If Dirt Buyer II, the forthcoming album from Joe Sutkowski’s project on Bayonet Records, offers a clear message, it is that of survival. But any true acknowledgement of being alive can only come from brushes with mortality, and the songs see Dirt Buyer engage with the full darkness of the past in order to more fully appreciate the brighter future. Lead track ‘Fentanyl’ captures the full nuance of this process with a sound which far exceeds its relatively short length. An inky black slice of alt/emo rock which swings between stagnant gloom and bracing rolls of thunderous weight.

Dirt Buyer II is out on the 20th October via Bayonet Records and you can pre-order it now.

Eversame – Warm Flower Sided Road

Originating from jamming sessions between drummer Marek Šmidovič and guitarist Richard Špirko, Žilina’s Eversame have been in development as a band since 2018. But it was only on adding Matúš Ratveiský and then later Pauline Struhárová in 2022 that they really started working towards recorded music. After a debut standalone single, the band turned their attention to full-length Tell Me Where the Flowers Are, and the album is now being released by Filip Zemčík’s Start-track for a limited edition cassette release. Single ‘Warm Flower Sided Road’ serves as the ideal introduction for those unfamiliar with the outfit, blending brooding grunge tones with math rock invention to hint at both the weight and fluidity of the Eversame sound.

Indianna Hale – Hollow The Words

Described as “a love song to my friend family,” ‘Hollow The Words’ is an encapsulation of Indianna Hale’s hybrid country/dream pop style and the bright yet wistful mood which results. The latest song from upcoming LP Yesterday’s Glitter on Perpetual Doom, the single is typical of the album’s atmosphere, where the beauty of joyful things is shadowed by their inevitable passing. What results is an ambivalent sound which could be described as sweet, sad or even surreal, with Western overtones adding some cosmic desert spirit too. Watch the video directed by Sean Olmstead below:

Yesterday’s Glitter is out on the 1st September via Perpetual Doom and you can pre-order it now.

Meagre Martin – Please Clap

Led by Boston-born, Berlin based songwriter Sarah Martin, Meagre Martin has been described as a vehicle for survival and catharsis within our unstable world. With debut album Gut Punch, coming later this year on Mansions and Millions, Martin uses this distance from the US to better examine her home country, be it religious fundamentalism or the ever-worsening climate catastrophe, all delivered with a country-inflected brand of indie rock. Latest single ‘Please Clap’ draws on an image of Jeb Bush floundering before a crowd as an archetypal example of the strange mix of brutality, banality and insecurity which marks the present American psyche. Watch the video directed by Alessandra Corazzini and produced along with Ruby Chopping below:

Gut Punch is out on the 10th November via Mansions and Millions and you can pre-order it now.

Ocie Elliott – Free

Hailing from Victoria, BC, Ocie Elliott (that’s duo Jon Middleton and Sierra Lundy) have made their name with a compassionate and often romantic brand of folk music. Writing of previous single ‘With the Lights Down‘, we described how their intimate style conjured “a moment to remember the things you appreciate while they are still close at hand,” and the description could serve the outfit’s sound more generally. Latest track ‘Free’ is another example, again charged with the wistful fondness we’ve come to expect, welcoming the listener into their music’s mindful peace.

Head up, I’m going down
New paths on old ground
Wildflowers and bird songs
These hours, I feel strong

Pleasure Systems – Everything I Need (ft. Melody English)

His first new music since devastating 2021 album Visiting the Well, ‘Everything I Need’ is the new single from Clarke Sondermann’s Pleasure Systems. It’s a collaboration with New York‘s Melody English and sees a continuation of Pleasure Systems’ unique relationship with time. “Immediate thoughts coalesce with memories,” as we wrote of the previous album, “anguish swirls with past joys and the current stark absence muddles with a previous, very real, presence.” ‘Everything I Need’ is rooted in the present but finds itself drifting across the temporal spectrum. Flashing back to what has now passed, daring to imagine a future. And in the end, settling for what sits in the here and now.

When the evening dies
And we’re sharing the surprise
Past and present sitting softly in your eyes

Turn another day
In the getting in the way
Everything I need is here to stay

Roselit Bone – Ofrenda

Written in the aftermath of the loss of several friends and acquaintances, the title track of Roselit Bone’s Ofrenda is a song haunted by a spectre of death. “Grief would knock me down for weeks or months at a time,” as lead Charlotte McCaslin explains. “But I noticed that, for some brief little moments, the pressure of grieving would give way and I would suddenly feel ‘okay’. I would then be flooded with pangs of guilt for surviving, for not suffering alongside the dead.” The song, and indeed the album as a whole, doesn’t so much try to exorcise this spectre as step out from beneath its shadow. A blend of country and Mexican ranchera music which owes as much to Ennio Morricone as it does punk, emerging with a strangely triumphant air as it faces the most difficult question head on. How do we go on living in full knowledge of what is coming? What does it mean to live in a world which seems to be dying too?

Ofrenda is out via Get Loud Recordings on the 25th August and you can pre-order it now.

Sun June – Get Enough

Bad Dream Jaguar, the forthcoming album by Sun June on Run For Cover Records, sees the band lean further into the style they’ve established across their previous records. A mix of emotional immediacy and ethereal weightlessness, a picture where the line between the ground and the sky is blurred into insignificance. A spacious mirage that’s something like a dream, something like Texas, caught between the comfort of memory and the vertiginous realisation that memory might be all we have. New single ‘Get Enough’ appears to be aware of its position within this environment, embracing its untethered status to drift towards what could be bitter end or absolute truth.

Bad Dream Jaguar is out on the 20th October via Run For Cover Records and you can pre-order it now.

Thomas Powers – Li (ft. Chelsea Jade)

Having risen to fame as part of New Zealand synth pop outfit The Naked and Famous, Thomas Powers was gearing up to release a new record with the band just as the pandemic hit and curtailed their plans. The intervening downtime provided an opportunity to pursue solo work, and debut single ‘Li’ shows the first fruits of the endeavour. Featuring fellow Aotearoa artist Chelsea Jade, the song presents an altogether more reserved soundscape than those of TN&F, though one which nevertheless offers a considerable emotional punch. The introspection of an empty room blown up into cinematic grandeur. Watch the video directed by Thomas Powers, Chelsea Jade & Luna Shadows below:

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

Truth Club – Exit Cycle

Since the release of debut Not An Exit on Tiny Engines back in 2019, Raleigh outfit Truth Club have looked to push the boundaries of what the band could sound like. The addition of Yvonne Chazal to the line-up only furthered this motivation, the newly formed quartet deciding to work with a more communal brand of songwriting. A process intended to “hold space for criticism, critique, input, and inspiration from the rest of the band in any context.” Having now signed with Double Double Whammy, Truth Club are set to release new record From the Chase, and latest single ‘Exit Cycle’ is an encapsulation of their new methods. A track which always felt like it was missing something until collaboration kicked in, with Indigo De Souza adding vocals to finally realise its proper form. “The emotional path of the song parallels the journey of writing it,” lead Travis Harrington explains. “It begins in the most private and insular place, and finally grows into a joyfully collective outpour.” Watch the video directed by Alex Montenegro below:

From the Chase is out on the 6th October via Double Double Whammy and you can pre-order it now.

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

We decided to expand things slightly this year, giving ourselves a chance to write a little something about the albums we wanted to cover but never got the opportunity. Albums which meant something to us at various points through 2021. The list was still incomplete, of course, and we were left with a big list of great songs from great records we didn’t get a chance to mention.

So here are some songs we really enjoyed in 2021. We hope you enjoy them too.

Arooj Aftab – Mohabbat

A take on a piece by Hafeez Hoshiarpuri, Aftab’s multilayered masterpiece is suffused with the patience, sadness and meditative inner wandering of Sufi devotional poetry.

Anjimile – Stranger

As fragile as sandstone, tougher than rock, ‘Stranger’ packages a nuanced assessment of identity as a folk pop hit of which Sufjan would be proud.

Bea Troxel – Getting Where

An empowered anthem for the introverted, slowly circling towards a more truthful self.

Ben Seretan – Cicada Waves 1

Measured and patient piano embedded within an organic field recording, ‘Cicada Waves 1’ plays like a slow day passing in all its quiet details, all its hidden weight.

The Bird Calls – Ritual Crash

With satellites falling from the sky and the burning underworld breaking the surface, ‘Ritual Crash’ presented the most tender, intimate end of the world you were likely to hear in the year of our Lord 2021.

Bria – Buffalo Ballet

Travel to Abilene, TX with this take on John Cale’s “European version of the Old West,” from an EP of covers that both subverts and celebrates country music.

BRNDA – Perfect World

Stable job, accolades, friendly dogs and affirmation. “You’re in the perfect world and doing ok,” sings Leah Gage, voice flat and sardonic as the track eventually tips sideways and falls into an unhinged sax outro.

Canary Room – Lake Effect

Bittersweet folk captured in its best setting, supported by warm lo-fi textures and an ambient embrace of birdsong.

Carson McHone – Hawks Don’t Share

The lid peeled off artistic collaboration, showing the tug of war tension underneath, as well as the lingering regret that results.

Daniel Davies – Spies

On streets as dark and foreboding as this, the question isn’t whether you are paranoid, but whether you are paranoid enough.

Doran – Old Moon

A new song cut from ancient cloth, like a small scrap torn from the drape of the heavens and earth and old moon itself.

Dusted – Not Offering

“I have given up. I’ve given enough,” Brian Borcherdt sings on this tender lesson in regret and letting go. “I was so sure. So it goes, I am not anymore.”

Etran de L’Aïr – Toubouk Ine Chihoussay

A suitably joyous number from Agadez’s premier wedding band, drawing you into its infectious momentum.

Fog Lake – jitterbug

A typically aching and overcast pop song from the master of them.

Frances Chang – eros the love creator dividing chaos

Cosmic spoken word which finds universes within interiors, a daydream transportation away from these sorry lands.

Fust – The Last Days

A song for hard times made warm by the fundamental fondness gained only through shared suffering.

JOHN – A Military Alphabet (five eyes all blind) / Job’s Lament / First of the Last Glaciers / where we break how we shine (ROCKETS FOR MARY)

Some latent thing awoken by our way of living, rising in the name of revenge.

Heka – (a) wall

Anger simmered down to a velvety caramel, coating the tongue on a slow walk through nocturnal alleys.

Hilary Woods – I

One of Hilary Wood’s wordless hymns, to be sung in dark chapels deep underground.

illuminati hotties – Pool Hopping

Working on the logic that slowing down might equal admitting truths or figuring things out, ‘Pool Hopping’ grabs you by the hand and runs.

Indigo De Souza – Pretty Pictures

“I’m always trying to embody a balance between the existential weight and the overflowing sense of love I feel in the world,” Indigo De Souza explains, capturing the bummed-out brightness better than we ever could.

Johanna Samuels – Sonny

With its long shadows and golden light, it’s not clear whether the sun is dawning or setting on ‘Sonny’, but it heralds a new day nonetheless.

JOHN (TIMESTWO) – Return to Capital / Šibensko Powerhouse

The reek of ozone as thunderheads slowly gather / The unleashing of the storm. “I see an opening in the sky, high, wide.”

Keith Secola – Intaglio

Just one of the portals on Keith Secola’s latest record. Looking to the heavens, rooted to the ground, tied to everything in between.

Lael Neale – Blue Vein

“Guardian angel / Gather my losses / Keep them all safe / ‘Til I come to my cross”

Le Ren – Dyan

As warm as a mother’s hand, with all the clarity of an empty room.

Lewsberg – The Corner

Perfectly minimal, just guitar, percussion, and incense-scented violin. All backed up by monologue-like vocals that ring with pure patience.

Loretta’s Museum – The Rodney Ave Garage Sale

Instrumental folk and the ambient sounds of a garage sale combine to evoke one of those perfect glittery springtime days when the sky is blue and the leaves are green and the sun isn’t yet too hot to bear.

Lucie, Too – スーパームーン Super moon

A slice of big, radio-ready indie pop from a Japanese duo that seem destined to blow up.

Mal Devisa – Deja playing guitar

With slow guitar and lilting rhythm, a track which isolates the tenderness and patience within loneliness, yearning for connection with plainspoken charm

Marie/Lepanto – Gramps and Grandma

Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster on reliably emotive form with the picture of familial love and heartbreak, and Jason Isbell shows up to shred some guitar for good measure.

Maxine Funke – Quiet Shore

A quiet meditation on the mundane aspects of a traumatic moment (a tea tray, a snatched umbrella, a slammed door) that illustrates the potency of memory and how a whisper is often louder than a shout.

Merpire – Heavy Feeling

Has an anxiety attack ever felt so cathartic?

Midwife – God is a Cop

“Am I heartless, or am I soft?” The pressing question at the heart of a track suspended between earnest confession and violent conflagration.

Myriam Gendron – Poor Girl Blues

Gendron combines a traditional Québecois folk song with an old blues one to distil their shared meaning, a lament for the lost, lonely and displaced.

Ovlov – Baby Shea

A 97 second eulogy to Brooklyn’s Shea Stadium played at breakneck pace.

Quivers – Gutters of Love

Ageless Aussie pop that’s a little bit 80s, a little bit 2010s, and a whole lot of joyous reassurance that heartbreak passes and things will be just fine.

Reiko and Tori Kudo – The Deep Valley of Shadow

A soft soliloquy on isolation grows quietly unsettling as warped strings whisper at the edges like anxious thoughts.

Sand Duney – Shadow Outside

Ramshackle country-tinged psych pop built on layered backing tracks thats equal parts meditative and energetic.

Space Mountain – Night Sky

A slacker jam.

Spread Joy – Kanst Du

Just one no wave pop nugget from a record that’s full of them, like pulling a weird sweet and sour German candy from a bag of pick ‘n mix.

Talons’ – Vampire

Talons’ tackle the experience of living through the pandemic in typically raw fashion, centring on an anxiety dream of being maskless in ALDI “between the meat, the fake meat and the gluten-free.”

Tiny Deserts – Wild Mt. Thyme

This beautifully unfussy and intimate take on an old Scots/Irish folk song captures that uniquely summertime feeling where the slow sunny evenings feel at once sorrowful and jubilant.

Trace Mountains – Eyes on the Road

The sound of a late-night self-reckoning while flying down the highway

TV Priest – Lifesize

A slurred and snarling assault on the patriarchal “strongmen” of politics and culture.

Typhoon – We’re In It

A band known for orchestral maximalism hone things to a razor edge in this emotional gut-punch on isolation, drifting friendship and, ultimately, persisting.

Valley Palace – Patch

Sky-blue guitar pop washed in hazy nostalgia that will have you dreaming of summer.

Weakened Friends – Quitter

A very nineties marriage of confession and catharsis, confronting fears over life’s direction by attaching heart to sleeve and blazing on ahead.

World Record Winner – Pockets of Nature

An honest-to-goodness ode to the joy of rooting around in the dirt and leaf litter away from worries and cares.

Wormy – Hungry Ghost (feat. Samia)

A whirlwind tour through the banal and heartbreaking details of life, gathering enough momentum to convince yourself everything might just be alright.

Yellow Ostrich – Timothy

“What’s a man? I’m just as soft as I can be” sings Alex Schaaf on this rumination on connection and the fallacies of masculinity.

If you enjoyed anything on this list, you may also be interested in our list of albums we missed in 2021. And of course, there were lots of amazing songs that we did write about in the last year, so have a look back through our Reviews and Previews sections to find more.

The post Songs We Missed in 2021 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Featuring:

Petal – I’m Sorry
Wild Pink – The Seance On St. Augustine St
Big Thing – Spin
Bombshell Nightlight – Death Day
Mount Goldie – Summer
Elsa Lester – Pretty Bad, Man
Why Bonnie – Gold Rush
Devon Welsh – Vampires
Max García Conover – Another Travelling Man
Floating Room – Dog
Izaak Opatz – Bathing in the Ganges
Free Cake For Every Creature – Around You
Indigo De Souza – Home Team
Museum Food Court – bad song
Crisco Dreams – I Like Your Bed
You’re Sister – I Think About You
Russel the Leaf – Let ‘Em Run
Fresh – Daytime
Stevhen Peters – Phone Talk
Tender Age – Don’t Mind
Lord Youth – Do You Have Anything To Add?
Quiet Hollers – Addicted
Blue J – Hard to Know
Post Moves – The Arc of Life
Angus & Julia Stone – Nothing Else
Gia Margaret – Birthday
Sun June – Discotheque
Campdogzz – Souvenir
Field Report – Every Time

*(Due to various issues of availability and licensing, neither playlist has the complete quota of acts, but welcome to the modern age).

You can find all of the previous instalments of Bright Sparks here, and be sure to check back in a few weeks to see what makes the next edition.

The post July 2018 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Mount Goldie – Summer

There’s very little information available about Mount Goldie, other than they are a duo based in Portland, Oregon and have a new album, All My Friends Are Mothers coming out this August. In a world of gimmicks and EPKs, there’s something refreshing about letting the music do the talking, which is exactly what Mount Goldie do with ‘Summer’. Building slowly with a sense of weight, the track has sense of stifling summer stillness, a lack of movement that becomes oppressive, as though rising toward some sudden break, though never quite coming to anything. Clint Snow’s vocals rise through this heavy air, conjuring the likes of Dusted in his ability to draw emotion from straight delivery.

All My Friends Are Mothers is set for release on the 3rd August and you can pre-order in now from Bandcamp.

Devon Welsh – Vampires

Best known as the frontman of electronic duo Majical Cloudz, Montreal’s Devon Welsh began pursuing a solo career after the natural end of the band in 2016. Following a collection of older songs titled Down the Mountain, Welsh has been unveiling new material in the last few months. After the meditative ‘I’ll Be Your Ladder’, which came out this spring, Welsh has unveiled a brand new single, ‘Vampires’, complete with a video directed by Christopher Honeywell.

The track is stripped back to a lonely minimum, a kind of late-night absence across which Welsh’s distinctive vocals can move, the introduction of small notes acting like sparks and streetlamps in the gloom, building slowly into an incandescent glow as Welsh rises from from baritone into near devotional warmth.

“What are we doing here hanging on a dark night?
What are we doing here this town’s a vampire
Ducking our silhouettes waiting for the cop’s light
This town’s gonna eat us alive

So we’re moving on”

You can find all of Devon Welsh’s music on his Bandcamp page.

Floating Room – Dog

Led by Maya Stoner and Kyle Bates, Floating Room are a Portland band who last month put out a new release, False Baptism, via Good Cheer Records. The record is something of a follow-up to 2016’s Sunless, which explored the consequences of an emotional relationship. The new album is still centred on this subject, though there is a greater degree of clarity here, as though pulling away from the scene to better take in its dimensions.

Lead single ‘Dog’ serves as a great example, using the metaphor of pet and owner to explore emotional reliance and obligation. The canine wants to escape the relationship (““I don’t like how weak I am when I’m with you”), and the master is terrified of losing their control, and while both declare their love for the other, the true focus of this love is perhaps not healthy or fair. The result is a situation governed by fear, motivated not by true connection but the dread of being alone.

False Baptism is out now via Good Cheers Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Angus & Julia Stone – Nothing Else

Australian brother and sister duo Angus & Julia Stone have been releasing their atmospheric brand of folk music for over a decade now, culminating in 2017 album Snow. With a video directed by Jessie Hill, they have recently released ‘Nothing Else’ as a single. Charting the lonely spaces between connection and empathy, the song probes the repercussions of relationship and their influence on identity, playing as something of a reassurance (or attempt thereof) after some unsaid disturbance. Featuring Julia playing two roles, the video speaks to this too, as though, regardless of outside judgement, we can return to ourselves in confidence.

Snow is out now and you can get it from the Angus & Julia Stone website.

Izaak Opatz – Bathing in the Ganges

LA-based Montana native Izaak Opatz has teamed up with the good people at Mama Bird Recording Co. to re-release his album Mariachi Static. The record is the perfect balance of playful and emotional, classic country heartbreak portrayed through loose-limbed confidence, all the trials of life doing little to extinguish his sense of humour. Complimenting this is Opatz’s knack for writing vivid scenes, evocative slices of life woven from small details, making for an emotive and endearing atmosphere that prevents the ironic elements from undercutting the meaning of each track.

The reissue also sees the addition of three new songs, a cover of ‘Carmelita’ alongside two new originals. One such tune, ‘Bathing in the Ganges’ serves as a neat introduction to Opatz’s sound, emerging with a slow and dusty inevitability, kicking into something of a rhythm across its length, though never quite shaking the languid stretch.

Mariachi Static is being released by Mama Bird Recording Co. on the 20th July and you you can pre-order it through Bandcamp.

Free Cake For Every Creature – Around You / In Your Car

Good news! Free Cake for Every Creature, the project lead by Philadelphia’s Katie Bennett, are back with a new album. Titled The Bluest Star, Bennett has again enlisted the help of Francis Lyons and Heeyoon Won (of Boosegumps) to record the record, which is set for release in August on Double Double Whammy.

The band have released two singles thus far, which seem to confirm that Free Cake aim to continue their signature gentle indie pop. ‘around you’ is sweet and understated nostalgi-pop, Bennett’s lyrics focusing on those simple joyful moments of making a new friend, while ‘in your car’ features Felix Walworth on banjo and Meghan Center with additional vocals, a song about whiling away long summer evenings in a parked car with Pavement on the radio. Again it displays what Bennett does so well, focusing on small details to infer larger feelings, all wrapped up in a transportive atmosphere.

“Windows down in your stopped car
Radio picking up the distant city’s station
You pass me the glass, your lipstick in the rim
“Summer babe” narration, waiting waiting”

The Bluest Star is out on Double Double Whammy on the 3rd of August. Pre-order it now.

Campdogzz – Souvenir

Campdogzz are a five-piece based out of Chicago who, led by the distinctive vocals of Jess Price, create a brooding indie rock that their bio describes as being “dialled into the bleak, spirited heart of the industrial Midwest.” Following 2016 album Riders in the Hills of Dying Heaven, the band have signed to Cursive’s 15 Passenger Records for a brand new record, In Rounds. The release took shape when Price and guitarist Mike Russell travelled around southern deserts in a school bus, and it is promised that the harsh beauty and wide open spaces of the landscape shape the sound. Lead single ‘Souvenir’ is all we have to go on so far, though it promises a sense of danger and rawness that more than lives up to expectations.

In Rounds is set for release on the 3rd August via 15 Passenger Records and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Indigo De Souza – Home Team

Taken from I Love My Mom, their debut album released last month on Sub-Fi Records, Indigo De Souza’s ‘Home Team’ shows off the North Carolinian songwriter’s wry yet impassioned voice. Simultaneously bitingly honest and guarded, the song toes the line between cutting and pleading, as though seeking to clear up ambiguity in others while stewing in a confusion of its own, a need for reassurance that peaks from behind the bleachers despite the confident front. The result is fiery and at-times genuinely funny, the scope in tone matched by De Souza’s vocal range, as confident in conversational intimacy as big, broadcasted refrains.

“Don’t you blame me
if I don’t answer my phone.
I don’t like fucking boys who need to know
what to do when there’s no-one else home.

We’re all pining for that modern day girl
she’s really a star
got the crowd just jumping for joy
on a Saturday night at the home field.”

I Love My Mom is out now via Sub-Fi Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

You’re Sister – I Think About You

The recording project of New York’s Megan Braaten, You’re Sister put out a new full-length, Keepsake, this past May. Drawing spirit from its title, the album is a comforting brand of bedroom pop that’s shot through with a sense of distant regret, as though there is something inherently sad within the things we treasure most. Single ‘I Think About You’ serves as the perfect example of this, the warm atmosphere nurturing a keen melancholia, an immersive emotion that’s something to do with memories, something to do with the passing of time.

You can get Keepsake now from the You’re Sister Bandcamp page.

Fresh – Daytime

Fresh are a pop-punk four-piece from London who last year put out a self-titled album with Specialist Subject Records. Channelling the likes of Camp Cope, the record is fine balance between thoughtful, personal lyrics and a sense of carefree abandon, painting a picture of the volatile rollercoaster ride that is life as a young person in contemporary society.

A year later, the band are back with a brand new 7″, Daytime/Nightime, and have unveiled a video for lead track ‘Daytime’. Again, the track’s infectious sense of energy buoys what is an impassioned and empathetic lyrical side, Fresh railing against the debilitating search for perfection. As lead Kathryn Woods explains, “[‘Daytime’ is] about how in our culture there’s this myth of constant happiness or the idea that you always have to be thriving and successful, when actually, a lot of the time, you just have to get through whatever’s going on.”

Daytime/Nightime will be released on the 31st August via Specialist Subject Records (UK) and Discos Finu (Spain).

Tender Age – Don’t Mind

Portland punk outfit Tender Age are putting out a new album, Becoming Real Forever, on the 9th of July, and have unveiled a video for the lead single ‘Don’t Mind’ to set the tone. The press release describes the band’s sound as like “being pulled into an automatic car wash,” and while the experience is not nearly as painful as that sounds, the image does capture the whirlwind of activity, a series of disparate elements pulling together toward a cohesive whole. Add in a the retro-tinged vocals that bring to mind Sonic Youth or The Breeders, and you have a confident, moody track unafraid of exploring light and dark within the same space.

Becoming Real Forever is set for release on the 9th July via SINIS Recordings and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Blue J – Hard to Know

Vancouver’s Blue J have a big summer ahead, with their debut EP coming out in August and a tour with SALES and Dave Monks (from Tokyo Police Club). So far, the quartet have released a number of singles, and the latest ‘Hard To Know’ demonstrates their ability to weave nuanced lyrics into affecting music. Indeed, the blend of motion and emotion in the instrumentation brings to mind Big Thief‘s Capacity, as the lyrics deal with loss and grief from the perspective of someone outside of the immediate situation, trying to comfort the mourning.

“The way that you looked on that day
I knew that I could not relate
to the shock that showed up on your face
the look of loss you wore with grace
staring at cracks on the ground
your call ended without a sound
no ‘goodbye or see you later’
your breath was getting deeper”

You can get ‘Hard to Know’ and the previous singles from the Blue J Bandcamp page, and be sure to keep an eye out for more news on the EP.

You can find all of the previous instalments of Bright Sparks here, and be sure to check back in a few weeks to see what makes the next edition.

The post Bright Sparks: Vol. 14 appeared first on Various Small Flames.