is one of numbness and stasis, but the sensation is not lasting. Instead Kayla Zuskin and co. push through to something more keenly felt, and the track settles into a kind of ebb and flow between subdued quiet and rising intensity, accepting such patterns as the natural state of things. As the repeated refrain goes: “What goes around comes back again.”

MAN LEE – Wind

Back in October we wrote about MAN LEE, the recording project of Brooklyn-based duo Sam Reichman and Tim Lee, as single ‘Best Ones’ tapping into the pair’s close-knit connection to evoke “the sense of solidarity between close friends after a challenging break-up with something between open compassion, droll humour and languid cool.” With full-length album Hefty Wimpy coming next month, new single ‘Wind’ offers another look at the distinctive personality of the MAN LEE sound. A nostalgically fuzzy track which reflects on the formative events of life, resisting the urge to revaluate memories with the new perspective of later years to instead inhabit the magic and mystery of the original moment.

Meagre Martin – Comfort Food

We’ve mentioned Up To Snuff, the new EP from Berlin-based project Meagre Martin, several times in recent months. Single ‘Frankie‘ “pair[ed] gauzy shoegaze textures with a persistent rhythm…embrac[ing] a bright spirit of playfulness and curiosity” and ‘In The Room‘ used a “slow, sludgy style to take on the cloying weight of toxic masculinity, opening up a space in which such forces can be acknowledged and confronted once and for all.” With the EP out now via Mansions and Millions, the outfit is back with final single ‘Comfort Food’. It’s the release’s closing track, which puts a peppy, affirming rhythm behind what might otherwise be a wistful sound, powering through the daunting or melancholic aspects of change with a sense of sheer motion, emerging on the other side with something like positivity.

Moontype – Long Country

Led by singer and bassist Margaret McCarthy, Chicago indie rock outfit Moontype won acclaim with their debut full-length Bodies of Water back in 2021, a record which felt like the final painting after the series of sketch-like releases (like ‘The Great Ohio / Not That Easy‘) which preceded it. But if Bodies of Water was the culmination of something, it was not the Moontype project in its entirety but merely one iteration of it. Now it appears a new cycle is beginning, the outfit signing to Orindal Records and unveiling new single ‘Long Country’. The first taste of the fruits of a new gestation period in which McCarthy has both altered the line-up and grown as a songwriter and musician, and a kind of stepping stone between the old version and the new. “I would never leave you without saying goodbye,” as McCarthy sings in the opening line, but every farewell leads to new beginnings.

Watch the video directed and edited by Ian Kelly below:

‘Long Country’ is out now via Orindal Records and available via Bandcamp.

Pink Must – Karaoke of the Bends

“Establishes an interplay between polish and dissonance, as well as an often wryly sardonic vocal style and conscious resistance to easy labelling at every turn.” That’s how we introduced the self-titled album from Brooklyn-based duo Pink Must back in January, with single ‘Morphe Sun’ embodying the ambitious and idiosyncratic vision Mari Rubio (More Eaze) and Lynn Avery bring to the life via the project. With the album coming later this month on Copenhagen label 15 Love, Pink Must have released new single ‘Karaoke of the Bends’. The song highlights both the strange and heartfelt dimensions of the the record, and is unique for being the only track on the record where Avery takes over vocal duties. “It’s that kind of corny ‘I know I’ll see you soon, but I want to see you tonight’ feeling,” they explain, “and doing karaoke of songs from The Bends by Radiohead.”

TOM LARK – Rock & Roll Baby

The recording project of New Zealand songwriter Shannon Fowler, Tom Lark is preparing to release new full-length Moonlight Hotel this spring. An album which spans almost a hundred years to link two experiences of displacement in the wake of natural disasters—that of Shannon’s family after the 1929 earthquake in the pioneer town of Murchison on the South Island, and his own in 2011 following the earthquakes which struck Ōtautahi. Latest single ‘Rock & Roll Baby’ embraces a psych-inflected folk rock sound to lean into the volatility inherent with such themes, facing down the peaks and troughs of life with an easygoing acceptance.

The post Weekly Listening: February 2025 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Back in December we introduced a new release from East Vancouver post-punks Aversions with single ‘New Whip’, a track which “combine[d] heavyweight riffs, pounded percussion and acerbic vocals to comment on our contemporary moment.” Album You Wanted the Bike has now been released, and as single ‘Undecider’ shows, the record builds upon the promised heft, leaning towards post-hardcore in its pummelling momentum. Written in the chaotic final days of the Trump presidency, it’s a song full 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. Check out the video directed by Bruno Trivelli of Death XII:

You Wanted the Bike is out now and available from the Aversion Bandcamp page.

Green Gardens – This Is My Fault

Leeds art rock outfit Green Gardens have announced a new record, This Is Not Your Fault, with the release of lead single ‘This Is My Fault’. Written in what the band say was “a whirlwind state of inspiration after hearing a Ralph Ineson monologue in which he’s crying and pleading with God to lift an imagined curse from him,” the track is the perfect introduction to the four-piece’s distinctive style, combining swaying, laidback harmonies with fuzzy guitars and an almost Medieval preoccupation with heavy themes and gothic imagery.

Gabby’s World – Mussel

When we say Gabby’s World, the project of New York producer and songwriter Gabby Smith, is releasing new album GABBY SWORD this this year on Carrot All Records, we mean year quite literally. Because Smith is unveiling a new song every month, concluding in a full release in December. The final offering of what Smith calls a “triad of gay awakening songs,” latest offering ‘Mussel’ represents the evolution of Smith’s sound and focus since albums like 2015’s O.K. A sincere engagement with what it means to become entwined with another person captured in a style at once physical and ethereal. Watch the video directed by Grace Weir, Barrie Lindsay, and Gabby Smith themselves below:

GABBY SWORD will be released on the 1st December via Carrot All Records.

The Handsome Family – Joseph

Hollow, the forthcoming album from The Handsome Family, originated in a single, unnerving moment shared by Brett and Rennie Sparks during a long winter night. “One night around 4 a.m. Rennie started screaming in her sleep,” Brett explains. “She screamed, ‘Come into the circle Joseph! There’s no moon tonight.’ Scary as it was, I thought, man, that’s a good chorus!” The resulting track ‘Joseph’ develops this moment into a wider context of supernatural foreboding, though within the ominous imagery lies a sense of humanity too. Something nostalgic, a sense of longing, as though within the portents and omens lies the promise of something almost romantic.

It’s 1:49AM
Crawl under the bed
Whisper my name
It’s time to begin

Hollow is out on the 8th September and you can find out more on The Handsome Family website.

Katherine Kyu Hyeon Lim – As It All Goes By

Starling, the debut album from New York-based composer and violinist Katherine Kyu Hyeon Lim, is both an encapsulation of an individual’s unique understanding of patterns and sound and a testament to the value collaboration. Together with Alfredo Colón (EWI/soprano saxophone) and Kalia Vandever (trombone/fx), Lim creates soundscapes within this spirit—unapologetically singular in its improvisation yet fully dependent on the input of others—with each musician offering one solo track on the album as though to call attention to their individuality before knitting back into the wider sound. Closer ‘As It All Goes By’ plays as the triumphant reunion of the these forces, bringing Lim’s vision to life it all of its detail and wonder. As Joey Chang’s album notes so cogently conclude: “Starling demands the right to self-determine, to be the driver of one’s own story, and to say, without apology, who you are.”

Oceanator – Part Time

We’ve written about Elise Okusami’s Oceanator quite a lot over the last few years, taken with her ability to explore pretty deep themes and feelings with fun and energetic indie rock. Co-written with Greg Katz (of Cheekface), new standalone single ‘Part Time’ (out now via Polyvinyl Records) might be the catchiest thing Okusami has made to date. A song about taking small steps toward making positive changes, it captures a sunny 60s rock & roll vibe with springy keys, crisp guitar riffs and the ear-worm chorus of “I know that I can get by if I try /Part time!”

Patio – En Plein Air

Their first new music since 2019 LP Essentials (which we described as “a knowing smile, a bitter laugh and an angry scream, all at once.”), ‘En Plein Air’ is the new single from New York post-punk trio Patio. Released via the good folks at Fire Talk Records, the song immediately shows that the band have still got it; all negative space, skittering percussion and razor-sharp stabs of guitar. There’s deadpan delivery and wry humour, a luminous vulnerability and even a subtle glow of disco bliss. The band say its a song about “winning a fight, for once, but by proxy—finding the right thing to say, but five years too late.” But as they say, better late than never.

‘En Plein Air’ is out now via Fire Talk and available via the Patio Bandcamp page.

Snake Lips – Smooth Brain No Wrinkles

Portland, Maine punk outfit Snake Lips are set to return with Dice EP later this summer with Repeating Cloud and Totally Real Records, and lead single ‘Smooth Brain No Wrinkles’ invites listeners into the distinctive personality of the project. Because, as the song’s title might suggest, the Snake Lips style combines its compelling energy with a mischievous irony, tapping into a Japandroids-esque momentum to unleash the cathartic potential of self-deprecation. Couple in the FromSoftware-inspired video, and the ‘Smooth Brain No Wrinkles’ will have you dodgerolling right the way through the summer months.

Dice EP is out on the 11th August via Repeating Cloud and Totally Real Records and you can pre-order it now.

 Strawberry Runners – Circle Circle

Their first new release proper since 2017’s superb In the Garden, In the Night, Strawberry Runners have returned with single ‘Circle Circle’ on Duper Moon Records. Lead Emi Night arranged the track alongside Michael Cormier O’Leary, and invited the likes of Benedict Kupstas, Erika Nininger and Stephen Becker to lend their talents. Written during the fevered state of illness, the song taps into the cyclical movements of a troubled mind, though Night pushes through the experience to find solid ground on the other side. As though learning to suspend attempts to fight against exhausting rhythms and instead recognise them as a part of life. What emerges is a sense of stability informed by understanding an compassion, a patience which lessens the impact of any specific discomfort or frustration in favour of a wider curiosity.

Find out more about Strawberry Runners here.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2023 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.