There’s a new Jane Schoenbrun film hitting theatres right now, and like We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow before it, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma comes complete with a score by Alex G. Waxwork Records will be putting out two releases in support of the movie, first with a soundtrack that collects several of Alex G’s compositions along with needle drops from the likes of Okay Kaya, R.E.M. and Counting Crows, then a full score later in September. Single ‘Pain Is The Heart of Love’ introduces the tone, a song crafted by Alex G with vocals from The Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan which encapsulates the alluring mix of physical and ethereal which has long marked Schoenbrun’s work, as well as the blurred line between reality, memory and dreams.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) will be release on the 21st August and you can pre-order it now.

Bonnie Hook – songbird

Back in 2025, Bonnie Hook (AKA Detroit songwriter Katlyn Sartor) released diadem, an EP which introduced an experimental brand of folk music which draws upon everything from ambient to psych. The result was something simultaneously personal and mysterious, intimate in its intention yet unafraid of pushing towards ambiguity. Set for release next month, Bonnie Hook’s new full-length whitelodge builds upon this style, further widening the sound and increasing its transportive qualities. Take single ‘songbird’, a lush and patient track indicative of the kind of richness Sartor can conjure, its lyrics stripped back to a poetic abstraction yet never lacking for emotional clarity.

songbird you’ll wait to fly
into our string of time
open foreboding eyes
though it may take a while
to coo

Cooper Kenward – Bit Better

“Step outside, walk the dog / SSRI shades on / Feel alright, feel okay / Nothing new just another day.” So sings Cooper Kenward in the opening lines of ‘Bit Better’, the first taste of a new album coming via Soggy Anvil Records which sees the Northern California songwriter employ an ostensibly sunny sound to delve into some rather deep, existential themes. Indeed the first verse encapsulates the mood of the track, where a sense of self-reflection meets the inherent hope of a new day, a vibe as bound up in the country twang as the lyrics themselves, though never without a certain tongue-in-cheek fatalism chasing behind. The result plays as both an optimistic mantra for the depressed person and wry joke at the end of the world, though in Cooper Kenward’s hands, these two things need not be mutually exclusive.

History, they say is dead
Images mean nothing at all
Music is just a bore
Ring cam shows horsemen
at the doooooor

And I’m sure we’ll get another chance soon
To do what we’ve done
But a little bit better

‘Bit Better’ is out now via Soggy Anvil Records and available from the usual places.

Essy Sparrow – Weak at the Knees

This October, songwriter and multi-disciplinary artist Essy Sparrow will release new EP Gossip From a Coastal Town. As the title suggests, the album is deeply rooted in a sense of place, not only painting a picture of life within a Cornish town but evoking its wider landscape of heritage and history, the myriad of personal memories and narratives which weave together to form the story of any given environment. “Some of these songs are true, some are exaggerated and some are straight up lies for fun,” Sparrow explains. “I became obsessed with the idea of writing music like rumours—emotional snapshots rather than perfect autobiographical truth.” The result is often whimsical but never lacking heart, as displayed by latest single ‘Weak at the Knees’. A bright folk song in which any bittersweet rumination or self-deprecative confession is vastly outweighed by the fondness at its core. “I wanted it to sound like a traditional coastal wedding by the sea,” Sparrow continues. “A village showing up to watch a couple renew their vows on a hillside. I wanted to sum up love, summer and the feeling of the UK coast as much as possible.”

Gossip From a Coastal Town will be released on the 2nd October and you can pre-order it now.

Lane Hartley – I Am Not Ashamed

No Home, the forthcoming new record from LA-based artist Lane Hartley, is something of a team effort. It features contributions from a long list of musicians, including Mary Lattimore, Seth Kaufman of Floating Action and David Hartley of The War On Drugs, who elevated the collection of ten songs with a combination of collaboration and intuition, taking Hartley’s often dark lyrics and brightening them with lush arrangements and a community spirit. “All of the players on this record really brought it to life in such a cosmic way,” says Hartley. “They instilled so much childlike wonder and fun into the making of the album. It inspired me to keep going.” Lead single, ‘I Am Not Ashamed’, which takes its name and ethos from the memoir by fifties Hollywood star Barbara Payton, is our first taste. A breezy and timeless folk rock song, it possesses a tough defiant streak, a dogged determination not to be cowed by shame. As Hartley describes, “It’s about knowing that whatever you’ve done to survive, you still deserve love.”

Lost Film – Blossom Rot

‘Blossom Rot’, the new single from Western Massachusetts indie pop band Lost Film, is in some ways the perfect late summer indie pop song. As the title suggests, it is inspired by gardening (or more precisely, learning to be more laidback and trusting to avoid losing fruit to the titular rot), but there’s something more than that too. Wrapped in Casio arpeggios and a sweetly pensive shimmer, it captures the carefree contentedness of a warm and quiet evening as the sun begins to set and paints everything in a rosy, nostalgic glow. Indeed, nostalgia is perhaps the key emotion, due in at least some small part to the band’s choice of background entertainment while recording. “While Max (Newman, who adds percussion) and I were tracking this one,” explains lead Jim Hewitt, “we had Disney’s 1994 Summer classic, Camp Nowhere on which really set the tone for the session.” Jordan Lawlor (of M83) then came on board to lend his mixing talents, which only amps up the effect further.

The Male Pattern – I’m a Soldier

We’re not certain a satirical concept album described as “Springsteen meets Ween” was on our bingo card of releases in 2026, but sometimes you only realise you’ve been waiting for something when it finally arrives. I Was Shot in the Heart! by The Male Pattern is exactly that, telling the story, as per lead Will Schwartz, of “an unnamed suburban dad as he navigates his acrimonious divorce, spends too much time watching TV and on the computer, gets addicted to pills, loses his job as a mortgage broker, shoots and kills a small-time drug dealer, finds God, and commits suicide by cop at a 24/7 Stop and Shop in White Plains, NY.” Featuring Daniel Bateman of Frog fame, single ‘I’m a Soldier’ sets the tone of the record, where the undeniable irony and playfulness do nothing to undermine the heartbreaking loneliness running through its heart. An anthem of America in 2026, where vapidity, ridiculousness and mean-spirited self-interest feel like symptoms of some dark, cursed pathology lurking beneath the surface.

Ok Cowgirl – Rock N Roll Ruined My Life

Led by Leah Lavigne, Brooklyn‘s OK Cowgirl released their debut Couldn’t Save Us From My Gut back in 2024, winning acclaim with an unguarded, often introspective style of indie rock. Set for release this month via Easy Does it Records, follow-up Rhinestone Cowgirl builds upon these foundations with new levels of confidence, both increasing the scale and widening the scope of the songs to create a bona fide slice of American rock. The result is understandably conflicted in tone, set as it is within a country rigged against so many of its people. Yet it is the energy and drive which most catches the attention, Lavigne and co. pressing on with life and grasping its joys as their own display of revolt. Take new single ‘Rock N Roll Ruined My Life’. “I wrote this song to myself and to so many friends who have struggled to justify staying the course while pursuing this precarious path of being an artist,” Lavigne explains. “It is not an easy path, and as an artist with a day job I have had periods of time where I’ve grown resentful of music for taking up all my time-off requests and keeping me in a job without healthcare. I wrote this song to vent those feelings, and every time I sing the tongue-in-cheek hook I am reminded how untrue it is. Music is the most fulfilling and joyful part of my life. That’s the beautiful thing about giving yourself space to feel your challenging feelings–you’ll often find they’re misnamed.”

Watch the video directed, filmed and edited by Matt Birkenholz below:

Rhinestone Cowgirl will be released on the 21st August 21st via Easy Does It Records.

Paul Spring – Tell Me That You Love Me

The work of Saint Cloud, MN-based songwriter Paul Spring is nothing if not varied. His work shifts from project to project with the idiosyncratic vision of a true artist. The last time we featured his work, he was “combining electronic and Medieval influences,” as we wrote of 2022 release Thunderhead, “casting Spring as some strange bard that wanders into your village with tunes so odd and unfamiliar they sound like sorcery,” but latest full-length Barnstorm is very different. After meeting a group of Irish musicians and developing a working chemistry when touring in 2025, he wanted to make the most of the encounter, returning months later to record the album in Inchiquinn in County Galway. Tadhg Ó Raghallaigh (Uilleann piper), Ben Duffy (drums), Sam Wright (bass) and Macdara Ó Faoláin (bouzouki) joined to flesh out the sound, creating a cross-pollinated style born of folk and baroque traditions. The result is varied and ever-changing across the record, but latest single ‘Tell Me That Your Love Me’ captures the detail and drama perfectly.

Routine Caffeine – Porcelain Doll

We’ve covered Louisville trio Routine Caffeine several times in recent years, from 2024 EP Weeds Under Concrete Stones to the 2025 single ‘Green Glass‘, each utilising a blend of dreamy haze and forward motion to explore themes of nostalgia, memory and the passing of time. Now the band are back with brand new single ‘Porcelain Doll’ and the track again exists within the push and pull between the past and the present, its insistent rhythm softened by an almost ethereal air, all while a sense of tension simmers beneath the surface. The result is beguiling and ominous in equal measure, something only amplified as the song progresses towards its evocative conclusion. “Dancing inside a frame / The roses bloom, then fall away,” Katie O’Brien Kelley sings in typical cryptic fashion. “Echoing, spiral stairs / Oh, how it was to walk in there.”

Slow Down Molasses – Follow (Eric’s Trip Cover)

We last featured Slow Down Molasses back in 2021 with the release of their album Minor Deaths, an album of clever details and visceral weight which explored the dark contemporary moment. “There is no prevailing mood or conclusion,” we wrote, “just a committed decision to embrace the energies of the contemporary moment in all of their frustrations, aggressions, vulnerabilities and dread.” Something of a hiatus has since followed, though now the Saskatoon outfit are back and gearing up for what promises to be a busy new era ahead, promising some of their most succinct and ferocious songs to date. To celebrate this return, SLM have turned to what they consider to be one of Canada’s most iconic acts, Eric’s Trip, recording a cover of the gloriously boisterous ‘Follow’ together with old friend Jeanette Neufeld. As they explain:

To say Eric’s Trip and their various members’ bands made an impact on me would be a massive understatement. There may not be a more important and more loved Canadian band for us than Eric’s Trip. They blew my teenaged mind and opened up an amazing world of lo-fi, noisey, but tuneful music for me. Inspiring quiet mornings listening to gems like Behind the Garage and Allergic to Love, road trips listening to Forever Again straight through, late nights blasting ragers like Follow, Anytime You Want and Sunlight and many, many hours letting my guitar feedback swell into the perfect lo-fi My Bloody Valentine moments that filled Eric’s Trip records.

The post Weekly Listening: August 2026 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Or perhaps not despite the clarity of the title, because while the thicket of feelings might be disorientating to experience, Brown maps this complexity with such precision and care that a sense of order starts to emerge. Meaning, as the album progresses, we follow her characters out of this tangle of interpersonal relations towards something enticingly close to lucidity, if not outright epiphany.

To ground this thematic arc, Izzy Oram Brown has shared two singles from the end of the record to hint at just where What I Want ends up. And, more than that, the songs also serve to demonstrate how this mission extends beyond the lyrics to the very sound itself. Multi-instrumentalist Jesse Bielenberg (Altopalo, Jesse in Grey, Dora Jar) and drummer Connor Parks (Cafune, Little Mystery, Tony Vaz) join to elevate the arrangements, and the fittingly layered and complex results align perfectly with the emotional weather through which Brown’s characters move. “Far from sounding like a typical indie-folk songwriter record,” Winston Cook-Wilson writes in the album notes, “What I Want is full of synth comet-streaks and fiery bits of unidentifiable sonic debris that function like musical evocations of both life’s unwelcome surprises and unprecedented wonders.”

First comes penultimate track ‘Love U the Same’, a warm, acoustic pop number which plays as though emerging from the other end of confusion within a relationship, not so much with specific answers for each and every problem but rather a kind of overarching meta-understanding. The hard won knowledge that love will always come loaded with knots and contradictions, and will likely never settle into anything close to perfection, but instead requires constant work. Closer ‘I Believe’ pushes the idea further. A track grander than its predecessor which takes this understanding and paints it in huge letters across the sky. A conclusion that feels almost defiant. “But I believe in the in between / And I believe in the starting clean,” as Brown sings in the song’s closing verse. “Well if that makes me wrong / So let it be.”

What I Want will be released on the 26th June and you can pre-order it now from the Izzy Oram Brown Bandcamp page.

The post Izzy Oram Brown – What I Want appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The result is what the band call “a series of vignettes and character sketches that examine agency, belief, and the tensions between the natural and the human-built environment,” all delivered with the trademark nuance of the Constellation Myths sound. A record which began during the depths of the pandemic and only grew more timely in the volatile aftermath. “The songs that make up The Cost of Living are preoccupied with things very much at the heart of our current social and political crisis,” they continue, “class resentments, petty jealousies, false prophets, vigilante justice, the warping of our shared sense of reality by a toxic online culture.”

Lead single and opening track ‘Spare Room’ provides a glimpse into the album. A slow-burning, downbeat meditation on separation and aging which nevertheless carries a certain warmth, tapping into a long lineage on down-your-their-luck country singers to locate a certain wistful charm within the loneliness. The song builds as it progresses, leaning into the small comforts of such a feeling, culminating in an affirming, harmony-laden finale as though to remind itself life continues in even the wake of great change.

The post Constellation Myths – Spare Room appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Latest single ‘Possessed’ gives a glimpse as to what to expect. “A coming-of-age bop for the elder millennial crowd,” as Clement explains. “A 90s inspired reflection on growing older and growing out of the things you once loved and the often unbreakable connections we have to habits we try to shake.” As you might expect from such a description, the result is one of contradictions. A bittersweet track where the only conviction is that of uncertainty’s continued grip. But for all of the doubt and wistfulness, there’s an undeniable sense of fun running through the track too. As though perhaps the only solution left is to surf atop the accumulated worries and hang-ups and lean into the forward motion.

The post All Feels – Possessed appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Oh we had time, well you know, at times
Time was all we had
Our distances fell flat to parallel horizons
Not quite happy, not quite sad

‘Garbage’ possesses the lonely intimacy of an empty room, nothing but plucked guitar and vocals for the opening half before layers of samples build like memories flashing past. ‘November’ is also full of sober feeling. As we wrote in a preview, the track takes “the melancholy of the titular month and infus[es] it with a marching rhythm to evoke the precious fragility of love.” A similar momentum drives ‘Fascinated’, the first full song on the record which immediately pitches the audience into the cathartic spirit of the Cloudbelly sound. It’s an anthemic introduction, compete with pounded percussion and singalong chorus of the tears-in-your eyes, empowering variety, but its again shaded with a sense of tender intimacy, a refusal to gloss over life’s anxieties and complications.

What results is a sense of hard won conviction. Lessons learnt not via bright epiphany but the slow grind of living through difficult circumstances. Understanding how to not only roll with the punches but rise from knockout blows. “So it’s been strange sailing these days,” as Laitman sings on ‘Bloom’, “The nights turn my empty pockets out / And fill them with moon, and the wind / And the wild, blooming bruise / Of beginning again.” With resilience comes the hope of something better and kinder. Days in which they might step out of their body, or finally burst into bloom.

i know i know i know is out now via Strange Library Records and available from the Cloudbelly Bandcamp page.

The post Cloudbelly – i know i know i know appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Following last year’s ‘November’, which we said “[took the] melancholy of the titular month and infus[ed] it with a marching rhythm to evoke the precious fragility of love,” Cloudbelly have now released another single from the record. ‘If You Want’ was actually the first track they completed for the album and proves the perfect introduction for new listeners. What the label describe as “an impassioned conversation between two voices residing in the same body, reckoning with a tendency to run from the things you want the most,” the song starts slow and syrupy, warm and nostalgic but tempered with a sharp edge of loss and regret and conflicted emotion.

The post Cloudbelly – If You Want appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The song was the perfect introduction to an EP which looks to escape the systems and people which make life difficult via cathartic expressions of vulnerability. Each song on the release approaches a breaking point of some kind, where frustrations, fears and anger reach a critical mass and precipitate. The screaming crescendo of ‘Red Line’ captured this eruption most directly, and though the title track might not be quite as explosive, there’s still a gathering energy which builds beats its fists on the glass walls of its cage. ‘to take your hand’ follows a similar pattern, the hushed tone coalescing into something heavy as the vocals circle like thoughts at the dead of night.

Again offering an intimate acoustic opening, ‘Garlic Song’ offers a quiet, personal vibe, though one loaded with the attached baggage of violence and control. The weight of an empty room, or perhaps the internal pressures which never quite equalise no matter how sedate the present moment might seem. “Garlic on my kitchen shelf / They’ve all begun to sprout,” as C.J. Red Mouth sings, “peel the sheaths right off their backs / Crush the growing buds out.” But within the action lies an implicit fury, and a reminder of past cruelty held inside like a scar. “And it strikes me, the brutality / In my fingers all along,” as the lines continue. “And I wonder at the violence / That my body’s holding onto.”

Greenhouse is out now and available from the C.J. Red Mouth Bandcamp page.

Album art by Jesso Wang

The post C.J. Red Mouth – Greenhouse appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Described as a song “about having the capacity to love different people (friends, partners, etc) in different ways, using a lot of silly car and public transit metaphors along the way,” ‘Something Like a Honda Odyssey’ is the latest single from Cambridge, Massachusetts artist Banti Gheneti, AKA Banti Buli. The track emerges with all the heart and playfulness this description suggests, with a languid rhythm ticking over below Gheneti’s verbose vocal style, refusing to commit fully to irony or sincerity, instead hovering in the ambiguous middle ground. As though a song about relationships couldn’t really function without equal doses of heartfelt emotion and tongue-in-cheek humour.

My love is no tesla model e
It’s something like a honda odyssey
Don’t worry though, it’ll play nice with a model e
If that’s how you want things to be
So let me know what you think
Any takers out there?

Gorgeous – Raindrop

Gorgeous are a “frenetic yet friendly” noise pop duo from New York, comprising of Dana Lipperman (guitar and vocals) and Judd Anderman (drums). Next month they will release their sophomore album, Sapsucker, via Sad Cactus Records, which promises to develop the band’s dynamic signature blend of fractured rhythms, cynical lyricism and sweet and sour melodies. The record features songs about everything from “technological dread,” to “literal and figurative monsters, liars, dreamers, and true believers,” and lead single ‘Raindrop’ drops us in the deep end. “Our bones are made of cosmic dust,” Lipperman sings over jerky clockwork percussion before the track slams into life, “exploded stars, we’ve come apart.” Strange, unpredictable and gloriously noisy. What’s not to love?

Graves – Little Dumb Dogs

California-based Greg Olin has been releasing music under the Graves alias for almost two decades. On his next release, Gary Owens: I Have Some Thoughts, which comes out late June via Perpetual Doom and Curly Cassettes, he adopts a new name as a kind of Country music alter-ego. The album’s sixteen songs are a throwback to Nashville’s golden age, loaded with a sense of bittersweet nostalgia and a wry humour that brings new vigour to a timeless style. As Perpetual Doom put it, “[they] sway with the moonstruck sweetness of classic country, blending the sounds of golden age AM radio with a laidback West Count vibe.” Lead single ‘Little Dumb Dogs’ is a good introduction, its laidback atmosphere and gently cutting lyrics (“If little dumb dogs and the finest of drugs don’t kill you / and a smile from a child and walking down the aisle don’t thrill you”) capturing the album’s essence in less than two minutes.

Gary Owens: I Have Some Thoughts will be released on 30th June. Pre-order it rom the Perpetual Doom Bandcamp page.

The High Water Marks – American Candy

Led by Hilarie Sidney, founding member of the revered Elephant Six Recording Company and flagship band The Apples In Stereo, The High Water Marks are making their third ‘comeback’ this summer, with album Your Next Wolf coming very Minty Fresh. Based between Lexington, Kentucky and Grøa, Norway, the outfit had never played in the same room before opening for Pavement in Oslo is 2022, and the new record is their first recorded together and in-person. If latest single ‘American Candy’ is anything to go by, the set-up was conducive to the band’s creative energies, kicking along with an infectious momentum, capturing all the addictive sweet and sour overtones of its namesake and drenched in fuzz for good measure.

Lauren O’Connell – Joangeline

‘Joangeline’, the latest single from LA-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Lauren O’Connell, is a song of strength and vulnerability. “I saw me there in the half light / As shapeless there as the dawn,” they sing near the beginning of, a tenderness juxtaposed by tangible weight of the the drums. “And every promise it brings / Dying to feel even half right.” What quickly becomes apparent is that the source of the fragility is not any sense of uncertainty or hesitation, rather the inherent sensitivity of exposing core truths. Shedding outer armour as an act of defiance, deciding to be open no matter how much pain this might invite.

And all I wanted to know
All I wanted to know
Who would want me
The way I want you

Drag me out, baby
Drag me out, baby I’m in it now

Leeann Skoda – Little Star

With EP Living Room Sessions out later this month, Leeann Skoda has unveiled the slow-burning ‘Little Star’ by way of introduction. Emerging from the “familial Americana scene” of LA’s The Grand Ole Echo, and recorded with on one afternoon in the living room of Malachi DeLorenzo (Langhorne Slim, Izaak Opatz), the release is one built around an authentic folk spirit, and the single embraces the style with its lush, intimate warmth. A track stripped of all excesses, standing instead on its own simplicity, like some lullaby which has been crafted through years of repetition into a perfect state of function.

Living Room Sessions will be released on 26th May and is available via the Leeann Skoda Bandcamp page.

Paper Lady – Starcross

Back in January we introduced Paper Lady, an “immortal crone” brought to life by Allston’s Alli Raina and company in a kind of musical ritual. Previous single ‘Five of Swords‘ saw the project push their spiritualism out into noisier, shoegaze territory, and new single ‘Starcross’ continues the path with gauzy textures and a pummelling momentum. Described as “a scathing account of an almost-romance with a farmer gone awry,” the song burns with what could be spurned fury or frustrated embarrassment, building nonetheless into with unerring intensity of an ancient curse.

You feel it
Logic overrun
Conceal it
What else is there to be done

‘Starcross’ is out now and available via streaming services.

Ruth Radelet – Leaving the Table

Though best known as the front of synth pop stars Chromatics, Ruth Radelet has recently turned toward solo music as a means of exploring dimensions perhaps neglected in her work thus far. The Other Side EP confronted classic themes of love, loss and renewal after a traumatic period, with songs like ‘Crimes’ retaining the vivid Chromatics sound while those such as ‘Strangers’ allowed Radelet to break new ground with its almost orchestral pop tones. Ruth Radelet’s latest single, a take on Leonard Cohen’s ‘Leaving the Table’, straddles the fence between pop and folk, with the timeless vocals and echoing melancholy adding a dash of Julee Cruise to Cohen’s classic.

‘Leaving the Table’ is out now and available from the Ruth Radelet Bandcamp page.

Symbol Soup – Airglow

Writing of previous single ‘Overdressed‘, we described Symbol Soup (AKA London‘s Michael Rea) as a combination of “classic British folk charm with something rather more American, including faint notes of country and a couple of spoonfuls of Alex G-style lo-fi indie rock.” Latest track ‘Airglow’, again on Sad Club Records, continues the arrangement, the intimate sensibilities of bedroom pop polished with a golden psych-folk sheen, resulting in a sound able to evoke the slow hours of a summer afternoon without sanding down the snags and edges beneath the surface. The sound plays into the themes too, with Rea offering a take on the information overload of the internet age, though subverting its usual framing to instead present it on more grounded terms. So there’s no dystopian chill here, just a willingness to float above the sea of data and embrace peaceful ignorance instead.

‘Airglow’ is out now via Sad Club Records and available via the Symbol Soup Bandcamp.

The post Weekly Listening: May 2023 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

After meeting at Berklee College of Music, the five quickly became friends and have become a fixture of the DIY scene in Allston and the surrounding Boston area. Following a couple of singles last year, including the beguilingly dreamy ‘EVE’, Paper Lady are preparing to release a new EP in 2023 and have kicked off the year with a brand new single to whet appetites. Titled ‘Five of Swords’, the song heralds something of a stylistic shift for the band, moving into noisier, shoegaze-shaded territory while maintaining the other-worldly spiritualism of their previous work. As the title suggests, it is inspired by a card from the tarot deck. “Five of Swords represents a battle well fought,” the band explain, “where no one truly came out victorious.”

how can you stand so tall
when I’ve fallen and it was your call

Check out the video shot, directed, and edited by Indie DiMartino below:

‘Five of Swords’ is out now via streaming services. Also be sure to stay tuned to the Paper Lady Bandcamp page for info on the EP, and to listen to previous releases.

The post Paper Lady – Five of Swords appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Lead single ‘I Needed You’ started life as “a sad little break-up waltz” as Edens puts it, but input from collaborators Pat Keen, Shane Leonard and Dex Wolfe lifted the track into something richer and more nuanced. A meditation on the strangeness of an aftermath, when nothing is as it used to feel and anger and longing are impossible split. “It’s about trying to discover and center your own needs when sometimes it’s easier to lie to yourself and ignore them,” Edens explains. “It’s about perhaps not even knowing what you need and being okay with that.” The result is an ambiguous space between the past and the future. A place where nothing is solid, and is therefore both terrifying and thrilling all at once.

Wasn’t kind of you, wasn’t always true when
I needed you
How cruel to be, this kind of free when
I needed you

Photo by Elizabeth Ibarra

The post Eliza Edens – I Needed You appeared first on Various Small Flames.