“I wrote this song after a significant breakup,” Lady Dan explains. “A friend was trying to comfort me by telling me the breakup was due to the placement of the moon and stars. All I could think in that moment was, ‘If this is true, then fuck the moon and fuck the stars.'” The song is as irascible and brooding as this description suggests, from the vehement spit of the opening line (“fuck the moon and fuck the stars”) to the slow yearning of the middle section.

But there is an arc to the track, a sense of change across its run, something gained via the central admission of the song. “Regardless of astrology,” Lady Dan continues, “breakups suck and they can just happen because they happened, not for any cosmic reason or otherwise.” Acknowledging this help push the song beyond its bitterness into a cathartic climax, the racing rhythm lifting the very point of breaking before flattening out into something like clarity. “And if I never left,” the final line concludes, “I’d be feeling a lot worse than I do right now.”

The post Lady Dan – Fuck the Stars appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Buckskin, the debut album by Cherokee Rose was recorded in the early 90s thanks to a connection to a session engineer at Prince’s Paisley Park Studios. But limited to a small cassette run, which was sold to fans at shows in 1993, the album never achieved the widespread success it deserved. Follow-up To All the Wild Horses was better supported, particularly on reservation radio stations and Native cultural festivals, but still Rose’s music was held back from mainstream acclaim. As a result, both albums have existed in a kind of limbo in the years since, that is until they were discovered by Joe Steinhardt of Don Giovanni Records. He set about tracking down Cherokee Rose and approached her about reissuing the records. In celebration of the release, Cherokee Rose has unveiled a video for the title track of To All the Wild Horses, animated by Chicago artist and musician Izzy True. Check it out below:

To all the wild horses, may you run forever free
May you never feel the yoke of man
Upon your windswept mane
May you pound the heartbeat of the earth
Through canyons wild and tame

Buckskin and To All the Wild Horses are out now via Don Giovanni Records. Order them from the Cherokee Rose Bandcamp page.

Crumbsnatchers – Keep Your Honey

Led by frontman ‘Guetts’ Guetterman, Nashville‘s Crumbsnatchers have made their name with a moreish blend of pop, punk and rock, all tied together by Guetterman’s playful vocals. This was challenged on latest single ‘Keep Your Honey’ for Like You Mean It Records, when Guetterman developed vocal nodules on the day of recording. But it was always going to take more than that to stop them. Instead, he merely sang at a conspicuously lower vocal range, deviating from the usual Crumbsnatchers style but losing none of the spirit in its sinuous, sensual sound

‘Keep Your Honey’ is out now via Like You Mean It Records.

The Dead Tongues – Little Lies

April sees the release of Dust, the fifth record from Ryan Gustafson’s The Dead Tongues project, though it could easily have been very different. Disillusioned with the identity he had built as a musician, Gustafson was keen to purge all his old material from his life and even change his name, though a chance flick through an old notebook directed him to parts of his past selves he was not so ready to lose. Dust emerged from this moment, written with a newfound sense of freedom and fun, recorded in just nine days. Latest single ‘Little Lies’ captures both the loneliness of an identity crisis and the affirming momentum granted when leaning into change.

It’s all the same
No matter what you do
It’s all the same
Whether not it’s true
It’s all the same
When you’re talking to
Someone in your mind
The whole night through

Jenny Berkel – Kaleidoscope

“A communication intimate in tone but fully appreciative of the vastness within a person.” That’s how we described ‘You Think You’re Like the Rain’ from Jenny Berkel‘s upcoming album These Are the Sounds Left from Leaving on Outside Music. The latest single from the Canadian poet and songwriter is no less evocative. As the title suggests, ‘Kaleidoscope’ pitches the listener into a disorientating accumulation of information, using a personal instance of manipulation to evoke the wider erosion of truth in the contemporary age.

Jo Schornikow – Lose Yr Love

Australian songwriter Jo Schornikow recently announced a new album, ALTAR on Keeled Scales. It’s her first new music since 2019’s Secret Weapon, a record we described as “something of a prayer, an album of tender words drawn from love and fear and tied in an awareness of time’s passing and the beauty of things,” and promises to continue her characteristically intimate and inventive songwriting.

Schornikow this week unveiled a video for the album’s second single, ‘Lose Yr Love’, a track which suggests the album will offer more than quiet beauty. It’s a lush folk pop song, sparkled with synths and an airy sense of possibility that belies its sombre subject matter. “‘Lose Yr Love’ grew from a real-life nightmare of losing someone,” Schornikow explains. “The song explores the fear before the fall-out, before finality. It’s a quick and awful spiral, but also a natural counterside of love.”

ALTAR will be released on 2nd May via Keeled Scales and you can preorder it now from the Jo Schornikow Bandcamp page.

John Roseboro – The Banquet

Last year, Haitian-American artist John Roseboro released his debut album, Human Nature. It introduced a distinctive style that draws inspiration from folk, bossa nova and jazzy lounge singer-songwriter material. Spirited music crafted from equal parts bright compassion and steadfast belief. Latest single ‘The Banquet’ is again informed by this rich fondness, breathing relief and joy into a fraught moment, emerging with a calm conviction as to what comes next.

You don’t have to live in fear anymore

Lady Dan – Not In Love

“I’d like to write a love song about anyone,” opens the latest single from Texas-based outfit Lady Dan. “The problem is I’m so angry all the time / and I’m not in love.” The song builds upon the mood established on last year’s record I Am a Prophet on Earth Libraries, probing into the complicated tangle of existence not with timid reluctance but fierce determination. The result is both stinging and affirming, seizing the wound in order to close it, or perhaps just to feel the pain.

Mila Webb – Lucky Nights

Ahead of an EP titled Lucky Nights, coming soon on Perpetual Doom, songwriter Mila Webb has unveiled the title track to introduce her lush and reflective brand of folk music. But for all of the warmth of the lap steel and melodies which comprise her classic sound, the music of Mila Webb is shaded by darkness too. “In the demos that became Lucky Nights, I was writing about the sort of restlessness and unfairness of being left wanting more when something dies,” she explains. “It’s everything to do with the passage of time and my attempts to cope with it.” I’m also coping with my feelings about watching the earth lose beauty as it tries to survive human destruction.” The single delves into this darkness, searching for any light within.

The Lucky Nights EP is out via Perpetual Doom later this year.

MXMS – Wave of Mutilation

Self-described ‘funeral pop’ duo MXMS (Me and My Shadow) consists of singer Ariel Levitan and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Dawson. Having initially operated with minimalist arrangements of piano and vocals, the New York pair gradually expanded their sound to a variety of instruments, though made sure to maintain the haunting spirit which informed their early work. Their most recent single, a cover of Pixies classic ‘Wave of Mutilation’ is a perfect example of this aesthetic. The widescreen sound rings with a clarity only possible in wide open space, as recordings of some other time seep through in the background.

‘Wave of Mutilation’ is out now and you can find out more from the MXMS website.

S. T. Manville – How To Belong

Back in October we wrote about How To Belong, an EP from UK songwriter S. T. Manville, and to book-end this period of his career, he has returned with a new single of the same name. “I’ve always been jealous of people that have a strong sense of heritage and identity,” Manville explains. “An infinity with a place or culture, I’ve never had that.” Unfurling with a melancholic patience, the wrestles with this feeling via the banal details of life on the road, Manville both mourning the home he doesn’t have and making peace with the situation as best he can. “I started writing this song when I woke up in a hotel one morning after playing a show, stupidly hungover and feeling like shit about everything,” he continues. “I realised I felt crappy because I was never in the same place for longer than a few days at a time.”

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runnner – eggshell

runnner is the project of Noah Weinman and Nate Lichtenberger, who make muic that they describe as “fus[ing] electronic and experimental elements into ragged, heart-on-your-sleeve folk-rock.” In May last year we premiered a video from their debut album Awash, and now the band are readying a follow-up EP entitled Fan On. In anticipation, runnner have released the first single, ‘eggshell’, a song that sees them inject a little lo-fi folk aesthetic into their bedroom pop. It’s something like the breezily reflective folk pop of Pinegrove meets the kitchen-based everyday introspection of early Trace Mountains. Lyrically the song is both smart and sad, probably the most affecting song you’ll hear about cooking eggs all year.

Stay tuned to the runnner Bandcamp page for news on the new EP.

Wy – Pavements

We wrote about ‘Gone Wild’ by Malmö’s Wy back in 2017, describing the track as “representing the sensation of being stuck in your own head, a vast lonely place that’s somehow claustrophobic too.” The track was taken from Okay, an album which existed within a great cloudy haze of atmosphere and emotion, though latest single ‘Pavements’ expands upon the record’s style and pushes into more urgent, aggressive territory. The evolution serves to increase the intensity and ferocity of the Wy sound, the insistent rhythm driving Ebba’s ominously threatening vocals and forthright lyrics.

‘Pavements’ is out now via Hybris.

Westkust – Swebeach

Based in Gothenburg, rock band Westkust have been quiet since the the release of Last Forever back in 2015, though this year will see that put right with a self-titled album with Run For Cover Records. Lead single ‘Swebeach’ gives an indication of what to expect, fun-filled garage rock as filtered through a shoegaze prism, Julia Bjernelind’s vocals emerging through the wall of noise with a sense of assurance and warmth, like a hand reaching out in the dark.

Merival – Sinner

Merival, the project led by Toronto’s Anna Horvath, make lush and emotive songs that combine self-searching introspection with slow-burning catharsis. Their latest single ‘Sinner’ is what Horvath describes as a song “about being caught between two places, one known and comfortable, and the other intoxicatingly new and impossible to avoid.” It combines the lyricism commonly associated with folk with sparse guitar arrangements and confident vocal delivery. The sense of grand emotion is heightened in the track’s second half as elegant strings weave onto the scene, proving that you don’t need to write a sad-sounding song to convey real feeling.

You can buy ‘Sinner’ from the Merival Bandcamp page.

community college – novocaine / karaoke

The side project of Horse Jumper of Love bassist John Margaris, community college are readying their debut album on Disposable America. Joined by his brother Dan on drums and fellow Horse Jumper Dimitri Giannopolous on bass, Margaris makes downbeat lo-fi pop songs that are nevertheless crunchy and catchy. The opening two tracks have been released into the wild early, and both ‘novocaine’ and ‘karaoke’ are short and moreish, the former feeling as numbed as the title suggests, while the latter has a bit more life, tentatively shambling towards glorious basement indie rock.

You can pre-order comco now from the Disposable America Bandcamp page.

Seamstress – Everything

New Jersey’s Gabriella Chavez met Charlie Sztyk in their local music scene, and the pair formed Seamstress, a band that take Chavez’s personal history of heartbreak and moulds it into songs that sweep and shift around a solid emotional core. Their latest single, ‘Everything’ is a case in point, a vulnerable admission of the difficulty of communication in trying times. Chavez’s vocals sound strong and still despite this sense of fragile yearning, resulting in the kind of sincere folk rock that Sharon van Etten has made her own.

I don’t wanna talk about it, anymore,
I don’t wanna talk about it

Tender Glue – Dear Peri

Tender Glue is Tom Gluewicki, born and raised in Poland but now residing in New York. ‘Dear Peri’ is a track from the latest Tender Glue album, Closet Leftovers, an achingly emotive song inspired by the death of a Polish climber on Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas. The Peri of the title is a ghost of local legend which protects the mountain, and the lyrics confront imagined details of the climber’s last moments as he succumbs to the will of the mountain. Built on an anchoring guitar line, the song sways with waves of atmospherics as Gluewicki’s vocals deliver his words with an intense melancholy.

Closet Leftovers is out now and available from the Tender Glue Bandcamp page.

Charlotte Cornfield – Andrew

Charlotte Cornfield is a singer-songwriter from Toronto. Her third LP, The Shape of Your Name, is on its way in the Spring, and is set to feature a stellar cast of collaborators, including Leif Vollebekk and Brendan Canning, Kevin Drew and Charles Spearin (all of Broken Social Scene). In anticipation of release, Cornfield has unveiled the record’s first single, ‘Andrew’. She describes the song as a “reminder to step back and look at the bigger picture instead of dwelling on the minutiae,” and says that it could be about a partner both platonic or romantic. The press release promises something contemplative and contemporary, funny and heart-wrenching, and Cornfield makes good on the pledge, creating a folk rock song that feels both spry and tender, a clear-eyed and confident confrontation with the truth of a situation.

The Shape of Your Name will be released on the 5th April via Outside Music’s new imprint Next Door Records.

Zelma Stone – Light Bulb Boy

Zelma Stone are from San Francisco, with lead Chloe Zelma joined by Haley Pan (bass), Jake Kissner (drums), Jewelz (keys) and Kevin Fielding (lead guitar). Citing Big Thief and Angel Olsen as major influences, the band have recently released their debut EP, Layla, which promises to “channel grief and pain into a dreamy soundscape of empowering arrangements and addictive melodies.” ‘Light Bulb Boy’ is the third track on that EP, a song that builds from mellow folk rock beginnings into something altogether more stirring.

Being here where things are breakable
I guess we’ve chosen this path
It’s a long familiar road now darling
and these seasons just keep on coming back

Field Medic – henna tattoo

We’ve been fans of Field Medic, aka Kevin Patrick, for a long time here at VSF, and have been pleased to watch his progress as he has made music his full-time endeavour. His latest album, fade into the dawn, is on the way via Run For Cover Records, a release that promises to blend “black humour and bold introspection” to find meaning in the mundane. As a taster, Field Medic has unveiled first single, ‘henna tattoo’, a characteristically sincere song recorded to 4-track tape recorder. Acoustic guitar is joined by Patrick’s earnest vocals and subtle beats from his drum machine, making for a track that lands at the folkier end of the bedroom pop spectrum.

fade into the dawn will be released on Run For Cover Records on 19th April, and you can pre-order it now from their website or Bandcamp page.

Shady Bug – Make it Up

The latest addition to the ranks of Exploding in Sound, Shady Bug are an indie rock band from St Louis. Their forthcoming album Lemon Lime is due to be released next month. The first single, ‘Make It Up’ is available to stream right now, and it’s immediately apparent that their sound feels right at home next to their new label mates. Lead Hannah Rainey says the song is about sharing Sprite with a crush, although the sweetness is offset somewhat by the chorus which covers worries both personal and what Rainey describes to Flood Magazine as “anxiety caused by the trees blooming early and dying in my neighborhood because of global warming.” The thrashing, cathartic finale helps too, proving that Shady Bug have the indie rock chops to support their fun songwriting.

Pre-order Lemon Lime now from the Exploding in Sound Bandcamp page and the Shady Bug Bandcamp page.

UV Rays – Flowerhead

Though originating as the solo project of Adrien DeFontaine, Brooklyn’s UV Rays soon grew into a four piece and found their groove as a raucous indie rock band. New single ‘Flowerhead’ serves as a great introduction for the uninitiated, driven forward by the drums and vocals of  Erica Warner, the guitars and bass surging behind with warm energy—like a shoegaze track as imagined by a power pop band, all melancholy blown away by the sheer momentum.

‘Flowerhead’ is taken from the band’s debut EP, Try and Begin, which is set for release on the 1st March, so keep an eye on the UV Rays Bandcamp page.

a. harlana – faces

Juno Roome leads a. harlana, a band that make gauzy and vaporous ambient pop songs with a raw and emotional edge. They have recently released an EP, ada belle, three tracks that shift and swirl with dreamy feeling, or as the press release accurately puts it, “elegaic, elegant, enigmatic and extra-good.” ‘Faces’ is the initial standout, a 7+ minute lesson in patience and atmosphere, lingering like tendrils of fog over sparkling guitar and lovelorn vocals. The overall aura is one of yearning, especially with the final line of “but i can’t seem to will your face next to mine.”

Okay Embrace – Phantom Text

We first featured David Schaefer’s Okay Embrace back in November when we premiered their single, ‘Moving’. “The delivery has a breathless quality,” we wrote of the track. “like the words of a person who has withheld their feelings for too long, the mounting pressure breaching some threshold and spewing forth in manic flow.” ‘Phantom Text’ is the second song from the release Moving/Improving, a song that builds from uncertain beginnings and kicks into a tighter rhythm. Again, the track builds into an increasingly pressing emotional state, bringing to mind the likes of Bright Eyes and Slaughter Beach, Dog in its ability to craft personal struggles into affirming, searching tunes.

Moving/Improving is available now from the Okay Embrace Bandcamp page.

Lady Dan – What Sanity

Working out of Texas but with roots in Birmingham, Alabama, Lady Dan makes music which is self-described as “Melancholic cowboy sounds you can cry in front of your cat to.” Taken from a forthcoming EP, ‘What Sanity’ takes this aesthetic and runs in the direction of unrequited love, detailing the soul-sucking sensation of falling for someone when they are indifferent to your very existence.

Bellows – What Can I Tell You About the World?

Recording as Bellows, Oliver Kalb has made his name as an interesting, ambitious songwriter that deals in heartfelt honesty. The Rose Gardener, his forth record that’s coming soon on Topshelf Records, looks set to continue the trend, stretching the limits of the bedroom pop genre and calling into question the use of such terms. Still, leads single ‘What Can I Tell You About the World?’ keeps things simple, a humble, touching folk song that comes complete with an intimate video from Richard Gin, setting the tone for an album that looks to address the poisonous culture of judgement and loneliness that marks the contemporary Western experience.

The Rose Gardener will be released on Topshelf Records on the 22nd February and you can get it on Bandcamp.

The This – The Strangest Ritual

Beginning life as a solo project of Evan Matthiesen, the ungoogleable Victoria, B.C. band THE THIS put out a debut EP back in 2017, and have since followed up with a series of single in preparation for a full length album. After the dejected weariness of ‘Casual Encounters’, the band are back with ‘The Strangest Ritual’, a frantic slice of punk rock that trades any hesitancy for frantic forward motion. As Matthiesen shouts over runaway instrumentation, you get the sense that the song is determined to have a good time despite whatever might be happening around it, as though fun and assured energy can be willed into existence with enough desire and dedication.

Bleeder – Rusted and Raw

Bleeder is the recording project of Shelby Smoak a writer and musician who focuses much of his attention on his experiences as a haemophiliac. His memoir, also titled Bleeder, was published by Michigan State University Press back in 2013, detailing the quest for life and love when suffering from haemophilia and HIV, with what Joanna Smith Rakoff described as “not just brutal honesty, but also with humour and grace.”

Bleeder the band emerged from the book’s ashes, looking to explore similar themes through a different form and tone. The second video in the outfit’s Singles Series, ‘Rusted and Raw’ takes the emotion, fear and loneliness of the memoir and weaves it into a wistfully retro brand of indie rock—once again breathing human life into a story of suffering and perseverance.

You can find all previous editions of Bright Sparks here, and why not check out our monthly roundup mixes?

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