It has been going on eleven years since Anglo-Australian indie pop outfit Allo Darlin’ released their previous full-length We Come From The Same Place, but next month will see the wait ended with new album, Bright Nights. A joint release between Fika Recordings (UK) and Slumberland Records (US), the album has roots in the height of the pandemic, when the band members gathered online to reminisce and reflect on the music they made together, and ultimately vow to revive Allo Darlin’ once conditions allowed. The resulting collection is understandably bittersweet, marked by the passing of time and the increasing weight of themes like love, birth and death, yet always newly aware of the blessing it is to make music and share it with an audience. Latest single ‘Cologne’ typifies the tone, a song full of the kind of tender joy earned through a life well-lived.

Bright Nights will be released in July via Fika Recordings (UK) and Slumberland Records (US).

Constellation Myths – Shadows on the Wall

“A series of vignettes and character sketches that examine agency, belief, and the tensions between the natural and the human-built environment.” That’s how Massachusetts trio Constellation Myths describe their forthcoming album The Cost of Living, an album preoccupied with all the injustices, cruelties and resentments which have come to mark our age. Latest track ‘Shadows on the Wall’ is cuttingly relevant in this regard, detailing the corrosive impact of our continued slide into the digital, and the resulting isolated, individualistic existence can dislocate a person from reality itself. Taking over lead vocal duties, Andy Arch communicates such themes with a suitably jaded air, and as the sound rises with something like brightness, the effect is that of a man cut off and drifting, slowly slipping away from the world.

Dead Slow Hoot – Satellite

“Despite the careful intricacy of the track, the emotion at its core is delivered with unguarded sincerity, Hugo Lynch’s vocals confronting love and love with direct candour to paint a picture wistful and romantic and wise.” So we wrote of ‘All My Love Remains‘, a recent single from Dead Slow Hoot‘s new album, Orbits Intervened. Such earnestness marks the record, though, as singles like ‘Take It Or Leave It‘ and ‘Sleeping Before The Big Day‘ show, it is a release sprawling in style and scope. With the album now out, Dead Slow Hoot have shared final single ‘Satellite’ to further highlight this fact. An introspective song which starts out as a pleasantly upbeat slice of folk rock but eventually rises towards a cathartic crescendo, before clearing again as though with the newfound clarity of sudden epiphany.

The Duke of Norfolk – I Have Never Seen Volcanoes

The recording project of Oklahoma-born songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Adam Thomas Howard, The Duke of Norfolk has made a name blurring the divide between reality and mythology, offering a brand of folk capable of both intimate detail and sweeping grandeur. Howard’s latest work sees him join forces with Ben Lanz (The National/Beirut/Sufjan Stevens), and new single ‘I Have Never Seen Volcanoes’ shows the fruits of the collaboration. Drawing on the Emily Dickinson poem of the same name, the track evokes the unfolding climate catastrophe in all of its sublime violence. “I have never seen / fire and dust spit / down the hillside, / smoke and choke the machine— / Ashen faces, ashen cowhide,” as the track opens. “Trace a line in the dirt; / cut it deeper, carve a border. / See the blood of the earth, / pump it then, play the driller.” The rest of the song fires forward as though charged by such imagery, finding a fervid rhythm and revelatory foreboding.

Till suspension morn
’Till suspension morn
‘Till the angel’s horn

When the break in the churning,
when the sleeping rise up like rosebay,
and the key starts to turn
like the dagger twist’d in the ribcage.

‘I Have Never Seen Volcanoes’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Editrix – The Big E

Not content to rest on their laurels after last year’s superb full-length Viewfinder (an album which made our favourites of 2024) and more recent single ‘I Don’t Miss You‘, Wendy Eisenberg has reunited with Steve Cameron and Josh Daniel and turned their attention back to Editrix. The band’s first new release since 2022, new album The Big E promises to be every bit as ambitious and intense as previous releases, finding the trio further apart geographically, but tight knit in their vision and execution. The title track and lead single gives an idea of what to expect, a song charged with energy yet slightly unnerved in tone, playing like the chaotic, frantic internal landscape of someone gripped by neurotic concerns. “This song is about alien visitors: hoping they’re friendly and curious like the best of us humans,” the band explain. “It’s also about aging, which feels like you’re an alien to certain generations including your younger selves, and the impossibility of being understood.”

Watch the video by Ryan Hover below:

The Big E will be released on the 25th July via Joyful Noise Recordings and you can pre-order it now.

MacGregor Burns – I’m Not Supposed To Be Here Anymore

Through a number of singles in recent months, LA songwriter MacGregor Burns has established a style at once emotionally resonant and idiosyncratic, with songs like ‘Silent Answers‘ and ‘Can’t Go Back‘ reaching between slacker rock and something more folk-adjacent. Latest single ‘I’m Not Supposed To Be Here Anymore’ continues this style, albeit leaning further than ever towards the latter, its stripped back style removing all distractions from Burns’s distinctively nuanced vocals. A voice straining with the accumulated hopes and regrets of a life well lived, relatively plain in its unguarded tone yet stretched by a certain sense of desperation. As though there’s a fire at his back which is creeping closer, or else a train to somewhere better in the distance and just about to leave.

‘I’m Not Supposed To Be Here Anymore’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Ohly – If I Go

Detroit‘s Christian Ohly, recording as straight Ohly, makes what we’ve called “a rich and heartfelt brand of folk rock that manag[es] to pair intimate emotion with cathartic energy,” not to mention a strong narrative throughline to further ground the songs within the nuances of the intricacies of the human condition. Produced by Jr Jr’s Dan Zott, new single ‘If I Go’ is what Ohly describes as his magnum opus. The embodiment of the project, as though everything which has come before has coalesced into a single song. A track full of tiny details and huge themes, zooming into the smallest moments of life in order to evoke the intangible joy of existence.

‘If I Go’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Pickle Darling – Massive Everything

Described by Lukas Mayo as “maybe the first kind of ‘pop’ song I’ve ever made,” ‘Massive Everything’ is not just a new song from Pickle Darling, but an introduction to a new stage in the evolution of the project. Out now via Father/Daughter Records, the single sees the New Zealand-based producer and multi-instrumentalist drop some of the playfulness and poetry of previous releases to instead embrace the exhilaration of being wholly direct. Mayo cites the likes of Robyn, Cher and Ray of Light-era Madonna as inspiration for this style, channelling such pop royalty in how they manage to conjure the entire topography of a person’s emotional landscape within a bold, vivid sound. The result is a love song with all the complications left in. Moreover, one not attenuated by the attached pain and personal baggage but conversely made larger. A picture of a love substantial enough to bear the weight accumulated through living.

Watch the video by Christiane Shortal below:

‘Massive Everything’ is out now via Father/Daughter Records.

Ryan Cassata – a Knack for Overthinking

As a singer-songwriter, actor, performer, writer, activist and motivational speaker, Ryan Cassata is well-versed in sharing his thoughts and ideas with the world, putting himself forward as a proud trans-person in an increasingly hostile world. His debut album with Kill Rock Stars, Greetings from Echo Park,is every bit as open and cathartic as you might expect, Cassata delving into both the wonders and tribulations he has faced, be those stemming from his trans identity, experiences of chronic illness or else the inherently anxious process of growing up. Focus track ‘a Knack for Overthinking’ embodies the spirit of the release. One unapologetic in its unguarded confessionalism. “Queer love songs are protest songs,” as he explains. “Whenever we’re loud about it, it’s a protest to me.”

I’m looking, at bare skin
In the smell of cigarettes
We hard kiss, my head spins
I want your confidence

I’ve got a knack for overthinking
And saying too much
I’ve got a knack for overthinking

Watch the video directed by Alla Arutcheva below:

Greetings from Echo Park is out now via Kill Rock Stars and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2025 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

With album Mirror, Reflect coming in May via Winspear, Amy O has shared single ‘Dribble Dribble’ by way of introduction. The record charts the experience of new motherhood during the pandemic, where twin forces of uncertainty and isolation ran a deep seam of precariousness through everything. But as ‘Dribble Dribble’ shows, Amy O documents this time with compassion and playful curiosity, the lo-fi pop sound lifting rhyming schemes from the books she read to her daughter to offer a mood at once fun and incisive, and Glenn Myers’s backing vocals further the conversational closeness.

Please don’t let the tide rush in
Held unburdened by the wind
A roomful of familiar
No catastrophes within

Bloomsday – Dollar Slice

The recording project of Brooklyn’s Iris James Garrison, Bloomsday introduced itself back in 2020 with debut Place to Land, an album which charted the fear, loss and joyous freedom inherent within the quest to find one’s true identity. But despite the personal subject matter, collaboration has always been an inherent part of the Bloomsday DNA, and new album Heart of the Artichoke is certainly no exception. Coming this summer on Bayonet Records, the release see Iris joined by Andrew Stevens (Lomelda, Hovvdy), Alex Harwood, Richard Orofino, Maya Bon (Babehoven), Hannah Pruzinsky (h.pruz, Sister.) and Chris Daley, and proves to be not only a celebration of togetherness and community but a testament to the enduring presence of friendship itself. Lead single ‘Dollar Slice’ is a great place to jump in, the cornerstone of the album which hints at the sound’s devotional quality. “I’m not religious,” Garrison says, “But I am into the idea of mystical, higher power—whatever that means – and that power seeing me, and my bullshit, and calling it out. That’s kind of godly to me.”

Cereus Bright – Boys

We introduced Boys, the new EP from Knoxville‘s Cereus Bright, back in February with single ‘Drifting’. “An ode to every tired soul and person without direction,” as we put it, “which offers comfort not through the promise of agency but rather the unforeseen benefits of letting oneself relax into the drift.” With the EP now out via Nettwerk, Cereus Bright has released the opener and title track as a final single. Inspired by stories of a “hard, complicated figure” of a grandfather, the song delves into the tangled world of cause and effect not so much in search of an answer but to instead reveal the layers of complexity which define any given person. As the artist explains: “It’s essential to reckon with the people or institutions that have affected us or hurt us, but some times truly understanding is impossible.” The song comes complete with a video filmed by Follow The Leader which you can watch below:

Boys is out now via Nettwerk and available from Bandcamp.

Fresh – Merch Girl

London punks Fresh have made a name with a heart-on-the-sleeve brand of rock, with tracks like ‘Babyface‘ and ‘Morgan & Joanne‘ typifying the bittersweet celebration of the queer experience offered by LP Raise Hell. Ahead of tours with Teenage Halloween and Los Campesinos!, Fresh are releasing a brand new EP Merch Girl on Specialist Subject Records next month, and have unveiled the title track for an early taste. It’s a song “about living in that space between wanting something and achieving something” as lead Kathryn Woods explains, centring on the titular character as they yearn to break free from the sidelines and make art of their own. “Standing at the back of the room / Wishing I could do what they do,” as Woods sings, “After all, I could play that guitar part better / I could hit those drums much harder / I could sing that song far louder // But I’m just a merch girl.”

I’m tired of living like this
Letting people talk over me for years and years and year and years
Gonna start doing things my way
Gonna write a song with a voice so strong it knocks you sideways

I’m not just a merch girl

Hour – Ease the Work

Though named after an image from a tragic Greek myth, Hour‘s 2018 album Anemone Red had more quotidian concerns. “Hour present the same heartbreak and longing as it occurs today,” we wrote in our review, “repressed and layered behind our day-to-day responsibilities, manifest not in blood-dripped flowers but the slow, sad progression of the world around us.” The project, led by Michael Cormier-O’Leary, returns this spring to build upon this foundation with Ease the Work, a brand new release on Dear Life Records. Challenging any clear distinction between composition and improvisation, the album performs the same small miracle of the previous records, presenting the everyday in all its joy and melancholy, comfort and strangeness. Listen to the title track now:

Jack Name – Cherie’s Eyes

Described as a “homage to the IRL world and its twisted and varied romance with the worlds of our minds,” Fabulous Soundtracks is the fourth album from Los Angeles-based musician Jack Name, out this May on Maple Death Records. Each song on the record is intended as a mini-soundtrack to a specific scene, and Jack Name runs the gamut of genres and stylistic influences in order to create cinematic soundscapes able to elevate these moments into their full surreal potential. Single ‘Cherie’s Eyes’ is the first example of this singular effort, presenting a sound at once odd and strangely intuitive, as though Fabulous Soundtracks functions within the logic and physics of dreams, where everything is off-kilter yet charged with meaning.

 Logan Lynn – To Be Of Use (Smog Cover)

Songwriter, producer, filmmaker, television personality and activist Logan Lynn is releasing new LP SOFTCORE this June on Kill Rock Stars. The album, written in the aftermath of a break-up, serves as a vehicle of rebirth. “A record of my coming alive again, and coming back to myself in the face of pretty extreme betrayal,” as Lynn puts it. “It’s a party album in a way—loud, wild, unhinged and abrasive at times—but it’s also a collection of tender songs about longing and togetherness.” A cover of Smog’s ‘To Be Of Use’ opens the album, a plaintive track which slowly gathers momentum, as though Lynn uses Bill Callahan as a way to shake off the shrouding gloom and turn a new page.

Magana – To My Love

Last month we introduced Magana‘s new album TEETH on Audio Antihero with the single ‘Paul’. “A song where grief is transcribed almost verbatim,” as we put it, “and tenderness, strangeness and plain disbelief can exist simultaneously.” With the album out today to coincide with the Worm Moon’s peak illumination, Magana has released final single ‘To My Love’ to further introduce the witchy rock atmosphere. A strange sound for a strange world, made by an artist determined to use every style available to best communicate their own experience of trying to exist within it.

Pina Palau – We’ve Got No Time At All

“The birds outside my window, they are singing as if the world was still the same.” So opens ‘We’ve Got No Time At All’, the centre point of Get a Dog, the sophomore album by Pina Palau. It’s a song that very directly captures the despair felt by young people across the globe, describing a world of war and mass shootings, heatwaves that “no AC can get us out of.” The Swiss artist put a career in medicine on hold to pursue her musical career, and her creative work is driven by the same fascinations that led her to the path to becoming a psychologist—what label Mouthwatering Records describe as “a desire to understand unvarnished humanity—the motivations, emotions and stories that shape our lives.” Which is why ‘We’ve Got No Time At All’ stands out on an album full of varied emotions. A rare track that stares down a generation’s biggest concerns head-on, blowing out into furious noise in its cathartic climax.

We’re still young they say we have time
But the truth is: we’ve got no time at all

The post Weekly Listening: March 2024 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Back in July we wrote about  Fort Worth, TX songwriter Cameron Smith, describing how single ‘Under the Cover of Darkness’ drew on “the loaded depths of the southern gothic genre” to evoke “the heartsick wanderer which can be traced back through Molina and van Zandt, where the long night is illuminated only by the blood moon and low fuel light on the dash.” Recorded as part of a Café Solo Songwriters Live session, latest single ‘Shadows of the Moonlight’ follows a similar spirit. This time it takes inspiration from the story of Smith’s great-grandfather Sam Smith who served in WWI and worked as a cowboy before being killed while working as a lineman for the Texas Louisiana Power Company. “I’m not a cowboy but Sam was,” as Smith explains. “It’s a campfire song; a reflection on the mental, spiritual and physical distances a person can travel between night and day.”

You can grab the track now from the Cameron Smith Bandcamp page.

h. pruz – I Keep Changing

The third single from their forthcoming record No Glory, ‘I Keep Changing’ is the perfect introduction to the music of h. pruz, aka Queens-based songwriter Hannah Pruzinsky. It’s a rich and direct track that wanders further toward rock than previous h. pruz songs, giving weight to the very real emotional power that has always underpinned their music. Like much of the record, the song focuses on a pivotal moment, conjuring almost physical dimensions to inner turmoil and subsequent growth. “The song emerged a few weeks following a pretty life-altering break-up, Pruzinsky describes to Stereogum. “I’m trying to capture the feeling of the moment when you can feel something inside you giving way to a newer form, and how ugly yet unstoppable and freeing that ultimately felt.”

No Glory comes out on 29^th March via Mtn Laurel Recording Co. and is available to pre-order via the h. pruz Bandcamp page.

Habibi – On The Road

Brooklyn’s Habibi return later this spring with Dreamachine, their first new record in four years. Released via Kill Rock Stars, the album promises to be something of an evolution for the garage rock five-piece, drawing on everything from post punk and lo-fi experimentalism to vintage disco and the Middle Eastern psych influences that have always made Habibi stand out. And it’s not a case of style over substance either, the band utilizing these disparate elements to explore themes both physical and spiritual. “There’s always a desire for transcendence in our music,” says lead Rahill Jamalifard, “a desire to go beyond our limitations. Whether it’s spiritual or physical or emotional, it feels like this album really embodies that search for something more.” Check out lead single ‘On The Road’ for an early taste, a beguiling and deadpan track with infectious percussion and stabs of wiry guitar.

On the road again, on the road again
Driving north towards the great star of Bethlehem

Dreamachine will be released on 31st May via Kill Rock Stars and is available to pre-order via Bandcamp.

Hailaker – Gist

A collaboration between songwriters Ed Tullett (Lowsimmer) and Jemima Coulter, Hailaker put out two records pre-pandemic, with both their self-titled debut and follow-up Holding proving testaments to the bond between the artists. However, several years of isolation and social distancing, not to mention other creative endeavours in the interim, left the pair wondering whether the spark had extinguished. It was only when Coulter suggested they park any songwriting ambitions and instead just enjoy one another’s company again did the connection rekindle, and the resulting songs are as ambitious and inventive as anything Hailaker has released to date. Take new single ‘Gist’ with its newfound pop sensibilities, sounding like a new dawn fitting for the circumstances, and one suggestive of a bright future for the project once again.

‘Gist’ is out now via Believe.

Jackie West – Snow Amplified

Back in December, we described how Jackie West‘s ‘Tiny Flowers ii’ drew the audience in with a decidedly ambiguous tone, with a specific line from the song “complicat[ing] the second listen and every one thereafter, its gravity subverting the track’s structure and perspective from what the sound might originally suggest.” West has now announced her debut full-length, appropriately titled Close To The Mystery, to be released this May via Ruination Record Co., made in the hope of edging closer to the truth at the heart of any relationship. But with its oscillation between stark fingerpicked hush and chaotic, weighty momentum, new single ‘Snow Amplified’ suggests such mysteries might resist easy explanation, and instead only draw the audience deeper into the rich ambiguity of Jackie West’s work.

Kierst – Southern Star

“A reflection on longing and self-worth which owes as much to Grouper and Mazzy Star as it does contemporary bedroom pop, the intimate vocals and pressing rhythm lifted by an ethereal soundscape, resulting in a mood which transcends the immediate pain for heartbreak.” That’s how we described ‘Phone Call from Kierst‘s Thud EP on Sad Club Records. Following on from the success of the release, which among other things saw a track placed on Disney+ series Extraordinary, Kierst has returned with a brand new single, ‘Southern Star’. Just as emotive as anything on the previous record, the new single offers the kind of lush dreaminess only possible with patience and attention. “I wrote this a long time ago when I was really heartbroken, there’s no other way to put it,” Kierst explains. “But years have gone by and the song has gone through countless versions and been transformed by people I hold dear—and in that way, it means so much more to me now than ever before.”

‘Southern Star’ is out now via Sad Club Records and available from the usual places.

Luke De-Sciscio – Papa

Looking to capitalise on the creative breakthrough of recent full-length Heaven, an album which parked any sense of overworking in favour of “an intuitive flow which charges the songs with a sense of poetic authenticity,” prolific songwriter Luke De-Sciscio has already released new album, Papa. Described as “nine songs of delicate brevity,” the album takes stock of the ephemeral moments shared by a couple as they pass through the trials of young love towards parenthood, both as a way to preserve what has been and as a kind of ritual farewell. ‘Insights of a Heart’ is the perfect introduction to this tender, reflective collection, understated yet shot through by a frantic longing which belongs to the late night. ‘Blank Inside, Designed And Printed In The UK’ is no less keen in its observations, evoking the mysterious space between an end and a start with De-Scisco’s trademark reverence for human feeling.

Papa is out now and available from the Luke De-Sciscio Bandcamp page.

Mandy – High School Boyfriend

Best known as the lead singer of Chicago noise rockers Melkbelly, Miranda Winters has also quietly written her own music for over a decade. Despite some small releases over the years, she is now about to step into the limelight proper with the release of Lawn Girl, her debut “solo” full-length on Exploding in Sound Records, released under the moniker Mandy. With assistance from Linda Sherman (guitar), Lizz Smith (bass) and Wendy Zeldin (drums), Mandy make what Winters calls “dirty-bubblegum pop rock” that explores being a daughter, a mother and a woman in general. Lead single ‘High School Boyfriend’ is an exhilarating introduction, a crunchy rock song that packs anthemic noise and clear-eyed sincerity into its barely two minute runtime. Watch the video by  Liam Winters and Marty Schousboe below:

Lawn Girl will be released on 26th April via Exploding in Sound. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Pacing x Career Woman – Boyfriends

After the success of album Real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees and the animals and milk and honey breathing in the pink but real life is behind a screen, Pacing has teamed up with Melody Caudill, AKA Career Woman, for a new single on Lauren Records. ‘Boyfriends’ collides the trademark sensibilities of both artists, blending confessional emotion with quirky charm to offer something between wistful rumination and scream of frustration. But by the end of the joint chorus, the overring emotion is something affirming. “It feels very nostalgic to me,” McTigue explains, “like I can’t tell which parts are about being a kid and which parts are about being a grownup.”

We promised that we would live together in a tree
And watch the world end
But you got a boyfriend
I got a… really cool pen
But you got a boyfriend

The post Weekly Listening: March 2024 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Brooklyn-based musician Alexei Shishkin is about to release new record Goodbye Sunrise on Rue Defense, and latest track ‘Froze Up’ serves as an entry point for those unfamiliar with his jazz-inflected pop rock style. With sax and even some neo-soul elements working their way into the mix. Offering direction to the album’s title, the song conjures not so much a bright dawn as a tropical city night. An open-topped car ride through neon-lit streets, perhaps the last people awake and feeling easy with it, as though with a little luck and not much effort the night might just stretch on forever.

Long nights
fast cars
the city bars
are closed up
and I froze up

Corey Gulkin – Half Moon

“How were we before this?” sings Corey Gulkin on the title track of their upcoming LP Anything Bagel. “Was it all so simple?” The album sees the Montreal artist delve into the fully intricacies of the self, disavowing any clear intention or conclusion in favour of something more natural and kind. “I wanted to engage with parts of myself that I was most afraid of and let them speak their mind, without shame or judgment,” as Gulkin explains. “This album overall feels like both a coming out and a coming into myself.” Watch the video for the single below, filmed and directed by Nasuna Stuart-Ulin, with special effects by Dustyn Lucas:

Half Moon is out on the 6th October via on Anything Bagel and you can pre-order it now.

goodgrief – two wheel drive

Be it in his solo work or through bands like Young Elk and The Slow Sound, the music of Ezekiel Rudick always packs a punch of the darkest kind. Songs which reluctantly set out into the shadowy realm of the past through all the lurking traumas, sometimes emerging with some sense of catharsis and others nothing but bitterness. With love birds, the latest record from his solo project goodgrief, coming this September on Rue Defense, Rudick has shared new single ‘two wheel drive’. A continuation of Rudick’s new mission statement to make “happy-sounding sad music” which blends the 90s shoegaze of Low with a Bazan-esque earnest-yet-forthright delivery.

Lee Baggett – All Star Day

“Like a long-lost seventies summer jam complete with a surreal slacker spirit which captures that easy-going West Coast swagger.” That’s how we described ‘Fruit Dog‘, a song from Lee Baggett released last summer. The track captured the spirit of Baggett’s work, having played in various bands in California since the eighties, eventually meeting fellow musician and surfer Kyle Fields and playing with Little Wings and the Be Gulls for going on two decades. With new album Echo Me On coming next winter on Perpetual Doom, Baggett is back with ‘All Star Day’, and the song might just capture the vibe even better than the last. An embodiment of those perfect summer days you had in your youth, and a reminder that such carefree bliss is still available for those willing to search it out. “The song came to me in my head already done,” Baggett explains. “I couldn’t even bend it a little bit.”

Mali Velasquez – Tore

Described as “a perennial introspection into the wild animal of young adulthood,” Mali Velasquez’s forthcoming LP I’m Green on Acrophase Records explores everything from grief to the trials of toxic relationships, though above all works to acknowledge how our biggest critic so often comes from within. Lead single ‘Tore’ takes on self-judgement directly, looking to overcome the unrealistic barriers and expectations we create for ourselves with a mix of gentle compassion and heartfelt catharsis. “‘Tore’ is a song mostly about my own way of self-sabotaging,” Velasquez says. “I have no idea how to combat being embarrassed all the time still, but explaining it some has helped. Being comfortable in my skin is something that feels out of reach a lot of the time. I put a lot of my ideas of not knowing how to feel or what to do or eat or wear into this song.” Check out the video directed by Reed Schick below:

I’m Green is out on the 13th October via Acrophase Records.

Middle Priest – Act Your Age

LA-based outfit Middle Priest are gearing up to release their debut EP, I thought that I was far away, very soon, and have unveiled their very first single to give an indication as to what to expect. Led by Raleigh native Colson Dorafshar, the band offer a bright and emotionally charged sound that lands somewhere between the rich, country-inflected rock of the likes of The Wooden Sky and probing resonance of someone like Sinai Vessel. “How long must I wait for you?” Dorafshar asks in the opening lines. “How long ’til you’re ready to / come home, talk it out? I am a man now, don’t be a child, no / I’ve been missing you.” The song proceeds from this opening, the sound ebbing and flowing as Dorafshar questions and pleads with this significant other. Though no clear answers emerge, there’s nevertheless something affirming in the bright momentum of the sound.

POSTDATA – Try

Though better known as lead of Canadian rock royalty Wintersleep, Paul Murphy has also developed a solo career under the moniker POSTDATA. With new full-length Run Wild coming soon via Paper Bag Records, Murphy has unveiled latest single ‘Try’, and all the elements which have made him such a prominent songwriter in Canadian independent music are present. From his distinctively searching vocals to the melding of pop and idiosyncratic sensibilities, this time to paint a picture of a frustrated musician driving themselves onwards, regardless of whether the terminus is a brighter horizon or total breakdown. “I think this is about following your passion wherever it leads,” Murphy explains. “There’s a sense of humour I think to it and a sense of lightness and darkness and desperation too. Essentially, they are the same lyrics in verse 1 and 2 with a slight twist in perspective or that’s what I’m trying to arrive at.”

Run Wild is set for release on the 22nd September via Paper Bag Records and you can pre-order it now.

Viv & Riley – Kygers Hill

Viv & Riley, AKA Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno, is a Durham-based duo preparing to release new album Imaginary People later this year on Free Dirt Records. The record combines pop, indie folk and traditional country sensibilities to evoke the nuances of nostalgia, and opener and lead single ‘Kygers Hill’ serves as the ideal intro to the sound. It’s a song based around Leva’s experiences returning to her childhood home of Virginia after moving away for college, and how new perspectives of such familiar places can emerge with distance and time. “It’s about missing your old home while trying to make a new one.” As Leva concludes. “It’s about growing up.” Watch the video directed by Leva and Calcagno themselves below:

Imaginary People is out on the 15th September via Free Dirt Records and you can pre-order it now.

Your Heart Breaks – Do you dare to dream with me? (feat. Wynne Greenwood)

We’ve shared a number of pieces on The Wrack Line by Your Heart Breaks in recent months, describing how the album functions as a version of title image, with Clyde Petersen detailing “a lifetime of friendships, feelings and memories, broken free of a gyre and left upon the artists’ shoreline.” Across eighteen tracks and with guest appearances from the likes of Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, R.Ring, Kimya Dawson, and Nana Grizol‘s Theo Hilton, The Wrack Line details not only a life spent on the margins, but also the community which Petersen chose to build there. With the album now out via Kill Rock Stars, final single ‘Do you dare to dream with me?’ invites the audience into this project of building a better world. The dreamily triumphant tones and Wynne Greenwood’s vocals convincing us that the impossible can be brought to life, if only we retain a sense of defiance and imagination.

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

Petersen wrote the songs collaboratively with a stellar cast of guests from across the globe, including Kimya Dawson, Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, R.Ring and Nana Grizol‘s Theo Hilton. Working via what the press release lists as “exchanges of concepts, hooks, riffs, and emotional conversations, processed through tin-can telephones, carrier pigeons, twilight dreams, and shooting stars,” Petersen plotted out each song with its co-writer. Then, in the summer of 2022, he joined the Your Heart Breaks studio band—Eli Moore and Ashley Eriksson of LAKE and Black Belt Eagle Scout‘s Katherine Paul—in Unknown Studio in Anacortes, Washington, where producer Nicholas Wilbur helped form the album.

We featured single ‘Snow Dusted Ponies’ last month, and now Your Heart Breaks have released another single, ‘Queer Fire’. Co-written by Seattle’s Vincent Sagisi, who also appears on bass and vocals, it displays a different side to the project, all slinky sensuality and shadowy negative space. Inspired by both the journals of trans-masculine activist and pioneer Lou Sullivan and the personal ads in Petersen’s collection of vintage gay magazines, it’s what Petersen describes as a song “about the power and strength inherent in desire and the ways that desire can push us to question and break normative boundaries.”

The Wrack Line will be released via Kill Rock Stars on 7th July. Pre-order it now from the Your Heart Breaks Bandcamp page.

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Arena Rock Appetizer, the new EP from LA‘s Bridey (coming this summer on Anxiety Blanket Records), is a release which explores the sensation of “coming out of a fog.” “Sometimes it’s tough for me to see the light from whatever tunnel I’m in at the time,” she explains. But the EP fuses heartfelt emotion and upbeat energy, not only acting as a reminder of the promising glow somewhere down the line, but moreover having fun while doing so. Lead single ‘Her’ channels such a spirit, written after travelling to stay with her sister and newborn niece after a downer spell, finding some healing magic within the act of caring for other people. “It was intense and tiring and so cool,” Bridey explains. “I even bought a book about becoming a doula, but I never finished it. Maybe one day.”

dani mack – Nothing Better

We first wrote about Texas-born songwriter dani mack back in 2022 with the release of ‘someday‘, a track we described as displaying “a careful balance between strength and vulnerability,” where the “bright and disarmingly straightforward sound star[ed] the past straight in the eye and refus[ed] to blink.” Mack is now preparing to release her debut EP on Future Gods, and latest track ‘Nothing Better’ offers another assured and introspective glimpse into the personal. Though this time the slow-burning build carries with it a certain wry humour too, facing up to the chronic habit of overthinking. “What a lovely idea / letting go of things / that we have absolutely no control of,” she sings with a calm remove, “but I think I’m going to pass / and just drive myself mad / completely fucking mad.”

‘Nothing Better’ is out now and available via streaming services.

Juan Wauters – Modus Operandi

This summer, Uruguayan songwriter Juan Wauters is releasing his new album Wandering Rebel on Captured Tracks. Whether he be in Latin America, travelling north to collaborate with the likes of Mac DeMarco and Homeshake, or on the endless road of the tour, Wauters leads a nomadic existence—the titular wandering rebel manifest. Latest single ‘Modus Operandi’ captures some of the restless energy that marks his career. Wauters invites Frankie Cosmos into the fray for an earnest back-and-forth on place and movement, and reasons why people might leave and stay put in any one location.

See, it might be just my opinion
But it’s happened time and time again
That when it gets rough out here
People that have options go back to their suburbs
To them it was just like some kind of Disney World
Some kind of commodity
Dust them off a little bit
And see their real M.O.
Their modus operandi
Modus operandi

Watch Fatos Marishta’s video below as Wauters and Cosmos try to locate one another between NYC and Montevideo:

Wandering Rebel is out on the 2nd June via Captured Tracks and you can pre-order it now.

paper bee – I Don’t Talk To You

paper bee, the indie rock project led by Nick Berger, haven’t released a proper record since their 2015 debut Now I Know You and See How Wide You Are to the World, a split release with Loone. When the pandemic hit, Berger and a new lineup of bandmembers (including Maryn Jones of All Dogs/Yowler and Radiator Hospital‘s Sam Cook-Parrott) quarantined together in a cabin in rural Pennsylvania and recorded a brand new album, Thaw, Freeze, Thaw, which will be released by Get Better Records later this spring. Berger, who took his first shot of testosterone two days after wrapping up recording, describes the record as ” the last documentation of my old singing voice which I loved a lot […] a story about love and harm between traumatized trans people.”

Ryan Bourne – 100 Years

With new LP Plant City coming later this spring, Calgary‘s Ryan Bourne has unveiled latest single ‘100 Years’ to introduce another dimension of the album’s diverse sound. Because though the record spans glam rock, garage pop and baroque styles, the single highlights the psych folk spirit central to its sound. An idiosyncratic mood achieved via a woozy amalgamation of synths as well as samples of warped bird calls and the crackle of dried plants, resulting in a sound submerged in reflection. “The lyric came from a golden hour walk overlooking a neighborhood I’d lived and loved (and lost) in,” Bourne explains, “the kind of birds eye view of the landscape lending a beautiful sense of futility to the memory as it rose.” Watch the video by Rebecca Reid and Bourne himself below:

Plant City is out on the 5th May and you can pre-order it now.

Selah Broderick – I Am

Having been born into a strict Catholic family only to be freed by the countercultural turn of the sixties and seventies, Selah Broderick followed a love of music and art around the country, though ultimately put her own aspirations on hold when falling pregnant with her children. Fast forward a number of decades and Pegdoll Records are releasing Moon In The Monastery, a collection of songs by Selah Broderick ranging from the late seventies to the contemporary moment, as collected by her son Peter Broderick and featuring music from him and his sister Heather Woods Broderick. Single ‘I Am’ hints at the richness and depth of the work, with Peter’s neo-classical backdrop supporting Selah’s poetic spoken word inspired by her deep interest in non-Western spirituality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6AdLPVJAYc&ab_channel=PegdollRecords

Moon In The Monastery is out on the 9th June via Pegdoll and you can pre-order it now.

Speedy Ortiz – Scabs

Their first new music in five years, ‘Scabs’ is the latest single from indie rock cult heroes Speedy Ortiz, released via Wax Nine, the Carpark Records imprint record label and poetry journal run by lead Sadie Dupuis. What Dupuis describes as a song “about self-designated ethicists who don’t quibble about crossing a picket line for individual benefit,” ‘Scabs’ is a both wryly humorous and downright furious attack on those whose activism starts and ends with empty words and public gestures. “Born-to-scab solipsists are boogying for big commission,” as the opening goes. “Yes in your backyard you take handshake squeezes to extremes. Nihilistic greeting to a flytrap hungry for a fist. Don’t talk to me. Don’t talk.”

‘Scabs’ is out now via Wax Nine Records and is available from the Speedy Ortiz Bandcamp page.

Sun Kin x Guppy – I’m in the Band

Described as a “cross-collaboration” between Kabir Kumar’s LA post-pop project Sun Kin and punk band GUPPY (with whom Kumar plays lead guitar), ‘I’m in the Band’ is something of a meta-single. A song about writing songs, and all the ickiness which comes with such a revealing experience. The music was written in collaboration with Miguel Gallego (aka Miserable chillers) and Guppy frontperson J Lebow helped with the lyrics, which they says are about “how expressing yourself through music can be a vulnerable and embarrassing affair, but worth it for the self-esteem it can give, and the relief of pressure it provides for the people who love us.”

Your Heart Breaks – Snow Dusted Ponies

Led by musician, artist and filmmaker Clyde Petersen, Your Heart Breaks is a project based in a Bellingham “townie dream house” which gave artists the space to experiment outside of pressures and expectations. Released via Kill Rock Stars, new album The Wrack Line feels like the culmination of years of friendships and memories, as typified by the line-up which brought it to life. With a band consisting of Eli Moore and Ashley Eriksson (of LAKE) and Katherine Paul (Black Belt Eagle Scout), as well as a stellar line-up of guest stars including the likes of Kimya Dawson, Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, R.Ring and Nana Grizol‘s Theo Hilton, the album is a sonic manifestation of something larger. Single ‘Snow Dusted Ponies’ gives an indication of the tone, with Fellows and Samson backing Petersen’s vocals in their affirming sincerity.

The Wrack Line is out via Kill Rock Stars on the 7th July and you can pre-order it now.

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“I tend to get lost in nostalgia—fixated on the past, out-of-touch with the present, uninterested in the future,” explains Balto lead Daniel Sheron. The Californian outfit’s latest single ‘Spanish Wine’ confronts this habit head on, albeit with digressions toward trysts in laundromats, conga lines in Cuba and the ghost of an imagined future with no distinction between state and civil society. “I wrote this song in the height of the pandemic as a rejection of that concept,” Sheron continues. “I needed a reminder that the past is an illusion—it doesn’t exist anymore!”

Big Joanie – In My Arms

London punk trio Big Joanie return later this year with new album Gone Home on Kill Rock Stars and the Daydream Library Series from Ecstatic Peace Library. A record which promises to examine the concept of home in all of its variety, be it where we’ve come from, where we’re going, or some imagined place we work towards and dream about. Single ‘In My Arms’ combines these elements of past and future, reflecting on fond memories as a way to instigate a desired future. Check out the video directed by Lydia Garnett below:

Back Home is out via Kill Rock Stars and Ecstatic Peace Library on the 4th November and you can pre-order it now.

Butch Wifey – Eighteen

Based in Boise, Idaho, Butch Wifey is the recording project of Chloe Ponder, who makes indie pop songs she says “aim to dredge up the uncomfortable feelings associated with queer relationships.” Her latest single ‘Eighteen’ draws upon two periods of anxiety faced several years apart. The first was leaving home for the first time at eighteen, and the second was early-twenties romantic troubles, both of which elicited a similar sense of unease and confusion. But for all the discomfort of the subject matter, the single is ostensibly a slick and summery pop song, Ponder’s vocals providing a nostalgic and wistful edge.

Canary – i used to write you love songs

If there seems to be something of a paradox at work on ‘i used to write you love songs’, the latest single from Pennsylvania‘s Canary, then it’s one which depends on the definition of a love song. Because though the track has all of the tenderness and contemplation of a classic love song, it doesn’t take long for the track to reveal its fangs. By the time Zach Dennis’s guitar goes spiralling and Kat Leverenz sings the titular refrain, it becomes clear this isn’t a love song at all, at least not in the usual sense. What begins soft and sedate blooms into a heavy and dynamic exploration of heartbreak and betrayal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1MYacMeP9s&ab_channel=Canary

‘i used to write you love songs’ is out now and available on streaming services.

Couch Prints – All I Know

Described as “centred around the American car crash,” New York-based Couch Prints’ forthcoming mixtape Waterfall looks to capture the contemporary moment. The project of Jayanna Roberts, Brandon Tong, and Jacob Truax, Couch Prints make synth pop that’s equal parts danceable and introspective, and latest single ‘All I Know’ represents perhaps their furthest foray into the latter aspect of their sound. The song is “a simple expression of the unease caused by the boundless media and content of the modern world,” say the band, “an ode to ignorance is bliss”. Sonically it feels like a balm for this sensory overload, stripping back the dance elements to leave a gently spacious song built on gentle guitar and Roberts’ soft vocals.

dani mack – fleabag

We first featured dani mack, the project of Baylee Barrett, back in April when we covered her single ‘Someday’, released via LA label Future Gods. We called it “bright and disarmingly straightforward…weav[ing] a careful balance between strength and vulnerability.” Now Barrett returns with a new single, ‘fleabag’, a taut and irreverent pop song about trying to let go of residual shame. “In simplest terms, which most can relate to, it’s a nod to dating and how terrible it is,” Barrett explains. “[But] on a deeper level, it’s a song about my own sexual repression and my difficulties with casual relationships. I grew up a devout Christian and letting go of the guilt that was instilled in me from such a young age is still something I still struggle with. There’s still a little part of me that’s afraid that come judgment day.”

‘fleabag’ is available now via streaming services.

Fusilier – No Words

Fusilier is the project of Atlanta-born, Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Blake Fusilier. Later this month he will release a new EP, Treason, which promises to explore themes of selfhood, alienation and belonging in a style that draws on a diversity of influences, from Bill Withers and Fela Kuti to TV on the Radio and Nine Inch Nails. But as lead single ‘No Words’ shows, the result is something wholly his own, sleek and sinuous yet charged with a desire to make meaningful change. Namely through a reframing of the self within a wider picture, reaffirming one’s own ability to define themselves beyond whatever outside forces might think or want them to be. As Fusilier puts it, the song is about “letting go of the thought that I’m not the main character in my own story.”

Maya Lucia – numb or something

‘numb or something’ is the latest single by indie rock artist Maya Lucia, who makes angsty and exuberant songs that allow her to vent her emotions in the healthiest way possible. Taken from a forthcoming album, miss girl world, the song is a great introduction for newcomers, a stormy and infectious pop song that’s noisy enough to purge any lingering frustrations. “This is the song you scream in your room after a long day,” Lucia describes. “It’s melodrama at its core — the feeling of the world ending only to realize you’re crying over nothing.”

You wouldn’t care if I went and disappeared
You wouldn’t care if I drowned myself in tears

miss girl world comes out on August 19th and you can preorder it from the Maya Lucia Bandcamp page.

 Mol Sullivan – Deep End Dive

Cincinnati‘s Mol Sullivan has made a name over the last decade making earnest and unflinchingly intimate songs leavened with pop melodies and confident vocals. Latest single ‘Deep End Dive’ is described as “a reflection of a regretful approach to a loved one,” and combines difficult soul searching with feelings of growth and hope. Born of Sullivan’s recent sobriety, the track displays a genuine sense of self-reflection and reconciliation, a clear mind piercing the storm clouds of the past and allowing more positive progress into the future.

‘Deep End Dive’ is out now and available from the Mol Sullivan Bandcamp page.

Prudence – Waste Some Time

The recording project of Sydney‘s Tom Crandles, Prudence makes what we’ve described previously as “human traits wrapped up in a gloominess as grey and chilly as the Cold War-era of the post-punk and new wave it references, revealed only in the intermittent illuminations made so prominent by the twilit tones.” New album Negatives looks to continue the aesthetic, a fitting soundtrack for the troubled world in which it was created. Lead single ‘Waste Some Time’ introduces the shadowy and conflicted atmosphere, a lean and linear pop song that’s all sinew and forward motion, forgoing the repetition of the conventional verse-chorus structure.

Negatives is out on 26th August and you can pre-order it now from the Prudence Bandcamp page.

Snake Lips – Braindead II

After a series of releases on Repeating Cloud and Totally Real Records, Portland, Maine’s Snake Lips have unveiled brand new record Happy Anxious. The title feels like the perfect fit for their hectic sound, lead Cody Mitchell’s vocals delivered with both volatility and wry humour, as though strung out between hope and despair and choosing to ride the instability. Single ‘Braindead II’ sets the mood, its lo-fi punk style barrelling along with real pace as Mitchell shouts, shrieks and smirks about the hand life has dealt him.

Zack Keim – Canyon

Pittsburgh singer-songwriter Zack Keim cut his teeth in music from an early age, forming bands from his early teens and touring as the frontperson of punk outfit Nox Boys when only sixteen. But, despite the band’s success, his creativity wasn’t satisfied, turning to solo work as a new outlet with the 2017 album First Step. New single ‘Canyon’ represents Keim’s first solo work since, emerging from some major life changes as well as the usual global turmoil with a newfound freshness and confidence. A bright-eyed refusal to back down from his passions and will to create, and perhaps the first time he has really started to develop his artistic voice.

The post Weekly Listening: August 2022 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Cold Beat – Mother

Out via DFA Records, the latest Cold Beat album, Mother, came into existence when front person Hannah Lew was expecting a child. “I found myself trying to describe our earth to a new human who had never been here,” they explain, submerged in what is undoubtedly a pessimistic age. “It was a bleak year to be pregnant, but I was simultaneously filled with so much love and hope at the same time.”

Mother is Lew’s attempt to communicate these conflicting sensations. Shot through with a binding sense of energy, the record channels the like of Au Revoir Simone in its otherworldly beauty, synths and guitars offering sparkling yet melancholic soundscapes that are constantly shifting. That said, the songs actively work against the sense of doom of our age, unearthing light amid the darkness, and finding a sense of hope and perseverance in the cycle of life.

MAITA – A Beast

Inspired by the songwriters of 2000s indie rock, from Conor Oberst to Lesley Feist, Maria Maita-Keppeler found her own artistic vision in the amalgamation of reality and poetry. The result is songs both honest and emotionally resonant, driven by the urge to communicate more deeply. “For me, songwriting comes from a place of wanting to find the truth in life,” Maita-Keppeler explains. “Sometimes that truth is so complex and nuanced that it requires a whole song to explain.”

Recording under the moniker MAITA, the Oregon-based musician works with such ideas in mind, crafting emotionally resonant tracks that look to convey what might otherwise be left unsaid. New single ‘A Beast’ is a superb example, drawing the listener in with the gentle lilt of the opening before plunging you headlong into the cold rush of the chorus. However, MAITA has a firm grip of your shoulders, and pulls you out for breath before immersing you once more.

Best Wishes will be released via Kill Rock Stars on the 3rd April and you can pre-order it now from the MAITA Bandcamp page.

Orpine – Sondern

Orpine is UK duo Eleanor Rudge and Oliver Catt, self-described migratory birds “singing in harmony 300 miles removed.” The pair had spent time together in the past, lending their talents to various bands and records, yet fell out of touch for several years before Rudge eventually reached out once more. A trip to Black Hill in the Scottish Borders entailed, and a four day writing period where the collaboration truly began.

The result was Grown Ungrown, a full-length album to be released this May on Heist or Hit. Forgoing the trappings of contemporary life, the album is a celebration of the natural and organic—tapping into the great rhythms of nature so as to create a space in which their own emotions can ebb and flow. Lead single ‘Sodern’ is a great example, a song ostensibly about loss and mourning that nevertheless finds the time to cycle through various moods and states. A seasonal song that finds not only comfort in the patterns of life, but something like awe.

Cold ice water covering my head
And a long, hard winter breaking whatever’s left
And black coal burning, warming my legs
And my old, lone island, sinking for itself

Grown Ungrown is out via Heist or Hit on the 15th May and you find Orpine on Bandcamp.

Alli Millstein – Smoke in Her Eyes

Combining folk and rock sensibilities and driven by an impressive vocal range, the music of Brooklyn songwriter Alli Millstein is an evocative trip through the emotions and vulnerabilities of modern life. New EP Psychic Distance represents an authentic and idiosyncratic experience, drawing as much on classic country rock as contemporaries such as Lucy Dacus, and capable of both urgency and dreamy patience.

Latest single ‘Smoke in Her Eyes’ is firmly in the latter camp. A slow ballad of lazy saxophone and unfurling lyrics, the song brings to mind the moving conversational power of Frederick Squire, Millstein possessing the confidence to lean into the expansive half-paced style.

There is a flame burning all day
too hot to touch it
There is a name on every page
too shy to say it

she’s on the tip of my tongue
and the skin of my hands
I sleep in her waves
and live on her land

Chase Weinacht – Leap Day

Best known as the singer of Austin band Marmalakes, Chase Weinacht records solo under his own name, and has teamed up with the ever-reliable Keeled Scales to release a brand new single, ‘Leap Day’. In contrast with the slick polish of the Marmalakes sound, Weinacht’s solo work is far more individual and textured, refusing the urge to iron out every kink or answer every question.

Such a sense of uncertainty marks ‘Leap Day’. The song is “about how big and small New York feels when you’re there with the people you’ve known for years,” Weinacht explains, “but how you can feel like an imposter in that very familiar person’s very unfamiliar-to-you world, like you can’t understand how they are so in their element in a place that feels so different from the space where you made the initial connection.” Chase Weinacht is not writing perfect answers to every ambiguity but mapping their shapes, making them known so that the common humanity there might be teased to the surface.

On a rooftop in Bushwick at 5am
I couldn’t look at you
Without almost leaning in
And if we’d been alone
I’d have had no control
but if we’d never met up
How would I have ever known

V.V. Lightbody – If It’s Not Me

Back in May last year, we wrote about ‘Babe, Honestly‘, a single by Chicago’s V.V. Lightbody on Acrophase Records. The song has a “surreal, constantly-shifting atmosphere that subverts and surpasses the genre conventions,” we wrote, noting the duality between the “delicate and hospitable sound masking a colder, more vicious tone.” Again working with Acrophase, Vivian McConnell and co. are back with a brand new full-length album, Make a Shrine or Burn It, to be released this May.

Lead single ‘If It’s Not Me’ serves as our introduction to the record. Although there might be an ambiguous space between the soft, warm sound and the lyrical themes, the bite of the previous single is replaced by something altogether more conciliatory. For rather than anger or jealousy, the song attempts to make peace with an ex and their new flame, viewing the ‘other woman’ not as some poisonous figure but a fellow human being. Treating this person “with respect and dignity,” McConnell explains, is “an important step for healing and one’s sanity.”

Make A Shrine Or Burn It will be released on the 1st May via Acrophase Records.

Grizzly Coast – Forever

Writing last year about the single ‘Half-Light Boy‘, we described the music of Alannah Kavanagh’s Grizzly Coast as “vivid […] heartbroken rock,” the song “operating within the liminal space between clinging to and moving on from someone who was once important […] a cathartic detailing of the profoundly wounding experience of another’s selfishness.”

A brand new Grizzly Coast single has just been released, and the song builds upon this style. Finding harmony between thoughtful lyricism and instrumental immediacy, ‘Forever’ is dream pop in its most potent form. The haziness of the genre is present but not overpowering, Kavanagh’s vocals cutting through the velvet tones in a forthright, confrontational manner. The result is something of a subversion of the usual conventions, a fight against the false romanticism of longing and loneliness.

Grizzly Coast is releasing her debut EP this spring, so be sure to follow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more news.

Foreign Fields – Rose Colored

Hailing from Wisconsin, Foreign Fields have been crafting some of the most evocative folk music of recent years, starting with their debut record in 2012. Indebted to both the natural world and the human experience, the songs of Eric Hillman and Brian Holl have always carried a quiet grandness, melancholy and wonder wound tight into soundscapes both lonely and affirming.

Brand new album The Beauty of Survival looks set to continue this style, holding up small pockets of human warmth against the cold. Latest single ‘Rose Colored’ displays this with its fittingly moving sound. A song “about contentment and the paths we take to reach it,” the song looks into the past for answers about the present. “It is probably the most autobiographical song on the record that closely follows our path and journey in making this record.”

Merpire – Heavy Feeling

Recording as Merpire, Melbourne’s Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt released her debut EP Endless Chatter back in 2018, a record that introduced her distinctive brand of urgent pop emotion. Leading up to an as of yet unannounced debut album, a series of singles followed that saw the sound evolve and grow. As our friends over at Swell Tone put it: “Building from acoustic beginnings, [Merpire] has developed a sound that maintains her songwriting’s signature punch of familiarity but ignites it with unexpected textures and tones to create her own mystical sonic world.”

Based around experiences of anxiety and discomfort, latest single ‘Heavy Feeling’ is a good view into the world Merpire is creating. Rich, affirming and confident, a steely-eyed glare into the face of one’s demons in the hope that they might just blink. “I write music to get those thoughts out of my head so that they seem like less of a reality I’ve created and more just thoughts that will pass,” Atkinson-Howatt explains. “This song is more straight-up lyrically, melodically, production-wise than previous releases. Straight to the point of ‘anxiety is shit so I’m going to write a loud, strummy song to get it out’.”

The debut Merpire album is on the horizon, so be sure to follow on Facebook and Instagram for further updates.

Minor Powers – Wound Like Me

Minor Powers is duo Megan Lightell and Derek Greene, partners from the Appalachian foothills who combine mountain music with indie rock to produce a bittersweet sound perfectly positioned to explore the age old themes of love and loss. Album Stones We Keep is a collection of such tracks, staying true to folk influences while adding newly emotive edges. As the Minor Powers website explains, the songs are “haunted by the past while grasping at the ephemeral nature of the present […] search[ing] for the meaning of memories and second chances.”

Single ‘Wound Like Me’ is the perfect example. The song “explores what life is without the one that chose another,” the band explain, as well as “the regret that follows.” But rather than the self-pity and melodrama of many a break-up record, Minor Powers offer something far more poignant. Embedded in the organic world, loss and longing are presented as another of nature’s cycles, persistent features of being alive.

Jordana – Crunch

The recording moniker of Wichita’s Jordana Nye, Jordana put out the record Classical Notions Of Happiness last year to some pretty impressive acclaim. Teaming up with Grand Jury Music, this March sees the re-release of that record, giving those who missed it the first time around the perfect opportunity to right the mistake and fall for Jordana’s distinctive brand of indie pop.

Despite being the closing track, latest single ‘Crunch’ is as good a place to start as any. Introducing Jordana’s knack for taking relatable vignettes and twisting them into evocative, layered weirdness, the track highlights how Nye masks her clever and often cutting writing within deceptively simple scenarios. “Crunch is a feeling of an overbearing want for validation from someone and getting the cold shoulder from them,” Nye explains. “The song starts out with the confidence in knowing this person could possibly notice you, and ends in anger and frustration seeing that they ignored you, established by a distorted guitar solo.“

Laveda – Ghost

Regular readers of VSF will recognise Laveda, the Albany duo of Jake Brooks and Ali Genevich, after we covered several releases in the past, including single ‘If Only (You Said No)’ back in November. Unbeknown to us, the song was actually part of the band’s forthcoming debut record, What Happens After, set for release this spring on Color Station.

Laveda used new single ‘Ghost’ to make the announcement. “It was the song that invented our sound,” Genevich explains. “If we had never written it I don’t think the rest of the record would sound the way that it does. It felt obvious and just right to make it the first track on the LP because it laid the foundation for all our other songs.” As we’ve come to expect, the song packs a real punch, setting up What Happens After to be one of the most anticipated dream rock albums of 2020.

Thanks for stopping on by for Vol. 33! Be sure to check out the Reviews and Previews sections for more in-depth writing, and do let us know what you’ve been listening to on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

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