The entirety of Afterglades unfolds in this manner. A release as capable of tender emotion as it is scorching rage, and furthermore one unwilling to settle for half measures when the stakes of the moment are so high. Take latest single ‘Obsoloscenic’, written during the earlier days of the mass force feeding of AI, Meikle feeling understandably downbeat about a future. “This song came from trying to find a way to reckon with it, but still see hope through it,” Meikle explains. “It’s still a condemnation of humanity’s choices and our treatment of the earth and its creatures, but there is a through line of optimism in it somewhere. There’s just no other option than to be optimistic in my mind, naive and difficult as it may be.” But make no mistake, this is not an acquiescence to the false promises of the tech industry but something wider and deeper. As Meikle concludes: “Maybe there’s something beautiful about humankind relinquishing control of our machinations and reverting to some purer version of biological existence.”

As I’m watching that red sun a’rising
Beyond horizons
Brushing off a teary cheek
Guess there’s beauty in being obsolete

Watch a live version of the track recorded at Catherine North Studios in Hamilton and directed and edited by Cameron Veitch (Black Lake) below:

Afterglades is out now via Paper Bag Records and available from the Mappe Of Bandcamp page.

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“In my body / On my skin / In the cool October wind / You’re there.” So sings country girl on ‘miracle’, a brand new single out now via FADER Label. Following on from debut EP meet me at the fountain, a richly nostalgic release we described as “reflecting on the joys of a rose-tinted past, looking to preserve that sense of possibility and fun in the face of life’s inevitable progression,” the new track again offers an earnest if dusky sound which presents the on-set of autumn as something to be celebrated. As though, having been battered by a summer heat for months, the October winds promise to arrive as something of a balm, country girl’s trademark fondness transforming what might normally be considered a melancholic time into something to be savoured.

‘miracle’ is out now via FADER Label and available from the usual places.

Greg Freeman – Salesman

The word-of-mouth success of 2022 debut I Looked Out earned Burlington, Vermont-based artist Greg Freeman something of a cult following. His twangy style of indie rock, evocative songwriting and strong sense of place that reflects his home of the northeastern US won lots of fans, and expectations for his sophomore album Burnover, released last week via Canvasback Music and Transgressive Records have been sky high. A steady stream of solid singles, like the “assured and surprising verbose” ‘Curtain’ allayed any concerns of a sophomore slump, and final single ‘Salesman’ is further proof that Freeman is firing on all cylinders. What he describes as “technically a serious song about something sad,” it’s actually one of the record’s livelier tracks, recorded almost entirely live with Freeman’s touring band to capture a sense of immediate energy.

Home Videos – the devil’s credit score

Described as “a tape obsessed band of slackers,” Rochester’s Home Videos has evolved across its lifetime. Debut EP (the fittingly titled EP) featured nothing but two acoustic guitars, a four track recorder and a whole lot of tape hiss, though the project has gradually blossomed into a full band. New album Home Taping is Killing Music, recently released via Raincoated Records, shows just what this change means, Home Videos retaining the intimacy that marked their early material but now capable of far greater depth. A reimagining of a track from the prior EP, single ‘the devil’s credit score’ offers the perfect comparison. None of the texture or tenderness is lost, but where the original never puntured its fuzzy wrappings, this version of the song carries a tangible weight, the emo underpinnings of the Home Videos sound fully apparent as the song rises towards its big, cathartic climax.

Jacob Faurholt – Painfully Alone

The first single from his forthcoming self-titled new album, ‘Painfully Alone’ finds Danish songwriter Jacob Faurholt stripping things back to the bare bones. Ever prolific, Faurholt has been making music for decades, releasing twelve records under his own name alongside work with experimental project Crystal Shipsss and Danish language outlet Statisk Støj. But the new album sees him breaking new ground. Recorded in “the quiet corners of his home studio,” it finds him at his most restrained and vulnerable, resulting in what he describes as “an intimate portrait of existential dread, inner turmoil, and fragile love.” ‘Painfully Alone’ proves the perfect introduction, a stark and intimate affair that builds from plucked guitar and Faurholt’s solitary vocals into something almost romantic, as his wife adds her voice too and they sing together “Alone, with you.”

Jacob Faurholt will be released later this year. Keep an eye on his Bandcamp page for updates.

Lydia Luce – Quiet

Born in Fort Lauderdale and now based in Nashville via Boston and LA, Lydia Luce has been on something of a journey in life, though her forthcoming full-length Mammoth centres on a journey of a different kind. One, that is, out of suffering, charting the path of recovery from chronic pain and the hard-won bonds which came with it. Lead single ‘Quiet’ embodies the tenderness with which Luce takes on this challenge. A song all about the slow process of learning to not only tolerate silence but embrace its power within a noisy world. Be that finding healing in the stillness of nature or coming to appreciate the beauty of sitting in quiet with the people you love. Watch a performance of the track below, with Luce supported by Lockeland Strings to bring the track’s subtle power to life.

Mammoth will be released on the 30th October and you can pre-order it now.

Mappe Of – Terraforming Moons

We are inching closer to the release of Afterglades, the new record from Mappe Of (the project of Toronto singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tom Meikle). Following the weighty ‘A Scourge Laid Upon The Earth’, which we wrote about back in June, Meikle has unveiled another single ahead of the record’s September release date. Titled ‘Terraforming Moons’, it’s a song that takes very personal difficulties and sends them spinning into the cosmos, a gentle, folk-inflected indie pop song with an almost sci-fi twist. “A few years ago my partner got really sick,” Meikle explains. “I felt helpless, despite doing everything I could to make things better. I thought there was something romantic and terrifying about the idea of going as far as terraforming a planet to create the right conditions for a person you love to live.”

Ny Oh – Aperture

It is fair to say UK-born, NZ-raised and LA-based songwriter Ny Oh has travelled a lot across her life and career. Be it fronting jazz outfit Neon Gru, collaborating with the likes of Margo Price and Madison Cunningham or performing as part of Harry Styles’s band across stadium tours. But her new single ‘Aperture’ is all about coming home. Written in Aotearoa and developed with producer Jonathan Wilson (Father John Misty, Angel Olsen, Conor Oberst), the song unfurls with the distinctive mix of dreaminess and clarity that any place dear to the heart comes to possess. “I deserved a glove touch / Softness played it school yard rough,” Oh sings in one verse, balancing the allure of the familiar in all of its soft comfort and with a tactile level of detail. “Light flooded in / Gentle and warm / Reveal where I came from.” Watch the video by Victor Grossling and Anna Anderson below:

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

Patrick Shiroishi – Mountains that take wing

“An attempt to wrestle with [racism] as both a historical fact and contemporary shame, and furthermore one which confronts the impossibility of living in this world without participating in its ongoing function. Acknowledging that if the desire to eradicate another is something allowed into the world, then no aspect of a culture can be said to exist above or beyond it.” So we wrote of Forgetting is Violent, the new album from Patrick Shiroishi forthcoming next month via American Dreams Records. Lead single ‘There is no moment in my life in which this is not happening’ offered what we described as “a window into the poignant and evocative sound which results,” and new single ‘Mountains that take wing’ is every bit as striking as its predecessor, as Gemma Thompson (Savages) and Aaron Turner (SUMAC, ISIS) join Shiroishi to conjure a sound which ebbs and flows between fierce intensity and elegiac quiet.

Forgetting is Violent is out on the 19th September via American Dreams Records and you can pre-order it now from the Patrick Shiroishi Bandcamp page.

Pickle Darling – Congratulations Champion

We have written about Pickle Darling a couple of times in recent months, songs which heralded a new era for Aotearoa/New Zealand-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Lukas Mayo. First the Robyn, Cher and Madonna-inspired pop gem ‘Massive Everything’, what we called “a love song with all the complications left in,” then the sprawling ‘Human Bean Instruction Manual‘. “A track perhaps not direct in terms of style,” we wrote, “but every bit as forthright as its predecessor when it comes to the message it carries,” urging us to stand together against the multitude of threats which haunt our present moment. With the album’s release via Father/Daughter Records a matter of weeks away, Pickle Darling is back with ‘Congratulations Champion’, a sub-ninety-second single which might sit at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of runtime yet nevertheless packs an equal emotional punch. A collage of lines collected from Mayo’s phone, the song pieces together incomplete, ostensibly mismatched thoughts into a satisfying whole. “An Oscar for Jane Campion / I found a note written in crumbs inside a biscuit tin,” as one couplet goes. Or the final verse, which sums up the strange, playful and completely sincere style of Bots as a whole:

You know i’m gonna love you still
Like black mould loves the window sill
Like oceans love an oil spill
Like ducks towards an air rifle

Shabason, Krgovich, Tenniscoats – Departed Bird

“A snapshot of a group of musicians pitched together for a short window of time, subject to the small moments of chance and happenstance and all the more special for it.” That’s how we described Wao, the forthcoming album by Shabason, Krgovich, Tenniscoats back in July, writing of how the outfit—Joseph Shabason, Nicholas Krgovich and Saya and Takashi Ueno of Tenniscoats—embrace ephemerality and imperfection. With the album set for release at the end of the week via Western Vinyl, the quartet have shared new single ‘Departed Bird’. The opening track of the record which highlights the mix of melancholy and magic which marks a release able to conjure wonder at the simplest of things.

Watch the visualizer below, shot at at Guggenheim House in Kobe, Japan:

Wao will be released on the 29th August via Western Vinyl and you can pre-order it now.

Silver Synthetic – Happy Ever After

Back in March, Silver Synthetic released their second full-length Rosalie on Curation Records, an album which saw the New Orleans outfit push the self-described ‘Home Fi’ style of their debut (a self-titled LP released with Third Man Records in 2021) towards the full richness and confidence of classic indie rock. The label had wanted the specific song ‘Happy Ever After’ to be the lead single, though the band themselves feared the track was something of an outlier and ended up not featuring it on the record at all. Whether or not that was an error, you can now decide for yourself, because fast forward several months Silver Synthetic have released the track as part of a double single, Happy Ever After / Say The Wrong Word. Charged with the same sunny swagger that marked Rosalie, ‘Happy Ever After’ couldn’t have been timed better, the peppy rhythms, smooth delivery and slight pysch wooze combining into the ideal soundtrack to which to milk these last weeks of summer.

SQORE – INTERNAL///VS.EXTERNAL[forces]

Recording under the moniker SQORE, New York-based producer, multi-instrumentalist and sound artist Em Sgouros blends field recordings with synthesized sounds to create small worlds of their own. Last week saw the release of reGENERATION, the sophomore SQORE EP, via Ambient Pasta, a collection of three tracks they say “explore the struggle of generating a new reality within yourself in the midst of fear and anger and ask as humans, ‘what are we capable of?'” Centrepiece ‘INTERNAL///VS.EXTERNAL[forces]’ is a good place to start, a song which sees field samples and drones play across waves of digital strings and flourishing arpeggios, resulting in something that feels part organic and part virtual. The track confronts fear and the strangling grip it can hold on both a personal and societal level, offering a sense of meditative understanding as a path towards joy and the regeneration of the record’s title.

The post Weekly Listening: August 2025 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Described as “an interdisciplinary artist and practitioner of earth-reverent skills and philosophies,” Fletcher Tucker is an artist looking to further his connection to the natural world, and new album Kin takes this as far as ever. Tucker’s distinctive animistic verse is supported by an array of breathing instruments (Swedish bagpipes, pump organ, elder and bamboo flutes, Mellotron saxophone and flute tapes), as well as guests including Chuck Johnson (Western Vinyl), Mariam Wallentin (Fire! Orchestra), Spencer Owen and Sean Smith (LFZ). Together they conjure soundscapes able to summon the spirit of the natural world and rekindle its latent magic. Following the lineage of Hildegard von Bingen and inspired by the experience of a white-out blizzard in the Northern Sierra mountains, latest single ‘To Light a Fire’ is the perfect example. The one and only Phil Elverum adds percussion to a song which embodies the stratified layers of time and place which constitute the record.

Watch the video shot by Fletcher Tucker on Esselen land in Big Sur, California below:

Kin will be released on the 15th August via Gnome Life Records and you can pre-order it now.

Fortitude Valley – Oceans Apart

“A track which finds [Laura] Kovac addressing her younger self, delving into the person she was before and during her move from Brisbane to the UK, and how the competing desires for home and escape never really go away.” So we wrote of ‘Sunshine State‘, the lead single from Fortitude Valley‘s forthcoming album Part Of The Problem, Baby later this summer on Specialist Subject Records. Following subsequent single ‘Video (Right There With You)‘, Fortitude Valley are back with ‘Oceans Apart’. Taking its title from Brisbane rock royalty The Go-Betweens, the song again confronts the move from Australia and the conflicted emotions which accompanied it. “Crossing my heart / Oceans apart,” as Kovac sings in the refrain. “Trying to make it on my own,”

Laughter Lines – The Right Way To Pray

Laughter Lines, the recording moniker of South California musician David Giali, has just released a new split with neighbour and collaborator Jimmy Brown, AKA JIMMERS. Appropriately titled Shared Spaces, the EP not only introduces the two projects but the underlying friendship which bolsters their sounds, and single ‘The Right Way To Pray’ shows the kind of earnest, impassioned music which results. A song which confronts the interplay between doubt and conviction which surrounds a person’s faith, and how this is liable to create unbridgeable gaps between people. “I worked for a church for about decade and now I don’t,” Giali explains. “This song is about a handful of conversations I had with the many church goers who had never questioned their faith and their reactions to my questioning of theology and faith-based logic.”

Mappe Of – A Scourge Laid Upon The Earth

The recording project of singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Tom Meikle, Mappe Of first appeared back in 2017 with debut album A Northern Star, A Perfect Stone on Paper Bag Records. The record introduced a decidedly ethereal sound which pushed folk with the spirit of the avant garde. Concept album The Isle of Ailynn followed in 2019, further cementing Meikle’s ability to break boundaries, and while a pandemic-enforced hiatus delayed the continuation of the project, forthcoming album Afterglades shows the break has had no detrimental effect on the ambition or execution of the Mappe Of style. With the album again set for release via Paper Bag in September, Meikle has unveiled new single ‘A Scourge Laid Upon The Earth’. “It felt like there needed to be a sense of weight to this chapter of the story, there needed to be some chaos as a payoff for all of this reflection,” he explains. “This is in many ways the extinction level event. It needed to be heavy and raucous, retribution for all of our mistakes. It’s a bit of my dormant heavy metal energy emerging from me.”

Minus The Bear – The Pig War (Demo)

Twenty years ago Seattle math rock royalty Minus The Bear released seminal album Menos el Oso, a record which not only saw them fully inhabit the spirit of the project for perhaps the first time but also claim a place among the notable acts of the late 90s/early 00s scene. Aside from a big US tour to celebrate the anniversary, Suicide Squeeze Records are releasing a special deluxe edition this August, featuring not only the original album but also five previously unreleased demo versions to give fans an indication of where their favourite tracks started out. “We came into our sound on this record, the band explain. “Excited people get to hear these demos for the first time! Revisiting demos and hearing the evolution of some of these tracks puts me right back in our early 2000s practice space. And now we’re literally back in that same practice space for rehearsals. It’s wild!” Listen to the demo for ‘The Pig War’ now:

Perish – Cool Guys

Originating as the solo project Florida-born songwriter Katie Callihan, Perish blossomed into a full band in Brooklyn when Callihan met Sam Lopane, Austin (Chappie) Chappell and John Dockery and welcomed them into the fold. The chemistry was apparent from the off, and the quartet headed up to Lincoln, Rhode Island, to record with Bradford Krieger at Big Nice Studio after only two practice sessions. The result, a self-titled debut EP, will be released this autumn on Rue Defense, and lead single ‘Cool Guys’ gives an initial taste. A vivid slice of folk-inflected rock which sounds at once wistful and affirming, a combination which looks to be a signature of the Perish sound. Because while Callihan’s delivery is thoughtful, her lyrics probing beneath the surface of things, the sound retains an upbeat, exultant air. As though there’s some energy to be found in the act of being open and honest to the point of vulnerability.

Tan Cologne – In Resin (Trentemøller Rework)

We’ve featured a number of singles from Tan Cologne‘s new LP Unknown Beyond in recent weeks, with songs like ‘Cool Star‘ and ‘In Resin‘ embodying the atmosphere of the record. The former possessed “a vibe again ambivalent in its meaning,” as we wrote, “sounding at once like an otherworldly escape from our terrestrial suffering and some mournful elegy delivered in its aftermath,” while the latter used “gauzy layers to present the various lives we live simultaneously, a series of selves superimposed.” To further the dreamy depths of this sound, Danish producer and multi-instrumentalist Trentemøller has reworked the track, taking the vocals further out into mysterious ethereality. “When I heard [Tan Cologne] had a new album coming, I immediately asked if I could work with one of their beautiful songs,” Trentemøller explains. “I chose the magical “In Resin”. For my rework, I only used their vocals, which I also had a lot of fun experimenting with.”

Unknown Beyond is out now via Labrador Records and you can get it now from the Tan Cologne Bandcamp page.

The Tines – Ozone

We first wrote about New Haven, Connecticut project The Tines a few years ago upon the release of their self-titled debut, describing single ‘Collarbone‘ as “a track which combines shimmering dream pop with a more pressing indie rock rhythm, the reverbed vocals drifting above it all to give the whole thing a sunny if enigmatic vibe, drawing the listener into its psych-inflected world.” Now the outfit are preparing to release a brand new album Barrows via Funnybone Records, and have unveiled single ‘Ozone’ as a preview. A rich slice of indie rock which combines heartfelt emotion with a certain understatement, building upon the previous record with a more assured, controlled sensibility, and sounding all the more evocative as a result.

‘Ozone’ is out now via Funnybone Records.

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