The latest offering in Antiquated Future‘s ever-reliable Selected Songs series, Somehow We​’​ll Grow Into Some Overlapping Oak offers a glimpse into the fluid, experimental world of The Binary Marketing Show. The Portland, Oregon-based project has welcomed various members into its fold across over two decades, and this release focuses on the period headed by duo Abram Morphew and Bethany Carder. A time in which the pair created music the label describe as “existing on the outskirts of experimental pop, indie electronic, singer-songwriter, and electro-acoustic composition,” where the line between the familiar and strange is blurred by an immersive blend of homemade instruments, synths, bass and found sounds. Though only representing a snapshot of this style, single ‘Daydream (I Cannot)’ is as good a place as any to enter into this world, offering a sound somewhere between Trouble Books and Cloud Cult in its experimental yet emotionally engaging tone.

Divorce Court – 140

The music of Divorce Court stands as a representation of its creator Lynden Williams’s subconscious, its rich and often hazy soundscapes able to evoke the smallest of distances alongside deceptively cavernous crescendos. The ideal vehicle to explore all things introspective. With new album Two Hours coming later this year, lead single ‘140’ introduces this style with an indirect examination of how therapy and psychedelics helped to restore Williams’s inner child. “No one in your corner / Days almost over,” Williams sings, though the loneliness is counteracted by the vivid sound and the transportive secret inherent within it. That the subconscious is a world of its own, and escapism is possible no matter where you might be trapped. “Your body’s a safe place,” as Williams continues, “Eyes closed and melt away.” Watch the video directed by Trevor Free below:

Two Hours will be released on the 8th July. ‘140’ is available now from the Divorce Court Bandcamp page.

East Forest x Peter Broderick – Landscape

Written and recorded during a stay in County Clare’s karst/glaciokarst landscape known as The Burren, Burren is a new collaboration between multi-genre artist East Forest and composer Peter Broderick. The pair met for the first time in person during the period and arrived with no plan beyond an openness to the surrounding landscape. What emerged is both a testament to the chemistry between the two artists and the striking climate in which they were housed. Single ‘Landscape’ offers a glimpse into the folk-inflected ambient soundscapes they created, managing to convey the fine beauty and fierce drama of the Irish environment as Marissa Radha Weppner’s spoken word vocals add to the mystery of the scene.

Lisa/Liza – Held Together

Under the moniker Lisa/Liza, Portland, Maine songwriter Liza Victoria makes what we have previously described as “deliberate, unhurried songs made in the image of nature’s patient rhythms […] that examine how surrounding landscapes are tied to our most intimate emotions and memories.” In April, Victoria returns with Breaking and Mending, her first full-length since 2020’s excellent Shelter of a Song, again on Orindal Records. Written while working through chronic illness and the heavy legacy of past trauma, the record captures what Victoria describes as her “emotional landscape in the last two years,” and lead single ‘Held Together’ introduces these themes with tender beauty. Constructed of picked guitar and softly crooning vocals, its a song about weathering changing seasons of an internal nature, about holding on for metaphorical buds of spring.

Maruja – Kakistocracy

With a thunderous amalgamation of punk, post-rock and jazz, Manchester‘s Maruja have been winning fans with a sound at once menacing and cathartic for a while now, and debut EP Knocknarea looks to only further their standing. New single ‘Kakistocracy’, AKA ‘rule of the villains’, throws listener into the deep end of the Maruja style, a general sense of foreboding escalating across its length with desperately yelled vocals and driving drums and eventually unhinged sax too. What results is something both crushing and transcendent, like some great rough thing slouching towards us with a decidedly sublime doom.

Knocknarea is out now and available on streaming services.

Michael Cormier-O’Leary – Letter From Alan

Following 2021’s More Light!!, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter & Dear Life Records founder Michael Cormier-O’Leary has a new album on the way later this spring. Titled Anything Can Be Left Behind, the record is a wildly creative meditation on constant change and the bonds of perceived identity. Utilising unexpected melodies, liberating improvisation and a mélange of fact and fiction, it explores life’s oddities and uncertainties in inquisitive and good-natured style, turning up the contrast until every story pops with colour. Nowhere is this more apparent than on latest single ‘Letter From Alan,’ a bouncy indie pop song which, as its title suggests, details the correspondence between two friends. It’s funny, inventive and as one line puts it “a bit surreal and a little mundane,” and somehow feels all the more true because of it.

His letter said:
“It’s your friend Alan
Greetings amigo
From Pamplona, Spain
Didn’t run with the bulls
If that’s what you’re thinkin’
I can get crazy
But I’m not insane!

Mike Tod – The Coo Coo

Described as “a wry and raspy tenor that sings well-worn traditionals,” Canmore, Alberta musician and ethnomusicologist Mike Tod has dedicated his life to ushering old-time folk music into the present day. Next month he will release a new self-titled album, and has unveiled single ‘The Coo Coo’ to whet appetites. Originating in the Scottish borders, the song traversed the Atlantic and was popularized by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott on the rodeo circuit in the forties. Tod’s version is wonderfully dark and ominous, transforming it from cowboy song into something of a psychological horror tale. “If you listen closely to the lyrics of the song, they really are quite horrific,” he explains. “You have all the elements of a horror film: Living on the fringes of society, obsession, potential addiction, loss of love, loss of life.” The video, animated by Molly Little, follows the story using a crankie, a form of storytelling popular at the turn of the twentieth century. Check it out below:

Mike Tod will be released on 13^th April. Pre-order a CD or LP now via the Mike Tod website.

O Slow – Two

The recording project of Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Jacqui Miranda, O Slow is a dream pop project which draws its beauty and ambiguity from the real world. Shaped by Miranda’s time within a religious cult during childhood and her travels across California by train, the songs evoke both internal and external environments with all of their strange nuances intact, as typified by single, ‘Two’.  A track inspired by Miranda’s favourite freeway which allows itself to bask in nostalgia for specific times and places even if the context now loaded onto such periods is less rosy in retrospect. A sign of O Slow’s willingness to sit with conflicting ideas in order to better represent a lived truth—you can still long for something, even if it no longer means what it once did.

Summersets – Afterall

Small Town Story, the forthcoming album by Ontario duo Summersets, has echoes in the history of its creators. Kalle Mattson and Andrew Sowka, who themselves met growing up in Sault Ste. Marie, decided to tell the story of two fictional individuals brought together by chance, following the relationship from this origin to its eventual climax. “I was really interested in telling the story of a relationship across a collection of songs,” as Mattson explains. “Changing perspectives and spanning milestones, both big and small, over the course of a lifetime.” At turns melancholic and hopeful, lead single ‘afterall’ is a great snapshot of the feeling of the album’s style, a song which finds the characters some years down the line with a break-up between them, hinting at the golden threads of reconciliation which will see the relationship continue on through.

The years pass on by
One by one, out of sight
Still there was you & I
The years passed on by

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

Kalle Mattson – Twice The Gifts

We’ve been fans of Kalle Mattson for a number of years now, appreciating his distinctly emotive and perceptive songwriting. So, though we’re not big on Christmas music as a rule, his new single ‘Twice the Gifts’ forced us to reconsider—a delicate, tender song that uses the holiday season as a pressure on already existing cracks.

“My parents got divorced something like the day after I was born,” Mattson explains. “So my only memories of Christmas & the holidays are divorced ones. Spending half the day at one house then driving to the next. Two dinners, double the families, and yes twice the gifts.” The song is Xmas stripped of its idealist image, an ode to the non-nuclear family at a time when traditional structures are broadcast from every screen.

Supermercat – Johnny Rack

Self-describing as “friendly punk with a splash of Sheryl Crow,” LA’s Supermercat make a boisterous yet accessible brand of rock that combines the attitude of punk with the singalong value of pop and ties them together with something of a country swagger. Therefore, single ‘Johnny Rack’ could be seen a bouncy slice of fun or a scathing stare down, depending on your frame of mind, though in reality it is likely that is both at once—showing that, with a fierce enough spirit, you can let the good times and heads roll.

You can find Supermercat on Bandcamp.

Be Forest – Bengala

Be Forest are a trio from Italy that create a shoegaze-inspired post-punk, and next February sees them release, Knocturne, their first album in five years. The enlisting of Josh Bonati (Zola Jesus, David Lynch) should give a clue as to the direction of the new record, pushing out in surreal, mesmeric directions to create a rich black sound not entirely of our world.

Lead single ‘Bengala’ is the case in point, though however brooding, represents one of the brightest moments on the record, the song that helps us navigate the rest. “Bengala is the spotlight that lights up the stage after the curtains open,” the band explain. “A celestial body which at the moment of its impact allows us to glimpse our surroundings it’s the brightest point, the north of the compass. This is, though, only ONE of the coordinates of Knocturne. Perhaps the most reassuring.”

Gabriel Birnbaum – Stack the Miles

You might know Gabriel Birnbaum from Wilder Maker, the Brooklyn band who themselves put out a great record this year, and those familiar with his writing will be pleased to learn of a solo album due out on 2019. There’s not much to go on yet, though lead single ‘Stack the Miles’ certainly raises expectations, with Birnbaum’s distinctive delivery driving a track that’s understated yet shot through with real feeling and some brilliant turns of phrase (“the highway’s all police like Chekov’s gun”). As such, the track joins the likes of Monarch Mtn. in painting detailed canvases of American life through poetic imagery and a pervasive atmosphere—a detached, anxious world where miracles and meaninglessness intertwine.

“Water patterns on the window shift like static on tv
in the parking lot by the restaurant, silently
without even the desire for desire, watch the rain rearrange
it’s alphabet an infinite meaningless

I stack the miles I hope it’s enough
I stack the miles I hope it adds up
too many miracles here and I can’t take no more of the good times I’m done”

Grab the single now from the Gabriel Birnbaum Bandcamp page, and keep your eyes peeled for more information on the record.

Castle Pines – Castle Pines

Working out of Corona, CA, Castle Pines make music by and for the disaffected and uncool, anthems not for the performative weirdos of hipster scenes but those quiet, honest folks from blue collar and suburban households. Though the band are prolific, this self-titled single works as culmination of their previous work, bringing their ideals into one track. “We have been performing some version of this song live since we started back in 2009,” the band explain. “It has taken similar iterations but has always held this hazy recollection of the street Castle Pines and all the things that went down […] ‘Castle Pines’ is the capstone of our story as a band, and it is’ both a sad chronicle of suffering and a bright start to better times ahead.”

The song is composed from different facets of contemporary suffering, playing as American dread viewed through a compound eye. Death, poverty, addiction and terrorism are the backdrop, and the foreground the persistent hope of finding a safe home—though one that is itself shaped by nostalgia, pining for a time that can no longer return, the Second Coming of a once famous glory.

No Aloha – The Big One

Based in Portland and with close ties to Salem, No Aloha are a five-piece led by principle songwriters Blake Ferrin and Brette Irish,  the latter having just signed with the fine folks at Good Cheer Records as a solo artist. Which is to take nothing away from the band themselves, because No Aloha are just as worthy of your time. Drawing on the vague doom that hangs over the tectonically-active Pacific Northwest, ‘The Big One’ is a single “about being in a big earthquake and only being able to worry what your crush is doing.” The result is cataclysm for the romantics, where ever the bone-shaking earth can’t break the ties of young love.

You can find No Aloha on Bandcamp and Facebook, and watch Good Cheer Records for more on Brette Irish.

The Beths – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Auckland’s The Beth’s have had a whirlwind year, releasing their debut full-length Future Hates Me on Carpark Records, and touring all over the world. Their festive offering is a take on ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’, which sees them dial back their pop punk energy in favour of strings, what the band describe to The Spinoff as the Beths version of the Ella Fitzgerald version. All proceeds go to Girls Rock! Camp Aotearoa and Women’s Refuge too, so it’s all for a good cause.

Blue Ranger – Ah My

It’s been a weird year with lots of distractions, meaning a fair number of great records have slipped past before we could write about them. One such album was Saving a Beauty by Blue Ranger, so in lieu of the attention it deserves, we’re going to suggest you start with single ‘Ah My’ and discover the rest for yourself. The track highlights Josh Marre’s folk-leaning style and warm writing, giving a glimpse at the affectionate atmosphere that permeates the record. Christmas is a time for fondness, after all.

“Please would you mind
put your arms around me
please keep in mind
you’re sure that someone’s listening

keeping mine in mind”

Lampland – Don’t Drive

Ahead of a full-length album out early next year, New York’s Lampland has unveiled a new single, ‘Don’t Drive’. Fittingly, the song concerns the approach of a winter storm, snow and ice immobilising the city and trapping the principle characters within their apartment. The moment opens up a space within normal time, a relaxing of life that allows a certain magic inside, made all the more precious by the certainty that it will be over as quickly as it began. What could be more Christmassy than that?

“Don’t try to drive tonight
Pressures dropping I was right
Heavy shiver in the air
I don’t know why I’m laughing
You know the bridges freeze first?
And then the gin in your purse
And then the swimming pool where you work”

The post Bright Sparks: Christmas Special appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Until then, here’s our June Roundup, a playlist of songs rounding up everything we covered during June. Clever, huh? Click on the artist name in the tracklisting to be whisked away to the specific post.

Tracklisting:

1. Trisha Please Come Home – Advance Base
2. Slower Now – Star Horse
3. I Make Boys Cry – Adult Mom
4. Cordella – On The Water
5. Destroy – Henoheno
6. A Long Time Ago – Kalle Mattson
7. Only One Who Feels a Little Bit Bad – Fazed on a Pony
8. Ohio Snow Falls – Unraveler
9. Pylon Pile On – Benjamin Shaw
10. For Luck – Cyberbully Mom Club
11. The Offer – Yowler
12. When I Met Death – Right Away, Great Captain!
13. Patriarchaeth – Gwenno
14. Future Bones – Bells Atlas
15. Beautiful Brian – Harley Alexander and The Universal Lovers
16. Whip-Poor-Will – Morning River Band
17. I Admit I’m Scared – Eskimeaux
18. Ideal World – Girlpool
19. Observation Satellites – GRNDMS
20. Podesta – Peptalk
21. Cwm Llwm – Yucatan
22. Clouds – Estan
23. Lullaby – Long Neck
24. KiwiKisses – Trenton Point
25. My Only One – PONY
26. Return to View – The Wandering Lake
27. Clicking Clanking – Ylayali
28. Pull Me Apart – Lung Cycles
29. Red Coat – Adeline Hotel
30. Johnny Go Riding – Damien Jurado
31. When the Day is Fresh, and the Light is New – The Wooden Sky
32. The Crow – Sean Henry
33. Yolanda – O-FACE

The post June Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

GRNDMS

“Capitol Mill is proof that sunny little songs need not be mindless nonsense, and that you don’t need to write explicitly sad songs to resonate with the listener” – we reviewed the début album from GRNDMS, out now on Fox Food Records.

Eskimeaux

“About doing the best you can and hoping it’s enough, about accepting and learning and growing so that whatever hand you’re dealt, you carve out some semblance of meaning and happiness to make everything worthwhile” – Eskimeaux’s O.K., out now on Double Double Whammy and Mt. Home Arts, is a triumphant success.

Peptalk

“Peptalk paint ecosystems, thriving arrangements of geology and biology where plants and animals and wind and rain follow their own instinctive patterns. However, things are not quite what they seem…” – We welcomed you to the weird and beautiful world of Peptalk’s Islet.

Craig Finn

“Finn’s sharp turn of phrase… elevates mundane situations to something meaningful, transforming everyday words and imagery into things imbued with symbolism” – the first song from a new album by The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn.

Henoheno

“Emotional suffering is presented in a detached manner, as if the narrator has transcended into an outer body experience or else knows the pain so well it lacks the immediacy it once possessed” – we were delighted to premiere ‘Destroy’, the first track from Henoheno’s upcoming album I Made These Songs Before I Moved.

Kalle Mattson

“Strummed guitars and slow-burning drum machine beats which conjure a vivid, nostalgic image, like a city as seen from a dark shore at night” – ‘A Long Time Ago’, a new song from Kalle Mattson’s upcoming EP Avalanche.

PONY

“Sun-kissed and salt-lipped… four songs about romance and break-ups during the summer months” – we reviewed CRUSHED, the debut EP from Toronto band PONY.

Old Earth

“[Milwaukee] completely shaped and nurtured me. I grew up and spent most of my life here, so going from being a teenager seeing punk shows in VFW halls in the early ’90s to being an artist that some people know and read about in the city is kind of crazy” – Old Earth spoke to Milwaukee Record about the pros and cons of moving to California.

Kathryn Joseph

“I never felt like we were making something beautiful. I just thought my songs were shit, and that this is all really embarrassing” – Kathryn Joseph spoke to The Skinny before winning Scottish Album of the Year award for Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled. We reviewed the album here, and certainly aren’t surprised.

Joseph also unveiled a new song, ‘the worm’, via The Line of Best Fit.

Jenny Hval

I feel a little intimidated at the prospect of writing about Apocalypse, girl, the new album from Jenny Hval. Luckily there are already some great reviews out there, we particularly liked these from The Quietus and God is in the TV.

Crosslegged

“In the past, my summers have been defined by the artists that manage to capture the heaviness of a muggy afternoon or the confusing side of a fleeting romance. I know Speck will be a record that falls into that special category for me this year” – The Le Sigh are streaming Speck by Keba Robinson’s Crosslegged.

Naps

“Finding out about Naps felt like being told a really good secret” – understanding that there can never be enough quality new music, The Le Sigh also premièred a new song from Florida band Naps (who we have featured on numerous occasions).

Frog

“Irreverent, strange and just a little addictive” – Clash premiered a video for Frog’s ‘Judy Garland’. ICYMI, we reviewed (and loved) Kind of Blah and spoke to Frog about their music.

Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus have released Sorry About the Delay, a mix of demos, rarities and unheard album cuts in preparation for the forthcoming album The Most Lamentable Tragedy. Pitchfork have all the details, including the link for a free download.

Strand of Oaks

“Filled with bite and sometimes regret, but also a good deal of warmth” – The indomitable Timothy Showalter visited NPR’s Tiny Desk Sessions. We have written about Strand of Oaks quite a bit, but probably still haven’t conveyed how much we love Showalter’s work.

And… our favourite 8tracks playlist of the week was this one by beneller (that cover art!!)

the ultimate summer playlist from beneller on 8tracks Radio.

The post Week in Review: #6 (15th – 19th June) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Mattson has just announced a new EP, Avalanche, which picks up directly where Someday left off. That said, the first track sees a significant departure from his sound, swapping out the Wooden Sky-style indie rock for gently strummed guitars and slow-burning drum machine beats which conjure a vivid, nostalgic image, like a city as seen from a dark shore at night.

Avalanche will be released on the 21st August by Home Music Co. If you haven’t already, be sure to head to the Kalle Mattson Bandcamp page and pick up his previous albums.

The post A New EP From Kalle Mattson appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Two songs are currently available to sample, both of which featured on a 7″ Mattson released earlier this year. Opener ‘An American Dream’ is all crashing drums and triumphant trumpets and has a really nice singalong chorus

The second, ‘Darkness’ is a more muted affair but still has a real energy. The album was produced by Gavin Gardiner of The Wooden Sky, and it is on ‘Darkness’ that his influence really becomes apparent.

You can pre-order the album in a variety of guises right now over at Mattson’s Bandcamp page. I’d suggest you seriously consider it because this is shaping up to be a good one. Also, if you can’t wait until the February release, why not check out his past releases?

The post Advent Calendar [18th]: Kalle Mattson appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Eric & Magill – All Those I Know (Actually released 31st Dec 2010. Forgive me).

(RIYL: “Folktronica”, Crescendos, Dirty Projectors)

The Fierce & The Dead – If It Carries On Like This We Are Moving To Morecambe

(RIYL = Post-Rock, Progressive)

First Nations – Black Beach

(RIYL = Folk Rock, Meursault)

Flashing Red Lights – Faster Horses

(RIYL = Indie Pop, Electronic)

Foxes in Fiction – Hospital District/Static Cults 7”

(RIYL = Ambient, Dream Pop, Experimental)

Frederik Teige – Elevate

(RIYL = Folk Pop)

Geotic – Bless the Self

(RIYL = Baths, Experimental, Ambient)

Glass Vaults – Into Clear EP

(RIYL = Ambient, Shoegaze, Dreaming)

HAPPY TRENDY – Die Young

(RIYL = Bedroom Pop, Lo-Fi, Electronic)

Headaches – Spooky Mulder

(RIYL = Electronic, Experimental, Aliens)

In Euphoric Company – People You Remember, People You Forget

(RIYL = Indie Rock, Broken Social Scene, Local Natives)

In Lieu – Fuck Crz

(RIYL = Post-Rock, Sigur Ros, Owen)

James Hoffman – Mill City

(RIYL = Acoustic, Folk, M. Ward)

Jeremy Lee Given – Arapaima

(RIYL = Indie Pop, “Bro-Fi”, Large Fish)

Jessica Jalbert – Paris Green (Single)

(RIYL = Melancholia, Dream Pop, Mirah)

John Statz – The Budapest Sessions

(RIYL = Americana, Alt-Country)

Kalle Mattson –Anchors 

(RIYL = Indie Pop, Folk, Canada)

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