With singles ‘Everything’ and ‘Closer’, London duo atmos bloom have indicated the dreamy depths of their new album Everythingness, as well as the push and pull between influence and experimentation which marks their shoegaze-inflected sound. “[‘Closer’] finds Gratton and Paterson looking for contentment in the present and the constant change it represents,” we wrote of the latter single, “something achieved with a woozy, almost ethereal sound that sits on a knife edge between lucidity and dreams, sanding the edges off of reality in order to consider it more fully.” With the release of Everythingness fast approaching via Spirit Goth Records, atmos bloom have shared latest track ‘It’s Enough’, and again the song finds itself caught between competing forces. Namely the difficulty of living up to the expectations of different people, each with their own distinctive image of you in their head.

Chris Acker – Overdrafted

“A country-folk lamentation about the cruel thing banks do when you have less than zero dollars.” That’s how the press release describes ‘Overdrafted’, the new single from New Orleans-based songwriter Chris Acker. His first new music since 2024 album Famous Lunch, the song explores what he calls the “half-rotten romance of the unremarkable and unrefined.” As we wrote back in 2024: “Behind Acker’s trademark absurdity is the essential troubadour tale, where the confused dreamer collides with the banalities of life and comes to feel cursed for his failings.” But what’s remarkable is, despite the self-deprecation and wry humour, there’s some strange beauty here too, a heartwarming sense of camaraderie with everyone who finds themselves “in the red but still trying to tread.” You certainly won’t hear a more affecting account of having to make do with single ply toilet paper this year.

Jacob Brodovsky – Beneath It All

The songs of Jacob Brodovsky have never been afraid to delve into the personal, with new album Tell The Kids We Tried meditating, as we put it, “on themes of community, connection and family within the tumult that is the present moment,” but latest single ‘Beneath It All’ pushes further than most. Brodovsky had been the proud director of a Jewish summer camp, a place where he had spent over two decades of his life, only to recently face backlash from some members of the wider community for liking a social media post about a benefit show Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. An ugly situation developed, with the pressure tipping over into full-blown harassment, leaving him little choice but to resign and leave the place which had come to feel like a second home. “I wrote ‘Beneath It All’ about trying to hold onto the community that raised me while it shrinks into itself,” Brodovsky explains. “A community of good people, many of whom blinded by trauma, grief, and a refusal to acknowledge harm.” The album track featured the fantastic Charlotte Cornfield, while a new alternate live version sees Keiran Placatka, Dominique Adams and Leith Ross join instead:

Tell The Kids We Tried is out now via Make My Day Records and available from Bandcamp.

Jonathan Something – Country Rose

Recording under the moniker Jonathan Something, singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Searles won acclaim through the late 2010s and early 2020s, writing prolifically across rock, folk and pop styles, though emerged from the period disillusioned with the industry and music more generally. “I was finding it hard to identify with being an artist anymore,” he explains. “It didn’t bring me the same joy or comfort it used to, and I found that the only way for me to really enjoy music again was to stop making it.” Cue several years away from songwriting, a spell only broken when ill health pushed him back towards music, even if at first merely sitting at a piano now caused him anxiety. “Eventually, I realized that I needed to turn it into something useful,” Searles continues. “I needed to use it as a catalyst to start thinking more seriously about spirituality and growth and the changes I needed to make in my life. And that journey became [new album] One More Lonesome Cowboy Song.” The record will be released this autumn via High Shelter, but for now you can listen to single ‘Country Rose’ for a taste of existential, transformative tone which marks the songs. Watch a live performance of the track recorded by Dogstar Films below:

One More Lonesome Cowboy Song will be released on the 16th October via High Shelter.

LAPÊCHE – Phantom Of Cinder

Brooklyn’s LAPÊCHE began life back in 2016 as the solo project of Krista Holly Diem, but has since grown into a full-blown band. Drawing on shoegaze and post-punk, they make indie rock songs that are both shadowy and catchy, centering on a sense of considered patience that the band says is born from “a shared language of healing, honesty and presence.” Back in February, they released a new record Autotelic via Tiny Engines, a collection of emotionally intricate but very much listenable rock songs. One standout was album closer ‘Phantom of Cinder’, a typically restrained track about how we hold on to shards of the past like splinters in our skin. “This song came from feeling haunted by old versions of myself,” Diem describes. “It is about the things we carry, the memories that refuse to disappear, and the moments that shape us long after they have passed. Sometimes healing is not about letting go. Sometimes it is about learning to live with what remains.” Watch the Jacob Halpren-directed video for ‘Phantom of Cinder’ below:

Autotelic is out now via Tiny Engines and available from the LAPÊCHE Bandcamp page.

Mama’s Broke – Build It Up

The recording project of Canadian pair Amy Lou Keeler and Lisa Maria, Mama’s Broke has made a name over the last decade or so with a rootless, ever-searching style of folk music which played like the songs of old. Stories to be shared around campfires and small town bars before packing up and hitting the road once more. Latest album Reunion, coming later this summer via Free Dirt Records and Forward Music Group, continues this style, possessing a timeless quality that suggests these aren’t so much new songs as memories passed down through the ages. As single ‘Build It Up’ attests, the result is at once intimate and urgent, delivered with the earnest conviction of those unwilling to let go of this world we’re slowly destroying. “If you don’t build it up,” as the telling refrain states, “somebody else will tear it down.”

Nick Bellerose – maybe i think

Montreal’s Nick Bellerose spent nearly two decades living a double life. His career as an international diplomat saw him travel the globe, “handling global crises in the foreign service.” But, privately, his true calling was music, something he used as an anchor to himself when thousands of miles from home. A couple of years ago, things changed. A series of tragedies, spearheaded by the death of his mother, led him to pick up a guitar and start to sing, making the decision to swap “the world stage of diplomacy for the visceral truth of the microphone.” Bellerose cites the likes of Elliot Smith, Sparklehorse and Nebraska-era Springsteen as influences, something plainly clear in latest single ‘maybe i think’. Characteristically bittersweet, the track explores heartbreak with a world-weary acceptance, ultimately landing somewhere life-affirming.

Perennial – Modernism

Formed in Connecticut over a decade ago, Perennial are a self-styled “modernist punk” band who have blown away sweaty basement shows across the globe with their punk rock patchwork style that knits together just about every left-field and out-there style you can think of. The press release describes their forthcoming new record (aptly titled Modernism) as “Op art to dance to”, but the better metaphor is the tagline of a “1,200 second action painting”, as Perennial streak and splatter disparate elements of their seemingly endless record collection into hectic patterns that feel at once reverential and totally new. The real triumph is how Perennial keep these eccentric experiments so catchy and immediate (two words you may now immediately associate with sub-2-minute melange of free jazz, ambient electronica, big beat, dub and Musique concrète), as the opener and title track attests. Check it out below:

Sharp Pins – Saturday Sun

The project of Chicago’s Kai Slater (who you may also know from Lifeguard and Dwaal Troupe), Sharp Pins is an outlet for lo-fi garage pop that could have come swaggering straight out of the swinging sixties. Not content with putting out two records last year (which clocked in with a combined total of 35 tracks), Slater is already back at it, announcing plans to re-release the album MOD MAYDAY 23, first released on tape a couple of years ago when he was still a teenager, via K Records and perennial. “[MOD MAYDAY 23 is] The soundtrack to my 18th summer riding a Chinese Taotao 50cc scooter around Taqueria Moran and four tracking my Sta-Prest-Dreams,” Slater describes. “I thought it would be cool to record a bunch of songs that never really got recorded in a semi-more-thought-out-way.” And if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a brand new Sharp Pins single too. Titled ‘Saturday Sun’, it’s another slice of throwback pop music that’s sure to soundtrack the rest of the summer.

‘Saturday Sun’ is out now via the Sharp Pins Bandcamp page. MOD MAYDAY 23 will be released on 4^th September via K Records and perennial.

Siavash Amini & Eugene Thacker – Sigils of Decay (for João da Cruz e Sousa)

Next month, American Dreams will release the third edition of Songs for Sad Poets, a collaborative project between Tehran-based composer Siavash Amini and Brooklyn writer/philosopher Eugene Thacker, inspired by the tradition of poètes maudits or ‘cursed poets’. As Thacker describes, “[the term] referred to obscure or unknown poets who had endured some form of suffering and who felt compelled to write about it.” In the duo’s hands, this inspiration becomes something haunting, soundscapes that mould ideas from poetry, philosophy and music into new forms.  The first two volumes were entirely instrumental, but this new one is a little different. Amini fed Thacker’s poems into voice synthesis software and then processed and layered the output until any notion of “voice” is dissolved in noise. Lead single introduces how this sounds, a tribute to late nineteenth-century Brazilian symbolist poet João da Cruz e Sousa.

Wishy – All The Rage

“An unapologetically romantic track which creates the slightly intoxicated state of the title in all of its headspinning glory, refusing to dial down the lyrics in order to fully embrace the headspace. As though to be in love is to experience everything saturated and bright.” So we wrote of ‘Lovesick’, the lead single from Wishy‘s new full-length Nature’s Pill back in June, the Indianapolis outfit’s first full-length since the celebrated Triple 7 back in 2024. With the album slated for release via Winspear this autumn, Wishy have put out ‘All the Rage’ to keep the anticipation high. Thematically, the track is diametrically opposed to its predecessor, existing in the aftermath of a break-up and seeking solace amid the gloom. However, take a casual listen and you’d never know it. Because, for all of the bummed out frustration and wistful longing of the lyrics, the sound itself is buoyant and bright, a twee spirit which leans into the rhythm of the sound as though to cleanse itself via momentum alone.

Nature’s Pill will be released on the 2nd October via Winspear and you can pre-order it from the Wishy Bandcamp page.

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Brooklyn’s Alexei Shishkin might describe himself as a “DIY nobody of the internet void,” but that hasn’t stopped his prolific run of releases, with three in 2024 alone. That trio, dagger, Open Door Policy and Greenwich Mean EP showed the wildly varied style of Shiskin’s work, veering from rock to bedroom pop to jazz and back. Fast forward almost a year, a relative age in Shishkin-time, and he’s back with a brand new full-length, Good Times. To be released this September on Rue Defense, the album takes the level of invention to a new level, as demonstrated by lead single ‘Disco Elysium’. It’s inspired by the eponymous video game, Shishkin even incorporating sounds from the game into the track itself. “You’re a degenerate, amnesiac detective coming off a crazy bender, and you’re trying to solve a murder that happened in a small post-revolution town,” Shiskin explains of his inspiration. “The game covers everything from psychology to politics to lost love to life, death, and introspection. It’s honestly one of the most well-written, exciting things I’ve ever experienced.”

Josie – My Boy and I

Josie are a group from Copenhagen who make scrappy, jangly and impossibly catchy indie pop songs. Their debut album, A Life On Sweets Alone, comes out in September via perennialdeath and K Records, and the latter in particular should give you an idea of what to expect. Think sugary hooks, raw punky energy and lyrics and vocals that continue the long lineage of K Records-associated twee pop. Lead single ‘My Boy and I’ is our first taste of what to expect, barrelling headlong into two and a half minutes of indie pop as endearing as it is infectious.

Watch the video, directed and shot by Little Richard Perusi, below:

A Life On Sweets Alone will be released on 26^th September and is available to pre-order from the Josie Bandcamp page.

Lathe of Heaven – Aurora

Aurora, the second album from Brooklyn’s Lathe of Heaven coming later this summer on Sacred Bones, promises to function like a collection of sci-fi short stories. It takes inspiration from the work of authors like Ursula K. le Guin, Octavia Butler, Greg Egan, and Peter Watts to explore worldly themes in bold, imaginative ways. Loosely inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s short story ‘If I Forget Thee, O Earth…’, the title track introduces one such tale, combining New Wave colour and post-punk cool into something not only transportive but almost devotional. “In the story a man and his son take a trip from their colony on the moon to a lookout point where Earth (long abandoned due to nuclear war) can be seen rising across the vast gulf of space,” the band explain. “Playing with this concept, I took a more personal and romantic approach, exploring similar themes of loss, love, and devotion at the end of the world.”

Watch the video directed by Devan Davies below:

Aurora will be released on the 29th August via Sacred Bones Records and you can pre-order it now.

Michael Nau – Smokeflowers

His first new music since 2023 album Accompany, Michael Nau has returned with a double single, Smokeflowers / Sing To via Karma Chief Records. Something of a departure from the previous record’s full-band arrangements, both songs were recorded at home alone, written and recorded without a new record in mind. “I was testing out a new tape machine that I had, and then I sold it,” Nau explains. “They’re single songs that just kind of happened without other songs around.” The result is something unhurried and almost devotional and its soft and shimmering atmosphere. ‘Smokeflowers’ in particular is oddly powerful in it’s understated majesty, Nau’s opaquely poetic lyrics unfurling in a syrupy, waltzy melody.

pôt-pot – WRSW

In September, Irish/Portuguese quintet pôt-pot will release a new record, Warsaw 480km, on Felte Records. The band, led by vocalist/guitarist Mark Waldron-Hyden, deal in a raw and hypnotic blend of psych, krautrock and post punk, a sound rich and multi-layered, but somehow delivered with taut economy. Many of the songs were penned during a period of grief and personal upheaval, and lead single ‘WRSW’ is the prime example. Waldron-Hyden explains the song is based on his experience of “being driven in a very nice car to collect and deliver my father’s ashes,” and captures feelings both of grim forward motion and numb unreality perfectly. This journey is also where the record gets its title. “At one point the driver told me about a journey he’d taken from Ireland to Poland,” Waldron-Hyden continues, “where after days of driving, in the dead of night, a single road sign appeared, reading WARSAW 480 KM. I identified with that image of blackness punctuated suddenly by some faraway but tangible relief.”

Shabason, Krgovich, Tenniscoats – Our Detour

When touring Japan together in 2024, Joseph Shabason and Nicholas Krgovich met Saya and Takashi Ueno of Tenniscoats, who played as a backing band. The four had little time to rehearse but quickly discovered they did not need it, the subsequent shows fluid, unpredictable and spontaneous, successful in the way only genuine artistic connection could allow. So successful, in fact, the quartet took the opportunity to further the collaboration, spending two days at the Guggenheim House in Kobe with nothing prepared and only their mutual curiosity for direction. The result, released as Shabason, Krgovich, Tenniscoats with Western Vinyl, is full-length album Wao, and first single ‘Our Detour’ is the first glimpse at this lightning-in-a-bottle creative process. A lesson in instinct and invention which reaches for inspiration from the everyday and returns it back to us as something bright and magic.

Wao will be released on the 29th August via Western Vinyl and you can pre-order it now.

Simple Shapes – Mallard

Portland indie rockers Simple Shapes have just announced their debut LP Sundial, which is slated for release later this summer. Their first new music since 2022’s Soundtrack EP, the record promises to build on the foundations of previous releases (think late 90s alt rock meets contemporary indie pop) and expand the Simple Shapes sound in new directions. Lead single ‘Mallard’ is a great start, introducing the band’s sonic range and loud-quiet dynamics. It opens with a spry and sunny energy before erupting into yelled vocals and blasts of noisy emotion, effortlessly moving between the two until a final cathartic denouement.

Studio Electrophonique – David and Jayne

The solo project of singer-songwriter James Leesley, Studio Electrophonique has made a splash in its local Sheffield and beyond, releasing two EPs which use a warm, nostalgic brand of indie pop to mine the mundane everyday of its inherent emotional resonance. With his self-titled debut full-length coming this September via Paris-based label Valley of Eyes Records, Leesley has unveiled bittersweet new single ‘David and Jayne’. The first song he wrote for the album and the one which paved the way for the rest. “It felt like the opening scene to a film; the words came to me more as dialogue, or script, than lyrics,” Leesley explains, “and that opened up a new and very appealing writing perspective—I was almost tempted to pretend to be Alain Resnais directing an imaginary film at the British seaside.” Watch the video directed by Leesley himself below:

Studio Electrophonique will be released on the 26th September via Valley of Eyes Records.

Tan Cologne – In Resin

“Represents both a continuation of [their previous] style and a broadening of its horizons,” was how we described Tan Cologne‘s new album Unknown Beyond with back in June. “Almost literally, in fact, with [Lauren] Green and [Marissa] Macias turning their attention skyward with the same curiosity, openness and longing which has always underpinned their work.” Lead single ‘Cool Star’ showed how central grief is to the record, possessing what we called “a vibe again ambivalent in its meaning, sounding at once like an otherworldly escape from our terrestrial suffering and some mournful elegy delivered in its aftermath,” and new single ‘In Resin’ is no less nuanced and dramatic. What the band describe as an encapsulation of the past few years, which uses its gauzy layers to present the various lives we live simultaneously, a series of selves superimposed.

The post Weekly Listening: July 2025 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The latest release in Antiquated Future‘s Selected Songs series, You Brought Me Back From The Dead collects tracks from across Christopher Sutton’s career to highlight the diversity of his work. In all, the release features songs from Hornet Leg, C.O.C.O, Dub Narcotic Sound System, Cool Flowers, The Sun Ships, Hooded Hags, Sutton, Triple Daisies and The Boozles, spanning a period from the late nineties to 2019. What emerges is less a coherent collection and more a grab bag of disparate goodies, Fred Thomas’s mixing eschewing any temptation to hammer the songs into any single vibe and instead allowing them to stand apart in all their eclectic glory.

Take the pivot from the chaotic dub fun of Cool Flowers opener ‘Killing Kind Organ Dub’ into Hornet Leg’s Mekons-esque ‘Cold Fire’, the latter’s punk swagger immediately cut short as the release switches into the brooding Lynchian dreaminess of ‘I’m Leaving You’. The third track is also from the Hornet Leg project, and that this second transformation takes place within the same project hints at the breadth of Sutton’s work. “It’s akin to an ice cream scooper that has dug in and caressed my deepest secrets into a cosmic sugar cone,” as Sutton describes in the accompanying booklet. A cone with more flavours than there are stars in the sky.

But push further into this seemingly endless variety and something else becomes apparent. Some force shared by all of the tracks no matter how different they are on the surface. From the hyperactive instrumental of ‘Baby Ornette’ to the languid spoken word ‘You Knew it’, the off-kilter Johnstonian lo-fi pop of ‘I Listen to Records’ to the cinematic intensity of ‘Leftist Regime’. Call it spirit, call it soul. “The image that sticks with me most is Chris’ face—Brow slightly furled in concentration, eyes serenely looking into some other realm,” explains Antiquated Future’s Joshua James Amberson in his own personal essay for the release. “In the music so deeply, so profoundly, that I knew even then he considered playing music a sacred act, something to be fully engaged in, not to be taken lightly or practiced without care.” A seriousness as apparent in the earliest Dub Narcotic Sound System tracks as in more recent unreleased solo songs like ‘Good Night Jaime’. A thread that sews all the seemingly contrasting parts of Sutton’s creative output into a cohesive whole.

You Brought Me Back From The Dead (Selected Songs, 1998​-​2019) is out now via Antiquated Future Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The post Christopher Sutton – You Brought Me Back From The Dead appeared first on Various Small Flames.