With the release of the album fast approaching, Bonniesongs has returned with the title track. The idea for the song originated in a songwriting workshop with Luke Temple, in which Stewart was tasked with crafting a love song around a lyrical cliche, and evolved into the core of the record’s conflicted emotions. From subdued, almost hesitant beginnings, the track rises in what might be worry or conviction, as though a sense of impermanence has lit a fire beneath it. “It’s maybe my only classic love song” Stewart explains. “It’s about the fear of loss with loving someone but it’s a happy song, celebrating love and connection whilst also highlighting the inevitable future heartache.”

They told me all the best love songs, happen to be the saddest ones
What am I supposed to do, with love that makes me so happy
Well I have a little fear, a quiet fear, that creeps in my ear, and tells me sometimes,
That one day I’ll lose you, or you’ll lose me, and we won’t be together anymore

Watch the video directed by Nick Mckk and Stewart himself below:

Strangest Feeling is out on the 25th July, including a special vinyl edition via Impressed Recordings which you can pre-order now.

Photo by Nick Mckk

The post Bonniesongs – Strangest Feeling appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Folks songs which “explore ideas of home, family and memory within the context of the queer experience” was how we described the work of Bad Posture Club back in 2022 when writing about single ‘My Good My Sweet My Bright‘. Consisting of duo Maren Day and Morgan Kavanagh, the project uses a timeless, sincere folk style to bring such themes to life, and new album Affinity, coming this summer on Ghost Mountain Records, looks to develop this further. The lead single and title track offers the first glimpse into the release. A considered, spare song which nevertheless glows with a modest yet persistent warmth. “No such thing as an excess of gentleness,” goes the instructive opening line, “at least not for me.”

Bonniesongs – Olive Oil

“Olive oil is good for me / Nourishing deep within my skin / Fills me up with vitamins / Makes me feel so comforted.” So sings Irish-born, Australian-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Bonnie Stewart, AKA Bonniesongs, on new single ‘Olive Oil’. The latest single from Strangest Feeling, the new Bonniesongs LP forthcoming this summer on Impressed Recordings, the song introduces the record’s sense of nuance. It blends warm dream pop with something weightier and strange, all delivered with a playful spirit. “I wrote ‘Olive Oil’ while visiting Wellington, New Zealand. I had recently started a game with friends where we list our top five favourite things,” Stewart explains. “Olive oil, ocean, sunshine are some things that bring me joy. I wanted a happy, light-hearted song.” And while light-hearted the song might be, it is anything but twee, the Bonniesongs sound far more ambitious and conflicting to fall into such a trap.

Watch the video directed by Shadow Cut Films and Stewart herself below:

Strangest Feeling will be released on the 25th July via Impressed Recordings.

Chrome Harvest – Hex Whoever

Originating as project between Chris Jerwin (guitar, piano, vocals) and Ben Wellman (banjo, guitar, vocals) and later expanding into more of a collective, Chrome Harvest is a Lethbridge, Alberta-based band which sits at the experimental end of indie rock. After winning praise with 2023 debut Sun-Circuit, Chrome Harvest have recently released a self-titled follow-up, Evan Brownlee (drums, percussion), Keilan Hakstol (drums, percussion), Connor McGinnis (bass), Ray Wong (saxophone) and Cori Campbell (saxophone) joining the fold to push the project further. Standout ‘Hex Whoever’ hints at both the richness of the resulting sound and its emotional resonance, unfurling as a raggedy, quivering folk song before blooming into something lush and affirming and packed with raw energy.

Far Caspian – An Outstretched Hand / Rain From Here To Kerry

The recording project of Irish songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Joel Johnston, Far Caspian has established itself through a number of releases since its inception in 2020. Namely debut full-length Ways To Get Out and follow-up The Last Remaining Light, which employed everything from indie folk to late 90s/early 00s alt sensibilities to offer a distinctively personal sound, full of unguarded sincerity and searching emotion. Set for release via Johnston’s own Tiny Library Records this July, new album Autofiction is both a continuation of this process and something of a soft reset. An opportunity to return the Far Caspian project back to the simple joy of making music after years of challenges both artistic and personal. Latest single ‘An Outstretched Hand / Rain From Here To Kerry’ is an indication the record lives up to its title, finding Johnston as his most diaristic as he details an experience driving all night across Ireland after a failed attempt to climb Carrauntoohil in 2014.

Watch the video directed by Johnston himself below:

Autofiction is out on the 25th July via Tiny Library Records and you can pre-order it now.

kissing other ppl – Where’d All The Time Go

Something of a folk supergroup, kissing other ppl sees indie folk duo Viv & Riley join forces with songwriter Rachel Baiman, and the project’s self-titled debut introduces what to expect. Released via Peacedale Records, the album is a collection of covers taken from across a wide spectrum of acts—Lennon Stella, Songs: Ohia, Wilco and Joan Armatrading to name a few. “It just kind of happened that we were talking about the same music. It felt like fun coincidences, these artists across a lot of different realms and times,” Riley explains. “So it just then seemed like we could make a record with these great songs, us reinterpreting them, have them all feel of a piece, even though the songs are from different eras and the original recordings are very different.” Listen to single ‘Where’d All The Time Go’ now, with kissing other ppl taking Dr Dog’s original and adding a timeless folk style.

Merzbow – Sedonis A

Renowned avant garde sound artist Masami Akita has been recording under the moniker Merzbow for going on half a century. The Tokyo-based musician has built a vast, varied oeuvre which reimagines the possibilities of noise. But while Akita’s back catalogue is already far deeper than most artists could even dream, he continues to create and release new music, and new album Sedonis shows there is no let up in his ambition. Merzbow’s debut with Chicago imprint Signal Noise, the record uses a computer, modular electronics and homemade instruments to create a sound inspired by the kaiju Barunga from sixties TV series Ultra Q. Single ‘Sedonis A’ is suggestive of the scale of the release, a cut as harsh and sublime as any giant creature hell-bent on making Tokyo its own.

Rebecca Schiffman – Little Mr. Civility

“Is pure feeling possible? Can we ever extricate ourselves from culture or do we need it to even think, let alone communicate with others?” So asks the album notes of Rebecca Schiffman‘s fourth full-length Before the Future, coming this summer via Lost Sound Tapes. The record sees the LA-based songwriter grapple with what it means to live a moral life within a society that can appear hellbent on compromising our personal values. Everything from grief, family vacations and the ethics of the pet-owner relationship are explored, but lead single ‘Little Mr. Civility’ turns its attention to the experience of raising a young child. Namely the inevitable influence a parent has in shaping their nascent understanding of the world and its expectations. “The song expresses misgivings about the large responsibility one bears bringing someone into the world,” as Schiffman explains, “and resignation at having to try to shape them so they exist in society.”

Watch the video directed by Faryl Amadeus below:

Before the Future will be released on the 25th July, including a cassette via Lost Sound Tapes, and you can pre-order it now.

Tuxis Giant – Last Laugh

We’ve followed Tuxis Giant for a number of years now, most recently in 2023 with the release of full-length The Old House. “The songs find Tuxis Giant offering a sonic representation of solitude in all of its nuance,” as we wrote. “The inherent safety in being removed from the wider world is challenged by an inevitable anxiety and loneliness, [resulting in] a strangely nostalgic alienation.” Now Matt O’Connor and co. are back with You Won’t Remember This, a brand new LP released via their own label Worry Bead Records (who recently curated True Names, a great compilation for the Trans Youth Emergency Project). Lead single ‘Last Laugh’ provides the first look inside, a short yet no less evocative song about the dangerous allure of self-medication, delivered with Tuxis Giant’s trademark mix of intimacy and heft.

Winter – Just Like A Flower

Recording under the moniker Winter, Brazil-born, New York-based Samira Winter combines gauzy shoegaze and summery pop sensibilities to weave a sound as lush as it is energetic. Following the success of 2022 debut Some Kind Of Blue, Winter returns this summer with new album Adult Romantix on Winspear, and lead single ‘Just Like A Flower’ introduces both the style and theme of the record. The song’s reflective, often melancholic tone is buoyed by an insistent momentum, with Winter contemplating a move from LA to NYC amid the wider progression of young adult life. There are loves and inevitable losses along the way, but the forward motion can never quite be halted.

Watch the video directed by Sammy Lamb and Samira Winter below:

Adult Romantix will be released on the 22nd August via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

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