Now Arsenault has released a second taste of the album, ‘Start Again’, yet another rich folk pop song of complicated emotions, detailing a struggle through despondency and discouragement in the hope of starting over. There’s absolutely nothing saccharine about Arsenault’s work, every dab of sweetness offset by a sour reality, each ray of light throwing a shadow of equal size and weight.

On ‘Start Again’, this comes in the form of a frank exploration of the everyday devastation of living with depression, a seemingly endless malaise where even the smallest acts begin to seem impossible. “Again, I find it hard to motivate myself to brush my teeth,” she sings, “I know I must smile despite the pain that’s hiding underneath.” But, in a theme that’s becoming a characteristic of Nothing Sweeter, the song offers promise of change too. Its solutions are simple but no less powerful, small routines, acts of good, the slightest glimmer that things could work out after all.

Thirty days to make a habit and
A split second to break a heart but
I will wake up early tomorrow and
We can make a brand new start
Again

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With album yoyo coming next month on Grind Select, New York‘s A Beacon School has unveiled new single ‘Alone’. Following on from the frustrations of previous track ‘KITM‘, the song offers dawning light, ramping up the rhythm within the shimmering air as if to chase after the feeling. “‘Alone’ is about the moment when you feel like your luck is finally turning,” Patrick J. Smith explains. “Nothing’s been going your way, so when you catch the faintest glimmer of hope you grab on to it as tight as you can.”

Bret Mosley – Wayside

Bret Mosley’s new album Through the Fire is a product of a personal journey across many years. “After arriving in Australia, I was excruciatingly alone—contending with life-threatening abuse and battling to hang on,” explains the Melbourne-based songwriter. The record might have started as a way of processing this trauma and isolation, but ultimately became a vehicle to help Mosley escape from it. Single ‘Wayside’ captures this catharsis in all of its heartfelt authenticity, channelling the likes of Uncle Tupelo and Will Johnson in its earthy, often stark lyricism, and building towards a searing conviction.

And here I hang by the wayside
Gladly the man ordained
The dark red reign
Long weathered was not in vain, and
I’m fine to hang by the wayside

Corrine Sharlet – Belief and Imagination

“A woozy, cosmic atmosphere, like a message of devotion beamed across the void of space from the lunar surface referenced in the title.” That’s how we described ‘Pink Summer Moon‘ by Portland‘s Corinne Sharlet back in 2021. The title track from new EP Belief and Imagination, Sharlet’s latest single might be more grounded in earthly emotions, though is no less devotional in tone. Built on subtle instrumentation and Sharlet’s arresting vocals, it’s a song which draws inspiration from working as a therapist to champion the fundamental importance of storytelling within the human experience.

telling lies just to say something real
choose to hide or you choose to reveal
what do you know you only know what you feel

Daffo – Poor Madeline

The recording project of Philadelphia‘s Gabi Gamberg, Daffo is preparing to release an EP, Pest, next month. Latest single ‘Poor Madeline’ serves as the perfect introduction, a portrait of a title character down on their luck, where every small pain only serves to bring back memories of a larger one. The sound captures the mood in its gradual transformation. What begins as an intimate folk song escalates into something altogether louder, as though there’s a fire lit beneath the sound that slowly grows, before going up in a blaze in the final minutes.

‘Poor Madeline’ is out now and you can find Daffo at all the usual places.

Deau Eyes – Legacies

Following the release of album Legacies via subflora last year, Deau Eyes (AKA Richmond‘s Ali Thibodeau) has returned with a brand new video for the title track, made with brother and collaborator Michael Thibodeau. “Our whole lives, Michael has followed me around with a camcorder and I used to create songs on our karaoke machine tape deck,” Thibodeau explains, and the ‘Legacies’ video feels like the culmination of the practice. “We spitballed on awkward bits of our childhood, the beautiful melodrama of tradition, and all the unlikely characters that we have crossed paths with over the years.”

Legacies is out now via subflora and available from Bandcamp.

Fazerdaze – Bigger

The recording project of Christchurch‘s Amelia Murray, Fazerdaze made waves back in 2017 with debut album Morningside on Flying Nun Records, introducing a distinctive blend of dream pop and alt rock sensibilities. Now signed with Partisan Records‘ section1, Murray has unveiled new single ‘Bigger’, a song which continues this style to draw the audience into an interior world. It explores the strange sensation of passing into adulthood as a touring musician, where the alluring pull of stardom distorts real life. As the refrain puts it: “We’re caught between this life and dream.”

Watch the video filmed by Tom Lynch below:

‘Bigger’ is out now via section1 and available from the Fazerdaze Bandcamp page.

Ian Davies – Still Hurts

‘Still Hurts’ is the first single and title track from a forthcoming album by Montreal-based songwriter Ian Davies. We’ve previously described Davies’s work as “at once laid back and fatalistic,” and the new song offers a similarly conflicted tone. He calls it “a full blown country rock smash that contemplates the art/pain paradox in the hopes of striking gold at rock bottom,” like a downtrodden country ballad where even the worst of things holds a curious promise. It might be dumb hope, persistent optimism or just the effects of some chemical help, but even the cold floor of your lowest point might just hold a speckled shimmer of precious metals.

Julie Arsenault – Tiny Beam of Light

This autumn, Canadian singer-songwriter Julie Arsenault will release her second album, Nothing Sweeter, via Son Canciones. But despite the release date, lead single ‘Tiny Beam of Light’ is very much a summer song. Wrapped in the golden romanticism of 50s and 60s pop, the song swoons and sways in the melancholic rays of the late afternoon sun. The opening verse sees the protagonist emerge from the depths of winter (“like a vampire, my body pale and cold”) and stretch their limbs in the enveloping warmth of summer, opening themselves up to the promise of brightness of many forms.

I emerge like a vision, a tiny beam of light
Shining in through your curtain
asking you how you slept last night
When you emerge from a dream, like an angel on my screen
‘Cause it’s summertime
Time to look on the bright side

Virgo Rising – Tristan

The second single from sophomore EP Vampyre Year, ‘Tristan’ is the latest track from Winnipeg indie pop band Virgo Rising. What lead Emily Sinclair calls “a loud, cathartic rock song, almost like a messy chant about the boy I would’ve been,” the song has been a fixture of the Virgo Rising live set for a while, where its singalong chorus has made it a fan favourite. In comparison to the gentle folkiness of lead single ‘Nail Biter, ‘Tristan’ has a heavier 90s alt-rock vibe, something accentuated by the decision to record the EP version largely live. It’s big and stormy and emotive and builds to a cathartic denoument.

Volunteer Department – Old Friend

Writing about Volunteer Department‘s Clean Living last year, we noted the “mixture of elegance and ugliness that forms the essence of the Volunteer Department aesthetic.” The Nashville-based project has returned with new single ‘Old Friend’ on Like Your Mean It Records, the track using LA as the back-drop to a similarly ambivalent atmosphere. “Is it safe to drink the dream in LA? / And whatever else they’re pumping it with?” as Oliver Hopkins asks. “Is it safe to drink the dream in LA? / Or is everyone living off promises?” But beneath this lies a picture of love and loss, specifically with a cat named Old Friend, and offers the most heartfelt picture of feline friendship since Virtute.

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

Something of a plea, ‘Don’t Let Us Get Rich’ sees Max García Conover address his wife. Asking that their sincerity and humbleness might remain intact amid an age of calculating cruelty and greed. “Anyone can see the horizon is wanting / the national bird has a nest full of beaks,” as he sings. “Screaming to be set free from their longing / mistaking each other for something to eat.” This image of birds pushed outside of their natural cycles recurs across the song, and for all the song’s earnest hush, it ends up quietly frantic. Seeing through the façade of consumerist culture and finding a sick emptiness within.

don’t let us get rich and go crazy
don’t let us get rich at all

The foreboding tone of Dylan’s ‘One Too Many Mornings’ feels like a continuation of this. Its dogs losing their barks, its nights falling too soon, its vision blackening as though there’s a cloud over the very days ahead. And though Julie Arsenault and Max García Conover’s dual vocals might sound like tender affinity at first, there’s another reading which raises its head too. Twin voices singing about the same thing but separately. Isolated within their own response to the situation, unable to help or be helped.

It’s a restless hungry feeling
And it don’t mean no one no good
When ev’rything that I’m sayin’
You can say it just as good
You’re right from your side
And I’m right from mine
We’re both just one too many mornings
An’ a thousand miles behind

Don’t Let Us Get Rich is out now via Son Canciones and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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