Following on from EP Closer to the Bugs, Ava McCoy‘s first release with Acrophase Records, the Brooklyn-based songwriter has returned with brand new single, ‘Young Girl’. Recalling childhood trips back to her Oregon roots, the track represents “a love letter to my younger self and all of the dreams she had,” as McCoy describes. “There have been many iterations of my creative self, and this song ties all of the varied versions of me into one. I sing about mistakes, breakthroughs, disappointments, and my core music memories as a kid.” But, while the lyrics offer a layered picture of a personal, the sound itself opts for simple clarity. An arrangement which allows the vocals, and the narrative picture they evoke, to take centre stage, and thus highlight McCoy’s growing talents as both a songwriter and storyteller. Watch the video by director, videographer, editor, producer and colorist Aidan Millroy below:

‘Young Girl’ is out now via Acrophase Records and you can get it from the usual places.

Avery Friedman – Photo Booth

“Seems to sit in the interstitial space between trauma and growth. That lull between the ceasing of decline and visible signs of recovery, where improvement exists only as a nascent understanding of the possibilities which lay ahead in time.” So we wrote of ‘Flowers Fell’ back in January, the lead single from Avery Friedman‘s debut album New Thing, forthcoming on Audio Antihero this spring. With the release fast approaching, Friedman has returned with new track ‘Photo Booth’ to continue to develop this picture. The song leans into a spontaneous space to unveil the latent playfulness which sits inside a person, waiting to be activated under specific conditions. “Something about the novelty, containment and ephemerality of a photo booth just invites a sort of flirtatious mischief,” she explains. “This night out in particular felt like an encapsulation of spin-the-bottle-type ‘second adolescence’ that many queer people experience when coming into themselves after their adolescent years pass.”

Califone – the bullet b4 the sound

Led by Tim Rutili and brought to life by a rotating cast of collaborators, Califone have been creating idiosyncratic and emotionally charged songs for going on thirty years now, rising from the ashes of Chicago indie rock outfit Red Red Meat and pushing the envelope of folk music through all manner of experimental sensibilities. Out via Jealous Butcher Records, new album The Villager’s Companion continue this mission. Rutili pairs his singularly abstract, poetic lyricism with arrangements full of reverb and electronic whirring to create the signature Califone blend of compassionate and haunting.  Single ‘the bullet b4 the sound’ is the ideal point to jump in, full of loaded imagery and opaque meaning yet ringing true with human emotion, the kind of track that has you returning in search of its elusive truths. “You never were a magazine / the bullet will hit you before the sound / before the sound / before the sound,” Rutili sings in the opening lines. “the atom’s been split / teeth marks in soft metal / throw the knife at the candle come back as a bug / come back as a snowdrift in a streetlight // sin eaters rest their eyes / too dumb to be afraid / crawl inside a warmer simulation.”

Eliana Glass – Shrine

Later this spring, New York-based songwriter and pianist Eliana Glass is releasing her debut full length album E with Shelter Press. It’s an introduction to a finely crafted yet often improvisational style which blurs the border between ethereality and the everyday. Glass adds a variety of electronic flourishes to the piano-led arrangements in a way which both deepens their impact and complicates their meaning. Lead single ‘Shrine’ is the first step into this world, presenting a level of abstraction which functions beyond simple narrative to get to the heart of memory as it is experienced. “This song is more a series of images than a clear story,” as Glass puts it. “It’s about people that you encounter in life and parts of them that live in you, unbeknownst to them. It’s also about feelings of isolation; feeling secluded or remote.”

Watch the video below, filmed, directed and edited by Jules Muir with the video concept by Costa Colachis Glass and typography by Sid Zach:

E is out on the 25th April via Sheltered Press and you can pre-order it now.

Fine Food Market – Sometimes

Fine Food Market, the recording project of Montréal-based musician Sophie Perras, takes its name from the grocery store that sat below the apartment where its initial demos were written, and something of the fact makes its way into I’m afraid to be in love with someone who crashes their car that much, the new EP coming soon on Arbutus Records. Because while Perras’s country sensibilities contain a sense of authenticity, as well as emotional immediacy, there’s also a certain playfulness, as though in writing and recording in a sincere, conversational voice, an incidental whimsy bled into the songs too. Built on pedal steel by Benjamin Vallée, lead single ‘Sometimes’ captures the tone perfectly, lifting its melancholy heart with a theatrical richness to achieve something both heartfelt and wry.

Julia Graye – Telephone

Working within a pop-inflected brand of indie folk, New York-based songwriter Julia Graye uses music as a vehicle through which to locate humanity within the contemporary experience. To make sense of a world which seems to be constantly shifting around us. New single ‘Telephone’ explores such themes with a melancholic yet compassionate tone, looking not only at all the ways in which we are altered as the years roll by, but also how we might keep the channels of communication open between the person we are and the people we have been. A track born in a specific moment of vertigo upon realising the speed and scale of change. Graye explains:

A couple of years ago I was watching old camcorder videos my aunt kept of me as a child. There I was, sitting on a plastic-covered couch reading a book aloud. I flipped the pages and told a story about a girl alone in the woods. But as the video played on, it became clear I couldn’t actually read. I was making it all up. A wave of intense grief washed over me and I started to cry. I was her, yet I felt so distant from her. I had an overwhelming sense of dread about the quickness of it all, of my childhood and of time.

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

Nona Invie – Called a Fool

“Its slow-building style beginning with mournful quiet but blooming into something warm and affirming, as though quite literally stepping out from beneath a shadow and into the light.” So we wrote of ‘Last of Our Shadow’ from Nona Invie‘s Self-soothing back in December, a track which embodied the spirit of the Minneapolis songwriter’s new full-length. With the album out now via Boiled Records, Invie has shared final single, ‘Called a Fool’. With its delicate piano lines, harp harmonies and Cole Pulice’s saxophone, the track continues this process of healing in the face of drastic change. “This song is about new beginnings, a hopefulness for the future,” as Invie explains. “The fool is unafraid to try new things, to fail. They are at peace with their desires.”

Watch the video by director/lead videographer Connor Lynch and videographer Zoe Prinds-Flash below:

Self-soothing is out now via Boiled Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Robert Ascroft – Vagabond (feat. Tess Parks)

After Ruth Radalet (on ‘Faded Photographs’), Zumi Rosow of The Black Lips (‘Empty Pages’), Britta Phillips (‘Where Did You Go?’), Kid Congo Powers (‘Devil Opens The Door‘) and Christopher Owens (‘Echo Still Remains‘), it is now the turn of Tess Parks to collaborate with Robert Ascroft on the latest single from his full-length Echo Still Remains on Hand Drawn Dracula. Complete with a moody monochrome video Ascroft made with Luz Gallardo, the song possesses all of the nocturnal allure and ambiguity which has so far marked the record. A slow, midnight sashay full of sultry longing which nevertheless bristles with a hostile edge.

Echo Still Remains is out now via Hand Drawn Dracula and you get it now from the Robert Ascroft Bandcamp page.

Uwade – (I Wonder) What We’re Made Of

Hailing from Nigeria and now based in North Carolina, Uwade is a musician and academic scholar who has so far made a name helping others—be that providing the vocals at the beginning of Shores by Fleet Foxes or opening for the likes of Jamila Woods, Sylvan Esso and The Strokes—but this spring sees the release of her debut solo album, Florilegium. Latest single ‘(I Wonder) What We’re Made Of’ highlights the tender, assured style of the Uwade sound, where a warm and rich arrangement supports vocals loaded with an authentic sense of heart. “Romantic love gets a lot of attention so when I was workshopping the project that would turn into ‘I Wonder,’ I wanted it to take on a different shade,” she explains of the track. “It was about affection, gratitude, and devotion. Who better to dedicate it to than the people who have carried me through my life: my friends.” Watch the video by director Jason Wishnow and director of photography Marco Fargnoli below:

Florilegium is out on the 25th April via Ehiose Records/Thirty Tigers and you can pre-order it now.

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With the release of the album fast approaching, Robert Ascroft has returned with new single, ‘Should’ve Stayed in Bed’. The track sees Christopher Owens (formerly of Girls) take a turn as Ascroft’s guest, lending vocals to another rich and romantic song which seems to exist within the sweet, aching space between longing and regret. Lynchian is an over- and often misused descriptor, but Ascroft’s ability to locate ethereality within the real and real within dreams seems to owe a lot to a specific dimension of Lynch’s work. The midnight croon of a reminiscing lover, or else lonely figure yearning for the lost warmth of home. Watch the video, again directed by Ascroft himself, below:

Echo Still Remains is out on the 14th February via Hand Drawn Dracula and you can pre-order it now from the Robert Ascroft Bandcamp page.

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Following on from 2023 full-length Painting of My Time—which used, as we put it, “layers of additional instrumentation to combine cathartic rock ‘n roll directness with post-punk atmosphere and the creative flair of art pop”—Melbourne‘s Floodlights have announced a brand new album, Underneath. The outfit have made a name through a willingness to engage with wide cultural themes, though the new record sees them tending further than ever towards the personal, paring back the layers of its predecessor to allow for a more unguarded, intimate sound. Single ‘The Light Won’t Shine Forever’ shows the sense of forward motion inherent within this unburdened style, pressing forward with an affirming momentum.

Watch the video, with concept, direction and animation by Ava Clifforth, below:

Underneath will be released on the 21st March via [PIAS] Recordings and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Frog – MIXTAPE LINER NOTES
VAR. VII

Not resting on their laurels after the success of 2023 full-length GROG, everyone’s favourite New York duo Frog are returning next month with new album, 1000 Variations on the Same Song. The record, to be released on Audio Antihero and Tapewormies, runs the gamut between indie rock, alt country and smoky lounge cool, and packs the expected density and diversity of references from a Frog release. But beneath the surface, it lives up to its title. “1000 Variations on the Same Song is a theme and variations,” as Daniel Bateman explains. “There are times in your life as a songwriter where you’ll start a bunch of stuff that all sounds alike, which can be a problem, something that you want to excise from yourself. This time I decided to embrace it and take it as far as it could go.” Latest single ‘MIXTAPE LINER NOTES
VAR. VII’ lands on the folky side of the album, though embodies the spirit of the release quite nicely.

Half Gringa – Glacier Walker

Writing of Half Gringa‘s Ancestral Home back in 2023 we described how “it is tempting to view the end of the world as a singular event, a doom unique to the generations living today. But the truth is there is nothing special in our turmoil. People have always confronted loss on an unimaginable scale. With [single] ‘Sevenwater’, [Isabel Olive] affords this truth the reverence and mourning it deserves.” Described as addressing “mythology, mortality, and everything in between,” Half Gringa’s latest full-length Cosmovisión is in many ways a continuation of this project, and, inspired by the glacial melt Olive witnessed during a trip to Iceland, lead single ‘Glacier Walker’ again takes on the climate catastrophe through the prism of anxiety and all of its associated emotions.

Cosmovisión is out on the 28th March via Teleférico Records and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Kristin Daelyn – Patience Comes to the Bones

“I used to hurry everywhere, / and leaped over the running creeks. / There wasn’t / time enough for all the wonderful things / I could think of to do / in a single day. Patience / comes to the bones / before it take root in the heart / as another good idea.” So wrote Mary Oliver in her poem ‘Patience’, the principle inspiration for the lead single of Kristin Daelyn‘s forthcoming record, Beyond the Break. ‘Patience Comes to the Bones’ introduces a collection of songs which looks to carve a space of reflection and peace within the tumultuous present, approaching the dissatisfaction and suffering common to us all from a decidedly compassionate angle. Supported by guest appearances from Dan Knishkowy (Adeline Hotel), Danny Black (Good Old War, Gregory Alan Isakov) and Patrick Riley, Daelyn’s soulful vocals and intricate, intimate guitar welcome the audience into the space so that we too might re-examine our lives from new angles and come to appreciate the fellowship to be found in the universality of longing.

JPW & Dad Weed – It’s Happening

This April sees the release of Amassed Like a Rat King, a collaborative album between JPW (Jason P. Woodbury) and Dad Weed (Zachary Toporek) which sees a long held mutual admiration precipitate into a collection of songs neither artist could have created on their own. “These songs were born out of a lot of tender moments and connection, weekends spent indulging in unguarded joy and musical energy,” Woodbury explains. “There was a special thing that seemed to happen between us, which felt distinct from our individual projects — a shared ‘third mind’ situation.” The resulting album covers a vast stretch of stylistic ground, moving through seventies soul-rock and nineties alt-pop with an exploratory intuition, but latest single ‘It’s Happening’ highlights the psych-inflected cosmic folk which underpins everything.

Magana – Half to Death

Magana‘s new EP Bad News is the closing instalment of a loose triptych based upon the seasons of the year. If Teeth represented spring and Dreams autumn, then Bad News occupies the tail end of winter. That period of stillness where life is building up the conviction to spring forth once again. The resulting sound, as highlighted by opener ‘Half to Death’, is a restrained brand of pop which strips away some of the adornment of previous Magana releases in favour of something more direct. Putting the narrative-based lyrics front and centre and amplifying a mood that proves at once warm and starkly emotive.

quickly, quickly – Enything

The recording project of Portland, Oregon’s Graham Jonson, quickly, quickly might have originated as a vehicle for hip hop beatmaking, but soon evolved far beyond such confines. Debut full-length The Long and Short of It offered an endlessly inventive sound which reached for everything from folk and jazz to psych and electronic influences and never once stayed still. Now preparing to release follow-up I Heard That Noise via Ghostly International, quickly, quickly has released new single ‘Enything’, and the evidence suggests the project is still undergoing its perpetual evolution. Upbeat rhythm is matched with a reflective air, the tone wistful, the groove playful, the delivery perhaps as earnest as anything Jonson has offered to date. “I wrote this song from a fictional place of dumb love,” he explains. “There is a place you can find yourself in where you are so infatuated with a person you would do anything to impress them, even to a fault, drastically changing yourself to match the idea of someone you barely know.”

Watch the video below, directed by Graham Jonson and filmed by Anthony Sims with animations by Benny Bursell:

I Heard That Noise is out on the 4th April via Ghostly International and you can pre-order it now.

Robert Ascroft – Devil Opens The Door (feat. Kid Congo Powers)

In recent months. we’ve covered a series of singles from Robert Ascroft‘s forthcoming album Echo Still Remains, each track seeing the Rochester-based musician, producer, director and artist collaborate with different guests to bring his seductively shadowy style to life. After Ruth Radalet (on ‘Faded Photographs’), Zumi Rosow of The Black Lips (‘Empty Pages‘) and Britta Phillips (‘Where Did You Go?‘), now is the turn of Kid Congo Powers. A member of The Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The Gun Club as well as a solo artist in his own right, Kid Congo Powers is the ideal match for the album’s tone, imbuing new single ‘Devil Opens The Door’ with all the dangerous allure and dread its title suggests. Watch the video directed by Ascroft himself below:

Echo Still Remains is out the 14th February via Hand Drawn Dracula and you can pre-order it now.

(T-T)b – Hey, Creepshow

Boston’s (T-T)b have carved out a niche combining the hectic energy of Anamanaguchi with indie rock and power pop. 2021 EP Suporma typified how the project manages to push chiptune beyond its assumed limitations, and now the trio are back with Beautiful Extension Cord, a brand new full-length album to be released this April with the good folks at Disposable America. Lead single ‘Hey, Creepshow’ gives a taste of what’s to come. A song packed full of intricate details which nevertheless carries its own momentum and weight, retaining the chiptune sounds of the past but as one element among many rather than the central novelty. What results swings between atmospheric lulls and fond singalong choruses, and comes to form its own cathartic release.

Wryn – Snake

This spring, Californian songwriter Wryn is releasing their new full-length Shapes on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. It’s an album born of a personal process of change and self-actualisation which reckons with gender and past experiences in order to mould life into a more truthful, fulfilling shape. Latest single ‘Snake’ gives a glimpse into the release, namely folk-inflected indie rock which uses fury as a kind of fuel to drive a newfound sense of agency. “A call to something older and deeper, it taps into my own personal experiences of not just systemic violence but the intimate and interpersonal kind,” as Wryn explains. “Having experienced assault in my past, this song was a way to transform my own pain into a call to action. ‘I can’t wait for an answer before I get free.’”

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

“An album born of travel and distance, pieced together from segments of other places, but ending up very much unique.” That’s how we described Bato Mato by Carmarthen’s Adwaith released by Libertino Records back in 2022. The record was an ambitious one, drawing upon “any number of psych, grunge and dream pop influences to realise its sound,” as we wrote, but follow-up Solas goes even further. A twenty-three track double album which serves as the closing part of a coming-of-age trilogy, tracing the arc of the band’s progression which sees them drawn back to their West Walian roots at the height of their powers. “I feel like we’re confident in ourselves as musicians, and our sound, and the world that we want to create,” as Hollie Singer explains. “We feel fully realised.”

Watch the video shot and edited by Rhys Grail below:

Solas will be released on the 7th February via Libertino Records.

Anna Arboles – By Any Means Necessary

LA-based songwriter Anna Arboles is gearing up to release Pure Fanfiction, a brand new album on Anxiety Blanket Records which fictionalises the personal in order to edge closer to the truth. “These songs are about passing into adulthood and clarifying who I wanted to be,” Arboles explains, “but are not necessarily about my life. I wrote these songs as soundtracks to movies, TV shows, books, or photographs that catalyzed introspection. They’re like fanfiction for my life.” Taking inspiration from seminal queer film By Hook or By Crook by Harry Dodge and Silas Howard, first single ‘By Any Means Necessary’ serves as an ode to friendship and its supportive power. Hence how the doubt of the repeated refrain—”I don’t know if I can do it”—is slowly conquered, the uneasy movement towards self-actualisation made easier by those there along the way.

Pure Fanfiction will be released on the 14th February via Anxiety Blanket Records

Dead Gowns – In the Haze

Early next year, Dead Gowns (that’s the project of Portland, Maine’s Genevieve Beaudoin) will release their debut album, It’s Summer, I Love You, and I’m Surrounded by Snow on New York label Mtn Laurel Recording Co. Second single ‘In the Haze’ is a beautiful introduction, a patient and spacious country-tinged indie rock song that put’s Beaudoin’s incredible vocals front and centre, shifting from a quiet hush to a quivering wail as she explores the complex emotions of dealing with a then-undiagnosed illness. It’s indicative of a record that takes real-life experiences and then stretches their edges, probing at possibilities and straying from fact into fiction. “There’s a sense of freedom by starting in an autobiographical place and then expanding into fiction,” Beaudoin describes. “I learn so much about what has happened by exploring what could have been.”

It’s Summer, I Love You, and I’m Surrounded by Snow will be released via Mtn Laurel Recording Co. on 14^th February. Pre-order it now from the Dead Gowns Bandcamp page.

georgie – 2d

Serving as a celebration to a specific corner of the DIY scene in Rochester, New York, spit takes and split tapes is a four-band split release by raincoated records. Featured artists include Bugcatcher (whose album Go! we covered last year), Home Videos and Kitchen (who we first mentioned way back in 2016), as well as georgie, the project led by Claire G. McClusky who “combin[ed] ecological, personal and political sensibilities” for the excellent album Intimacy Hangover in 2023. One of the latter’s contributions to the split release, ‘2d’ sees McClusky and co. push the georgie sound through its usual airy folk style until it disintegrates into a noisy crescendo.

Meagre Martin – Frankie

After a fantastic 12 months which has included appearance at the Reeperbahn Festival, Pop Montreal and Pitchfork London, as well as successful singles ‘Never Thought‘ and ‘Malcolm‘, Berlin-based indie rockers Meagre Martin are closing out the year with one final, celebratory single, ‘Frankie’, which also serves as the first preview of EP Up To Snuff coming next February on Mansions and Millions. Pairing gauzy shoegaze textures with a persistent rhythm, the track embraces a bright spirit of playfulness and curiosity. “I can’t help / But smile / I look at you like a child,” as the opening lines go, submitting to the thrilling sensation of falling for someone and letting the current move in whatever direction it sees fit.

Watch the video directed by Federico Corazzini and Meagre Martin below:

‘Frankie’ is out now via Mansions and Millions and available from Bandcamp.

Nona Invie – Forget My Name

Created as an antidote to ubiquitous feelings of anxiety and fear, Nona Invie‘s appropriately titled new album Self-soothing sees the Minneapolis songwriter aim to provide a safe haven of calm within an often terrible contemporary world. “These songs are a weighted blanket that comforted and supported me in a lonely time,” as Invie explains. “I hope that they can be supportive, comforting to others.” Opener and lead single ‘Forget My Name’ offers a glimpse of the meditative sound which brings this mission to life. A lesson in the necessity of loosening our grip and letting go those things which do us no good in order to more fully inhabit a healthy sense of self.

Watch the video by Ingrid Weise below:

Self-soothing will be released on the 28th February via Boiled Records and you can pre-order it now.

Raybody – Puddle

Then recording under her own name, Katy Rea released full-length The Urge That Saves You back in 2022, an album which, as we put it, “explor[ed] her life not directly but through imagined characters and metaphorical stories that feel something like modern fables.” Now having adopted the moniker Raybody, Rea has returned with ‘Puddle’, the first taste of a new era for an artist currently at work on her second album. “[The new name] allows me to step into a braver and more honest part of myself,” Rea explains. “I’m after a truth that requires me to unattach from my given name—which has always felt sweet, well mannered, and more feminine than I am.” The new single introduces this new spirit, combining classic singer-songwriter sensibilities with something more singular and strange, resulting in a sound able to paint an intimate picture of a blossoming relationship and the self-reflection inherent within the process of learning to love another person.

Watch the video shot by Sawyer Gaunt and directed by Nicole Townsend and Rea herself below:

‘Puddle’ is out now and available from the Raybody Bandcamp page.

Robert Ascroft – Where Did You Go feat. Britta Phillips (Luna, Dean & Britta)

With album Echo Still Remains coming in January via Hand Drawn Dracula, producer and artist Robert Ascroft has been releasing a series of collaborative singles in recent months, including ‘Faded Photographs’ with Ruth Radelet and ‘Empty Pages’ with Zumi Rosow of The Black Lips. The latter offered “a beguilingly ambiguous interplay between rhythm and fuzz” as we put it, complete with a cinematic video, and now Ascroft has enlisted vocalist and actress Britta Phillips (who you might know as part of Luna and Dean & Britta) for another dark and filmic track. With rhythmic percussion, sensual vocals and an enveloping night-time mood, ‘Where Did You Go’ channels a sultry Lynchian aesthetic full of nocturnal weight. The full record promises to feature the likes of Ora Cogan and Christopher Owens too, so is certainly one to watch out for in 2025.

Watch the video starring Phillips and directed by Ascroft himself below:

Echo Still Remains is out January 31st via Hand Drawn Dracula and you can pre-order it now.

Sun June – 41 Dollars

Described as a song about “listening to men talk,” Sun June‘s new single ’41 Dollars’ is the Austin band’s first proper release since last year’s Bad Dream Jaguar—a record we described as “painting impressionistic pictures of love and longing in quiet dusk-hued pastels, as though in effort to preserve that which might otherwise fade out into nothing. The single is every bit as emotive and assured as we’ve come to expect from the outfit, the sound holding reflection and longing within the same moment, and what results is a sound placid on the surface yet roiling with a myriad of unseen currents and pressures below. Released via Run For Cover Records, the single comes complete with a demo version of ’16 Riders’ as well as a remix of ‘Easy Violence’ by Porches.

Wasn’t it all in my head?
Wanted you
Fighting off all that I can
Watching the horizon waul
Trying my best in the cool water
Watching it rise and fall
Listening to you talk

Watch the video below:

’41 Dollars’ is out now via Run For Cover Records and available from Bandcamp.

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Originating as a narrative poem, The Chairman Dances‘ new album Evening Song traces the early days of a nascent relationship. A seminarian and a drummer mutually enamoured with one another, caught in the heady space of attraction and mystery, hungry to learn everything there is to know about the other. Lead single ‘We Rifled Through’ drops us into the middle of this burgeoning intimacy, a scene which might appear mundane elevated by its details. A snapshot of two people meeting which not only evokes the connection growing between them, but the paths their lives have taken to lead them to that moment.

“Your parents give you this?” “Which? No that’s mine.
I’m the lone church goer.” “How does that happen?”
“One day, I went to church. I stayed. That’s it.”
“That’s it? How did you know to go?” “I stole
a book with an address.” Chris laughs. “You what?”
“You know those bins that sit outside of schools—
you put your textbooks in them when you’re done,
maybe a blanket; someone comes and drives
them off to needy kids? One day, my friends
and I—we’re young, we’re bored—we rifled through.
There, at the bottom, four or five of…”, she points.

Charlotte Jacobs – mala

Speaking of narrative poems, Belgium-born, New York-based vocalist, composer, and producer Charlotte Jacobs is releasing debut full-length a t l u s next month via New Amsterdam Records, and the album’s vocal-centric style could be said to represent its own contribution to the form. Jacobs’s spoken word delivery is held within soundscapes which blur the line between avant pop and contemporary classical, the style marrying the intentional craft of minimalism with intricate detail to create something almost otherworldly. Single ‘Mala’ highlights how the vocals serve as the anchor and guide for the listener. The thread which leads them through this strange and beautiful world.

Honeypuppy – Understatement

The led by songwriter Josie Callahan and featuring Adam Wayton (bass), Will Wise (lead guitar) and Jack Colclough (percussion), Honeypuppy is an Athens, Georgia-based project based on fun and mischief. The first in a new series of monthly singles ahead of forthcoming release DIRTY TV, ‘Understatement’ serves as the perfect introduction for anyone unacquainted with Callahan and co. A song typical of the band’s bittersweet sound where sincere emotion and sardonic wit sit side by side and neither comes out on top.

DIRTY TV is out later this year on Indecent Artistry.

jason calhoun + cla-ras – cruel work carols

Recorded for a tour earlier this year, cruel work carols is a new split release from jason calhoun and Jeremy Ferris’s cla-ras. The pair have long held our attention with their use of sound and textures. The former most recently with small circle on Dear Life Records, a release which blended “organic and synthetic noises into a kind of constellation,” we wrote in our review, “small points to grasp as we move downward, to contemplate in all of their fleeting insignificance. And the latter on releases like Five clusters, “with subtle intricacies growing from every crevice,” we wrote of Ferris’s work, “its ambient folk style sees the organic slowly overwhelm the electronic, evoking ecology’s reclamation of abandoned industrial land. cruel work carols is no less evocative, calhoun offering a world of static and scrambled light and cla-ras something altogether weightier and stark. But although quite different, both suggest some approaching transcendence, however ambiguous that force might be.

cruel work carols is out now and available from Bandcamp.

kennedy mann – On Video

“I watch my life on video / How the time just seems to fly / I put my whole life on video / With all the things that slip my mind.” So sings kennedy mann on deliciously nostalgic new single ‘On Video’, the latest solo track from an artist you might know as having fronted Philly dream pop outfit Highnoon. Mann’s previous singles were hushed lo-fi affairs, though while this maintains the emotional resonance, the sound possesses a layer of cinematic gloss fitting for the title. Ava Mirzadegan adds backing vocals to lift the track further, leading to something both trapped by and longing for the ever-alluring past.

Like how everything looks different
But I still feel the same
Holding onto glimpses
It’s better off that way

Kitty Fitz – Life of the Party

Last year the London-based songwriter Kitty Fitz put out All My Own Stunts via Sad Club Records, an EP which mixed equal parts vulnerability and charm to offer a sound at once laid back and emotionally charged. New EP The Man in Me, coming later this autumn via Sad Club once again, promises to build upon these foundations and push the Kitty Fitz sound further. Single ‘Life of the Party’ holds all of the tenderness and self-deprecative wit that made the previous EP so special, but held within a vivid pop sound that nods to the likes of Caroline Polachek. “At its heart it’s a song about social anxiety, which is something I’ve always wanted to write a song about” Fitz explains. “My mental health has been a really turbulent journey, and as someone who naturally comes off as very extroverted, I wanted to expose that I have always really struggled to fit in.”

Watch the visualiser by Amy Ryder below:

The Man in Me is out on the 31st October via Sad Club Records.

Klô Pelgag – Sans visage

This autumn sees the release of Abracadabra, the new album from Quebec‘s Klô Pelgag on Secret City Records which channels the magic, playfulness and wishful thinking of its titular exclamation in search of some miraculous answer to life’s questions. Latest single ‘Sans visage’ is an alluring introduction to Pelgag’s vivid brand of dream pop. An enveloping experience earnest in its emotion yet full of experimentation and curiosity. If, at its heart, Abracadabra is a spell designed in hope of or belief in the transformative potential of fun, then ‘Sans visage’ signals how such an incantation might be delivered with a straight face.

You have the clover and I, the luck
It seems to me
That we share the same silence
Without understanding
That time is not what changes us
That no trap has managed to catch us

Watch the video by Laurence Baz Morais below:

Abracadabra is out on the 11th October via Secret City Records and you can pre-order it now.

Masayoshi Fujita – Desonata

Migratory, the forthcoming album from Japanese composer, vibraphonist and marimba player Masayoshi Fujita “draw[s] upon the phenomenon of avian migration as a central image,” we wrote in a preview, and explores “the possibilities that exist in the spaces between electronic and classical music.” With the record out at the end of the week via Erased Tapes, Fujita has shared final single ‘Desonata’, and the origins of the track underline the process of experimentation and invention which underpin the release. “I remember when I tried to record the melody for this song. While improvising with the backing track, I was hearing a melody in my head and tried to play it, but somehow I kept hitting different notes than what I wanted,” Fujita explains. “When I listened back, it gave me a strange feeling, but I liked its unique mood and the new image it evoked, so I decided to use it for the song.”

 Robert Ascroft – Empty Pages

Following on from a successful single ‘Faded Photographs’ with Ruth Radelet, Rochester-based musician, producer and artist Robert Ascroft has returned with a new collaborative single, ‘Empty Pages’, on Hand Drawn Dracula. This time Zumi Rosow of The Black Lips fame lends vocals to a song straight out of the seventies. Derek James channels Mo Tucker in his drumming, leading to a beguilingly ambiguous interplay between rhythm and fuzz. To top things off, Ascroft puts his expertise in direction and photography to good use with a suitably cinematic video to accompany the track. Check it out below:

‘Empty Pages’ is out now Hand Drawn Dracula and available from Bandcamp.

roman around – Moves

We’ve written about Roman Rivera’s roman around a few times in recent times, appreciating the way they use a wide palette of post-punk, pop and R&B sensibilities to challenge the norm, be that of genre or gender. Again out via Trailing Twelve Records, new single ‘Moves’ continues the mission with an energetic examination of loss and adversity, or more specifically how to survive and thrive in the face of them. “‘Moves’ encapsulates the pivotal moments of my youth,” Rivera explains. “These experiences pushed me to surround myself with positive influences. My boundaries with love have been continually tested, such as being unable to contact my brother, watching old friends struggle with addiction, and being abruptly cut off by friends without explanation.”

‘Moves’ is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

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Doug MacNearney – Rambling Songs

(RIYL: folk, Canada, Tyler Butler, Zachary Lucky, heartfelt lyrics)

Dutch Barn – About Time

(RIYL: indie pop, fuzz, reverb, Teenage Fanclub)

Eerie Summer – S/T

(RIYL: dream pop, Best Coast, Pains of Being Pure At Heart)

Elvis Depressedly – Holo Pleasures

(RIYL: fuzzy pop, melancholy, Coma Cinema)

Eric & Magill – Two Travelers

(RIYL – indie pop, dream pop, long distance relationships)

The Everywheres – Slow Friends

(RIYL: Garage rock, psychedelic, fuzz)

Fiesta Minor – Time Spent Breathing

(RIYL: hardcore, screamo, post rock)

Filbert – Chronographic

(Riyl: indie rock, hip-hop, Why?)

Flow My Tears – I

(RIYL: indie pop, The Smiths, Cygnets)

The Flying Blackbyrds – No. 0

(RIYL: 60s rock, bar brawls, Mike Tod)

Fog Lake – Holy Cross

(RIYL: experimental, bedroom pop, slowcore, melancholy)

Fthrsn – Middle School Swag

(RIYL: glitch hop, dream pop, chillwave, GRL MTN)

Gatsby’s Estate – Intro/Extra

(RIYL: chillwave, synths, indie pop, the lonely life of Jay Gatsby)

Gingerlys – Summer Cramps

(RIYL: lo-fi, dream pop, indie rock)

Glass Vaults – Bright EP

(RIYL – ambient, dream pop, Youth Lagoon)

Goldeen – Off Duty Detective

(RIYL: chillwave, synths, John Maus)

Greatest Month – Herbs

(RIYL: washed out electronics, field recordings, chillwave)

Hand Drawn Dracula – Milkin’ It

(RIYL: grunge, indie rock, Nirvana, Toronto)

HAPPY TRENDY – For Listening Trial

(RIYL: lo-fi instrumentals, hypnagogic electronics, anxiety and chill)

Hog Bucket – Old Mustard

(RIYL: dirty bar-room blues, country, classic rock, drunken lovin’)

Hozier – Take Me To Church

(RIYL: radio-friendly indie, piano, Elton John)

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