Philly songwriter Alex Barkats is releasing new album Here we are in the garden later this summer via Ghost Mountain Records, and lead single and opening track ‘Jewels’ gives a window into what to expect from the release. A song of conflicted feelings, where the bright folk sound is shaded by something more melancholic. As though every good moment will also be shadowed by the understanding such a time can only be temporary. But Barkats works against this mood in an effort to carve out a more fulfilling frame of mind. “It’s about finding comfort in routine,” he explains. “Especially when the world is still crumbling. You have to go through so much trial and error to know how to build joy for yourself.”

Antonia Estelle – Don’t Know Why

Back in 2023 we wrote about the Edmonton-based songwriter Antonia Estelle with the EP Poser, describing how the title track embellished acoustic guitar with “syrup-heavy drums,” “gusts of distorted guitar,” and “vocals swaying with quiet intensity like a flickering flame” to explore “the strange balance of a dysfunctional relationship and the ultimate unknowability of selfhood.” Now based in Berlin to study Audio Production at Funkhaus, Estelle is gearing up to release her debut full length, and latest single ‘Don’t Know Why’ introduces the idiosyncratic yet intuitive nature of her work. A sleek pop song which embraces a sense of movement and flow. “My goal while creating this piece was to lean into freedom and playfulness,” Estelle explains. “In the past, I have relied heavily on words and finding meaning in music, but with this song, I wanted to let go of meaning and rather create something that made me want to move my body.”

Blaine Todd – Everyman

Based on Alameda, a former naval base and island in the San Francisco Bay, Blaine Todd is a folk artist in the wanderer tradition. The songwriter as a kind of outlaw perpetually passing through. New album Goodbye ‘Til I Do Good By You follows Todd on this journey, its authentic country sound having an eye on the stars as well as the road, its subtly cosmic style charged with equal parts melancholy and wry humour. “Well, my days go like smoke,” as he sings at the beginning of opener ‘Everyman’, I want to laugh but I choke / Must I be the punchline in some cosmic joke / While just around the bend / Another fire starts smoldering / It flummoxes my ass to no end.” What results is a jaunt to the heart of the human condition, as well as the picture of the beauty and cruelty of the world we’re made to walk.

I nearly found it just today
Held hysteria at bay
But all I can recall is my mother sayin:
Every man rides the horse that he deserves

Jack Gaby – Young Adult

Naarm / Melbourne-based songwriter Jack Gaby has made a name with a bright and jangly brand of indie pop, but there’s more to his work than sunbleached positivity. New single ‘Young Adult’ shows an altogether more contemplative dimension to Gaby’s sound, drifting with a slack rhythm as he considers the wonders and pitfalls of early adulthood. “I went through a period at this age when I was a mess,” as Gaby puts it. “This track is about the tumultuous emotions I experienced at the time.” But rather than present this headspace as a chaotic sound, the sluggish momentum makes for a different kind of experience. One suggestive of the real kicker of such periods, where it feels like you might never gather enough energy to escape the pull of negative feelings, and instead drift within their circular currents forever.

Las Nubes – Enredados (Misty’s Mix)

“Deals with the ways in which activism can be co-opted and exploited,” we wrote of ‘Pesada‘, the recent single from Las Nubes‘ new album Tormentas Malsanas, “the sound [as] tumultuous and hefty as you might expect for such a subject, taking no prisoners with its crushing weight.” With the album now out, the Miami, Florida duo have released one final single, ‘Enredados (Misty’s Mix)’. Not sacrificing one iota of the raucous spirit which marks the work of Ale Campos and Emile Milgrim, the song ramps up the rhythm underpinning the sound to offer something more energetic, grabbing the listener and pulling them along for the ride with all the uncompromising attitude they’ve made their own.

Mary Ocher – The Rubaiyat Medley

To say Mary Ocher’s latest album Your Guide to Revolution is ambitious in its intentions is to risk understatement. A kaleidoscopic and politically charged collection of songs which draws on Ocher’s childhood (born in Moscow to Jewish-Ukrainian parents before emigrating to Tel Aviv during the Gulf War) as a way into wider themes of resistance and civil disobedience. A huge array of styles and influences are utilised across the record, both to evoke the gamut of emotions triggered within the contemporary struggle and to ground the release within a wider history of such subversive art. A central part of the album is a series of three tracks which rework pieces by harpist Dorothy Ashby based on the Rubaiyat of Omar Khyyam, a triptych of songs which Ocher has collected into a short film which echoes The Color of Pomegranates by Sergei Parajanov. Watch it below:

Your Guide to Revolution is out now via the Underground Institute and available from Bandcamp.

Narwhals – Moor Fires

Based between Manchester and the West Yorkshire borough of Calderdale, Narwhals is an indie rock/shoegaze project led by singer-songwriter Jacob Patrick. Drawing on The North’s rich post-punk history, the Narwhals style combines needling guitar and dynamic percussion with Patrick’s signature deep and morose vocals to craft something that sounds big and rich and poignant. Nowhere is this more apparent than on new single ‘Moor Fires’, what the press release calls “a track about grief and heartbreak […] about rebirth and finding peace.” It displays everything that’s great about the Narwhals sound, somber and sonorous but full of energy. Perhaps most impressive is the composure and poise that sits at its centre like the tranquil eye of of a gigantic storm. Frequent collaborator Thē Jaffa also makes an appearance, their backing vocals bringing a lighter counterpoint to Patrick’s and thereby leavening the song as a whole.

Peiriant – Taflu Dŵr

With an experimental sound that draws on everything from folk and post-rock to classical and sound art, mid Wales duo Peiriant combine traditional and electronic styles with samples and found objects for semi-improvised pieces. What results is an almost sculptural approach to music, with Rose and Dan Linn-Pearl building out from a skeleton of an idea with layers of drone and dissonance. One which relies on the push and pull between the main components of violin and electric guitar. New single ‘Taflu Dŵr’ is the perfect introduction for the uninitiated, encapsulating both the detail of the Peiriant sound and the duo’s expert ability to utilise space.

Where’s Beth – Quiet

Writing of single ‘Wide Eyes’ back in March, we described how New York’s Where’s Beth channelled the likes of Sufjan Stevens and Connie Converse in embracing and “idiosyncratic style with conviction and grace to create a sense of authenticity.” Ahead of the debut Where’s Beth full-length Bone Broth, Sarabeth Weszely is back with new single ‘Quiet’. The song again uses a fond, intimate sound to explore wider themes. Written during a trip to Romania where she was struck by the low cost of living and wide open spaces in comparison to New York, the song charts the difficulties of urban living with a tangible warmth. “I was thinking about my relationship to land in the context of a competitive capitalist market (realizing how wild the cost of “air-space” in my home city was compared to the fertile and beautiful land I was spending a few dollars a day to live on),”  This song gives voice to a tension that is familiar to many people who choose to live in cities, whether for career goals or the intoxicating thrill of a crowd.”

Wishy – Triple Seven

With the release of Wishy‘s Triple Seven looming next month on Winspear, the  Indianapolis band have unveiled the title track to allow audiences to get a little more acquainted with the forthcoming full-length. A slice of lush dream pop which both pays homage to forebears likes The Cranberries and Cocteau Twins while fashioning the nineties-nostalgic sound into something entirely their own. “A little bit uncertain / I wasn’t really sure / I walked out in silence / I shut that door,” Nina Pitchkites sings in the opening, but the bright sound soon smothers any sense of doubt, instead offering an affirming if slightly wistful track to soundtrack your later summer evenings as the sun dips below the horizon.

Watch the video directed, filmed and edited by Haoyan of America below:

Triple Seven is out on the 16th August via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

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

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

Divorce Court – 140

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

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

East Forest x Peter Broderick – Landscape

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

Lisa/Liza – Held Together

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

Maruja – Kakistocracy

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

Knocknarea is out now and available on streaming services.

Michael Cormier-O’Leary – Letter From Alan

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

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

Mike Tod – The Coo Coo

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

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

O Slow – Two

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

Summersets – Afterall

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

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

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

Describing themselves as “a quixotic mix of American post-punk and ’80s post-hardcore,” East Vancouver Aversions combine heavyweight riffs, pounded percussion and acerbic vocals to comment on our contemporary moment. Loosely based on the visual essay About Face by graphic novelist Nate Powell, Aversions say ‘New Whip’ is a song about “how the impact of generational thinking shapes the people we become, and the beliefs and opinions we’ll go to any lengths to enforce…shin[ing] a light on how toxic masculinity is passed down like a gene.”

‘New Whip’ is out now via the Aversions Bandcamp page.

bedbugz – if i cried, we’d both drown

Back in June we wrote about Canterbury outfit bedbugz and their self-titled single on Tonetic Records. “With its upbeat rhythm and searching vocals, the title track is a bittersweet tale of young love,” we described, “while the b-side sets out further into shoegaze territory.” The debut bedbugz full-length all hail the goblin king! is out later this week, and lead single, ‘if i cried, we’d both drown’, shows how the band have knitted these styles into something of their own. A sound which owes a debt to both bedroom pop and indie rock without quite belonging to either, and offers a delightful blend of sincere emotion and noisy charm. Check out the video by Elliott Sirota-Gott and Tom Postgate below:

‘if i cried, we’d both drown’ is out now via Tonetic Records.

bmq – Spontaneity

Tokyo‘s bmq have been at work for fifteen years, though it is only now they are releasing their debut full-length album, Order, Spontaneity and the Body. Drawing inspiration from fields as diverse as post-punk, krautrock, ambient and US indie rock, the record feels like it utilises every month of this gestation period, weaving a finely honed style which constantly tests the line between control and volatility. Take single ‘Spontaneity’, which explores the tension between repetition and change with a simmering energy, unpredictable but always harnessed by an understated confidence. The sound of a band who have spent a long time working out what they want to say and how they want to say it.

Burs – Nearly

Back in September, Toronto‘s Burs released their latest album Holding Patterns, a record which blended various shades of indie, folk and dream pop to allow the quartet to explore a myriad of different moods and settings. What resulted was a rich and often ethereal collection of songs able to change with fluid ease, from the vast, spacious opener ‘The Year Now’ to the urgent ‘Lily’. But it is perhaps latest single ‘Nearly’ which best encapsulates the Burs style. The restrained acoustic intro heralding the considerable chemistry of their dual vocal style, the track slowly deepening with subtle layers of textures and warmth.

Once again I find myself awake inside a dream
Two of us and me, myself and I
Four on the floor, one in the door, a light
Out of purgatory darkly shines

Cat Clyde – Mystic Light

Next February sees the release of Down Rounder, the latest album from Ontario‘s Cat Clyde. Writing back in 2019 we described Clyde’s sound as encompassing “everything from folk and rock to blues and jazz, leading to a sound that swaggers with attitude and smoulders with smoky emotion, and lead single ‘Mystic Light’ suggests the new record builds upon these foundations to offer a fresh vision of the country style. One crafted from personal emotion but imbued with something more ancient and mysterious too. Watch the video directed by Laura-Lynn Petrick below:

Down Rounder is out on the 17th February and you can pre-order it now.

Caroline Strickland – Invoice

New York’s Caroline Strickland unveiled her debut single, ‘Invoice’, this month. A confessional track which pits deceptions and truths against one another, exploring the ways in which honesty can hurt the hardest, and lies hold small victories of their own. All set within a swirling moment of love persisting beyond a relationship, and a job with zero fulfilment or worth, Strickland’s vocals burning with a smoky intensity as she navigates both. “It makes you feel devastated, feel like letting go,” as Strickland’s own perceptive take puts it, “feel like California, feel like rock and roll.” Coming clean might be cathartic, but creating fictions might just be the best escape route.

Maybe with the extra cash
I’ll take a trip Ireland
Pretend my name is Marianne
play some music I can drown in
Remind myself it’s over
Standing on the streets of Sligo

Dignan Porch – Electric Threads

Led by South London’s Joe Walsh, Dignan Porch made a name across the 2010s with a distinctive blend of psych rock and fuzz pop, working with labels such as Captured Tracks and Art Is Hard along the way. With Walsh having now moved to Manchester, next February sees the release of a brand new album Electric Threads, this time a joint release by the stellar trio of Hidden Bay, Repeating Cloud and Safe Suburban Home Records. The title track gives a glimpse into the newest iteration of the project. A combination of earnest emotion and off-kilter playfulness which refuses to recognise any distinction between fun and melancholy.

Electric Threads is out on the 23rd February via Repeating Cloud, Hidden Bay and Safe Suburban Home Records and you can pre-order it now.

Lina K.O. – Two-Player Mode

Brooklyn-based artist Lina K.O. is gearing up to release new EP Earth Apple next month, and the latest single serves as a great introduction to her sound. Falling on the rockier side of what she herself describes as “digitally-infused melancholic indie,” the song combines Bridgers-esque indie folk with a grungy weight to achieve its delightfully ambiguous tone. Where doubt and assurance act as perfect counterbalances against one another, Lina K.O. singing with reflective wisdom even within the confusing immediacy of the moment. Check out the video by Mike White and Lina K.O herself below:

Earth Apple is out on the 13th January and you can pre-order it now.

Luke De-Sciscio – The Tourist

There are prolific songwriters and then there is Luke De-Sciscio. Reaching double figures of full-length albums at only thirty, De-Sciscio has consistently honed his work and challenged prior expectations, forever circling around that elusively perfect way in which to communicate what needs saying. Through a series of highs (e.g. being booked to support the likes of Cat Stevens and Jose Feliciano) and lows (the COVID-induced cancellation of said shows), he has not stopped in this search, and new album if one thing were different, nothing would be the same feels like the closest he’s yet come to reaching that mythical ideal. Take closer ‘The Tourist’, seven minutes plus of stark passion and poignance. The culmination of everything which has been before.

Niall Summerton – Human, Dying

You would be forgiven for taking a quick listen to the work of Leeds-based songwriter Niall Summerton and concluding his work to be that of warm, easy-going assurance. But as the name of new single ‘Human, Dying’ gives away, his work uses this welcoming richness as way into the weightier, darker themes of the human experience. With new album What Am I Made Of? coming soon via Tiny Library Records, the new song offers the perfect example of this style. Confronting the heaviest question of them all, Summerton threads anxieties around mortality into the textures of the everyday, and in doing so not only captures a compassionate view of the subject but also something of its pervasive, ever-present weight.

What Am I Made Of? will be release in April 2023 via Tiny Library Records.

Stella Rose – Angel

Following on from the success of debut single ‘Muddled Man’ a few weeks ago, New York-based singer, poet, and musician Stella Rose has shared brand new track, ‘Angel’, via Kro Records. After the insistent energy of the first single, ‘Angel’ offers an altogether more reflective tone, swapping out the electrified intensity for something slower and richer. What results is a strange ode to melancholy, exploring how sadness can serve as the shadow to highlight the brighter parts of life. The song comes with a video directed by Primordialfreaks, who explains how the film aimed to capture the light and dark of the song. “It’s a sad but also triumphant song, like a celebration of loss and loneliness and how the most difficult things can make life more pure in a strange sort of way.”

‘Angel’ is out now via Kro Records.

Sun Kin – I Know This One

We’ve written a fair bit about Kabir Kumar’s Sun Kin this year, from the upbeat pop of single ‘I Wanna Believe‘ to the deep, thematically rich ambient styles of painting whales part 1  and 2. Somewhere in the mix Kumar found the time to release another single, ‘I Know This One’, ironically a song about the creative frustrations which emerge when you set the bar too high and push every new piece to be a genre-bending prototype. Luckily, there’s an antidote to such a malady—dropping any notions of genius and appreciating the simple joys of life. Namely hanging out with your cat.

i’m always saying
how i can’t behave
right in front of you
there sits a bowl of your food
i poured in the morning
of this blessed day

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

Best Fern is the ambient pop collaboration between New York’s Alexia Avina and Montreal’s Nick Schofield. The pair met while in residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where they drew on the surrounding Rocky Mountain landscape to devise a style that sits in the ethereal middle ground between ambient and pop. The debut Best Fern album, Earth Then Air, releases early next year on Backward Music and Youngbloods, and lead single ‘Way Inside’ is an indicator of what is to come. A track at once soaring and earthy, the fecund mistiness eradicating any distinction between organic and dream matter. The song comes complete with a video directed & edited by Hugo Bernier. Watch it below:

Earth Then Air releases on 3^rd February via Youngbloods. Preorder it now via the Best Fern Bandcamp page.

CO-ED DORMS – Milk Drinker

Part of what they call the “Neo-Classical Post-Industrial Post-Punk Revival,” English four-piece CO-ED DORMS have shared new single ‘Milk Drinker’ as a statement of intent. A finely crafted track which grasps for a number of stylistic influences, the lush instrumentation held in line by almost marching percussion, while the near spoken-word vocals are sardonic and playful and wry.  Think Black Country, New Road fronted by Mark E. Smith, this time sponsored by Big Dairy. Drink the damn milk.

Cynthia Hamar – Where Your Love Lives

Back in June, we wrote about Alberta-born Métis singer-songwriter Cynthia Hamar, labelling single ‘Shaken’ as “a track which finds a balance between soulful confidence and poignant sadness, led by the kind of bitter assurance gained only from learning the hard way.” Again out via Neon Moon Records, latest track ‘Where Your Love Lives’ is no less mature and reflective in its tone, taking a nostalgic look at the past in all its bittersweet glory. Charting the things gained and lost along the way, and the slow change constantly unfolding. The song’s video furthers this excavation of bygone years, with director Korban Hamar and editor Jessica Lowe creating a collage of home videos from Hamar’s family collection.

‘Where Your Love Lives’ is out now via Neon Moon Records and you can listen in the usual places.

Dunebug – Still Dreaming

Now based in London, Dunebug is the project of Manchester-born Chi Limpiroj. Regular readers will be familiar with her work as we’ve covered a couple of singles in the last few years which, along with a self-titled EP released in 2019, have established a distinctively bittersweet lo-fi indie pop style. Now Dunebug has returned with a new single, ‘Still Dreaming’, the latest release ahead of a forthcoming debut album. Limpiroj describes ‘Still Dreaming’ as “a song about being afraid to sleep due to recurring nightmares of an abusive past lover,” but despite this heavy subject matter it’s presented as a surprisingly sweet laidback pop song. The track comes complete with a contradictorily bright video by Alyssa Mello, which you can check out below:

‘Still Dreaming’ is out now and available from the Dunebug Bandcamp page.

Esme White – Pearly Gate Crashers

Hailing from New York and now based in London, singer-songwriter Esme White started writing during the early months of the pandemic and has worked with Spiritual Records in Chalk Farm on new tracks. Single ‘Pearly Gate Crashers’ is a great introduction to White’s sound, an infectiously upbeat folk rock track with real narrative weight. God is real but heaven is closed, great crowds gathering at the gates demanding to be let in. Shady snakes in suits bribe angels for backdoor entries as old ladies threaten to burn the whole thing down, the rhythm building as a sense of desperation grows.

Yeah I may be human
but that’s not on me, that’s on you, man

‘Pearly Gate Crashers’ is out now. You can find Esme White on Instagram.

LIES – Camera Chimera

The new project of Mike and Nate Kinsella, LIES have won attention with a string of singles which combine beauty and strangeness into something fitting for the contemporary moment. Latest track ‘Camera Chimera’ further develops this style, an exploration of life online which starts out seductively mellow and soon morphs into something dark and unnerving. “It’s about not only feeling manipulated by others, but also being confronted with the reality and consequences of your own lies and manipulation,” Mike Kinsella explains, “and how that can mentally and emotionally cause one to spiral.” The song comes with a video directed by Rachel Cabbit of POND Creative which furthers these themes, amplifying the mood of shadowy mystery by printing and scanning frames to produce a distorted, lo-fi style.

‘Camera Chimera’ is out now via Polyvinyl Record Co. and available from the usual places.

Mizan K – Go

‘Go’ is the latest single from New York’s Mizan K, an effortless pop song that bubbles with quiet energy that she describes as a “four-minute fever-dream inspired by fragments of fantastical children’s novels.” Built on an infectious melody and adorned with quirky embellishments, the track is a strange, kaleidoscopic commentary on our hyperactive, money-focused world. As Mizan K goes on to explain: “A dozen celestial characters including myself, float in a space-casino and chase their fate in a speedy and unstable world. The singer (me) is a trickster, presenting glimmers of opportunity, then changing voices to relay worldly wisdom and warnings of failure. The song winds its way through a frantic universe while angling towards fun and optimism.”

My Politic – Cursing at the Night & the Morning

Next month, Nashville-based duo My Politic will release Missouri Folklore: Songs & Stories From Home, an album grounded in the landscape of the Ozark Mountains which looks to explore the nuanced and often conflicted identities of those who call Missouri home. “There are songs about judgment, existentialism, forgiveness, love, death, growing, and healing,” as Kaston Guffey explains. “It’s a lot of material focused on the nuance and mundanity, in some sense, of being a person.” Latest single ‘Cursing at the Night & the Morning’ captures this spirit of imperfection with a keen eye and careful charm, steeped in the wistful ache of all the best folk music but choosing to confront this nostalgia too.

What I know and what I’ve heard
Are different things I’m sure
But the differences all blur
Cuz time’s a warping glass

Siv Jakobsen x Ane Brun – Sun, Moon, Stars

With new album Gardening coming next January on The Nordic Mellow, Oslo songwriter Siv Jakobsen has unveiled latest single, ‘Sun, Moon Stars’. With Jakobsen joined by renowned Norwegian songwriter Ane Brun, the track weaves a plaintive mood scored with careful details and evocative harmonies. An ode to the people who stand steadfast through the worst moments, reliable points which allow us to navigate our own ways through. The song is “inspired by my least favourite month of the year and the heaviness I tend to feel during it,” as Jakobsen explains, “as well as the beauty and hope I’ve found in a companion that has the ability to pull me out of the dreariest corner of my mind, even during the darkest month of the year.”

Gardening is out on the 20th January via The Nordic Mellow.

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

The recording project of Boston‘s Doug Poppe, An Triangles works within a variety of styles to achieve its distinctively idiosyncratic sound. Think the emotion of Mount Eerie, the lo-fi energy of Pavement and Daniel Johnston-esque eccentricity. Ahead of debut album Triangular Life, Poppe has unveiled new single ‘Mother on You’. A slice of classic bummed-out bedroom pop which offers a glimpse into the inner child which drives the record’s curiosity and vulnerability. “And I know you got my bag / It’s got everything I have,” Poppe sings. “And I know you got my dues / It’s got everything I lose // I’ll call my mother on you.”

Blush Club – Ornamental Ponds

After the success of 2021 EP A Hill To Die On, Glasgow five-piece Blush Club are set to return later this year with a brand new EP, Ornamental Ponds. Ahead of the release, the band have unveiled the title track. It’s a song which adds a newfound catchiness to their hybrid pop/post-punk style, so while the leftfield jaunt and characteristically sardonic tone are still present, some of the frantic verbosity of the previous release is swapped for a slower, more confident flow. Which means we can now sing along with the cutting commentary on our rubbish-filled Anthropocene, pining for the sweet ignorance of the nineties.

Jacob Brodovsky – Night Baker

Winnipeg-based songwriter Jacob Brodovsky has shared brand new single, ‘Night Baker’, a character study of a figure facing long-hour loneliness amid the unseen ecosystem of a city at night. “The night baker leaves the lights on in the basement even though he never goes down there,” opens the song by way of introduction. “The night baker once a Christian now a Quaker leaves his shoes on when he walks down stairs.” Channelling the sincerity and wry humour of fellow Manitoban John K. Samson, Brodovsky presents the scene with equal parts playfulness and emotional resonance, our titular baker mocked by the sourdoughs and begged by the bagels as he pines after his lost love, the gluten-free flour asking if he is okay.

‘Night Baker’ is out now and available via various streaming services.

The Other Each Other – Heads

Apparently Joel Finch, frontman of Seattle punk rock outfit The Other Each Other, is not a real person. Their website has few details. There are no tour dates, no merch, no jazzy social media pages. Just a list of previous releases and the date of a forthcoming album, Mirror Memorials, coming later this summer. Single ‘Heads’ is the first taste of this new album, a conflicted track which struggles with the pandemic-era confinement while also appreciating the luxury of having a place to be stuck inside. Indeed the track has a twin, ‘Tails’, one of several count/counterpoint pairs on the record intended to more fully explore the nuances of living. “The truth is probably not just one perspective,” as Finch puts it, “but multiple.”

Mirror Memorials is out on the 19th August and you can find more info on their website.

Poolblood – twinkie

After releasing the EP Yummy back in 2019, Toronto-based artist Poolblood had only shared one single, ‘I’m Sorry’, a collaboration with Louie Short and Eliza Niemi. But signing to Next Door Records, this summer saw the first taste of a new phase of the Poolblood project with the single, ‘twinkie’. A rich and nostalgic sound lifting searching vocals, capturing a blend of fondness and uncertainty for the bittersweet summer croon we’re all craving. Check out the video directed and shot by Emma Cosgrove below:

‘twinkie’ is out now and available via the Poolblood Bandcamp page.

Pound Land – Bunker

Formed by lyricist Adam Stone (Future Bomb/Holy Ghost People) and multi-instrumentalist Nick Harris (Reverends of Destruction/ex-Dead Sea Apes), Pound Land is a self-described ‘kitchen-sink punk’ project based in Manchester. Their self-titled debut came out in 2020 on Misophonia Records, though Cruel Nature Recordings has recently put on Pound Land Plus, a repackaged version with extra material. Playing like The Fall meets Threads, new track ‘Bunker’ is as good an introduction to their pitch black style, a nine-minute noise punk behemoth ranting about dooms both future and present.

Thomas Stajcer – Building A Home (Yip Walla Wahoo)

Written on the back of a John Deere mower in Seaforth, NS, ‘Building a Home (Yip Walla Wahoo)’ is not the usual slice of American melancholy or heartbreak you might expect from a good old fashioned folk song. The latest release from Thomas Stajcer, the track instead celebrates life’s blessings, however big or small they might be, with the playful energy of John Prine or more recent compatriots like Doug Poole. The result is a lesson in looking forward in a genre that’s often all too ready to look back.

Tunnel – Lemonhead

The project of LA‘s Natasha Janfaza, Tunnel are readying the release of their debut EP, Vanilla on Washington DC label House of Joy. The record sees Janfaza joined by D Saperstein, Owen Wuerker and Fugazi drummer Brendan Cant, who come together to craft a sound that owes as much to 90s rock and alt pop as it does to contemporary acts like Snail Mail. ‘Lemonhead’ is the EP’s lead single, what the band describe as a “soft and cruel” song which introduces both the Tunnel sonic sensibility and their general sense of apathetic cool. Janfaza delivers her vocals with a sardonic edge (“Tell me the truth,” she sings in the opening line, “I’ll think you’re lying”), which transforms a tale of frustrated romance into something that feels fresh and raw.

Love is fine
Love is boring

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In anticipation, Munroe has released the EP’s first single. ‘Mirror’ is an impressive introduction, imbued with both self-confidence and a furious defiance, a song that explores personal insecurities, particularly around the pressures forced upon women and girls. “The track is about being pissed off by my own insecurity, basically,” Monroe tells She Makes Music. “It came from gaining some confidence, looking back on the ways I used to try and shrink myself to fit unrealistic ideals and expectations and feeling absolute rage at the fact I ever felt I had to do that.”

Built on insistent percussion and dynamic guitar, the song captures this complex emotion by sounding at once upbeat and angry, Munroe’s strong vocals whipping around with real feeling. It confronts the feelings Munroe felt in the past to conform to a series of equally unreasonable and unrealistic ideals, how she once aspired to be malleable according to what others wanted her to be. “I used to wish that I was made of clay,” she sings, “to be moved and moulded every day, to smooth and then to shrink away.”

The track comes complete with a video by Wigan-based AGAS Film, which plays on the central metaphor. It shows Munroe at the centre of a stuffy pottery class, until she starts making mischief and all hell breaks loose in glorious rebellion. Check it out below:

Our Heaviness is set for release on 8th May. Keep an eye on the Lindsay Munroe Facebook page for more.

Photo by Billy Holmes

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closure deals with loss, love, trust and trying to staying afloat in a confused world. An ode to standing out on a cliff and looking out over, thinking about the rocks below but turning around and going back home and putting your demons to bed.

The album kicks off with ‘I’ll Be True’, a track reassuringly familiar for those of us who’ve grown fond of gorgeous bully over the years—the lo-fi guitar and slapped drums supporting Crang’s signature vocals. But if there is a change it’s in the lyrics, which are wide-eyed and hopeful, a pledge to a loved one. “I’ll be true,” Crang sings, “I’ll be kind,” and despite how he still sounds burned out, it’s hard not to believe him.

There’s a glimmering jangle to ‘Gum’, although that doesn’t alleviate the sense of weariness that pervades the track. The crunchy guitar that opens ‘Patience’ is like a metaphor for the whole album, a balance between the positive and not, catchy but with shades of something else. The rest of the song follows suit, a stomping indie rocker that tries to blow away the cobwebs of anxiety and doubt in just under three minutes. It’s a song about being stuck in a difficult place, about fighting day-to-day in the hope of improvement. About, ultimately, patience.

gorgeous bully have always approached things with a kind of self-defeating resignation, what we’ve described previously as “music that doesn’t shy away from the pains and banalities of 21st century living, existing on the self-deprecating and misanthropic end of the spectrum. But somehow things remain catchy and fun.” closure is no dramatic departure from this, although there are definitely softer moments that shine through, the album maintaining a careful balance between lead-limbed ennui and a slow-burning sense that things are actually pretty okay.

‘Tripping’ is a good example, a song whose air of careful hope is tempered by a sense of self-sabotage, as Crang apes Oasis, singing “maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me, but I keep tripping up myself.” And although the title of ‘Infinite Sadness’ feels like false advertising as soon as it sweeps you up in its manic energy, it still contains lines like “it’s a long time waiting to die when you’re at home,” a sure sign that gorgeous bully aren’t giving up on bummed-out pop songs just yet.

As its name suggests, ‘Can’t Give You Up’ is a song about struggling to let go of a relationship, while closer ‘Without You’ is perhaps the most sincere song gorgeous bully has ever written, an earnest declaration of dependence.

As daft as it seems, you are everything
and I could not sleep
unless you are next to me
and I couldn’t live without you now

closure is out now on Breakfast Records, and you can get it via them or the gorgeous bully Bandcamp page.

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‘i can see’ throws us straight into gorgeous bully’s signature lo-fi pop. It’s catchy and fuzzy and reassuringly DIY, the perfect introduction to a band that’s been consistently making home-recorded pop gems for a while now. The chorus is the first of many which expresses discontent (“I can see a thousand places I would rather be”), buts it’s somehow heartening rather than miserable, an endearing trait that’s present across the entire album.

Lots of the songs are short and sharp, shots of a super-sweet mixture of punk sloppiness and pop sensibility. Take for example ‘in my defence’, a sub-two minute blast of slapped drums and catchy vocal lines, or ‘i can’t make it right’, a bummed out pop song that’s infectious despite its pessimistic tendencies, the wordless ooh’d chorus adding a dash of sunny garage pop.

“Days are such a drag
enough is all you have
I sit up all night
i can’t make it right”

‘Time’ is all surfy guitars that defy the sleep-encrusted lyrics, while ‘oh why’ is an anthem for the lonely kids, the stupidly catchy chorus of “oh why am I alone again? Oh why am I alone?” guaranteed to be in your head hours later. This is followed by the title track, which signals a change to Washboard Abs-style acoustic bedroom pop songs, the first of a few that presumably were to make up the great blue EP. The gloomy atmosphere takes over on these final tracks, gentle guitar gathering like dark rainclouds, the vocals soft and subdued. The vibe shows another side to gorgeous bully, stripping back the sardonic punk and the fun pop to uncover the disarmingly tender core, something perhaps most apparent in final track ‘in my life’:

“Always been a joke, never stayed afloat
in my life, and when I go you will be there
yeah you will be there waiting for me”

gorgeous bully make music that doesn’t shy away from the pains and banalities of 21st century living, existing on the self-deprecating and misanthropic end of the spectrum. But somehow things remain catchy and fun. They’re a band who understand the power of a catchy tune beneath lo-fi fuzz, who are able to make the weird kids feel great and dance around, at least for a little while.

You can get great blue now as a name-your-price download from the gorgeous bully Bandcamp page, or on a nicely designed cassette via Z Tapes.

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“it’s you
it’s only you
i need you now i know for sure
a dimmer switch, a shutting door
i can never dream of more
it’s you”

Then comes a strange interlude, ‘Wish You Were Here’, with dog bark percussion, before the pensive acoustic pop of ‘Clueless’. Final track ‘A Place in the Sun (Imagine, Don’t Even)’ segues back into peppy indie pop territory, complete with a menagerie of samples, snippets from Clueless and the joyful cheers and “yays!” of a group of delighted children.

You can get Greetings From on cassette or name-your-price download via the Z Tapes Bandcamp page.

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Get better demons on a name-your-price download via the Gorgeous Bully Bandcamp page.

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