Much has occurred since we first featured Adeem The Artist back in 2016, the Knoxville-based songwriter going on to earn national recognition with their convention-challenging style of folk and country, a style embodied by acclaimed records like Cast-Iron Pansexual and White Trash Revelry. Ideas of spirituality and faith have always been central to the project, not to mention the intrinsic doubt and suffering which comes attached to any serious contemplation of such concepts, so it is fitting that Adeem The Artist’s next record Christians for Goliath is a bona fide Christian album which challenges the tendency of the genre to champion decidedly un-Christian values. “There is this massive wave of evangelical Christianity in America that is largely rejecting the basic tenets of what Christian values are supposed to be,” as Adeem says. “When it’s being done in the name of a God who calls for equity, justice, and radical hospitality, that is the wolf in sheep’s clothing.” The confronting and urgent project was made in Nashville with none other than John Darnielle, and Rich Mullins-inspired lead single ‘Hard To Get’ is a direct collaboration with The Mountain Goats, so you know the mission has the right people on board. Watch the lyric video below:

Christians for Goliath will be released on the 11th December via Four Quarters Records / Thirty Tigers and you can pre-order it now.

Alex Gardner & the Golden Apples – Robin Hood

Writing back in 2023 of album Highly Attainable Dreams, we described the work of LA-based songwriter Alex Gardner as “a kind of outsider folk for the twenty-first century,” drawing on everything from Michael Hurley to classic American literature. Next month sees the release of The Temptation of Thieves a new album by Alex Gardner & the Golden Apples, and this time he casts an even wider net for inspiration. As the title of the record and single ‘Robin Hood’ suggest, the story of everyone’s favourite outlaw is central to the record, though English and German romanticism, ancient Greece, modernist poetry, fairy tales and folkloric traditions all hold an influence, as well as the conventions and myths of classic folk and blues. Such albums were really made to be experienced in full, but ‘Robin Hood’ is available now, providing both a taste of Gardner’s idiosyncratic style and a glimpse into the mind of a heroic scoundrel.

The Temptation of Thieves will be released on the 7th November

Annelise Eppen x An Triangles – Promise

It took a three-month silent meditation retreat for Annelise Eppen to decide her songs were worth collecting into an album, the Massachusetts songwriter using the contemplative space to fully envision the hushed reckoning that is her debut full-length Heaven is Available. Having worked to record the released with Doug Poppe (An Triangles), the album will be released in 2027, though Eppen has shared lead single ‘Promise’ as a taster. Delivered with a spare, lo-fi folk aesthetic, Eppen and Poole channel the meditative spirit of the album’s origins to offer a genuinely spiritual style of music, where humble quiet is matched by a burning desire or indeed desperation to commit to God. The result is as much a vow as a song. A commitment to living more truthfully, more receptively, more inconspicuously, made in the silent relationship we share with our creator. “This is the time to make a promise / But make it in the dark and keep it quiet / This is the time to tend the fire / To listen to the songs and get inspired,” as Eppen sings in the opening verse. “But now’s the time that I will listen / I got a little taste of what I’m missing.”

Hockitay – redstar

“A casual listen… suggests this struggle might have come good, the sound full of apparent heart and fondness,” we wrote of Hockitay‘s ‘half smile‘ back in August. “Though dig a little deeper and it seems the dismay might have just found a new focus. Because, as the above line shows, there’s an existential confusion to at play, the intimacy not so much straight romance as a kind of confession.” Now Montreal artist has shared EP redstar in its entirety via Future Gods and the result is every bit as deep and conflicted, moving between themes as disparate as AI, cosmology and personal identity in order to explore the experience of being alive in a contemporary age full of artifice. Released as a final single, the title track encompasses all of these ideas within one genre-bending song, and serves as the ideal entry point for those about to dive in.

Watch the video directed by Renaud Jacob below:

redstar is out now via Future Gods and available from the Hockitay Bandcamp page.

Michael Feuerstack – Who We Are

Over the past three decades, Montreal-based songwriter Michael Feuerstack has slowly cemented his place among the most celebrated and enduring songwriters in Canadian music, establishing a vast and diverse oeuvre and securing two JUNOs in the process. Before releasing under his own name, Feuerstack used the moniker Snailhouse, and to celebrate thirty years of work, he is returning in 2027 with The Snailhouse Songbook, a double album with Forward Music Group which reimagines a choice selection of songs from the period. Lead single ‘Who We Are’ sets the tone, full of the nuanced, bittersweet spirit which marks so much of Feuerstack’s writing. “At its core, ‘Who We Are’ is a song about being alone in the crowd,” he explains. “How do we seek balance in tending to the isolated and mysterious parts of ourselves while also digging deep into love, patience and kindness as we navigate the outside world? There is a darkness in it, but there’s a beauty that prevails, and a humour that’s maybe almost imperceptible.”

New Balance – Dunce

Back in 2025 we teased a new album from Jeremy Leasure’s New Balance with double single Lemon Slice / Pocket Change, the songs’ ostensibly relaxed sound hiding something much darker as Leasure explored “little devastations.” Now New Balance are finally gearing up to release that album, and as the title To Live And Die In LA, the theme of catastrophe looms large in the shape of natural disaster and human cruelty. Latest single ‘Dunce’ finds Leasure and co. stuck within this disorientating experience, questioning everything in the face on the encroaching ruin. “’Dunce’ came about somewhat by accident,” he explains. “Written a few days after watching Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life, I found myself singing ‘I’m the dunce of the universe’ throughout the day without realizing that I’d picked it up from a line Brooks says in the film. It led me to interrogating all the ways that I could be barrelling forward in the wrong direction. Could my belief systems be false? Am I really as confident about these things as I think? If I flipped all of my beliefs would my life be any better? At the end of the day it feels unlikely, but it’s important to live an examined life, otherwise there’s no way to grow.” Watch the video directed and edited by Hallee Morvan and Jeremy Leasure below:

To Live And Die In LA will be released on the 20th November via Anxiety Blanket Records.

Sammy Weissberg – Brass Quintet No. 1 Mvt. II

Last month, we introduced Music For Strings and Brass, the forthcoming record from Brooklyn-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Sammy Weissberg. Writing of lead single ‘String Quartet No.2 Mvt. II’, we described how the album sees Weissberg “channel the spirit of late-Romantic and modernist composers to paint a picture of everyday life in all its elaborate detail and humble simplicity.” Now he’s back with another glimpse, this time at the record’s second work, a brass quintet that’s all the more melodic and charming following the grand impressionistic emotion of the strings. “[For the second movement] I was feeling very inspired by both Yamandu Costa and ML Buch,” Weissberg describes. “While both songwriters typically compose in a guitar-centric fashion, I thought it would be a fun challenge to translate their influence on me to a totally different instrumentation.”

SNEAL – THE QUEEN

Formed of Michael Coleman, Kurt Kotheimer, Hamir Atwal, Luke Bergman and Katie Jacobson, self-described “organ donor art factory” SNEAL is a “manifestation of these collected organs in a single body that was able to make it to the studio on the train.” Which is to say, the Queens-based project is more than the sum of its parts. New album Military Time welcomes a rotating casts of guests too, with the likes of Sam Evian and Jason Burger just some of the faces which pop up, and is unsurprisingly both the most ambitious and fully-realised release from SNEAL to date. Opener and single ‘The Queen’ sets the tone, a track full of languid swagger and left-field lyrics which plays something like a slow-motion trip through some strange hymenopteran world.

everything is breeding impossibly slow
there’s not a single egg in the nest
suddenly i’m feeling impossibly low
i’m so hot
and the canopy’s wet
i’m so hot and the canopy’s wet

Military Time is out now via Baby El Records and available from Bandcamp.

Wendy Eisenberg – Mmeeaanniinngg Bbuussiinneessss” b/w “Tthhee Wwaallllss”

Earlier this year, Wendy Eisenberg released a self-titled album on Joyful Noise Recordings. The record received much acclaim, including from us, drawing upon all of Eisenberg’s experience and genre-bending innovation to present their most comprehensive and certain artistic statement yet. But if the record itself wasn’t inventive enough already, they have just dropped an unexpected follow-up, or rather companion piece, which takes two of the standout tracks and (quite literally) bends and stretches them into new forms. Closer ‘The Walls’ doubles in length, but ‘Meaning Business’ reaches a mammoth 37 minutes, transformed from what was in essence a folk song into something as imaginative and theoretically ripe as a John Cage composition. “I want to write songs that feel infinite,” Eisenberg explains. “I want to write songs that transcend their production, that can weather the changes. It’s probably a holdover from my jazz training, the desire to hear my material in different contexts…Why not literally stretch them, and my songs, out? I want to feel when a slowed-down song becomes ambient music, becomes jazz, becomes something else.”

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

After ‘‘cowboy bebop & eric’s trip’ (what we labelled “a characteristically off-the-wall and hyperactive slice of electronic (anti-)pop”) and ‘return of jafar‘ (“sits in the sweet spot between unapologetic nostalgia and contemporary neurosis, its tone unafraid of self-deprecation yet so bright and bouncy that it seems to simultaneously conquer it”), applied communications is back with new single ‘tarot sans tinseltown’ ahead of new full-length applied communications bites the big one, coming via Rare Noodles and Bar/None Records. We described the album as sitting in the centre of “a Venn diagram consisting of early Casiotone For the Painfully Alone, Emperor X and Dan Deacon,” and while the latest track could be said to conforms to this label, it also shows the limitations of comparisons when dealing with an act so singular. But however idiosyncratic the track might seem, it is only bringing to life the bizarre details of the time and place which inspired it. The song is about “an impromptu trip to LA during a depressive spiral,” Max Wood describes:

during the trip, pope benedict came out of the conclave and i saw beck at the scientology celebrity center while taking advantage of their free brunch. (i’m not a scientologist, don’t worry!) the song leans on LA’s weird history (eatonville, dw griffith, amy mcpherson) as a well of metaphors for the mental health precipice i was on at the time.”

applied communications bites the big one will be released on the 25th September via Rare Noodles and Bar/None Records and you can pre-order it via the applied communications Bandcamp page.

Black Duck – Funeral in my Brain

Over recent months, we’ve covered a couple of singles from the upcoming album between Chicago‘s Black Duck (that’s Douglas McCombs on bass/guitar, Bill MacKay on guitar and Charles Rumback on drums) and Basque musician Elena Setién, with both ‘Land of Many Eyes‘ and ‘Connects By Water‘ proving how stimulating collaboration can be. “[Meeting Setién], the trio felt they had discovered someone else clearly attuned to the Black Duck spirit,” as we wrote, “and have taken this forward to not only invigorate the project, but to reimagine its very boundaries [becoming] a quartet in order to bottle the lightning of this live performance.” With the release fast approaching via Thrill Jockey, the outfit have now unveiled new track ‘Funeral in my Brain’. The song is inspired by the Emily Dickinson poem for which it is named, elevating the emotional landscape of the work into something larger and more forceful, an almost cinematic vista which performs a kind of transubstantiation, the fear of death morphed into its own form of transcendence. “This one is a funeral, but a surrealistic one in some way,” as Setién explains. “In a sense, as a performer, and as a listener, I lose fear of death and just embrace it.”

Black Duck with Elena Setién will be released on the 28th August via Thrill Jockey Records and you can pre-order it now from the Black Duck Bandcamp page.

Burley – Change

Following on from a self-titled EP released last year, Brooklyn folk project Burley are teasing their upcoming full-length with a brand new single ‘Change’. Consisting of Antony Jeffares, Austin Chappell, John Dockery and Sam Lopane, the band make what they call ‘gas station core’ A style of folk rock which pairs the rawness and twang of alt-country with an extra dose of wistfulness, certain to appeal to fans of Fust, Friendship and Sluice. ‘Change’ finds the quartet at their most confident yet, able to confront thorny personal themes with a tone that’s as assured as it is bright. As the title might suggests, these themes involve change in its strange complications, namely how a relationship can reconfigure a person, and how the end of a relationship can be equally seismic, not to mention the ways in which we stay the same no matter how strong the external forces might be. “Light up, sun down / find a big block to walk around / where all the concrete knows your pain,” as one verse goes. “Old friends, same talk / breaking down off of Eastern Park / where all the benches know my name / when all the brightest colours seem to fade // It ain’t too late to change again / no, it ain’t to late to change.”

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

Hockitay – half smile

“”I’m not sure what I want / Except not wanting at all.” So sings Hockitay on latest single ‘half smile’, a deceptively downbeat line on what might be the Montreal artist’s warmest track to date. Hockitay’s 2026 releases have hinted towards this sound, with the almost eerie ‘buttons‘ striving for humanity in the algorithmic present, and ‘two crows‘ looking for hopeful omens to point towards a better future, both songs disillusioned with the world yet struggling for reprieve. A casual listen to ‘half smile’ suggests this struggle might have come good, the sound full of apparent heart and fondness. Though dig a little deeper and it seems the dismay might have just found a new focus. Because, as the above line shows, there’s an existential confusion to at play, the intimacy not so much straight romance as a kind of confession.

Aw baby, don’t cry
I say this with love
I’m not sure what I want
Except not wanting at all

Watch the video directed by David S. Blouin & Buvard and featuring Sékou and Myriam Doumbia, & René Bazinet:

‘half smile’ is out now via Future Gods and available from Bandcamp.

Jordan Sand – Baby with the Sail

Known for her talents with the bowed double bass, string player and singer Jordan Sand has long supported the vision of others, collaborating on everything from film scores to SNL appearances. But it was only after an extended hiatus in making music that her own solo vision started to take shape. Upon her return, Sand found her process and sensibilities had shifted, with the desire to plan and prepare falling away in favour of a more intuitive, impressionistic approach. Sand’s debut solo full-length Baby Ghost feels like the culmination of this new era. A release recorded in single takes and eschewing overdubs and edits, it is what has been described as a “spectral song cycle set within the transition space between life and death.” Lead track ‘Baby in the Sails’ hints at the power of such a style, the song exploring the tension between silence and intensity as it progresses from spacious beginning towards a bold, dissonant conclusion. The video, made in collaboration Berlin-based photographer and videographer Juliane Schütz, offers a visual representation of this mood, presenting a series of images which play like memories as experienced in the liminal space between this life and whatever comes next.

Baby Ghost is set for release on the 2nd October via Hallow Ground and you can pre-order it now.

June McDoom – Without You

June McDoom first came to our attention with her self-titled EP in 2022. We were taken with how the New York-based artist took “relatively simple folk blueprints and weave[d] whole worlds of sound around them,” describing her style as “a constantly shifting collage of her influences, warm and rich and strangely dream-like.” Following another EP and a double EP compilation release, McDoom has now signed with Jagjaguwar and is preparing to release her debut full-length. Titled Follow the Light, and recorded with partner and long-time collaborator Evan Wright, the album promises to double down on the otherworldly atmosphere, which the press notes liken to that liminal space you slip into just before sleep. Lead single ‘Without You’ offers an initial peek at what to expect, a dreamily romantic track that pokes the tender spot that is the realisation of how important a loved one is. “The ending celebrates the awareness and commitment to never take that person for granted,” McDoom explains, “because it’s never too late to change how you’ve been.”

Thavoron – Blurry tattoos

The work of Seattle-based Cambodian-American artist Thavoron has always possessed a cinematic edge, painting vivid if at times challenging pictures of a person search for their true identity with a rich, R&B-inflected pop sound. But latest single ‘Blurry tattoos’ takes things a step further, drawing inspiration from acts like FKA twigs and Kelela to offers sound that’s unapologetic in its widescreen drama and longing. The accompanying video, directed by Thavoron and Maddie Ludgate, even begins with a TMZ-style celeb report before moving through dance numbers and surreal nocturnal landscape, furthering the themes through filmic shots and choreography.

‘Blurry tattoos’s is out now via Trailing Twelve and available from the usual places.

Tough Old Bird – I Was a Giant

“Continuing to display the newly electrified version of the project, the track sees the Corrigans and co. straddle the traditional and the contemporary, maintaining the narrative and emotional heft of classic folk while always striding forwards.” So we wrote of ‘Shape of Our Love’, the second single (after ‘Wednesday’s Child‘) from Tough Old Bird that saw the Buffalo outfit push its traditionally folk-centric sound towards more rock-adjacent territory. However, do not be fooled, Tough Old Bird is still a folk project at heart, something new single ‘I Was a Giant’ certainly attests. After realising the track was resisting attempts to arrange it as a full-band piece, they decided to strip the sound right back to their folk roots, leaving only Nathan Corrigan on vocals and acoustic guitar, with usual drummer Ricky Bechard (usually the band’s drummer) lending a second acoustic guitar. The result proves that sometimes less is more, the relatively sparse arrangement carrying an intimacy that might be overpowered in a busier style, and displays the confidence of the project as a whole. Tough Old Bird have not pivoted to a new sound so much as expanded their armoury, and are now equipped to tackle whatever emotional palette any given song demands.

V.V. Lightbody – Practice Smiling

V.V. Lightbody, the project of Chicago songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and collaborator per excellence Vivian McConnell, returns this October with Period Piece, her third full-length, via Egghunt Records. The record sees McConnell take full control of production, crafting inventive indie folk songs that morph and shift with a chameleonic playfulness. There are also contributions from an impressive list of friends, including Sam Cantor (aka Minor Moon), Emma Hospelhorn (Em Spel), Macie Stewart and Cassandra Jenkins. We got a first taste late last year with lead single ‘Best Problem’, and now V.V. Lightbody has officially announced the album with another track, ‘Practice Smiling’. Light and danceable but with an edge of anxiety, the song was written in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, when everyone (and especially professional musicians) stepped out excited but blinking and unsure of themselves after a period of forced isolation. “In that moment,” McConnell describes, “I so clearly felt the passage of time and a surprising nervousness that had built up in my mind and body, forcing me to reassess my social confidence which I feel like I am still gaining back.”

The post Weekly Listening: August 2026 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

However, Hockitay’s latest single ‘two crows’ is something different. Not so much a pivot from its predecessors as an attempt to reclaim the old organic world from the automated present. As the title suggests, the track draws upon the traditional augury of a pair of crows, supposedly an omen of good luck and partnership, to counter an otherwise hostile environment, looking to push beyond the modern confines of finances or even the looming weight of personal mortality to find comfort in the grander, more enduring cycles of nature.

Watch the video directed by David S. Blouin and Buvard below:

‘two crows’ is out now via Future Gods and available from the Hockitay Bandcamp page.

The post Hockitay – two crows appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Michael Fox has been working in music in various guises over the past decade, and though Take Care, Stay Warm might be the first release under the Big Bluestem moniker, its assured quality carries all of this experience with it. Take the title track, a stripped-back folk song built around nothing but Fox’s vocals and careful acoustic guitar. Something which feels like the product of a byegone age, folk in its traditional sense, where a person sits down and records the feelings and stories of a life without ostentation. The result is earnest, tender, hushed though not without a certain intensity of feeling. A mood which seems to gather energy from the arrangement’s negative space. As though emotions voiced to the stillness of an empty room carry their own peculiar weight.

So I won’t pull you off the floor, brush the dust off of your coat
get back what’s been missing, or find the perfect quote
that could sum up all the feelings that are lodged inside our throats
but hey: Take Care, Stay Warm

Blue Bayou – New Wind, New Rain

Blue Bayou, who describe themselves as “a new wave, chamber pop band with horns and strings,” have just released their new EP, The Carousel, a five-song release which sees the Oxford-born, London-based project bring the energy of their live sound to tape. Think of a centre of a Venn diagram between the avant-folk of Black Country, New Road, the country rock twang of Brown Horse and the emotional clarity of Big Thief. Single ‘New Wind, New Rain’ is the perfect place to start. A song which feels far larger than its relatively convention three-and-a-half-minute runtime, heralded by mournful horns and driven forward by a bright and peppy percussion, all while the vocals swell together in heart and curiosity.

Charlie Vaughan – Don’t Wanna Drive

Fresh off touring with the likes of The Backseat Lovers and Hamilton Leithauser in 2025, London’s Charlie Vaughan is back with brand new single ‘Don’t Wanna Drive’ to further cement his place among the city’s most eclectic songwriters. The embodiment of his style, the track melds undeniable richness with the magic of happenstance, showing that careful craft and happy accident can exist side by side. “I wanted to write something dreamy and simple—no crazy structures” Vaughan explains of the track. “When we started to play the song on the road it changed a lot, we started playing it fast and with really driving drums. The bit at the end came from a beautiful fluke at a rehearsal and me and the band knew this was the perfect end.” Watch the video directed by La De La Studios below:

‘Don’t Wanna Drive is out now and available from the usual places.

The Dead Century – Hey Chicago

“Minneapolis has a rich heritage in energetic indie rock, so its great to see bands like The Dead Century carrying the flame onwards,” we wrote back in March, the band’s single ‘Been Better wearing its influences proudly, “taking the raucousness of The Replacements and some of The Hold Steady‘s buoyant positivity and applying them to the less than positive present.” Now the band have shared next single ‘Hey Chicago’ and the result is no less momentous or affirming. The track picks its way through the difficult terrain between staying put and moving on, but allows a sheer sense of energy to burn away any hesitation. The song “explores the hope and uncertainty that come from the end of a relationship,” say the band, “the delicate work of discerning what to carry with you and what to leave behind.”

Deer Tick – Everything Born

Folk rock stalwarts Deer Tick are returning with brand new full-length Coin-O-Matic this summer, an album which promises to delve into their homestate of Rhode Island and all of its peculiar histories (not least the collison betweenthe  ordinary working class American Dream and its shadow twin within the world of the mafia and organised crime). With the album set for release in June via ATO Records, the band have shared new single ‘Everything Born’ to give a flavour of this style, pitching the audience straight into the milieu of Providence and the personal dramas therein. “‘Everything Born’ was written quickly about the tenuousness of life and the precious time we have to spend with the people that come into our lives,” explains vocalist and guitarist Ian O’Neil “It’s about family, friends, neighbors, strangers and how these thoughts burrow a little deeper the older we get. I was thinking about my son and the people of Providence, RI while writing it.” Watch the video below, recorded at the Big Nice Studio and directed by Bradford Krieger and Rich Ferri:

Coin-O-Matic will be released on the 5th June via ATO and you can pre-order it now.

Hockitay – buttons

Guatemalan-born, Montreal-based artist Hockitay made a splash earlier in the year with single ‘over/over’, a song “where loneliness and restlessness overlap,” as we wrote. “That curiously digital phenomenon where even an empty room can now be overwhelming.” Follow-up single ‘buttons’ continues this exploration of the technological encroachment on our lives, asking how we might hope to maintain a sense of authentic self in a world automated by things like AI. The video, directed by Buvard and David S. Blouin, employs a full-spectrum modified camera (i.e. one which captures UV, visible and IR light simultaneously) to add a further haunting atmosphere to the track, portraying the digital experience in all of its eerie surreality.

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

Jordan Whitlock & Memory Spells – You Tell Me / A Flower Blooming For No One

“This project began as an exchange of demos and became a deeply personal dialogue,” explained Jordan Whitlock of the collaboration with Matt Bauer’s Memory Spells, with the duo having now released their debut full-length This Is What It Feels Like. “Remarkably, Bauer and Whitlock only met in person when the record was already half completed, though far from hampering the intimacy and emotional connection of the music, this distance ultimately helped deepen it,” we wrote in a preview of the record, “the pair dialling into the themes of isolation, bonding and longing.” What the duo call “a quiet meditation on beauty without witness,” final single ‘A Flower Blooming For No One’ heralds the release of the album, offering a glimpse at the wonder which exists every day in the secrecy of isolation.

A hummingbird
Its ruby throat
Catching the light
And letting it go
A shadow cast
A cold white sun
A flower blooming for no one

King Ropes – Baby Bird

“If Dave Hollier and co. are taking on The Spirit of The West, you’d best expect a collection of songs attuned to the contradictions of the experience on the ground, where well-worn myths and old stereotypes rub up against everyday hardships and the outright oddness of twenty-first century living.” So we wrote of King Ropes‘ most recent album Idaho back in 2024, praising how the Bozeman, Montana outfit managed to evoke the landscape of the American West in all of its beauty and harshness. Now King Ropes are back with brand new single ‘Baby Bird’, and while the track might appear altogether more tender on the surface, there’s still room for a brooding dimension to the sound. A reimagining of a classic sixties/seventies love song that swaps out some of the honeyed glow of the period for a stranger, ambiguous contemporary folk style.

It may sound absurd
I’m a man she’s a bird
These things take time to understand

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

Luke Francis – Anywhere

Though recorded in LA this past winter with Derek Ted, Luke Francis‘s new single ‘Anywhere’ has roots in a period a year prior, with the Seattle-based songwriter noting a variety of key locations and experiences. “The Bamboo Village parking lot on a snowy Seattle night,” he lists, “the Historic Grand Canyon Hotel, and the front steps of my childhood home in California while a plumber rescued me from what had occurred inside the house.” As you might expect from such a specific set of influences, the resulting track is highly personal, Francis taking the moods and imagery of his own memories and applying a coat of classic country wistfulness to create a modern love song that nevertheless harks back to an old romantic style. “Honey ride with me tonight
I’ve got a bottle of wine and the moonlight on my mind,” as he sings in the opening lines. “We could left and right, through the night
don’t you wanna climb in and let the road unwind?”

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

Paycheque – Generic Actress

Consisting of Alison Goldfarb and Jackson MacIntosh (TOPS, Drugdealer), Paycheque represent something of a collision between the retro and the contemporary. Though practising a decidedly eighties-flavoured style of indie pop, the duo aim for more than pure nostalgia, repurposing the sound to conjure the modern Los Angeles in all of its glitz, violence and precarity. Their self-titled debut full-length, coming this summer via Mansions and Millions, draws upon the sounds of the Reagan-Thatcher era to explore the present calamities seeded in that period, be they human-induced natural disasters, roving gangs of militarised immigration officers or the general superficiality of the great quest for stardom. Opener ‘Generic Actress’ offers a first glimpse. “In LA, when you go out, you end up spending a lot of time standing outside of whatever event or party you’ve decided to attend,” the band explain of the single. “You’re on the sidewalk, you’re in a strip mall parking lot, you’re on a patio. You smoke, you bump into friends, and you eventually realize you missed half the set you came to see, you never actually made it inside the gallery, the party is winding down. This song is an ode to never quite making it inside.”

Watch the video by Paycheque with additional footage shot by Jessica Dean Harrison below:

Paycheque will be released on the 12th June via Mansions and Millions and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Snake Orange Cake – Lucid

Åland-born, Berlin-based artist Julia Carlsson has released a number of singles under the moniker Snake Orange Cake in recent times, most recently ‘Vision’ back in January. A self-described “hypnotic ritual in sound” which “functions something like an incantation or mantra,” we wrote in a preview, “the vocals repeating a series of mystical images as though hoping to conjure some mystical effect. The pulsing beat only furthers the mesmeric vibe, leading the listener into a space somehow adjacent from every day reality.” Now Carlsson has unveiled Lucid, the project’s debut EP which collects these songs alongside the new title track, and the fresh offering just so happens to serve as the ideal calling card for the project. With an ambiguous tone that embraces playfulness, sensuality and a certain mystical charm, ‘Lucid’ capture the balance between intimacy and openness that marks the Snake Orange Cake sound, as well as the sense of otherworldly potential which emerges from its dreamlike flow.

Vesuvian – Fortunate Death

Vesuvian is a Philly-based outfit consisting of Garret Bollin (guitar, vocals), Joey DeGrado (vocals, guitar), Bill Magerr (bass) and Gavin Caffrey Perez-Canto (drums and percussion). Back in 2023 they released More Treble, a punk rock record concerned with everything from horror movies and actresses to the ancient Mediterranean, and now they’re back with a brand new self-titled album which looks push the sound even further. Take latest single ‘Fortunate Death’, which is certainly not your usual scrappy punk number, drawing upon the work of Julio Cortázar and accounts of Mesoamerican history to create something cathartic and boisterous. “Years ago, I read that Aztec sacrifices were honored to die that way,” De Grado explains. “Does this have historic validity? Who knows! But the idea stayed with me, waiting to come out in a song. I took this idea of being overjoyed at death and combined it with some of the images from ‘The Night, Face Up’.”

Waxahatchee – Where’s Your Love Now? (This Is Lorelei cover)

This Is Lorelei is about to release the super deluxe edition of their celebrated 2024 album Box for Buddy, Box for Star via Double Double Whammy, with the ten original album tracks joined by ten covers from an impressive range of artists. Momma, SASAMI, Snail Mail, Tim Heidecker and MJ Lenderman are just some of the acts offering versions of the songs, and Waxahatchee‘s take on ‘Where’s Your Love Now?’ is the latest to be revealed. “I think Nate is one of the best songwriters of this moment, making music that feels current and timeless and also somehow ahead of a curve,” Katie Crutchfield told Stereogum. “When I heard ‘Where’s Your Love Now?’ I thought it was one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.”

Box for Buddy, Box for Star (Super Deluxe) is out on the 17th April via Double Double Whammy and you can pre-order it now.

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

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

Bleary – bug

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

Exam Season – Dreaming of a Dog

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

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

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

GREBE – Insurance

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

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

Hockitay – over/over

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

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

The Montvales – Carolina

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

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

Nic Panken – Dear Companion

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

No Spinoza – Airport

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

Jupiter’s Great Hurricane will be released soon.

The Same Sky – What’s Left

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

Wendy Eisenberg – Old Myth Dying

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

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