Parallel Lines is now out, and the rest of the songs are no less nuanced and probing. Be it the title track, which draws upon the titular image to suggest a nascent alienation creeping into a relationship, or ‘Come Undone’ with its tender tones looking for a way back towards the intimacy lost. Holding Hour have made their name with a blend of dream pop and shoegaze, and the spectrum of sounds here is as diverse as the moods it explores. Set against the energy of some of the other tracks, ‘Vertical Hold’ is altogether more sedate. A languid, spacious track which evokes something of the deceleration which accompanies melancholy, the vocals barely murmur as though delivered to an empty room.

But it is ‘Colors Talk’ which might be standout on the EP. Bringing together the threads found in the others songs, it feels like the release’s centrepiece, and perhaps the clearest expression of its themes. The song is in-part inspired by the artist and art educator Josef Albers, whose work explored how colours interact and influence one another when placed in close proximity, but also a deeply personal exploration of what it means to be shaped by ones surroundings and moods. “I was also going through a rough time with my partner at the time, who had recently been diagnosed bipolar,” lead Marissa Kephart describes. “He had had a manic episode where certain colors had been talking to him. I was deeply reflective during this time in how being surrounded by his energy had changed me and this song was born out of all those things coming together at once.”

Parallel Lines is out now and available via streaming services.

The post Holding Hour – Parallel Lines appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Any new album from Advance Base is going to rank near the very top of our most anticipated of a given year, but the description of newly announced full-length Horrible Occurrences couldn’t be any more exciting. A record “all centered around a fictional town called Richmond and featuring an interlinked cast of characters,” as the press release explains. “You will hear stories of death and disappearance, climactic confrontations and unsolved mysteries.” Fans of the project will recognise songs like ‘Little Sable Point Lighthouse’ and ‘How You Got Your Picture on the Wall’, but new single ‘The Year I Lived in Richmond’ is what serves as an introduction to Owen Ashworth’s most conceptual release to date. A song which does more in three verses than the majority of published stories, and one which effortlessly displays Ashworth’s unrivalled ability to mine ostensibly ordinary lives for their brilliant slivers of heartbreak and strangeness.

Horrible Occurrences will be released on 6th December via Run For Cover and Orindal Records. Pre-order it now from the Advance Base Bandcamp page.

Anlaki – Escape ’til Dead

Based in Iruña-Pamplona, Spain, Anlaki is the bedroom music project of Julen Izkue which uses a classic DIY spirit to explore both the difficulties of adulthood and discomfort of modern life. Latest album Wind Call shows just how fun and inventive this lo-fi style can be, lovingly wrapping up a mix of slacker rock and power pop sensibilities in a warm blanket of fuzz. Single ‘Escape ’til Dead’ is the perfect example. The hazy tones are by no means a barrier to a sense of forward motion that propels things, the track embracing its title as a kind of motto to push itself onward with carefree brightness in spite of everything.

Constant Follower – All Is Well

Last month we introduced The Smile You Send Out Returns To You, the forthcoming album by Constant Follower via Last Night From Glasgow, with single ‘Whole Be’. A song about the contradiction inherent in the way we long for wholeness while acknowledging imperfection, the track not only introduced a newly ethereal sound for the outfit, but also furthered the visual element of their work through both cover art and video. Latest single ‘All Is Well’ is no different. Stephen McAll and co. mine the title for all of its complications, delving into the ways in which the contemporary reliance on comfort and convenience masks an ever-present dread below the surface of our society. It is notable that the band dedicate the song to Jake ‘Taurus Mortimer’, a young person killed in the care of NHS Forth Valley Psychiatric services back in 2023. Watch the video filmed and directed by Kris Boyle below:

The Smile You Send Out Returns To You will be released on the 28th February via Last Night From Glasgow.

The Convenience – Routiner

Duncan Troast and Nick Corson started The Convenience after meeting at Loyola University in New Orleans, using the project as a space in which to experiment within the wide genre of pop. Released in 2021 via Winspear, album Accelerator felt like the culmination of this practice, evolving the sound of their earlier releases towards its most vivid, far-reaching state. However, not satisfied to rest on their laurels, The Convenience are now pushing their boundaries again. New double single Routiner / Postcard sees the duo strike out towards a guitar-led art-rock which sits closer to the likes of Cate Le Bon and Parquet Courts. Take the first track, which is strung across a taut bassline but spins in various directions with a volatile twitching energy, capturing the push and pull of life, from deadening repetition to sharp alarm.

Routine / Postcard is out now via Winspear and available from Bandcamp.

Doctor Delia – What a Drag!!

“We literally had gendered uniforms,” explains Doctor Delia of growing up in suburban Tampa schools. “We were stuck in them like little toy soldiers. The whole time, or much of the whole time, I wanted to dress like a woman, or more feminine. Deep down I knew it felt good, and right for some reason, but there was so much shame around it.” New single ‘What a Drag!!’ serves as both a refutation of the strictures experienced during this time and a celebration of living as the person you truly are. “What a drag not to be yourself,” as the song goes, progressing with the kind of calm, assured rhythm that only comes with lessons learnt the hard way.

Holding Hour – Can I Leave Me Too?

‘Can I Leave Me Too?’, the latest track from Des Moines duo Holding Hour, is a lesson in juxtaposition. For while the song is set within the ostensibly celebratory, communal scene of a birthday party, the overriding mood is one of alienation and doubt. The sound itself follows a similarly contrasting style, its brooding undertones threatening to engulf the vocals as the percussion presses forward as though towards some imminent break or change. What results is a track full of conflict, between calmness and motion, darkness and light, not to mention that internal disquiet of a person coming to understand how they might be responsible for the less than perfect conditions of a relationship.

‘Can I Leave Me Too?’ is out now via streaming services.

Leoblu x World Wild Web – Utopia

Emerging from the heart of Berlin‘s underground music scene, ‘Utopia’ is a single which sees Leoblu and World Wild Web pair their styles into something at once ethereal and charged with vivid energy. We’ve written about the ambiguous and atmospheric sound of Julia Carlsson’s Leoblu several times in recent years, most recently with Blu Lucid Nightmare, and the addition of World Wide Web’s rhythms and beats pushes it into new territory—one still shadowed yet shot through with a kind of transcendent possibility. “’Utopia’ came from a deep place of questioning,” Carlsson explains, “both within myself and the world around us. It’s an emotional journey through grief, but also a declaration of hope, defiance and change.”

‘Utopia’ is out now via streaming services.

Melanie MacLaren – Laika

“The product of a period marked by experiences of grief, loss and illness, the new songs look to confront life in its truest state. To push beyond the myths we tell ourselves and look at mortality with a clear gaze.” So we wrote last month of the forthcoming release from  Nashville singer-songwriter Melanie MacLaren. New single ‘Laika’ is no less direct in its focus, using the tragic story of the titular Soviet space dog as a way into humanity’s propensity to exploit the vulnerable more generally, and how the powerful continue to disregard the rights and dignity of everyone else. The result is a lesson in restraint, though beneath the slow, soft folk style is a vast chasm of anger at everything we have done and continue to do.

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

This Frontier Needs Heroes – Truck Driver

Writing back in July, we described Brad Lauretti of This Frontier Needs Heroes as “a folk artist in the traditional sense, wandering and entertaining audiences with equal parts playfulness, protest and heartbreak while always pining for places left in the rear view mirror.” Inspired by a period driving an RV across America for another artist’s tour, latest single ‘Truck Driver’ leans into this spirit more fully, injecting a sense of constant momentum to the folk rock style to equate the life of a touring musician with that of a long-haul driver. “I got to live the life of a truck driver for a few weeks,” as Lauretti says, “driving all night, sleeping in the cab, eating in gas stations, with all the crazy things that happened along the way.”

The post Weekly Listening: September 2024 #5 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Like many artists in recent years, ahem found the process of making new album Avoider a unique and challenging experience. “We were writing songs in ways we never had before,” they explain, with trio Alyse Emanuel, Courtney Berndt and Erik Anderson often working in separate basements. But rather than treat the circumstances as a limitation to be worked around, the outfit choose to embrace the frustrations to charge the songs themselves, something most apparent in single ‘Waterlogged’. As the title suggests, the song provides a sense of confinement or submergence against which it struggles. “A kind of unresolved hope that maybe we can someday break a little loose and get free in whatever ways we need too,” as the band put it. “We wanted the song to feel like you were getting free especially as it went on—like it feels like a celebration of that aspiration and hope even if you’re still just actually stuck.”

Derek Ted – BLACK WIDOW LIGHTNING

Following on from 2022’s times have changed, a record which developed the warm, earnest side of Derek Ted‘s work, the LA-based songwriter returns this year with new album, day went away. First single ‘BLACK WIDOW LIGHTNING’ offers our first glimpse of what to expect. Finding a balance between loose-limbed energy and sincere tenderness, the song is a three-and-a-half minute dose of fondness, capturing a late summer light where the shadows are stretching and temperatures holding, and where the suggestion of any end only serves to strengthen the appreciation of the moment.

Black widow lightning
The end of summer’s coming
I love you more than ever
I love you like no other

Evelyn – I’m A Dog

Described by the artist as both “a heart-swelling love song about attachment theory,” and “a Cancer Moon abandonment-wound ballad sponsored by Big Feelings,” ‘I’m a Dog’ sees Evelyn grapple with the various contradictions bound up within any relationship in search of some sweet catharsis. Especially how the security and comfort of an intimate connection seems to conjure the possibility of the very opposite, as though to experience a good thing is to summon its shadow too. “Late at night, you’re sleeping by my side / And I’m playing out ways that you could die,” as one verse plays, “I keep track of your breathing / I’ll feel better in the morning.”

Watch the video directed by Izzy Dow and shot and edited by Tim Gersten below:

‘I’m a Dog’ is out now and available via Bandcamp. Evelyn’s album Someday We Will Eat A Feast of Light which will be released later this summer.

Fake Fruit – Mucho Mistrust

“This song was a snapshot of how I got through a difficult year.” So says Ham D’Amato of Fake Fruit on the lead single and title track from the Oakland indie rock outfit’s forthcoming record on Carpark Records. Written in response the the end of a relationship and the start of a new one, an alopecia diagnosis and looming big birthday, it’s a typically vibrant and unpredictable song from a band that burn bright with volatile energy. Wry humour and cathartic noise combine to great effect to live up to the Blondie-homage title, which the band say is intended to “encapsulate both the anxieties of daily life, a bloodless music industry, and global capitalism as well as the clear-eyed scepticism needed to rebel against it.”

Holding Hour – Come Undone

Des Moines, Iowa duo Holding Hour first caught our attention back in 2022 (when they went by elison), with single ‘Hopes & Horoscopes‘ confronting vices and regrets with a sound energetic and confident enough to emerge with an affirming air. Latest single ‘Come Undone’ is no less nuanced in its tone, Marissa Kephart’s reflective, hushed vocals painting an introspective mood as the instrumentation rises into something far larger. Holding Hour again mine the rich creative seam at the intersection of dream pop and shoegaze to offer something ethereal yet sensual. “Say something sweet to me,” as one of the verses goes, “I wanna hear my name inside your mouth / Before you chew and spit it out.”

Julia-Sophie – numb

The debut solo album from Anglo-French avant-garde electronic pop artist Julia-Sophie coming soon via Ba Da Bing Records, forgive too slow is a record which charts a journey through life. There are moments of self-destruction, of romance and longing, not to mention the inevitable loss which chases everything. But such developments are not presented in palatable, linear sequence. Instead, Julia-Sophie uses her danceable electro pop sound to present something messier but more authentic. As though the album is not a straight line towards a final goal but an orbit around an elusive answer. Single ‘numb’ highlights the sensuality and cinematic depth of the sound, where the crystalline shimmer of the track makes everything feel so fragile and precious and sharp.

forgive too slow will be released via Ba Da Bing Records on 26th July. Pre-order now from the Julia-Sophie Bandcamp page.

Leif Vollebekk – Moondog

This September see the return of Canadian songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Leif Vollebekk with brand new full-length Revelation on Secret City Records. Pairing his distinctively earnest vocals with almost cinematic arrangements, the album sees Vollebekk follow Jung’s Dreams, Memories, Reflections through to themes such as alchemy and the mystery of the divine, as well as the pervasive uncertainty of our existentially threatened present. What results is something which sits at the intersection between the earthly and ethereal, a style typified by lead single ‘Moondog’. Love held up in all of its magic and strangeness, where chance and predetermination move our lives with their inscrutable gravities.

Watch the video directed by Kaveh Nabatian below:

Revelation is out on the 27th September via Secret City Records.

Nick Zanca – Little Professor

Having spent a decade making electronic music under the moniker Mister Lies and working as a producer with the likes of Wendy Eisenberg, Nick Zanca has now stepped out under his own name for Hindsight—an album which forgoes electronic styles in favour of a theatrical, jazz-inflected brand of rock music. Coming soon via American Dreams Records, the album sees Zanca follow a very personal line to explore some of our society’s most pressing themes, not least the crushing omnipresence of capitalism and the ways this works to undermine anyone who might wish to devote their life to something more fulfilling. Lead single ‘Little Professor’ engages with experiences in the wake of a childhood diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, not only castigating the harmful language and actions faced by such young people, but offering a new vision where neurodivergence is seen as something valued and respected. Watch the video directed by Hunter Adams and Carl Elsaesser below:

Hindsight will be released on 2nd August and is available via Bandcamp.

West of Roan – The Bell

West of Roan is the recording project of artists/musicians/puppeteers Annie Schermer and Channing Showalter who together draw on a rich folk tradition and centuries of myths and legends to create what they call “a deeply resonant balm for a fractured culture.” This summer, West of Roan will release their second album, Queen of Eyes, via SPINSTER and have unveiled the lead single and opening track by way of introduction. The pair say the song was inspired by “conversations about gods of loss and ancestral wounds [and] texts about the Sumerian underworld demon-goddess Ereshkigal,” all during a near-apocalyptic period of forest fires near their home and the global pandemic. But it’s more than a lament for a world gone bad. Built on the plaintive drone of harmonium and fiddle, it’s sober and aching but somehow hopeful too, finding potential for growth and healing in family, friends and the world around us.

sister find me
sister keep me fed

The post Weekly Listening: May 2024 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.