The recording moniker of Chicago-based artist Niko Francis, Air Mail makes lo-fi indie pop inspired by the likes of Alex G and MJ Lenderman. The latest in the Future Gods Unearth series, new single ‘Wide Awake (a.m.)’ uses this melodic and melancholic style to explore the strange (but recently all too familiar) sensation of being faced with disaster at a distance. Written amid news on the genocide in Gaza and wildfires in LA, Francis describes the song as “a quietly striking meditation on connection and collapse, written from the stillness of a bedroom but echoing far beyond it.” It’s laidback and understated, but with a quiet power, and ends on a note of defiance, if not quite hope.

Where you are, you belong
Can’t destroy, what you can do
Can’t erase, what is ours
Because we, we are wide awake

‘Wide Awake (a.m.)’ is out now via streaming services.

Basciville & Ailbhe Reddy – Your Own Head

Next year will see the release of the sophomore album by Basciville, the folk rock project of Wexford brothers Cillian and Lorcan Byrne. To announce the release, the duo have unveiled lead single, ‘Your Own Head’, a collaboration with Dublin singer-songwriter Ailbhe Reddy. It’s a stark and searing duet, beginning with the spacious emotion of a dark and empty room before swelling with the band’s signature cinematic intensity. “’Your Own Head’ was the first song written from the batch of songs that would become the second album. One of those songs that falls out in one go and thematically ties everything together,” Basciville describe. “It laments the ways we compromise the self in the name of love, religion and society at large. It touches on the balance between some global moral duty, the pull to be present and keeping the self safe.”

‘Your Own Head’ is out now via streaming services.

eillah – Amaranth / My Own Mouth

The best part of four years since release of album in my head, Peoria-born, Chicago-based songwriter eillah has returned with brand new double single Amaranth / My Own Mouth. With guidance from producer, engineer and drummer Jack Henry, eillah uses the tracks to push their sound in new directions, lifting the inherent ethereality of the lo-fi aesthetic which marked the last record and transplanting it into a newly rich folk style. The result exists in-between states—be that ambiguity and clarity, rawness and polish, reality and dreams—and opens up a whole new avenue for eillah to explore moving forward. A style uniquely positioned to mine the full depth of an emotional landscape and present an inner world in all of its beauty and contradiction.

Evelyn – Three Eagles

Evelyn is recording project of California-born, New York-based artist Dani Lencioni, who makes inventive indie pop that’s thick with the lived-in soul of alt country. Released later last week, the latest Evelyn single ‘Three Eagles’ is a great example, a rich and swaying song that “responds to the dissonance between everyday beauty and the grief of current events.” Produced by Kevin Morby and Waxahatchee collaborator Nick Kinsey, the song was recorded in his Hudson Valley studio and has all the warmth and authenticity of its analogue recording set-up. “I try to put myself to sleep, I try to take my time and breathe,” Lencioni sings in the chorus, which perfectly captures the track’s sense of desperately trying to feel ok in an often hostile world. “I try to think of something sweet, I’m screaming in my dreams.”

Laika Songs – Visitor

This December sees Evan Brock’s Laika Songs return with second album I can feel an ending, picking up the threads in the wake of debut record Slowly Spiraling Towards the Light while pushing the project in new sonic directions. Together with a band featuring Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) on guitar, Dominic Angelella on bass and Dan Bailey (Father John Misty) with drums and sequencer, Brock blends the organic and the digital to create songs full of curiosity. A sound fitting for a record all about the slow, circuitous process of self-discovery, where the truth is something caught in glimpses when you least expect it. Opener ‘Visitor’ embodies this style, embracing confusion and clarity as two parts of the same whole, though always reaching for those small glimmers where the path forward is revealed.

LEYA – Weaving (YHWH Nailgun Version)

Following on from a rework of single ‘Corners’ by Channel Beads earlier in the year, a reimagining we described as “a heightened version of the original, playing like the interstitial space between the Now and the Then with all the instinctive longing left intact,” LEYA have invited experimental rock outfit YHWH Nailgun to reconceptualise another track from their acclaimed 2024 EP I Forget Everything. Driven by Marilu Donovan’s harp, the original offered a mood somewhere between medieval and ethereal, though YHWH Nailgun conjure an altogether more subterranean vibe. One no less ambiguous or alluring, though this time glinting not with a celestial grace but instead the dark, metallic edge of the underground.

Peiriant – Pwls

“With an experimental sound that draws on everything from folk and post-rock to classical and sound art, mid Wales duo Peiriant combine traditional and electronic styles with samples and found objects for semi-improvised pieces [resulting] in an almost sculptural approach to music.” So we wrote of the work of Rose and Dan Linn-Pearl back in 2024 upon the release of single ‘Taflu D​ŵ​r’, a track born of the push and pull between violin and electric guitar. With new album Plant coming via Recordiau NAWR, Peiriant are back with single ‘Pwls’, and while it’s every bit as finely crafted as its predecessor, it also shows marked stylistic differences too. Because, living up to its title (‘pulse’ in English), ‘Pwls’ displays a newfound rhythm and movement, the violin, played pizzicato, skating over a Moog bassline and infusing the atmospheric sound with a constant sense of motion.

Sam Woodring – 1,000 Ways to Die

You might recognise Maryland-born artist Sam Woodring from a number of different projects, be it the post-hardcore outfit Two Inch Astronaut which made a name in the 2010s, or the genre-bending Mister Goblin which rose from its ashes. Each offered a chance at reinvention, and now Woodring is setting out under his own name to instigate another stylistic change. Though ostensibly a solo endeavour, Mister Goblin drew on a range of collaborators to bring its varied sound to life, but new EP Mechanical Bull, out via Pretzle Records, sees Sam Woodring eschew all outside influence, and indeed anything beyond simple guitar and vocals. Opener ‘1,000 Ways to Die’ shows how this modest arrangement lacks nothing for emotional power, submerging itself in childhood memories to explore ideas of fear, fondness and nostalgia with a style that’s at once playful and entirely heartfelt.

Me and my sister sitting on the sofa
Counting down death till our eyes glazed over
Didn’t register as such
Didn’t count for much too much
Back then
She said what’s on the other channel
I said Nick Cannon’s Wild N’ Out
But the kid next door has Faces of Death on VHS
We should see what that’s about

Tōth – Not Broken

Back in October we shared ‘Spiraling’, a single from Tōth (AKA Alex Toth from Rubblebucket), ahead of a new release via Egghunt Records and Northern Spy. “The song appears relatively spare on the surface,” we wrote, “but as Toth details an experience of precarious love it blossoms into something altogether richer and more immersive, the sound rising to meet the interior weather of its singer. The result manages to evoke the duality of human being, where benign surfaces mask roiling energy beneath the surface, always threatening to spill into the world.” The album, titled And The Voice Said and set for release next February, is full of such duality, as highlighed by new single, ‘Not Broken’. A track which confronts a default setting of negativity with its polar opposite, looking to puncture pessimism by sheer force of will. “I wrote this as a message to myself: a response to my darkest feelings about life,” Toth explains. “I may not show it outwardly, but my default is to be a pretty fucking negative guy. So I selfishly wrote a song that would hopefully help me feel a little better from time to time.”

And The Voice Said will be released on the 23rd February via Egghunt Records and Northern Spy and you can pre-order it now.

Wendy Eisenberg – Will You Dare

Earlier this year, New York‘s Wendy Eisenberg announced her signing to Joyful Noise Recordings with a standalone single ‘I Don’t Miss You’, which we said “meditate[d] on human connection from a novel perspective… [with] their trademark mix of technical intricacy and intuitive improvisation.” Now they are back with another single, titled ‘Will You Dare’, which displays another side to their diverse practice. What Eisenberg calls “a simple little song about true love and the passage of time,” the track is sun-dappled and deceptively simple, drawing inspiration from the greats of seventies folk and country in its disarming candour and ultimately proving audacious in its willingness to cut to the heart of the matter. ‘Will You Dare’ is the real question,” as Eisenberg explains. “Do you dive into the impossibility of true love, be shameless, even though if you’re doing it right it’ll rip you to shreds?”

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

And it’s a pretty impressive list, what the label call “an often-stunning gestalt of generational talent paying homage to one of the most gifted but underrated American songwriters.” Some of our very favourite artists feature, including Advance Base, Friendship, Trace Mountains, Sadurn, Hand Habits and a whole host more, reimagining a selection of songs from across Molina’s oeuvre.

Only two tracks have been released so far, but if they are any indication it’s going to be a pretty special release. Opening proceedings is MJ Lenderman‘s pretty faithful take on Songs: Ohia’s ‘Just Be Simple’, before Sun June put their own spin on Magnolia Electric Co. track ‘Leave the City’, moulding it into what could sound like a new Sun June track if you are not familiar with the original. It also features what is, in a particularly crowded field, one of Molina’s best opening lines.

Broke my heart to leave the city
I mean it broke what wasn’t broken in there already

I Will Swim to You: A Tribute to Jason Molina will be released on 5th September and available to pre-order via the Run For Cover Records Bandcamp page, including the fittingly titled Coxcomb Red, Comet Dust Red or Old Hen Black vinyl editions. 10% of profits will be donated to MusiCares® Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Fund.

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We’ve covered  Bergen-based songwriter Bo Milli several times in recent months. Most recently with ‘Making Friends’, which we described as “a track which charts the rollercoaster ride of young life through the prism of a hectic night out, capturing a sense of both the carefree abandon and creeping loneliness of late nights, new faces and a sense of endless possibility.” Latest track ‘I’m In’ is equally varied in its peaks and troughs, starting out as a wistful pop number but soon morphing into something bigger, charging things with an indie rock momentum reminiscent of The Beths.

C.O.F.F.I.N – Factory Man

When the drummer is the lead vocalist you know things are going to get hectic. Enter Sydney’s C.O.F.F.I.N, a four-piece rock band who’re here to burn through their frustrations with new full-length Australia Stops. A joint release between Damaged Record Co (Australia), Bad Vibrations (Europe) and Goner Records (North America), the album positions C.O.F.F.I.N as another key member of the furious, glorious generation of rockers emerging from Down Under, joining country mates Last Quokka in their twin motivations of castigating the political landscape and driving social change through sheer momentum. Take single ‘Factory Man’, a rock song in the classic sense, looking shake off the shackles and smash some skulls with its heft and energy.

But when the lights went out
With no rest to give us warning
Machinery ran red
I ain’t living
I ain’t loving
Or hearing your humming song oh no
It’s the stabbed silent of the wish you pled

Watch the video edited by Ben Portnoy below, with Gasometer footage filmed by Zoe Mulcahy, Lansdowne footage by Schooner:

Australia Stops is out now and available from the C.O.F.F.I.N Bandcamp page.

Duffy x Uhlmann – Etch

Duffy x Ulhmann, the new project of Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Gregory Uhlmann, have recently released their debut album Doubles on Orindal Records. An exercise in improvisation built entirely on trust, the record sees the duo lay down patient yet detailed guitar-based duets, and the result is something organic in the way only true intimacy could manage. Single ‘Etch’ is the perfect example, a track shorn of any ostentation to sound entirely natural, as though its gentle rhythms existed long before Duffy x Uhlmann set them down with their guitars. The result invites the audience not so much into the same room as the musicians as the very relationship between them, offering small glimpses of a mutual exchange perpetually ongoing.

Doubles is out now via Orindal Records and available from Bandcamp.

Gabriel Birnbaum – Above A Forest With A House That’s On Fire

Songwriter, producer and composer Gabriel Birnbaum (of Wilder Maker) is preparing to unveil the latest installation of his solo Nightwater project, All the Dead Do is Dream, on Western Vinyl. Nightwater started as a self-applied antidote to election anxiety, with Birnbaum using a Tascam 4-track as a vehicle of escape from the growing dread of the twenty-four hour news cycle. And just as these long nocturnal hours offered relief from terror to the artist, the resulting art came to take on a similar form too. Ambient soundscapes intended to serve a functional purpose, a space into which the listener can submerge themselves away from the surrounding world. All the Dead Do is Dream continues this practice, a sleep aid which looks to tap into pacifying patterns of breathing, and single ‘Above A Forest With A House That’s On Fire’ typifies the mindful, hypnagogic mood.

Watch the visualiser by Jules Evens below which furthers the therapeutic value of the track by reinforcing the breathing rhythms:

Nightwater | All the Dead Do is Dream is out via Western Vinyl on the 3rd November and you pre-order it now.

Montañera – Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista

Earlier this month we featured ‘Un Día Voy a Ser Mariposa‘, the first single from Montañera‘s new album, A Flor De Piel, coming this November (alaso on Western Vinyl). “A track of layered details and searching emotion which seems to be always reaching for some higher plane,” as we put it, taken from a record “of quasi-dreamscapes which push at the borders of reality, drawing the listener into surreal new worlds.” The London-based Colombian artist has now shared second single ‘Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista’, a song which again pushes into ethereal tones while always remaining anchored in the intimacy of María Mónica Gutiérrez’s vocals.

A Flor De Piel is out on the 17th November and you can pre-order it now from the Montañera Bandcamp page.

Otracami – Fold

The first glimpse her debut full-length touching the stove coil, Otracami‘s new single ‘Fold’ is an examination of the contortions people sometimes put themselves through to try to fit into a relationship. The project of New York-based Camila Ortiz, Otracami is an outlet for personal exploration, its songs delving back into the past and untying its knots, attempting to make peace with the present. ‘Fold’ is the perfect example, an almost time-travel style journey back to a very specific moment (Ortiz leaves a party, rides the bus, climbs the stairs to her partner’s apartment) and the swirling thoughts and anxieties that it held.

Watch the video by Sai Tripathi below:

‘Fold’ is out now and available via the Otracami Bandcamp page.

Pony Girl – Highways

Just over a month out from the release of their new record, Laff It Off, Canadian art pop duo Pony Girl have unveiled new single ‘Highways’. The song uses roads as a metaphor for the sense of endless possibility and interconnection experienced when you fall for someone new, what the band describe as “expanding roads of connection that stretch out through time.” Musically it’s lush and dreamy like a night-time drive at the heart of summer, the smooth and sparkly chorus emphasising the themes of heartsick romanticism.

Check out Stephanie Kuse‘s animated video below:

Laff It Off comes out via Paper Bag Records on 27th October. Pre-order it now from the Pony Girl Bandcamp page.

vireo – Big Elsewhere

How many great works of art have been created in the impatient lull of waiting for a pizza? That’s the origin story of ‘Big Elsewhere’, the latest single from Vireo, which was written as a game during a delayed delivery while lead Chris Beaulieu and Suzanne Gomes were cooped up in quarantine. “We each chose a single note or a small melodic phrase to layer on top of each other,” Beaulieu describes. “Then we added a chord progression on top and took turns writing vocal melodies.” Homemade percussion came next (think wooden spoons and mason jars), followed by lyrics, and finally the whole thing was run through a salvaged reel-to-reel tape recorder for just that little extra DIY character. The result is beautiful, despite (or perhaps because of) its humble beginnings.

‘Big Elsewhere’ is out now via streaming services.

Wurld Series – Lord of Shelves

Later this autumn, Aotearoa/New Zealand indie rockers Wurld Series will release The Giant’s Lawn, a brand new record on Meritorio Records and Melted Ice Cream. The record promises to see the band explore new avenues, adding mystical nods to oddball psych and left-field folk, what the press release calls “earthen psychedelia, off-grid community folk, and highly bookish, antipodean snock.” Opening track ‘The Giant’s Lawn Part I’ embraces this weirdness from the off, a rambling, jazzy folk song that feels like meeting a mysterious stranger on a woodland path. But lead single ‘Lord of the Shelves’ is very much the Wurld Series we’ve come to expect, a Flying Nun-style indie rock song that shows the band haven’t abandoned their core foundations.

The post Weekly Listening: September 2023 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Swim Camp – Pretty Bird
Black Belt Eagle Scout – Indian Never Die
Pedro The Lion – Quietest Friend
Cat Clyde – Anymore
She Keeps Bees – Coyote
Cartwheel – Nothing
Tempertwig – Comfort Blanket
Downhaul – Wires / Enough
Witching Waves – Eye 2 Eye
LISA – Primitive Us
Yamachan – Rose Gold Blue
Spelling Reform – The Second Coming
Faith & Majesty – Summer Fling
Caroline Lazar – Georgia
Jeffrey Silverstein – Easy Rider
Ronnie Rogers – Leaning On
Nanami Ozone – Alone Too
Fresh – Willa
Perfume V – Perfume Homes Movies
Hand Habits – Can’t Calm Down
MUNYA – Benjamin
LUNCH – Forget Everything
Control Top – Chain Reaction
Prudence – Euphoria
Cult Film – Bored to Death
Walking Bicycles – Fat Cat
Lost Dog – DFT
Sharkmuffin – Serpentina
Bandy – Trying to Reach You
Gold Connections – Like a Shadow
AllegrA – Spoon or Fork
Parkway & Columbia – Wondering and Wandering
la loye – to live underwater
Kitchen – Claws
Spectator – Waves
Sailor Boyfriend – The Battle of Sugarhill
Ladada – My Van
The Exbats – 2027
Adir L.C. – Reacting
minihorse – Drink You Dry
Trevor Stott – Halfway in the Night
Tyler Burkhart – Waiting For You
Or Sobre Blau – Mártires

Like what you hear? Catch up with the rest of our Monthly Mixes!

The post March 2019 Roundup Mix appeared first on Various Small Flames.

This spring heralds the second Hand Habits record, placeholder, and though the spirit of the sound remains personal, the release sees Duffy invite collaborators into the process. If the first album was a necessarily solo release, a formative period that cemented an identity and sound, then the second is the product of a newfound confidence. The Hand Habits identity is now solid enough to be released from confinement, and cross-pollination does not detract from its singularity but rather enhances it.

It is fitting then that placeholder is concerned with matters of self-discovery, especially the idea of events and experiences being stepping stones toward self-acceptance and actualisation. “A big aspect of my songwriting and the way I move through the world depends on my relationships with people.” Duffy explains. “The songs on placeholder are about accountability and forgiveness. These are all real stories. I don’t fictionalize much.”

The title track opens with this in mind, a relationship not as an end but a means, serving to move one closer to oneself and not the other person. There is suspicion and betrayal here, the sense that selfishness governs every connection, but Duffy configures this into something useful, an opportunity to learn. Not that things are so simple, and the contradiction of the following track shows the uncertainty and ambiguity that is present across the record. The nostalgic tones of ‘can’t calm down’ are balanced by a sense of fear, the creeping dread that the past might not be something we can move away from. What if trauma is hereditary, or violent enough to work its way into our DNA nonetheless, a mutation that becomes part of our make-up through no choice of our own?

now what if they were wrong?
i don’t wanna be that
what if i can’t calm down and i don’t have that in my bloodline? what if the faces of the holy are just faces from a fantasy
and i can’t see through their eyes?
although that i try

The single comes complete with a video directed and edited by Vanessa Haddad with cinematography from Adam Gundersheimer. The film is a vampire story, Duffy waking next to a victim and searching for another, a compulsion or curse that drives behaviour no matter how uncomfortable or sad.

Such a combination of delicate and forceful marks the Hand Habits sound on placeholder, the paradoxical nature of requiring immense strength to show one’s weaknesses. “And I let you see the part of me,” Duffy sings on ‘yr heart [reprise]’, a song filled with imagery of falling stars and backyard fires. “They call it understanding / they call it vulnerability.” The method instils a focus and precision that was lacking on the more diffuse debut record, so while the thematic core of the album might centre on anxiety, doubt and undefinable experiences, Duffy’s writing is always assured.

The result is a confident and mature collection of songs that is willing to forego simple answers in favour of nuance and depth. The tracks are marbled with anxiety, yes, but even when this takes over (Like on ‘Jessica’), Duffy strives to view the situation in a wide lens. Forgiveness is offered to past loves not as some heroic gesture or unlikely ideal but rather as a way to keep open the path that is one’s life, as though to dwell on pain too long is to collapse into a single dimension—and one too simple to adequately explain the intricacies of life.

Better then to resist the allure of simple narratives, to remain open to the wonder and sadness that comes with the unknown in the hope that such forces will lead you back to your true self.  “When I want to misbehave / think about my mothers grave,” Duffy sings in the opening lines of the final track ‘the book on how to change part II’, “and the book on how to change / wasn’t written in one day.” The sound is perhaps the warmest on the record, an acceptance of the idea that there is no map to follow or paragon to mimic, the song an epiphany not as experienced in one epic beam of light but more slowly, a gradual retrieval of clarity. “When I want to feel misplaced / think about my mother’s face,” goes the closing verse, “and the book on how to change / never taught me anything.”

placeholder is out now via Saddle Creek and you can get it from the Hand Habits Bandcamp page.

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Take for example Friends For Equality, the benefit compilation in support of Southern Poverty Law Center, ACLU and Planned Parenthood put together by Nancy Kells and Fox Food Records. Collecting the talents of 42 acts, the release features a diverse range of unreleased tracks from all over the world, including WTD favs such as Henry Demos, Henoheno, PAT MOON, Rainwater, Francie Cool, Lewtrakimou, Slumbers and Monarch Mtn, not to mention songs from the creators themselves in the form of Spartan Jet-Plex and Good Good Blood. As you might expect, it’s also a great way to discover new artists, and while there are too many to write about properly, there’s enough variation in style and genre to ensure every music fan will find something to their liking.

Not content with the compilation, Nancy is organising a benefit show at Strange Matter in Richmond, VA on the 17th February, and working to put together a zine for which the theme is “social justice/civil rights – so anything related to that – drawings, photographs, comics, editorials, poetry, short story, etc.” Submissions are currently open until the 2nd January, so email spartanjetplex@gmail.com if you want to participate or help in any way.

You can buy Friends For Equality now via Bandcamp, and be sure to remember that the $5 price tag is a minimum suggestion (and impossibly generous for 42 tracks). Equally, if you don’t have cash to spare, you can help by spreading the word or getting involved (just contact Spartan Jet-Plex via the email address provided above).

Artwork by Ryan McCardle

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