Minneapolis has a rich heritage in energetic indie rock, so its great to see bands like The Dead Century carrying the flame onwards. First drafted during the pandemic but now equally relevant in light of the city’s occupation, latest single ‘Been Better’ wears its influences proudly, taking the raucousness of The Replacements and some of The Hold Steady‘s buoyant positivity and applying them to the less than positive present. The result, essentially a dispatch from a profoundly difficult time, is propulsive, impassioned and ultimately affirming in spite of everything. One, much like the people on the ground of its home city, willing to confront the gravity of the moment and fight for something better regardless of how far away that might seem.

‘Been Better’ is out now and available from the usual places.

figure eight – hummingbird

Back in 2024 we featured Bay Area outfit figure eight, describing how the project has evolved from the experimental noise project of duo Nash Rood and Abby Goeser into something far more developed, with single ‘1999 (cherry)’ from their self-titled EP highlighting the nuance and balance of the sound. “Twin threads of lightness and weight weave across the track into what appears to be the spirit of this new version of figure eight,” we wrote, “a band aware of the transcendent power available at both ends of the spectrum.” Now they are back with until the sun swallows the earth / hummingbird, a double single on Cherub Dream Records, and you only have to contrast the titles tracks to see the balance between heft and elegance remains. After the slow-burn expanse of ‘until the sun swallows the earth’, ‘hummingbird’ offers something more gauzy and restrained, the sound muted though no less full of atmosphere, and ultimately fulfilling its promise to spill over into something thunderous.

Griffin Brown – DRAW

“I need a hint, like a task, to check off and put behind me,” sings New York‘s Griffin Brown on ‘DRAW’, the first glimpse of his forthcoming album Begriffin. “But I don’t quite know what my success would guarantee.” This marbling of assurance and doubt not only runs through the lyrical aspect of the track, but the woozy sound itself. Brown evokes the feeling of starting something without knowing how it will end with a propulsive chorus that never seems to quite reach its natural conclusion. A joint release between Spread Way Out and Better Company Records, Begriffin itself progresses in such a manner.It is undeniably confident and marked by forward motion, yet unsure of its final destination. As though Brown knows what he needs to do and how to do it, just not what the end result might be.

Watch the video by Brown below:

Begriffen will be released on the 8th May via Spread Way Out and Better Company Records. Get it from Bandcamp.

Little Lungs – Dragonfruit

“Songs personal, compassionate and often affirming, driven by equal parts warmth and energy.” That’s how we described the work of Baltimore folk rock outfit Little Lungs back in February, single ‘The Heat’ introducing the band’s forthcoming album of the same name. “A typically emotive track build around [lead Leena] Rhodes’s vocals,” we wrote, “and the braid of tenderness and strength they are able to evoke.” With The Heat coming later this week, Little Lungs have shared new track ‘Dragonfruit’. An example of the more electronic dimension which exists on the record, the song opens like the soundtrack to long lost videogame but soon blossoms into something charged and sweeping, and again Rhodes’s delivery is placed centre stage. “Standing outside, the middle of fall / Dragonfruit vodka clenched in your palm,” she sings in a verse indicative of the striking image-led style of the track. “You met my eyes / I knew that you changed / I hated you then but I couldn’t escape.”

Watch the visualiser by Zack Willis with clips from Leena Rhodes below [WARNING: contains flashing, high-contrast imagery that may triggering to individuals with photosensitivity or epilepsy]:

The Heat will be released on 12th March. Get a copy from the Little Lungs Bandcamp page.

Lucy Liyou – Babygirl

“Possess[es] both a fragile minimalism and lush melodrama […] The sensation of watching a fond memory fade at the edges as the desire to return to its smallest details only grows.” So we wrote of Lucy Liyou‘s debut Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name back in 2025, an album that was both an exercise in musical invention and most personal of documents, a description that more than holds true for Liyou forthcoming new album, MR COBRA. A release described by label Orange Milk Records as “a semi-autobiographical solo theater-music piece […] that combines free-jazz, Korean folk opera, musique-concrète, 2000s era pop, text-to-speech recordings, film, comedy, and drag-inspired performance,” the record sees fury, frustration, love and yearning all swirl together with the extravagance and grace of the best stage show, allowing Liyou to explore ideas of transition and identity in ways otherwise out of reach. “I was really inspired by sounds and images that felt satisfyingly ‘false’ or “unclarifyingly” true, whatever that means,” she expands. “I was drawn to Cecil Taylor’s Unit Structures, my favorite drag queens in Los Angeles, who magically bombed every Monday, Ryan Trecartin’s A Family Finds Entertainment, Sunik Kim’s Potential, and so much more. I wanted frenzy that felt disembodying, so disembodying that this time of my life could conjure a laugh.” Check out single ‘Babygirl’ below:

Primula – Cobblestone

Do not be fooled by the title, Primula‘s latest EP Nothing New signals a fresh chapter for the Malmö/Stockholm-based outfit. Having made a name across the Swedish scene with a jazz-inflected sound, the new release sees the band bend more towards folk sensibilities, though without sacrificing the sense of collaboration and invention which made their earlier work so special. Single ‘Cobblestone’ serves as the ideal introduction. It’s a track daring enough to eschew the conventional structures of indie music in order to create a dynamic sound that evokes the nuances of being alive. “‘Cobblestone’ is about the difficult yet comforting realization that you’re just a small piece in a much bigger world,” the band explain. “There’s a freedom in not having to be so significant on your own. Even if you feel insignificant by yourself, you’re still an essential part of making something whole.”

Nothing New will be released later this year.

Stephen Becker – Bad Idea

Back in 2024, Stephen Becker released Middle Child Syndrome, an album we described as “an effort, at least in part, to rise above the mundane present, as though to be trapped within conventions is to be restricted by the same inability to communicate effectively that haunts our everyday lives.” Now Becker is set to return with new full-length Gravity Blanket, and the record is no less thoughtful or ambitious. It sees him sift through the ostensibly banal details of memories in order to excavate a deeper human meaning with an otherwise unsatisfying present. As with Middle Child Syndrome, the result is forthright and unguarded, willing to open itself up to vulnerability in order to make progress, as highlighted by opener and lead single ‘Bad Idea’. “‘Bad Idea’ is about a breakup I went through after seeing the ballet,” as Becker explains. “The haunting feeling of the dancers’ movements lingering in my mind, the sad-sweet taste of spiked lemonade on the train ride home. I was thinking about, and trying to manifest, change with a newfound determination to break free from unhealthy routines and patterns in life and in love.”

Watch the video directed by Haoyan of America below:

Gravity Blanket will be released on the 24th April and you can pre-order it now.

True Green – Bindi Sue

True Green, the project of Minneapolis songwriter Dan Hornsby, is named after “medieval nun Hildegard of Bingen’s idea of viriditas, and also a lawn care company.” This combination goes some way towards capturing the project’s style, which uses a laidback, often irreverent tone to tell stories with real feeling. Later this month, True Green will release sophomore album Hail Disaster, a record which, as its title suggests, explores “tragedies real and imagined”. New single ‘Bindi Sue’ is one last glimpse before the big day. A tribute to everyone’s favourite Aussie naturalist Steve Irwin, the song is wryly funny and genuinely poignant. It evokes both the loss felt by an entire generation following Irwin’s untimely death, and the joy of his good-natured relationship with the natural world. “He didn’t hunt them,” as the song begins, “they were his friends”.

Where’s Beth – Ache Is A Cricket In The Night

‘Ache Is A Cricket In The Night’ is the title track from the new record by Where’s Beth, the recording project of Seattle-based Sarabeth Weszely. The follow up to 2024 debut Bone Broth, the album “draw[s] on apparently mundane moments from every day life,” as we put it previously, “to chart the universal experiences of love, grief and longing,” building upon the style of its predecessor in the process. The album is now out, and the title track is an ideal entry point for those unfamiliar with the Where’s Beth project, looking for a place to dive in. “I can feel your heart beat like a candleflame / Fingers stretching out, flicker in the rain,” Weszely sings in the opening lines, immediately evoking the intimacy and compassion of the record. “Wind blows, I want to tell you it’s okay / To let in.” The rest of the track unfolds within the warmth of this beginning, a safe harbour from the outside world and its accumulation of difficulties, but importantly not a total escape. For, as the title suggests, Where’s Beth is not interested in blocking out sadness or suffering but rather creating enough distance that we might examine them in the context of everything else.

The post Weekly Listening: March 2026 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“A song which shows how the age-old themes of work, loss and responsibility are as much a facet of contemporary folk as any other era.” That’s how we described ‘Platform No. 12 (Old Friends)‘ last summer, the first taste of David James Allen‘s forthcoming album Potpurri Jubilation. The Prince Edward County, Ontario-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist “writes classic country songs,” as we continued, “full of aching longing, wistful reflection and undying hope, as well as a small cosmic twist,” and latest single ‘By Your Side’ further cements these sensibilities ahead of the album’s release later this year via Littleknown Records. “There’s something in the way that she loves me / that keeps me warm through the coolin’ of the night,” Allen sings in the opening lines, immediately pulling the listener into the warmth and fondness of the track. An ode to the safe harbour of a significant other, where calm might be found no matter how stormy the outside world might prove. Tune in and allow the pressures of work, money and self-doubt to dissolve, if only for a while.

Fugue State – We Are Lasting

The new collaborative project fronted by Northampton, MA-based composer, producer and engineer Dan Langa, Fugue State refuses the typical distinction between solo project and traditional ensemble. An outfit which treats collaboration as its own form of compositional methodology, Langa practising what the press release describes as “an obsessive cultivation of studio recordings with a rotating cast of musicians, transformed into spectral, unrecognizable forms.” Released to celebrate signing with Switch Hit Records, and featuring vocalist Maia Friedman (Dirty Projectors, Coco) and VSF fav Erika Dohi on piano, single ‘We Are Lasting’ provides our first glimpse into this new world. The style draws on Langa’s wealth of experience across music, film and multimedia, as well as the sensibilities of its collaborators, though also follows the direction the present moment suggested. “That improvisation became the foundation, and we slowly built everything on top of it,” as Langa describes. “This was the first track that really found its identity, and I often found comfort in it during the creative process—whether for inspiration or just a moment to breathe.”

Gia Margaret – Everyone Around Me Dancing

“A picture of solitude not as some lonely retreat but rather the path towards recognising the wider connection of things. That sweet dark warmth of the whole world.” That’s how we described Gia Margaret‘s 2023 album Romantic Piano, a collection of careful, considered compositions which held a kind of melancholic curiosity for its surroundings. Now Margaret is gearing up to release her much anticipated follow-up, an album titled Singing coming via Jagjaguwar this spring, and opening track and lead single ‘Everyone Around Me Dancing’ suggests a continuation of such themes. The record might be the first to properly feature vocals since 2018’s There’s Always Glimmer (the consequence of illness, as we covered when reviewing Mia Gargaret), but it is far from a simple reversion to a previous mode of working. Rather, Margaret considers every lesson learnt through the difficult process, the resonance of every person she has ever been. The vocals might have returned, but Singing understands something greater. The voice is only part of who we are. There are deeper ways of communicating.

Watch the video directed by Catherine LoMedico below:

Singing will be released on the 24th April via Jagjaguwar and you can pre-order it now.

Little Lungs – The Heat

Little Lungs is a Baltimore folk rock project led by songwriter Leena Rhodes. With Brendan Russell (bass), Eli Simms (drums), Ricky Schwarzenberg (guitar) and an assembly of other friends and collaborators in support, Rhodes creates soundscapes inherently intimate yet often sweeping too. Songs personal, compassionate and often affirming, driven by equal parts warmth and energy. Next month, Little Lungs will put out the full-length album The Heat, and Rhodes and co. have shared the title track to establish the mood and themes of the record. A typically emotive track build around Rhodes’s vocals and the braid of tenderness and strength they are able to evoke. “Face down against the bed frame / You woke to the fire alarm,” she sings, in an opening snapshot that captures the vulnerability on display throughout.

Mary Ocher – The Narrative (First Movement)

“Has roots in the early twentieth century, both in terms of the minimalist sensibilities and the overarching themes, but it is impossible to think of the intra-war period of the 1900s without hearing ominous echoes of the present day.” So we wrote of Mary Ocher‘s forthcoming album Weimar back in January. The challenging, politically-charged album was introduced by lead single ‘The Dance’ (what we called “a mournful dirge for that which is slipping through our fingers”). And now Ocher has shared taut, plaintive new single ‘The Narrative (First Movement)’. Though it is perhaps the video which will earn the most attention. The expressionist piece is by Boris Eldagsen, one of the first ‘reputable’ artists to explore the possibilities of AI who nevertheless carries a strictly critical approach to the nascent medium (back in 2023 Eldagsen refused the Sony World Photography Award after winning for an AI-generated image). Whether this self-awareness might justify the use of such artistically disheartening technology is still very much in question, and personally we’d query whether the video achieves anything which might be unobtainable via more organic means, but if nothing else it fits into Ocher’s overall project in its willingness to push into uncomfortable places and ask the audience to examine exactly how they feel.

Weimar will be released on 13th March and is available to preorder via Bandcamp.

Miserable chillers – Bikeman

“I’ll be the bike, man / the basket and the bell / the breath before I fell / Open skin up to the air / my mouth to taste the day.” So sings Miguel Gallego in the opening lines of ‘Bikeman’, the delightfully smooth and strange introduction to Miserable chillers‘ latest album, Innocent victims, coming soon via Baby Blue. The New York-based composer and artist has covered plenty of ground with the Miserable chillers project over the years, moving from devotional to danceable and back again, or else occupying both moods simultaneously. But the uniting spirit across all releases has been one of curiosity, a mood delivered in sleek, eighties-adjacent pop that allows Gallego to push into surreal territory without losing an anchor to real life. With its anthropomorphic bicycle, ‘Bikeman’ might be the perfect encapuslation of the Miserable chillers aesthetic, and one which whets appetites for the full release.

Natalie Jane Hill – Colors

Natalie Jane Hill‘s forthcoming record Hopeful Woman is one of our most eagerly anticipated releases of the first half of this year. A collections of ten modest but supremely assured songs that explore love in its many facets. Hot on the heels of ‘Never Left Me’ and ‘I Thought Love Meant’, Hill has unveiled a third track, ‘Colors’ another richly imagined but still down to earth rumination on romance. “Simply put, ‘Colors’ is a love song- specifically about the beginning period of falling in love with someone,” Hill describes. “But it’s also about having a better understanding on personal boundaries and not losing yourself entirely in the potential of something new. It’s being able to enjoy the colorfulness of it, while leaving space for the mystery, too.” The song has a fittingly Spring-like feel, tender like new green shoots and ripe with a glorious sense of possibility.

Old Man of the Woods – Edges of Pleasure

Taken from the album Tendrils, Old Man of the Woods‘ most recent single ‘Meditation’ was “a self-described  ‘breathy, minimal ritual'” as we wrote in 2025, “[a song] which performs its own form of transubstantiation, taking a desire which might otherwise appear absurd and changing it into something charged and devotional.” Miranda Elliott appears to have taken such a style to heart, because new album Cape Perpetua sees the Seattle-based artist embrace aesthetics both religious and ecological to push their ambient avant-pop into an increasingly sacred terrain. Elliott intends to release a track every week, building up to the full release in March, and opener and single ‘Edges of Pleasure’ highlights the meditative style. A song of swirling layers which draws on the choral accumulation of Gregorian chants to conjure something that’s at once otherworldly and fundamentally present.

Turner Cody – Recognize a Friend

In a present milieu where country songs are as likely to be about Disneyland and Pepsi as heartbreak and whiskey, St. Louis-based songwriter Turner Cody shows that the traditional and alt forms of the style can coexist. Out via Capitane Records, latest full-length Out for Blood has all the thematic concerns of the giants of the field, mining the American psyche to explore ideas of freedom and fate, individualism, sin and salvation in a way which would make Van Zandt proud. Yet, as songs like single ‘Recognize a Friend’ show, there’s a playfulness within his style too. An idiosyncrasy which, by way of Prine, allows Cody to sit as comfortably next to his alt-country contemporaries as the old masters. The narrative of the track is a familiar one. Ordinary man Billy finds himself gradually growing despondent as he drifts from youthful optimism into the doldrums of normal living. The personification of an entire demographic which finds itself slipping out of its countercultural pep.

Watch the video below, directed and shot by Cam Kennedy, with editing by Ben Chace, co-direction by Ben Chace and color grading by Thomas de Hemptinne:

Out For Blood is out now via Capitane Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The Yum Yum Tree – Shine

It has been nineteen years since Georgia-based indie rock outfit The Yum Yum Tree released their last album Paint By Numbers, a hiatus long enough to make even the most optimistic fans fear for the future of the project. After all, the band have other things to think about, not least lead Andy Gish who has spend over two decades as an ER nurse, as well as working in harm reduction. But good things come to those who wait, and this April will see The Yum Yum Tree return with brand new full-length Turn Down the Noise, an album which builds upon the foundations of its predecessor while proudly displaying the extra wisdom, self-awareness and emotional bravery which comes with near enough twenty years of living. Single ‘Shine’ embodies the spirit of the release, packing that nineties-flavoured indie rock punch while showing a newly unguarded, introspective personality. “Shine is about wanting something that doesn’t belong to you,” as Gish explains, “being able to sit with that and still wanting the best for them.” Watch the video directed by Katherine Lucas below:

Turn Down The Noise will be released on the 10th April and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

The post Weekly Listening: February 2026 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.