But in performing this rebuild, Closebye found themselves thinking deeply on themes of work and self-reliance, especially within a society which places the onus squarely on every individual, and how taxing such an existence can be. The lyrics ruminate on “the struggle to come to grips with self-reliance, with constant shifts of blame, projection, co-dependency,” singer-songwriter Jonah Paul Smith describes, “ending with a new sobering independence, and the realization that only you can be your own saviour.”

You’d be correct to sense cynicism in this words, but while Smith’s lyrics and delivery possess an understandable exhaustion with this world, the same cannot be said of the Closebye sound. Hammer of My Own might barely break thirty minutes, but the succinct runtime belies the songs’ expansive nature. The dense layers of guitars and synth by Julian Paint Smith are shot through with an almost rave-adjacent energy, with bassist Margaux Bouchegnies (AKA Margaux) and drummer Simon Clinton working to aim somewhere between nineties rock and dance to achieve a momentum capable of sweeping the listener off their feet. Latest single and title track introduces just how infectious a combination this proves to be.

Cause you hold the nail, hold the nail
I swing the hammer
Steady and strong, hand on the wall
I smash your finger
With a hammer of my own

Watch the video by Haley Parsa below:

Hammer of My Own is out on the 23rd August and you can pre-order it now.

The post Closebye – Hammer of My Own appeared first on Various Small Flames.

After the critical success of 2021’s An Overview on Phenomenal Nature—a collection of songs we described as “shaped by [a] careful but fleeting hand, like sculptures allowed to dissipate as soon as they have formed. Moments captured, meaning what they will”—Cassandra Jenkins is returning this summer with a brand new album, My Light, My Destroyer. Again released via Dead Oceans, the record promises to push Jenkins’s sound to new heights, building upon indie rock foundations with sophistipop, jazz and new age sensibilities. Latest single ‘Petco’ gives a hint at exactly what this sounds like, all tied together by a distinctive lyricism that’s as confessional, wry and ambitious as anything on An Overview.

My Light, My Destroyer is out on the 12 July via Dead Oceans and you can pre-order it now.

Closebye – Pilates

Hammer of My Own, the forthcoming full-length from New York‘s Closebye, embraces both the destructive and constructive connotations of its titular tool. The early 2020s saw the outfit on the verge of break-up, and the heavy cost of the pandemic on the music industry left them in need of a complete rebuild. The new album finds catharsis in razing what stood before, clearing the ground for a new version of Closebye to slowly rise. In doing so, it finds the band exploring pressing themes of work and self-reliance in a world which too often demands we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Single ‘Pilates’ sees Margaux join for an exploration of self-improvement and its attached baggage, discovering how change requires as much dismantling (be that of doubt, denial etc) as it does building.

Watch the video directed by Elizabeth Kroner below:

Hammer of My Own is out on the 23rd August and you can pre-order it now.

Dustin O’Halloran – Spiritus Naturae Aeternus

Having started out as a founding member of the dream pop outfit Dēvics while also working solo under his own name, composer and pianist Dustin O’Halloran found himself invited by Sofia Coppola to provide music for Marie Antoinette, triggering an adjacent career scoring films. If that wasn’t enough, he’d later go on to form A Winged Victory for the Sullen with Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid), but has continued to release music under his own name too. Probing at the intersection of technology and human consciousness, latest album 1 0 0 1 originated as a collaboration with choreographer and dancer Fukiko Takase, and single ‘Spiritus Naturae Aeternus’ offers a small glimpse of the conceptual whole which results.  A “representation of the beauty and chaos of nature,” as O’Halloran describes, where piano, solo violin, orchestral strings and the female voice create a celebration of the natural world and a requiem for that we stand to lose. Watch the video directed by Markus Englmair and featuring Takase below:

1 0 0 1  is out now via Deutsche Grammophon.

Gabriel Birnbaum – A Feeling Unbroken

“Now that you’re on your way / how does it feel to remember / from thirty thousand feet / to those apartments where the air pressed down / down on your throat you’re waking choking in hell?” So asks Gabriel Birnbaum on ‘A Feeling Unbroken’, the latest single from his forthcoming album Patron Saint of Tireless Losers on Western Vinyl. It’s a line which captures the essence the record both tonally and stylistically. Birnbaum has become increasingly interested in music’s narrative potential, and Patron Saint finds him at his most confident to date. It presents vignettes which occupy the knife-edge between specificity and ambiguity, rewarding the return listener with layers of wry humour and naked human emotion. ‘A Feeling Unbroken’ might be one of the more sonically restrained songs, but its sense of downward pressure seems central to a record of characters desperate for a few inches of fresh air within the choking hell of their present.

god is a feeling unbroken
long may you run in the open
god is a feeling unbroken
long may you run in the open
I’ll be watching

Joseph Decosimo, Luke Richardson, Cleek Schrey –  Rockingham

Back in 2021, Joseph Decosimo, Luke Richardson and Cleek Schrey convened at a cabin in Tennessee to work on an album, Beehive Cathedral. Each of the musicians are storied stewards of the traditional folk style and the record provided an opportunity for them to share, exchange and elevate their collective repertoire to not only preserve Old-time American and Appalachian songs but fashion the next link in the long chain of musical history. The album will be released later this month via Dear Life Records, but for now latest single ‘Rockingham’ offers a prime example of the trio’s intentions. Keeping alive a rich cultural heritage while mining the old tunes for the full depth of their interpretive possibilities.

 Mark Trecka – Sense of Fiction

We’ve followed the work of Chicago-born, Paris-based writer, sound artist, performer and activist Mark Trecka since 2021’s Acknowledgement. It was what we described as “more akin to an intertextual artwork than a conventional album” which explored the connective tissue which links individuals in a society no matter how oppressed or invisible those people might be. Subsequent releases have built upon this compassionate style, be it Implication‘s continued exploration of community and connection or The Bloom of Performance which used an amalgamation of post-punk and art pop to push Trecka’s work further still. The first in a series of singles released with Beacon Sound, ‘Sense of Fiction’ sees the continuation of this style. What the artist describes as “a paean to self-mythologizing as an instrument for overcoming emotional darkness,” the song sits adjacent to the eerie beauty and strangeness established on the previous record, reaching towards an almost Bowie-esque confidence with a soundscape of dream pop bass, drum machine beats and Trecka’s signature avant garde experiments.

 Moonheart – people’s prayer (after​/​w/ Lucille Clifton)

Moonheart is the project of songwriter, composer and poet Kim Mayo, who has recently released a new single, ‘people’s prayer’. Inspired by and featuring a Lucille Clifton poem, Mayo says the song is “an ode, thank u letter, & prayer for all the freedom fighters, truth tellers, mess-makers, & courageous, principled hearts who have been planting such fertile seeds for the new world now blooming.” It’s calm and unhurried but with a gentle power, a burning belief in a better world free of violence and war and inequality. As May continues, the song is for “[Those] who have created portals to show us that new world where care reigns supreme, who have made stunning dents in the war machine & the ruling class’s pockets full of blood & shown us how, who have created beautiful noise & mess & chaos in the name of love, freedom & justice.”

Pure Hex – Web and Wick

San Francisco‘s Pure Hex—that’s Marta Alvarez (vocals), Zach Dighans (guitar) Hussain Khan (guitar), Luke Clingerman (bass) and Jon Annunziato (drums)—are taking an unorthodox approach to their new album, Spilling/Five of Tears. Though envisaged as a full-length record, the release is separated into two discrete sections (as suggested by the title), and the band decided to share it in two parts via Neon Bloodbath. Hence Spilling, the first six songs, is out now, while fans have to wait for the second half. Closing out this section, latest single ‘Web and Wick’ has the job of not only concluding a set of songs but opening up towards what might come next. It proves itself more than ready for the task, this mammoth, shoegaze-inflected slice of indie rock which blends dreamlike imagery with a visceral weight to leave the audience desperate for what comes next.

I had a dream that we parted
When I woke up it was fake
It isn’t safe to come home anymore
Maybe you’ll burn me like a witch at the stake

 Warik – Biscuits

Later this summer Chicago-based music and video artist Warik is releasing the follow-up to 2016 album Warik’s Tape, the appropriately titled Warik’s Tape 2. Landing somewhere between indie rock and pop, the previous album offered an ideal summer sound, full of enough hazy tones and playful energy to satisfy those pining for 00s buzz bands like Wavves and Abe Vigoda. The opening tracks of the new record find Warik continuing with the bright pop sensibilities but add a layer of sleek polish. Be it ‘Yellowish’ with its combination of languid rhythm and glitchy detail, or the soulful, loose-limbed confidence of ‘Biscuits’. The sound of an artist to watch for sure, not to mention an early addition to your summer playlists.

Warik’s Tape 2 will be released later this summer, so keep an eye on the Warik Bandcamp page.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2024 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Hamilton, Ontario indie rock outfit Dark Mean have been making music for well over a decade now, introducing themselves with a self-titled album back in 2011 and returning every few years with new songs to prove the project is still alive and kicking. Their first release since 2016, ‘Working Hard’ feels like a dispatch from a reality faced by a huge number of acts these days, where cycles of inspiration and hiatus are governed by work schedules and personal responsibilities. A song fired by the twin forces of frustration and passion and driven by the urgency of the ticking clock.  “I haven’t forgot your name / I’d give it to you if you ever came,” as one verse plays. “I’ve still got a lot to say / I’ll tell you about it someday.”

Grocer – Caterpillar Pilled

“‘Packrat’ finds Grocer at their most collaborative, trusting in the bonds which have now developed between the members to make something far greater than the sum of its parts.” So we wrote of the first single from the Philly band’s new album Bless Me, coming later this spring on Grind Select, which promises to elevate Grocer’s trademark volatility to new heights. Latest single ‘Caterpillar Pilled’ embodies this spirit, possessing both brash energy and off-the-wall charm. With constant changes of speed, the song is always on the verge of unravelling into chaos but manages to cling on by its fingertips, emerging all the more triumphant as a result. Watch the video by Nicholas Rahn below:

Bless Me is out on the 19th April via Grind Select and you can pre-order it now.

hemlock – Garbage Truck

Back in 2022 we mentioned talk soon by Chicago’s hemlock, describing single ‘to carry’ as “a song of hushed yet heartfelt vignettes which rises toward an impassioned finale, providing snapshots of love in its various guises.” The project has since gone on to put out several further releases, including the single ‘monarch‘, a month-long song-a-day challenge album and a live session, but now hemlock is teaming up with the good folks at Ghost Mountain Records to celebrate the second anniversary of the talk soon release with the album’s first ever vinyl run. To mark the occasion, hemlock has unveiled a video for the single ‘Garbage Truck’ directed and edited by lead Carolina Chauffe and filmed along with Daniel Joseph and Reed Everette. Check it out below:

The talk soon vinyl is out on the 10th May via Ghost Mountain Records and you can pre-order it now.

Lamplight – S/T

Back in January we previewed the self-titled album Ian Hatcher-Williams’s Lamplight on Western Vinyl, what we called “an exploration of how one’s sense of identity shifts and changes according to any number of present conditions, not least the place we call home at any given time.” With the record now out, Lamplight has shared the title track as a final single, which serves to not only underline the intentions behind the album but the Lamplight project as a whole. After experiencing a profound mixture of love and grief on contemplating the inevitable end of an intimate relationship, Hatcher-Williams found comfort in the concept of reincarnation, as well as a poem by Mark Strand titled ‘Love Silhouetted by Lamplight’ (from which Lamplight would come to take its name). “I’m too high
the lamp light, you’ve / caught me crying,” as he sings:

now we’re laying here uncovered
our legs braided around each other

i’m fixated on the future
that one day we lose the other

come back to, for a moment
that’s just long enough notice

we’re cosmically together
a bond older than each other

The song comes complete with a video which further develops these themes:

Lamplight is out on now via Western Vinyl and available from the Lamplight Bandcamp page.

Margaux – DNA

Back in 2019 we wrote about More Brilliant Is The Hand That Throws The Coin, the debut EP by Margaux released via Massif Records, describing how the juxtaposition of bright energy and syrupy dreamscape on single ‘Palm’ “serve[d] to bring to the life to duality of people too, as though beneath the outward face of our feelings lies depth more expansive and strange.” With a debut full-length on the way later this year, The Brooklyn singer-songwriter has now returned with ‘DNA’, another nuanced picture where longing and confrontation can occur simultaneously, and a floating drift can quickly escalate towards a cathartic climax. It’s apparently the first song from an album due later in the year, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for more info.

The debut Margaux full-length will be released later this year via Massif Records.

May Rio – Fun!

Stretching the definition of a solo project, New York‘s May Rio sometimes plays with a classic guitar/drums band, and others an arrangement of cello, piano and saxophone. The latter, what she calls the Elegant Ensemble, gives its name to the new May Rio album. A collection of rearrangements of previously released tracks, scrubbed clean of the gloss of studio production and presented anew as an assemblage of their essential parts. There is one brand new track too though. Titled ‘Fun!’ it’s a song about a teenage car accident delivered with the idiosyncratic blend of playfulness and grace which runs through Rio’s work. “The day I got my driver’s permit, aged sixteen,” she describes, “I borrowed my mother’s forest-green Isuzu Trooper for a trip to a new movie showing at the mall,” only the adventure was cut short at a junction.

Sweet sixteen I get to take a spin
Windows rolled down wind’s all on my skin
T-boned by a speeding stoner hard
Momma’s Trooper’s totaled but what’s worse
Is it was fun

Watch the video directed by Ben Gordon below:

Elegant Ensemble is out on the 3rd May.

Meagre Martin – Malcolm

Meagre Martin‘s Gut Punch, released last year on Mansions and Millions introduced the Berlin-based band’s ability to broach the most pressing social themes of the moment with both confidence, fire and relatability. “The gut punch of the title therefore refers not so much to the Meagre Martin sound but rather the subject matter they take on,” as we put it in a preview. “The world as a series of debilitating blows.” New single ‘Malcolm’ continues this style to great effect, leaning into a more guitar-led sound to better evoke the track’s rebellious nature. An ode to Malcolm in the Middle at once fond and discordant, teasing out themes of precarity and generational trauma from within nostalgic memories of the show.

I’m human too,
We break the rules
That’s nothing new
Why settle down
You start to drown
So pull me out

Robert Ouyang Rusli – Elizabeth’s Voicemail

Brooklyn-based composer and artist Robert Ouyang Rusli took on their most ambitious project to date with the soundtrack for Julio Torres’s Problemista, a new film coming later this month via A24, starring Torres alongside the likes of Tilda Swinton. The artist, who also records under the moniker Ohyung, created over fifty songs for the score, looking to match the surreal world Torres has created with something just as agile and inventive. Single ‘Elizabeth’s Voicemail’ serves as an enticing glimpse of the project’s full scope, the film bleeding into the soundtrack in the same manner the music pours into the film. Orchestral arrangements of synths and choral vocals are accentuated with sounds from the colourfully whimsical film-world, creating what the press release describes as “rhythmic backdrops for the bureaucratic nightmares of the American immigration system.”

The Problemista soundtrack will be released on the 15th March, and the film itself on the 22nd.

W. Y. Huang – Life Just Lately (feat. Granata)

Facing the sudden onset of chronic pain, Singapore-born, New York-based singer-songwriter W. Y. Huang turned to music as an outlet. His new EP Knots, coming later this spring, serves as an exploration of pain and healing, as well as the more general transience of things and the ebb and flow of hope. First single ‘Life Just Lately’ introduces this with a bright and breezy indie pop style, welcoming New York rap artist Granata to further the track’s unguarded tone and capture the mood of the release as a whole. “This EP was a deeply personal endeavour, both in how the songs came together and the writing process,” as Huang explains. “It all blossomed from a very vulnerable place.”

‘Life Just Lately’ is out now and available from the W. Y. Huang Bandcamp page. Knots will be released in May.

The post Weekly Listening: March 2024 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Black Sea Dahu – Thaw
Will Henriksen – Nothing Left Behind
Dehd – Letter
Hovvdy – Ruin (my ride)
Maya Lucia – preteen
They Are Gutting A Body of Water – french
Jason Calhoun – moving
Dilary Huff – Overused Sayings
Two Meters – The Nightmare
Dead Painters – Marigold
The Deer – Confetti To The Hurricane
Pastel – Moon Landing
Hit Like A Girl – No More Dysphoria
Basement Revolver – Master’s Degree
Bodies on the Beach – Ghost
Highnoon – Lens
Distant Reader – Marie
Drakes Island – 4 Days
Wet Dream – Worried
Best Mann – Must Be Wrong
The Funs – Trains Across The Sea
Ganser – Buio
Nothings – Favorite Shirt
Corinne Sharlet – Hail Mary
ahem – Halloween
Max and the Martians – Please Hold On
A.S. Wilson – Taken Apart
Béret – Book of Hera
Joel Jerome – There’s Nothing Here To Bother You Anymore
Carpet City – Little Longer
Hannah Cranton – Kite
Zachary Lucky – Didn’t Know That You’d Come Along
Wintersleep – Fading Out
Coral – find me wrong
Boo Baby – “Jazz?”
Margaux – Palm

Check out our previous Monthly Roundup playlists, and be sure to read our Reviews and Previews throughout the month.

The post October 2019 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

To give a taste as to what to expect, Margaux has released single ‘Palm’. Written during a time when “the line between unconditional love and care for a friend felt blurred by romantic feelings,” the song combines a casual conversational croon with something a little more dreamy, the vocals pitched somewhere between Adrianne Lenker and Haley Heynderickx. The relaxed opening sets the tone, an impish vibe pulling at the corners of the languid rhythm, and soon the track gathers pace.

However, rather than racing ever more quickly to the close, Margaux instead pulls the rug from under the track, a brief moment of silence heralding an evolution of the sound. Gone is the skippy percussion, thrown headlong into a syrupy dreamscape where everything is half paced. The dichotomy serves to bring to the life to duality of people too, as though beneath the outward face of our feelings lies depth more expansive and strange, and more sincere too.

I am falling in the palm of your hand
Feeling like I’m underwater
My breath no longer and

When you look at me I
Hold my tongue
Worried that I’ll say the wrong thing
You’re all I’m longing to show what

The post Margaux – Palm appeared first on Various Small Flames.