Since covering album Dissolving in Dusk back in 2021 we’ve admire Jack Keyes’s ability to braid his intimate folk style with something a little more experimental, and latest single ‘The Door’ is no exception. Intending to explore the sometimes hazy space of miscommunication that exists between people, the song pairs a layered vocal style with its languid rhythm. A sound that splits the difference between a romantic folk and the melancholic reflection of Fog Lake or German Error Message.

But running parallel to these moods is something a little unnerving too. A thread of eeriness which seems to emanate from intimacy and the subconscious fears around it. “Had a strange nightmare / that you couldn’t hear me shout,” as the song opens, “though I saw you there, something shut us out.” The rest of the track walks along this line of dream logic, where strangeness and romance slot side by side as though there was barely a distinction between the two.

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

The post Jack Keyes – The Door appeared first on Various Small Flames.

We previously covered So It Was back in March as part of Whatever Clever‘s Sprigs and Sprays compilation, describing ‘You Are Welcome (In This World)’ as “an overtly political track that somehow manages to embody a much needed oasis of calm in the current climate of greed and bigotry.” ‘Speak Now!’ might not be so direct in its message, but the same combination of earnest heart and laidback charm marks the sound. It’s a track which draws on a rich selection of instrumentation—from trumpet, trombone and clarinet to keyboards and electronics—yet always maintains a sense of casual ease. Something elevated by Lobb’s distinctively welcoming delivery.

Is it “speak now or forever hold my peace” time already?
I’m always holding my tongue far too steady,
she’s fine.
When my park puff’s interrupted by subs gone blasting down the street,
while I’m ashamed just to even be

The track comes complete with an animated lyric video. Check it out below:

‘Speak Now!’ is out now and available from the So It Was Bandcamp page.

Art by Leia Sexton, photo by Jon P. Cherry

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Described as a song “about having the capacity to love different people (friends, partners, etc) in different ways, using a lot of silly car and public transit metaphors along the way,” ‘Something Like a Honda Odyssey’ is the latest single from Cambridge, Massachusetts artist Banti Gheneti, AKA Banti Buli. The track emerges with all the heart and playfulness this description suggests, with a languid rhythm ticking over below Gheneti’s verbose vocal style, refusing to commit fully to irony or sincerity, instead hovering in the ambiguous middle ground. As though a song about relationships couldn’t really function without equal doses of heartfelt emotion and tongue-in-cheek humour.

My love is no tesla model e
It’s something like a honda odyssey
Don’t worry though, it’ll play nice with a model e
If that’s how you want things to be
So let me know what you think
Any takers out there?

Gorgeous – Raindrop

Gorgeous are a “frenetic yet friendly” noise pop duo from New York, comprising of Dana Lipperman (guitar and vocals) and Judd Anderman (drums). Next month they will release their sophomore album, Sapsucker, via Sad Cactus Records, which promises to develop the band’s dynamic signature blend of fractured rhythms, cynical lyricism and sweet and sour melodies. The record features songs about everything from “technological dread,” to “literal and figurative monsters, liars, dreamers, and true believers,” and lead single ‘Raindrop’ drops us in the deep end. “Our bones are made of cosmic dust,” Lipperman sings over jerky clockwork percussion before the track slams into life, “exploded stars, we’ve come apart.” Strange, unpredictable and gloriously noisy. What’s not to love?

Graves – Little Dumb Dogs

California-based Greg Olin has been releasing music under the Graves alias for almost two decades. On his next release, Gary Owens: I Have Some Thoughts, which comes out late June via Perpetual Doom and Curly Cassettes, he adopts a new name as a kind of Country music alter-ego. The album’s sixteen songs are a throwback to Nashville’s golden age, loaded with a sense of bittersweet nostalgia and a wry humour that brings new vigour to a timeless style. As Perpetual Doom put it, “[they] sway with the moonstruck sweetness of classic country, blending the sounds of golden age AM radio with a laidback West Count vibe.” Lead single ‘Little Dumb Dogs’ is a good introduction, its laidback atmosphere and gently cutting lyrics (“If little dumb dogs and the finest of drugs don’t kill you / and a smile from a child and walking down the aisle don’t thrill you”) capturing the album’s essence in less than two minutes.

Gary Owens: I Have Some Thoughts will be released on 30th June. Pre-order it rom the Perpetual Doom Bandcamp page.

The High Water Marks – American Candy

Led by Hilarie Sidney, founding member of the revered Elephant Six Recording Company and flagship band The Apples In Stereo, The High Water Marks are making their third ‘comeback’ this summer, with album Your Next Wolf coming very Minty Fresh. Based between Lexington, Kentucky and Grøa, Norway, the outfit had never played in the same room before opening for Pavement in Oslo is 2022, and the new record is their first recorded together and in-person. If latest single ‘American Candy’ is anything to go by, the set-up was conducive to the band’s creative energies, kicking along with an infectious momentum, capturing all the addictive sweet and sour overtones of its namesake and drenched in fuzz for good measure.

Lauren O’Connell – Joangeline

‘Joangeline’, the latest single from LA-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Lauren O’Connell, is a song of strength and vulnerability. “I saw me there in the half light / As shapeless there as the dawn,” they sing near the beginning of, a tenderness juxtaposed by tangible weight of the the drums. “And every promise it brings / Dying to feel even half right.” What quickly becomes apparent is that the source of the fragility is not any sense of uncertainty or hesitation, rather the inherent sensitivity of exposing core truths. Shedding outer armour as an act of defiance, deciding to be open no matter how much pain this might invite.

And all I wanted to know
All I wanted to know
Who would want me
The way I want you

Drag me out, baby
Drag me out, baby I’m in it now

Leeann Skoda – Little Star

With EP Living Room Sessions out later this month, Leeann Skoda has unveiled the slow-burning ‘Little Star’ by way of introduction. Emerging from the “familial Americana scene” of LA’s The Grand Ole Echo, and recorded with on one afternoon in the living room of Malachi DeLorenzo (Langhorne Slim, Izaak Opatz), the release is one built around an authentic folk spirit, and the single embraces the style with its lush, intimate warmth. A track stripped of all excesses, standing instead on its own simplicity, like some lullaby which has been crafted through years of repetition into a perfect state of function.

Living Room Sessions will be released on 26th May and is available via the Leeann Skoda Bandcamp page.

Paper Lady – Starcross

Back in January we introduced Paper Lady, an “immortal crone” brought to life by Allston’s Alli Raina and company in a kind of musical ritual. Previous single ‘Five of Swords‘ saw the project push their spiritualism out into noisier, shoegaze territory, and new single ‘Starcross’ continues the path with gauzy textures and a pummelling momentum. Described as “a scathing account of an almost-romance with a farmer gone awry,” the song burns with what could be spurned fury or frustrated embarrassment, building nonetheless into with unerring intensity of an ancient curse.

You feel it
Logic overrun
Conceal it
What else is there to be done

‘Starcross’ is out now and available via streaming services.

Ruth Radelet – Leaving the Table

Though best known as the front of synth pop stars Chromatics, Ruth Radelet has recently turned toward solo music as a means of exploring dimensions perhaps neglected in her work thus far. The Other Side EP confronted classic themes of love, loss and renewal after a traumatic period, with songs like ‘Crimes’ retaining the vivid Chromatics sound while those such as ‘Strangers’ allowed Radelet to break new ground with its almost orchestral pop tones. Ruth Radelet’s latest single, a take on Leonard Cohen’s ‘Leaving the Table’, straddles the fence between pop and folk, with the timeless vocals and echoing melancholy adding a dash of Julee Cruise to Cohen’s classic.

‘Leaving the Table’ is out now and available from the Ruth Radelet Bandcamp page.

Symbol Soup – Airglow

Writing of previous single ‘Overdressed‘, we described Symbol Soup (AKA London‘s Michael Rea) as a combination of “classic British folk charm with something rather more American, including faint notes of country and a couple of spoonfuls of Alex G-style lo-fi indie rock.” Latest track ‘Airglow’, again on Sad Club Records, continues the arrangement, the intimate sensibilities of bedroom pop polished with a golden psych-folk sheen, resulting in a sound able to evoke the slow hours of a summer afternoon without sanding down the snags and edges beneath the surface. The sound plays into the themes too, with Rea offering a take on the information overload of the internet age, though subverting its usual framing to instead present it on more grounded terms. So there’s no dystopian chill here, just a willingness to float above the sea of data and embrace peaceful ignorance instead.

‘Airglow’ is out now via Sad Club Records and available via the Symbol Soup Bandcamp.

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Arlo Sun is the moniker of Canadian Erin Bolton, whose music draws on powers both astral and spiritual, as well as the deep ancient energy of the natural world. The Arlo part of the project’s name is a Gaelic word meaning “between two hills,” a reference to the valley of peace and perspective that Bolton creates with her music. Latest single ‘Forwards Motion’ is no different. An emotive song that feels at once weightless and quietly substantial, offering no empty platitudes but instead preaching a steadfast belief in the importance of hanging on through difficult times and putting one foot in front of the other no matter what. “Written while floating just above the relentless undercurrent of hope, this song is more applicable to me now than it was when I wrote it,” Bolton describes. “‘Forwards Motion’ begs you to look at yourself and the path you’ve taken, forks and all.”

‘Forwards Motion’ is out now and available from the Arlo Sun Bandcamp page.

Ellen Soffe x Aodhan – Tomb of the Prince

Ellen Soffe is a songwriter from Sydney whose work feels like the next step in the rich lineage of fellow Antipodean artists (i.e. Julia Jacklin, Aldous Harding, Tiny Ruins). A skilled guitarist, she played her first gig while still at school, and since then developed a distinctive vocal style and the knack for capturing raw emotion. Described as “a dreamy, meditative journey through lost love and the mythology of a fallen prince,” her debut single ‘Tomb of the Prince’ sees Soffe joined by young Dhawaral artist Aodhan. It’s a languid and tender folk-tinged pop song which captures the warm golden hour glow of a summer evening perfectly. Watch the video below:

‘Tomb of the Prince’ is out now and available via streaming services.

Fairy Tales In Yoghourt – Mania

Fairy Tales in Yoghourt is the solo recording project of Nantes-based Benoît Guchet. A self-confessed control freak, Guchet took his time to create Shape Mistakes, the project’s debut album which came out earlier this month. He has spent the last twelve years playing in other bands (such as Bantam Lyons, Yes Basketball, Classe Mannequin), and struggled to find the time to make his own release as perfect as he wanted. But he eventually managed it, and it’s fair to say it was worth the wait. A distinctive blend of psych folk and chilled-out indie rock, the record feels very much the product of one creative mind, unshackled by limitations or the expectations of others. Lead single ‘Mania’ kicks things off, an off-kilter folk pop song that features layers of guitars, beguiling melodies and a sense of brave forward motion.

Hannah Frances – Honey, Hear Me

Back in 2021, Chicago-based songwriter Hannah Frances released her fifth record Bedrock, an album of raw emotion and considerable storytelling. Next month, Ghost Mountain Records are re-releasing the album on cassette, giving anyone who missed it first time around another chance to put that right. Single ‘Honey, Hear Me’ is as good an introduction as any, showing off Frances’ signature guitar work and vehement songwriting. As the opening track of a record Frances describes as “a fountain of intentionality,” which “offer[s] rawness with reverence,” ‘Honey, Hear Me’ feels like something of a mission statement, a bold pledge towards directness and honesty.

learning to not be alone
to be known and sewn with a thread
other than my own
singing with the birds who know
of bravery

Madi Diaz, S.G. Goodman & Joy Oladokun – Be Careful

When Roe Vs Wade was overturned earlier this year, LA songwriter Madi Diaz found herself thinking of Patty Griffin’s song ‘Be Careful’. “It became a mantra of strength that was playing consistently in the back of my heart and mind day in and day out, gently encouraging me to keep putting one foot in front of the other,” she describes. “It became a sort of battle cry directed toward anyone that wants to take away my rights to my own body and my reproductive freedom.” Diaz got together with her friend Morgan Elizabeth Peirce and the pair wrote a new final verse, bringing the song right into the present.

For all the reasons that are ours to know
It’s my choice and I’m not alone

For every man who’s standing next to me
For queer and trans and non-binary
For everybody with their own body
I will meet you all out in the street

Diaz is joined on the track by S.G. Goodman and Joy Oladokun, who each sing a verse, and Courtney Marie Andrews and Savana Santos also provide backing vocals. You can listen to the cover below:

‘Be Careful’ is out now and available from the Madi Diaz Bandcamp page.

Molly Murphy – Salt for Witches

Now based in New York, songwriter Molly Murphy evokes the Blue Ridge Mountains with her homespun folk music. Her latest single ‘Salt For Witches’ is equal parts catchy and emotive, adding lush pop details to a timeless folk skeleton. Drawing on imagery of folklore and superstition, it’s a song about coping with difficult circumstances and wishing simple actions like knocking on wood or a circle of salt could solve them. “They say a circle of salt can keep evil forces at bay,” Molly Murphy describes. “‘Salt for Witches’ is about wishing you could do just that for bad vibes and people.”

Like salt for witches
Salt for witches
It is simple and strong
Find it in the cabinet
and keep the demons gone

Morena Leraba – Morea-rea

Morena Leraba is a musician/band from Lesotho, who for the last few years has steadily become of the figureheads of a reinvention of the country’s musical heritage. The music draws heavily on Sesotho culture and aims to preserve the language which is declining due to the spread of colonial languages such as English. Morena Leraba achieves this by taking Famo, a sub-genre of traditional Sesotho music, and updating it with contemporary flourishes inspired by hip hop and electronic music. “Because we also have influences from elsewhere musically,” he describes, “I’ve always re-imagined Famo. I’ve always re-imagined Sesotho traditional music.” Latest single ‘Morea-rea’ is a great example, emphasising Sesotho phrases and idioms in a style that feels both modern and timeless.

‘Morea-rea’ is taken from a forthcoming EP called Fela sa Ha Mojela. Until then, listen to the single via streaming services.

The Veils – Undertow

It’s been six years since the release of Total Depravity, the last album from London/Auckland-based outfit The Veils, a gap largely explained by an injury suffered by lead Finn Andrews. A freak accident on stage left him with a fractured wrist, and the decision to continue the tour further aggravated the situation. “The scaphoid bone in my wrist had died,” Andrews explains, “which I didn’t know was possible. My sister said that at least it was a really ‘on brand’ injury for me.” With the process of making music now “profoundly annoying,” it seemed to be the end of his days writing albums, but as is the way of such things new songs started to bubble up regardless. What eventually emerged was …And Out Of The Void Came Love, a new double album coming via Ba Da Bing Records. A release intended to experienced in one sitting, albeit with an intermission in the middle, which throws itself headlong into themes of isolation, healing and creation itself. The latter is brought into relief by single ‘Undertow’, tracing the compulsion to write through genetics, like some cursed blessing that holds tight in spite of intention or circumstance.

Wesley – Sugar Free

This month saw Wesley, AKA Louisville, Kentucky‘s Jacob Weaver, release Glows in the Dark on Earth Libraries. An album we described in an earlier preview as “a hazy dreamworld… all pleasantly surreal imagery and twinkling atmospherics,” with the title track “folding the syrupy dream-like quality of meeting your true love into the almost paradoxical emotion of awakening.” Latest single ‘Sugar Free’ might open with a more mournful, reflective tone, but as soon as Weaver’s vocals kick in the uber smooth style returns. A mood perhaps a tad starker than the previous track but no less ethereal. Some nocturnal vision caught between reality and dreams.

Glows in the Dark is out now and available via the Earth Libraries Bandcamp page.

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As well as being a part of Friendship and 2nd Grade, JR Samuels has a made a name with his experimental, improvised releases, as captured by 2019’s In Brend on Dear Life Records. “An eight-song album of improvised guitar that exists for no purpose beyond enjoyment and intuition,” as we put it. “Ambitions are dropped, artistic ideals and intent left behind, the songs allowed to flow.” Out next month on Lily Tapes & Discs, Spasm sees Samuels push further into this intuitive space, delving deep within himself and presenting whatever he finds, unfiltered and in real-time. What emerges is an at times dense, undeniably strange record, though one somehow more human for its refusal to shape itself for mass consumption. Listen to the short single, ‘Wearing a Groove’, below.

KT Laine – Again

Drawing inspiration from contemporaries like Big Thief and classics such as Judee Sill, KT Laine is a songwriter from Victoria, BC who is soon to release her debut full-length Knock Knee on Victory Pool. New single ‘Again’ is the perfect introduction to the nuance of her work, its warm fondness complicated by uncertainty, lending the track an inscrutable air which never quite reveals its hand. ‘Again’ centres on a relationship in some kind of turmoil, its pieces pushing apart, though it is never quite clear if the longing at the track’s heart wants to reconnect these parts or sever the ties for good.

‘Again’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Langkamer – Total Motion

We last featured Bristol‘s Langkamer back in May, when we wrote about their single ‘Soul Bucket’, what we described as “a bit of folk, a bit of indie rock, a ton of playful personality.” Now Langkamer have announced a brand new EP on Breakfast Records. Titled Red Thread Route, the record promises to expand on the band’s signature combination of slacker era indie rock and easy country-influenced melodies, albeit with a few surprises up its sleeve. Lead single ‘Total Motion’ is a great introduction, its twisty, loud-quiet dynamic giving way to an anthemic singalong chorus. Willie J Healey provides guest vocals, one of several guests of the EP seemingly cherrypicked from Bristol’s music scene. Check out the video by JJ Jarman and Jimmy Taylor below:

Red Thread Route comes out on 30th November via Breakfast Records. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Leggy – Lipstick on the Mic

We first covered Cincinnati‘s Leggy back in 2019, describing how the innate tension of single ‘Taffy‘ offered “a tautness that always appears on the verge of snapping.” While the rambunctious punk rock style of that track has been swapped out in favour of something more languid on new single, ‘Lipstick on the Mic’, the sense of building pressure remains. This time a sensuous combination of desire and frustration, the song sitting on the knife edge of pleasure and pain yet wrapped within a hazy shawl. A sense of remove which allows a view into the paradox of the situation even as it plays out. “I love to be alone,” as the chorus puts it, “why do I live to be in love?” Check out the suitably sultry and surreal video by Twenty Twenty Productions below:

‘Lipstick on the Mic’ is out now and available from the Leggy Bandcamp page.

Levi Thomas – Shasta

The title track of the third album from Oakland‘s Levi Thomas, ‘Shasta’ is a song seized by the sublime scale of the American West. “The neons fade / To the pink cascade / And right now I can’t feel a thing,” Thomas sings. “The sun don’t rise / Under wild skies / All the shit just starts to shine.” The revelatory experience is captured with a decidedly seventies style, equal parts classic country and cosmic psych which invites the listener into the moment, never losing control of its relaxed rhythms despite everything.

My mind left my body north on the five
And I feel like the last man alive

Macie Stewart – Defeat

Released on Orindal back in 2021, Macie Stewart‘s Mouth Full of Glass was a journey in solo creation after a career of collaboration. The sound of “an artist surveying their own inner workings through considered and open-ended exploration,” as we put it. “Leaning into solitude as a medium of discovery and learning from all that has occurred before without ever becoming beholden to the past.” The album is getting a new release next month via Full Time Hobby, and has been expanded to include two new singles. One of the tracks, ‘Defeat’, is a direct confrontation of the stresses of working with others, warning of the dangers of overcommitting and how it can end up withering the very creativity is should foster. Stewart takes on all the instrumentation on the song, with the exception of flutes from V.V. Lightbody, and sings with the calm of a lesson learnt. “Composing a word to take back the meaning,” she sings, “I promised my best and that’s not what I’m giving.” Watch the video directed and edited by Sid Branca below:

‘Defeat’ is out now and available from Bandcamp., and the expanded edition of Mouth Full of Glass is available from Full Time Hobby.

Michael Cormier O’Leary – Heard From The Next Room

To describe the work of Michael Cormier O’Leary takes some time. From the playful warmth of last year’s solo album More Light!! to the almost fragile intricacy of Hour, not to mention his work in Friendship, Cormier O’Leary spans the full spectrum between free and controlled. Out next month of Lily Tapes & Discs, new solo release Heard From The Next Room moves completely toward the former, an exploratory, spontaneous collection of improvised piano compositions recorded on a single day earlier this year. The resulting two pieces live up to the release’s title in their unguarded charm, following the haphazard rhythms of the moment without any sense of outside audience, and thereby capturing an easy comfort only possible at home. Hear an excerpt from the first below:

Volunteer Department – Swell

Back in September we wrote about ‘Make It Easy‘ by Nashville‘s Volunteer Department, the first track from a forthcoming release on Like You Mean It Records. A scathing track with vocals “barely more than a whisper,” we wrote, “almost unpalatably bitter in [its] acerbic tone.” Latest single ‘Swell’ might possess a brighter rhythm, but thanks to the wry and fatalistic songwriting, the sour tone remains. “I’ll cut my fingers off and mail them to France,” sings Oliver Hopkins, “at least then some small part of me won’t be stuck here arguing the ins and outs of something which has no shape.”

Wayne Graham – How Was Your Night?

With new album ISH on the horizon via K&F Records, Wayne Graham have shared one last single as a final taster of what to expect before release. Primarily the project of brothers Kenny and Hayden Miles, the Whitesburg, Kentucky outfit wrote a new album in the years since previous record 1% Fruit, though decided to change course for what would eventually become ISH. What emerged was something more intimate and ambitious, drawing on science, fiction and scripture to search for meaning in this strange world. ‘How Was Your Night?’ not only opens the album but poses the question which hangs over everything which follows.

Don’t you know I’m not alright?
Can’t you taste my mind?
Just trying to make it through the night,
no reason and no rhyme

ISH is out on the 11th November via K&F Records.

The post Weekly Listening: October 2022 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Fast forward quite a few years and Weaver is again performing under the name Wesley, this time as a moniker for his musical endeavours. And it’s nice to see that some of the original Wesley characteristics are still present. On his forthcoming record, Glows in the Dark, out in November on the prolific Earth Libraries, he performs with a languid grace, vocals coming smooth and easy as a cosy afternoon nap.

Thematically too, sleep holds a strange power over the album. On the lead single and title track, Weaver is joined by his wife Kelli White Weaver, the pair harmonising in a hazy dreamworld that riffs on a Fleetwood Mac classic, all pleasantly surreal imagery and twinkling atmospherics. It’s a love song too, folding the syrupy dream-like quality of meeting your true love into the almost paradoxical emotion of awakening. The sensation that everything that led to that moment was a dream. “One day upon first meeting, we’ll know what we’re seeing is love at first sight,” they sing in a line which captures that feeling directly. “And I can’t wait for permanent healing, to find I’ve been sleeping for all of my life.”

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Though Mark Charles’s forthcoming solo debut record Calamity Strikes was in the works prior to this period, it seems fitting it is being released within this new context, and the various obstacles in its path only add credence to the title. A reminder that life is both miraculous and painful, the only certainty its wild unpredictability and our ability to choose how we act within it. “We are so profoundly, incomprehensibly lucky to be alive, and yet, it can be nightmarishly complicated to get on with the actual act of living,” as Charles puts it. “If we can connect through creative expression and find common purpose through shared experiences, I think that’s a net positive.”

With its fresh rhythms and earnest delivery, latest single ‘Creature Comforts’ is an ideal introduction to the release’s spirit. A Petty-esque country rock song about the suffocating deluge of information we face every day, and our attempts to drag ourselves to drier ground. “I’m growing tired of my creature comforts,” Charles sings, “thumbing my way to oblivion / think it might be time for course correction.” Of course, desire to change is not change itself, and the song captures the strange weariness that is digital living. The wish to leave it all behind matched by the easy fall back into its arms.

Mark Charles also took to La La Land for a live session performance of previous single ‘Different Names’, and you can check out the video filmed and edited by Chris Witzke below:

Calamity Strikes is out on the 7th October and you can pre-order it now.

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Wombo have now shared another single, ‘Backflip’ to further reveal what we can expect from the new record. A song inspired by something the grandmother of lead Sydney Chadwick said while driving along the freeway. “We’re all just gonna meet ourselves at the end of this, aren’t we?” The band excavate the full weirdness of the idea with a taut and anxious rhythm, recreating a kind of dream logic where every road leads back to its origin and reality evaporates within the trip.

The song comes complete with a video directed by Wombo’s own Cameron Lowe. “It’s about being stuck in a loop, continuously running back into yourself,” the band explain. “The video ties into ‘Below the House’ in that it is an extension of the nightmarish-dream world experience we wanted to convey.”

Fairy Rust is out on the 29th July via Fire Talk Records and you can pre-order it now from the Wombo Bandcamp page.

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With its forthright examination of personal issues, lead single ‘7UP’ gives a glimpse into the record. The rhythm is peppy and the sound bright, but below this surface lies something more conflicted. As though the fun exterior holds a darker truth. “If you listen closely, this song is full of contradictions,” Khamvanthong explains:

The song follows me through ups and downs of getting a hold of my relationship with alcohol. When I was struggling with my relationship with alcohol, I found myself lying and trying to find loopholes in my attempted sobriety at the time. I was constantly in a battle of needing people around me while pushing them away whenever they checked me for my behaviour and relapse and trying to salvage those relationships through bargaining and making excuses.”

The result functions as both a candid self-examination and a promise to get better. A lesson in the value of honesty in the face of pain. A commitment to confronting the sides of ourselves we’d prefer to leave behind.

You can believe me I wanna get better
You don’t have to leave
It’s been a good week
I can have fun without holding a drink

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Now the outfit are back with ‘One of These’, a brand new single again on Fire Talk that furthers their exploration of order and entropy. “‘One of These’ is about duality,” the band explain. “Like finding how to balance chaos and structure instead of choosing one or the other.” The idea speaks to deeper concerns surrounding our place within the world, and how much we can or should wish to shield ourselves from its worst connotations. “The song is also about wanting to crawl into a hole but not letting yourself,” they continue. “I feel like every now and again many people have the desire to ignore everything going on around them; all the turmoil and hate and fighting, and hide away and live a quiet life. It’s a fantasy and the song is me playing with that fantasy, all the while knowing it’s a fools errand.”

Think I never had what it took
Think I never wanted it anyway.
Can’t imagine why it can’t be
Can’t imagine why it can’t be
Why it can’t be so easy

The track comes complete with a video, directed by the band themselves:

‘One of These’ is out now via Fire Talk Records and you can grab it from the Wombo Bandcamp page.

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