How does one approach that subject? How does one create something that speaks to the most difficult parts of being human: isolation, shame, exhaustion? I’m no stranger to these feelings. I decided to create a sort of sacred space for reflection and acceptance. It struck me that the decision to end a life is a request to relinquish, somehow, time itself.

Single ‘Dodges & Feints’ was a good introduction to this mood. A bright yet cryptic song which lived up to its title in its shifting ambiguity, though Stith’s searching vocals added a clear intention to proceedings. Ultimately, the sound of an artist willing to trust their listeners with the full conflicting tangle of interior emotions.

Reach for me
Even as I run away
And I will dodge and feint
It’s just how the game is played

Now DM Stith has returned with Flowers & Monks, an EP of previously unreleased material recorded during the Fata Morgana sessions. The record serves as a supplement or postscript to the full album, as well as a complete release in its own right. Three new tracks follow a new string version of previous single ‘The Oracle’, which sees Marla Hansen join on viola to elevate an already intricate, evocative arrangement to new heights. The result feels like the spirit of this stage of DM Stith’s career distilled. Where uncertainty is used not as some clouding force but rather a path towards a more honest mode of communication.

Feels like moving backwards
Even as you stand in place
Oh, ask the oracle anything
How will I know?

The post DM Stith – Flowers & Monks appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Hailing from Montana and now based in Nashville, songwriter Ava Swan combines pop and country sensibilities into something capable of elucidating personal feelings while capturing the alarming state of the world. Latest single ‘Oh My’ focuses on a more hopeful side of this style, exploring how good things can and do happen no matter how bleak the wider picture. It’s song written after a period of depression during the first years of the pandemic which learns to appreciate the small joys amid fear and monotony, ultimately embracing the notion that the worst is not always going to happen.

The mineral mother of all that we know
Covers everything in sight
And quietly she whispers in an ancient voice
“Anyone can fall in love at any time”

‘Oh My’ is out now and available via Spotify.

The Burning Hell – All I Need

Back in June we mention Garbage Island, the latest album from Mathias Kom’s The Burning Hell on BB*Island. Making “everything from tongue-in-cheek anti-folk to racing indie rock,” Kom and co. offered what we described as “a bright and mischievous ode to a pre-apocalyptic world.” Now the outfit has teamed up with Joe Nicolosi for a brand new video for the track ‘All I Need’ to further develop these themes, producing what’s been described as “a cross between WALL-E, Blade Runner and The Brave Little Toaster.” And if that sounds like a bizarre blend of the playful and dystopian, then Nicolosi has done his job. Welcome to The Burning Hell.

All that I need is just you and the sea
And some food and fresh water and something to read,
An endless vista, the fancy pen I got for my bar mitzvah
And a semi-decent pair of water skis:
That’s all I need

Garbage Island is out now and available from The Burning Hell Bandcamp page.

Cinder Well – Two Heads, Grey Mare

This coming April sees the release of Cadence, the new album by Amelia Baker’s Cinder Well. The record promises to build on Baker’s signature stark and doom-laden experimental folk, leavened with more expansive arrangements that evoke the early 70s heyday of LA’s Laurel Canyon. Indeed, California, where Baker grew up, is one of two coastal focal points of the record. The other is her adopted home of Country Clare in Western Ireland, a region whose folklore inspires lead single ‘Two Heads, Grey Mare’. It’s a song about the shape-shifting selkie (a seal able to shed its skin to become human) and the mysterious ancient power of the moon and the tides. Watch the video, made by Jordan Carroll in the Peak District, below:

Cadence will be released via Free Dirt Records on 21^st April. Pre-order it now from the Cinder Well Bandcamp page.

DM Stith – Doomed!

Taken from forthcoming LP Fata Morgana on Historical Fiction Records, ‘Doomed!’ is the latest single from DM Stith, a track which finds the singer-songwriter in new terrain. Written after moving from Brooklyn to Rochester on the shore of Lake Ontario, the song feels suffused with fresh perspective and creative clarity. “Where am I?” he asks in the delicate opening line, before answering himself, “I wandered upstate rising up / evaporating out of my life.” Stith’s music has always held a diaphanous quality, but here the airiness feels more effortless than melancholy, Thomas Bartlett’s production adding an impressionistic elegance. That said, as the title suggests, ‘Doomed!’ is not without anxiety. It’s symptomatic of a record that, despite its lighter tone and subtle pop sensibilities, is ultimately a deep and candid exercise in self exploration.

I shed my skin all over again
All my memories and
All they represent
They hug me like a hurricane wheel
Exploring every inch of me
Hug me like I’m doomed

Esther Rose – Chet Baker

Following recent albums on Full Time Hobby and Father/Daughter Records, country singer-songwriter Esther Rose has announced Safe to Run, her fourth LP, on New West Records. Created in the last two years following a move from New Orleans to Santa Fe, the record promises to be yet another advance on Rose’s already impressive catalogue, introducing pop hooks and a newfound sense of confidence, even as it continues to narrate the messily graceful stories of a life in progress. Lead single ‘Chet Baker’ shows this off expertly—a song written from the depths of a memory rabbit hole induced by a random DM on social media, telling the story of a decade old dive bar and car crash in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Watch the video by Joshua Shoemaker below:

New West Records will release Safe to Run on 21st April and you can order it now form the Esther Rose Bandcamp page.

Floodlights – Lessons Learnt

We’ve been fans of Melbourne‘s Floodlights for a couple of years now, taken by their evocative writing and fusion of post-punk, indie rock and a subtle dusty twang. The band have recently announced a brand new record, Painting of My Time, an album which promises to be both a continuation and an evolution of their signature sound. Latest single ‘Lessons Learnt’ is the perfect illustration, adding layers of additional instrumentation to combine cathartic rock ‘n roll directness with post-punk atmosphere and the creative flair of art pop. As usual, the lyrics are both conscientious and furious, exploring themes of empty promises and recurrent mistakes that can be read at the personal level or as a commentary on Australia (or indeed the world) as a whole.

Lessons learnt, lessons forgot
How can history repeat so often?

Painting of My Time will be released on 21st April. Pre-order a copy now from the Floodlights Bandcamp page.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys – Heaving

A self-described “art pop ambient noise band” based in Berlin, Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys make music that’s full of dramatic atmosphere and enigmatic mystery. Following a trilogy of albums released over the last few years (which you can find on Bandcamp), the band have announced a new LP, titled Heaving, which promises to bring a new physicality to their sound. “I wanted this album to be less ethereal somehow,” Kruger describes. “Rooted in the depths, of my body, of my lover’s body, of the earth, where it is dark and wet […] a lot of the lyrics deal with touch, smell, taste. The body, and all it holds, imagined intimately, almost as landscape, but also for what it is.” The single and title track is a great example, a dark and magnetic piece full of disembodied sighs and distorted guitars. Watch the surreal video by Lena Nerinckx below:

Heaving releases on 7th April and you can order it now from the Lucy Kruger Bandcamp page.

Public Interest – Undone

Led by Chris Natividad (also of Marbled Eye), Public Interest are a post-punk band from Oakland, CA. Although they operate at the dense and gloomy end of the spectrum, their music has a dark and driving pop momentum that brings a glorious anarchic energy. Later this spring the band will release a new record Spiritual Pollution on German label Erste Theke Tontraeger and lead single ‘Undone’ gives a taste of what to expect. A dingy and sinuous slice of post-punk that’s full of razor-sharp guitars and pounding percussion.

Westmoreland – If It’s Over

With full-length album Latino Ballroom on the verge of release, Westmoreland (AKA Seattle-by-way-of-Texas‘s Zach Alva) has unveiled new single, ‘If It’s Over’. Written in the aftermath of losing a parent, the record is one born of grief and the long process of dealing with bereavement, and the new track highlights the grace and heart with which Alva approaches such themes. A slow, lush song of patient richness, coloured by the assured certainty of love but a sense of searching too. As though working through the maddening ambiguity of loss in all of its guises, demanding an answer one way or another.

The post Weekly Listening: February 2023 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.