With Bloodlust now out, Melanie MacLaren has unveiled the final single and title track, a song which captures the EP’s essence perfectly. Opening with soft picked acoustic guitar, winding pedal steel and MacLaren’s voice, the song is a gentle and clear-eyed exploration of aging and death, weaving together threads of beauty and sadness until its almost impossible to tell which is which. “Bloodlust is a river, all thing must wither,” she sings in the opening line, “you can’t go with her even though you miss her so.”

Things kick up a gear as the song progresses, steady percussion and some crunches of guitar adding a sense of forward motion. And, despite the subject matter, it’s not exactly a sad song. Rather one that’s familiar with life’s inevitable imperfections, trying its best to come to terms with the bittersweet nature of things.  “This project is me trying to make peace with the constant cycles of loss we all inevitably experience in our lives,” MacLaren describes of the EP. “It’s looking for the moments of joy without feeling like you have to minimize your grief and anger.”

Bloodlust is out now via streaming services.

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Any new album from Advance Base is going to rank near the very top of our most anticipated of a given year, but the description of newly announced full-length Horrible Occurrences couldn’t be any more exciting. A record “all centered around a fictional town called Richmond and featuring an interlinked cast of characters,” as the press release explains. “You will hear stories of death and disappearance, climactic confrontations and unsolved mysteries.” Fans of the project will recognise songs like ‘Little Sable Point Lighthouse’ and ‘How You Got Your Picture on the Wall’, but new single ‘The Year I Lived in Richmond’ is what serves as an introduction to Owen Ashworth’s most conceptual release to date. A song which does more in three verses than the majority of published stories, and one which effortlessly displays Ashworth’s unrivalled ability to mine ostensibly ordinary lives for their brilliant slivers of heartbreak and strangeness.

Horrible Occurrences will be released on 6th December via Run For Cover and Orindal Records. Pre-order it now from the Advance Base Bandcamp page.

Anlaki – Escape ’til Dead

Based in Iruña-Pamplona, Spain, Anlaki is the bedroom music project of Julen Izkue which uses a classic DIY spirit to explore both the difficulties of adulthood and discomfort of modern life. Latest album Wind Call shows just how fun and inventive this lo-fi style can be, lovingly wrapping up a mix of slacker rock and power pop sensibilities in a warm blanket of fuzz. Single ‘Escape ’til Dead’ is the perfect example. The hazy tones are by no means a barrier to a sense of forward motion that propels things, the track embracing its title as a kind of motto to push itself onward with carefree brightness in spite of everything.

Constant Follower – All Is Well

Last month we introduced The Smile You Send Out Returns To You, the forthcoming album by Constant Follower via Last Night From Glasgow, with single ‘Whole Be’. A song about the contradiction inherent in the way we long for wholeness while acknowledging imperfection, the track not only introduced a newly ethereal sound for the outfit, but also furthered the visual element of their work through both cover art and video. Latest single ‘All Is Well’ is no different. Stephen McAll and co. mine the title for all of its complications, delving into the ways in which the contemporary reliance on comfort and convenience masks an ever-present dread below the surface of our society. It is notable that the band dedicate the song to Jake ‘Taurus Mortimer’, a young person killed in the care of NHS Forth Valley Psychiatric services back in 2023. Watch the video filmed and directed by Kris Boyle below:

The Smile You Send Out Returns To You will be released on the 28th February via Last Night From Glasgow.

The Convenience – Routiner

Duncan Troast and Nick Corson started The Convenience after meeting at Loyola University in New Orleans, using the project as a space in which to experiment within the wide genre of pop. Released in 2021 via Winspear, album Accelerator felt like the culmination of this practice, evolving the sound of their earlier releases towards its most vivid, far-reaching state. However, not satisfied to rest on their laurels, The Convenience are now pushing their boundaries again. New double single Routiner / Postcard sees the duo strike out towards a guitar-led art-rock which sits closer to the likes of Cate Le Bon and Parquet Courts. Take the first track, which is strung across a taut bassline but spins in various directions with a volatile twitching energy, capturing the push and pull of life, from deadening repetition to sharp alarm.

Routine / Postcard is out now via Winspear and available from Bandcamp.

Doctor Delia – What a Drag!!

“We literally had gendered uniforms,” explains Doctor Delia of growing up in suburban Tampa schools. “We were stuck in them like little toy soldiers. The whole time, or much of the whole time, I wanted to dress like a woman, or more feminine. Deep down I knew it felt good, and right for some reason, but there was so much shame around it.” New single ‘What a Drag!!’ serves as both a refutation of the strictures experienced during this time and a celebration of living as the person you truly are. “What a drag not to be yourself,” as the song goes, progressing with the kind of calm, assured rhythm that only comes with lessons learnt the hard way.

Holding Hour – Can I Leave Me Too?

‘Can I Leave Me Too?’, the latest track from Des Moines duo Holding Hour, is a lesson in juxtaposition. For while the song is set within the ostensibly celebratory, communal scene of a birthday party, the overriding mood is one of alienation and doubt. The sound itself follows a similarly contrasting style, its brooding undertones threatening to engulf the vocals as the percussion presses forward as though towards some imminent break or change. What results is a track full of conflict, between calmness and motion, darkness and light, not to mention that internal disquiet of a person coming to understand how they might be responsible for the less than perfect conditions of a relationship.

‘Can I Leave Me Too?’ is out now via streaming services.

Leoblu x World Wild Web – Utopia

Emerging from the heart of Berlin‘s underground music scene, ‘Utopia’ is a single which sees Leoblu and World Wild Web pair their styles into something at once ethereal and charged with vivid energy. We’ve written about the ambiguous and atmospheric sound of Julia Carlsson’s Leoblu several times in recent years, most recently with Blu Lucid Nightmare, and the addition of World Wide Web’s rhythms and beats pushes it into new territory—one still shadowed yet shot through with a kind of transcendent possibility. “’Utopia’ came from a deep place of questioning,” Carlsson explains, “both within myself and the world around us. It’s an emotional journey through grief, but also a declaration of hope, defiance and change.”

‘Utopia’ is out now via streaming services.

Melanie MacLaren – Laika

“The product of a period marked by experiences of grief, loss and illness, the new songs look to confront life in its truest state. To push beyond the myths we tell ourselves and look at mortality with a clear gaze.” So we wrote last month of the forthcoming release from  Nashville singer-songwriter Melanie MacLaren. New single ‘Laika’ is no less direct in its focus, using the tragic story of the titular Soviet space dog as a way into humanity’s propensity to exploit the vulnerable more generally, and how the powerful continue to disregard the rights and dignity of everyone else. The result is a lesson in restraint, though beneath the slow, soft folk style is a vast chasm of anger at everything we have done and continue to do.

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

This Frontier Needs Heroes – Truck Driver

Writing back in July, we described Brad Lauretti of This Frontier Needs Heroes as “a folk artist in the traditional sense, wandering and entertaining audiences with equal parts playfulness, protest and heartbreak while always pining for places left in the rear view mirror.” Inspired by a period driving an RV across America for another artist’s tour, latest single ‘Truck Driver’ leans into this spirit more fully, injecting a sense of constant momentum to the folk rock style to equate the life of a touring musician with that of a long-haul driver. “I got to live the life of a truck driver for a few weeks,” as Lauretti says, “driving all night, sleeping in the cab, eating in gas stations, with all the crazy things that happened along the way.”

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This duality of playful and serious is a signature of the Melanie MacClaren sound, and ‘Heaven Is’ was the first glimpse of a new project which pushes such ideas further. The product of a period marked by experiences of grief, loss and illness, the new songs look to confront life in its truest state. To push beyond the myths we tell ourselves and look at mortality with a clear gaze. New single ‘Get it Back’ continues the mission. A song described as a “GenZ version of ‘Goodbye Earl’ or ‘Excitable Boy'” which looks to evoke difficult experiences with a sound that’s brightly infectious.

Watch the lyric video by Sofie Praestgaard below:

‘Get it Back’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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Back in May we wrote about Turn Around For Me / See You Soon, the new double single from Glasgow‘s Constant Follower ahead of their anticipated second album The Smile You Send Out Returns To You, coming early next year via Last Night From Glasgow. “[Stephen] McAll and co. breathe extra life into the arrangement,” we wrote of ‘Turn Around For Me’, “and the song swells with an affirming rhythm which tips it towards indie rock territory.” The follow-up ‘See You Soon’ is no different. A continuation of the band’s exploration of memory which draws on the concept of saudade—the nostalgic longing for some absent person or thing—the song captures a picture of everyday life as haunted by a missing piece. Something which can never be resolved, a wound which will go on hurting.

Jordan Whitlock, Memory Spells – Heaven and Here

Back in February, we wrote about the collaboration between songwriter/producer Jordan Whitlock and Matt Bauer‘s Memory Spells, describing single ‘Take My Hand’ as “Suffused with the lush, shadowy grandeur of Lynch at his most romantic.” Now the duo have returned with a brand new single ‘ Heaven and Here’, another impressively atmospheric piece of cinematic pop music. Combining ambient and classical elements with Whitlock’s piercingly poignant vocals, it has all the drama and aching emotion of a tragedy. Sombre strings ache and sway over glitchy atmospherics and the muted thump of percussion as Whitlock delivers lyrics that possess a spare and opaque poetry.

Wildflowers bloom
Bend toward the sun
I follow you out through the waves
Nothing between
Heaven and here
Only the words I couldn’t say

‘Heaven and Here’ is out now via streaming services.

Lutalo – Ocean Swallows Him Whole

Following on from 2023’s AGAIN, a record which explored the various forms of oppression woven through our societies, Lutalo is returning this September with debut full-length The Academy on Winspear. Described as a time capsule of lessons learnt in their first chapter of life, the album sees the Vermont-based singer-songwriter delve into their past and invite the audience along for the ride. Single ‘Ocean Swallows Him Whole’ uses the doomed figure of Icarus to capture the peaks and troughs of this journey, drawing an energizing momentum from adrenaline rush, even if it comes from a fall.

Watch the video by director, cinematographer and editor Rich Smith below:

The Academy is out on the 20th September via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

 Melanie MacLaren – Heaven Is

A song she says is “about a lot of the myths and imagery we’re fed about the afterlife,” ‘Heaven Is’ is the latest single from Nashville singer songwriter Melanie MacLaren. Delivered in an easy country-pop style and with equal helpings of bittersweet feeling and wry humour, it combines existential musings with observations altogether more terrestrial. So heaven becomes both “a place up in the air” filled with lost loved ones and something in the here and now, like “sipping beer in folding chairs,” or “eating fruit straight off the vine.” “[‘Heaven Is’] is about the experience of how deconstructing those myths leads to reality check that we really have no idea what happens,” MacLaren describes, “besides that we leave, and everyone else does too.”

Heaven is the place where the dead girls go
Heaven is the place up in the air
Heaven is a place i don’t think about much
But I’ll have to one day I’m aware

‘Heaven Is’ is out now via streaming services.

Miserable chillers – Great American Turn Off

Miserable chillers has made a name with an idiosyncratic, constantly inventive sound, following a myriad of creative directions from Kate Bush-esque art pop to SNES soundtracks and field recordings. A mixtape featuring recordings made between 2018 and 2024, Great American Turn Off not only personifies the spirit of Miguel Gallego’s work, but serves as the ideal introduction for those looking to dive in for the first time. The release functions best as a full entity, rewarding those who take forty minutes to lose themselves in its easy rhythms, but we recommended single ‘The Shaft’ for anyone who needs a quicker dose.

Great American Turn Off is out now and available to hear in full here.

Molly Murphy – Seabird

Specializing in what she calls “lo-fi folk tunes summoned from the Blue Ridge and set loose in New York City,” Molly Murphy makes bright and emotionally resonant folk music. Her latest single is a cover of  The Alessi Brothers 1976 song ‘Seabird’. Complete with vocal harmonies, subtle mandolin and slide guitar, it’s a lush and laidback take on the original. Murphy’s vocals take centre stage, confidently but vulnerably delivering lyrics that use the imagery of the titular bird covering vast distances of remote ocean as a metaphor for distances altogether more human. “Like a lonely seabird,” Murphy sings, “you’ve been away from land too long / Oh, too long.”

Old Amica – Tiden far

Described as a release about time, Old Amica‘s ‘Tiden far’ sees the Swedish project turn their attention memory, looking to invoke how we experience the past, where the amorphous drift comes to form strange patterns and meanings. As such, the single is suitably hazy and slow-moving, its drama arising from a concealed hand as though always masked by something. Familiar sights and sensations as experienced through a gauze curtain. Old voices coming through a crackling radio, messages moving through the accumulated years with something to offer us yet.

Shady Baby – Feel It

Following a couple of singles in 2023, Brighton garage rockers Shady Baby are back with a brand new single, ‘Feel It’. Comprising of Sam Leaver (vocals, guitar), Nick Varnava (bass) and Tom Jackson (drums), Shady Baby draw on late 90s and early 00s alternative rock, and ‘Feel It’ is no different. A rich,  enveloping wall of sound is punctured by energizing electric guitar and crisp percussion, with enough hooks to appeal to the radio and festival circuit and enough grunge to bring in the rock-heads. All this raw energy is used to explore feelings of agitation and doubt. “‘Feel It’ started off as a song about grappling with impatience,” says Leaver, “but along the way it evolved into exploring the uncertainties of new relationships.”

‘Feel It’ is out now on streaming services.

Special World – Cloak in the Attic

This month saw Special World, that’s the solo recording project of Philly‘s Andy Molholt (who you might know from Speedy Ortiz), released their debut physical release with a self-titled collection. Described as ‘early’ songs, the cassette provides a peek into the inventive and often idiosyncratic style of the Special World sound, something demonstrated by the single and opener ‘Cloak in the Attic’. Starting with a glass smash but progressing with a lethargic rhythm, the song slowly crawls over the listener and absorbs them into its peculiar world. A place often strange and always colourful, where the light bends in odd shapes and everything takes on the loaded, abstract logic of dreams.

the cloak in the attic is hidden
obscured by a flowering gem
where is the proof?
no fumes left to reduce
cannot refuse a bargain which i cannot lose

night after night we misconstrue

Stelth Ulvang and the Tigernips – Dissolve

Described as “a visceral journey through the late-night mental crumblings of summer, capturing the essence of spontaneity and sincerity,” ‘Dissolve’ is the first single from Stelth Ulvang’s upcoming self-titled album, Stelth Ulvang and the Tigernips. Ulvang might be best known as the pianist for folk sensation The Lumineers, but has long pursued a variety of creative outlets, and the new album is something of an antidote to radio-friendly anthemic polish which has come to mark The Lumineers sound. ‘Dissolve’ is our first glimpse of a collection of songs which instead leans into the vulnerable and raw side of things, allowing Ulvang to show a slightly stranger but altogether more authentic side to his work.

YULLOLA – Silk Nightdress

At the end of last month, Maine songwriter and producer YULLOLA released Zen Maiden, a brand new record that exists in an unreal world of its own. Direct, pop-inflected indie rock songs sit next to cinematic spiritual jazz segues and dreamy spoken word sections. All of which makes sense when you understand where the album came from. “This year I truly was considering becoming a nun whilst getting obsessed with vocal inflections of kulning and female Bulgarian choirs,” YULLOLA describes, “spending hours in the forests of Maine just making sounds.” Opener ‘Silk Nightdress’ is the perfect introduction, a spoken word track with all the shimmering unreality and dark cinematic romance of Twin Peaks at its most melodramatic.

Zen Maiden is out now and available via the YULLOLA Bandcamp page.

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Being Dead is a project built on friendship and trust. A space for Texas-based multi-instrumentalists Falcon Bitch and Gumball to be themselves, however that might manifest in any given moment. New album When Horses Would Run, coming this summer via Bayonet Records, shows how varied and fruitful such a set-up can be, the sound ranging from lo-fi pop and country-inflected rock to something closer to experimental or jazz. Lead single ‘Muriel’s Big Day Off’ captures the duo’s effervescent energy, not to mention the off-the-wall spirit which is always playful but never insincere.

When Horses Would Run is out on the 14th July via Bayonet Records and you can pre-order it now.

Brittain Ashford – Hold On Tight

Trotter, the forthcoming album by Brittain Ashford on Misra Records, is a record about “finality and making regrettable decisions.” A collection of songs crafted in the aftermath of a grief so profound it seemed to seep into anything and everything which comes in close proximity. After the passing of her father, whose surname forms the title of the record, Ashford stayed on a contracted tour, only to run into the full weight of the loss months down the line, a chaotic period which resulted in a cancelled engagement among other things. Single ‘Hold On Tight’ kicks through the ashes with a tangible regret, delivered from the perspective of a newfound distance, allowing a more reflective processing on a fundamentally personal experience.

Hold on tight
I know loving me wasn’t always easy
My entire life, tried to do it right
But I fucked it up completely

Chat Pile – King

After the dazzling, doom-laden intensity of 2022 full-length God’s Country, Oklahoma‘s Chat Pile have returned with Brother’s In Christ, a split with Kansas outfit Nerver on Reptilian Records and The Ghost Is Clear Records. If the previous album railed against capitalism’s pitiless desecration of earth, then the new EP confronts the razed landscape with a kind of fatalistic knowing and utter incomprehension. Because if you pay attention to this world, the misery might not be surprising, but expecting something rarely lessens the impact once it truly arrives. “It’s probably what you’re thinking honestly,” sings leads Raygun Busch. “But I’ve never been to / A place like this / Not even in my dreams.”

Crooks & Nannies – 3AM

“A song which gives in to the rollercoaster ride of intense emotion, no matter how high the peaks or deep the troughs.” That’s how we described ‘Sorry‘, the previous single from Crooks & Nannies‘ LP No Fun, out now via Grand Jury Music. The track was preceded on the release by ‘3AM’, something of a sister song which dials into the same whirlwind of feelings, with everything from volatile sax and “Final Fantasy synths” capturing that disoriented struggle to ground oneself in a world of such hostility. But bursting through this tumult is a big disco beat that closes things out, lending a sense of momentum that might not exactly be triumphant, but it’s momentum all the same.

No Fun is out now via Grand Jury Music and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Laura Wolf – Paper and Plastic

“If reality and fiction are braided into history, then Laura Wolf wants to unpick the threads.” That’s how we concluded our preview of Shelf Life, Wolf’s upcoming album on Whatever’s Clever. Lead single ‘Calligraphy and Calculations’ represented “a sonic of equivalent of family history, where original truths are cherished and embellished into folklore, and stories take on as much importance as the fact of any event.” Latest single ‘Paper and Plastic’ again explores the line between memories and myths, inviting the listener into an ethereal, orchestral soundscape which evokes the foggy allure of retrospection. Watch the video from Dan Criblez below:

Shelf Life is out on the 2nd June via Whatever’s Clever and you can pre-order it now.

Melanie MacLaren – Tourist

Writing of the music of Nashville-based songwriter Melanie MacLaren in the past, we described it as, “indebted to the past and the present without being beholden to either, managing to possess the timeless country spirit without sacrificing any sense of immediacy.” New EP Tourist continues this style, taking well-worn themes of family and loss and addressing them with a tangible immediacy. The title track captures this in all of its poignance, moving through the lows of grief without losing sight of hope. “I wrote ‘Tourist’ for my nieces and nephews during a time when we were all grieving an unimaginable loss in our family,” MacLaren told The Bluegrass Situation. “Overall the song is here to say that most everything is temporary, but that there are some things out there that we don’t understand that are true and eternal.”

Quinn Devlin – Lillian

Pennsylvania-born multi-instrumentalist Quinn Devlin has played with a whole range of acts both on stage and in recording, with Aisha Badru, Alex Lleo, JW Francis and vern matz just a few of the talents he has helped support. Devlin’s new single ‘Lillian’ sees this relationship inverted, with a series of collaborators turning out to bring his own earnest folk style to life. From co-producer Sahil Ansari to contributions from James Woodall (pedal steel and lap steel), Jack Broza (electric guitar), Jordan Wolff (drums), Andy Shimm and Dylan DeFeo (both piano), the range of guests take a laid back indie folk number and lift it into something larger. The result is solo intimacy blown up into something communal, the sound’s careful richness developing into an affirming final chorus.

Quinn Tsan – Roses

The work of Chicago-based songwriter Quinn Tsan has often combined heartfelt emotion with something bolder. Releases like 2014’s Good Winter and more recent single ‘She’s No Better’ blurred the line between folk and rock to conjure a smoking, swaggering barroom sound. New single ‘Roses’ swaps the bravado for something altogether more tender, the stripped back style and pensive croon sounding more like a dispatch from a lamp-lit bedroom at the dead of one bad night too many. But within what appears to be a state of vulnerability, Tsan’s words suggest a sense of agency fully intact, taking control of the situation, no matter of painful it might be.

Don’t buy me roses
Take your clothes from the floor
Leave your silence
Nancy, we don’t belong

Xena Glas – Let Go

Last year, Texas-born, Brooklyn-based visual artist, poet and musician Xena Glas released Movements, an EP which blended classical, ambient, folk and electronic styles to explore their move from southern suburbs to an urban space. A kind of psychogeography of a new environment, as well as a survey of the internal changes that accompany such a culture shock. Latest single ‘Let Go’ is no less inventive or striking, a song built around Glas’s vocals which shimmers with what could be tranquil calm or some slow-gathering energy, ebbing and flowing with a tidal rhythm as intricate details gather and dissipate with a natural ease.

The post Weekly Listening: April 2023 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

London‘s Automotion, AKA Jesse Hitchman (vocals/guitar), Lennon Gallagher (vocals/guitar), Otis Eatwell-Hurst (drums) and Luke Chin-Joseph (bass), have followed up their debut EP In Motion with a new release that builds upon its ideas. The band identify a multifaceted approach as a key component of their work, and Ecstatic Oscillations sees them lean into dynamic changes. As the title suggests, each song oscillates at its own unique frequency, the fluctuations between tracks lending the EP an almost collage-like style. Latest single ‘Desire’ offers one such example, itself a track of peaks and troughs which plays off the understated, downbeat vocals with real energy and weight.

Ecstatic Oscillations is out now and available from streaming services.

Jackie Cohen – Ghost Story

Back in 2020, amid a personal crisis, Jackie Cohen found herself asking whatever powers might exist for a sign that things would work out alright in the end. At that moment, a large moth swooped in and committed self-immolation via the oil lamp at Cohen’s side. The incident came to inform Pratfall, an album recently released via Earth Libraries which proffers the value of giving oneself up to tension and turmoil rather than fighting against it. To reach for catharsis, find sublime release in motion, heat and light. Single ‘Ghost Story’ weaves an entirely different story to that of the moth, but the abrupt and decisive beauty of its act remains. “It’s a song about annihilation and acceptance,” Cohen explains. “It’s hopeless and serene… Essentially, if you wanna wake up, you’re gonna have to jump.”

Pratfall is out now via Earth Libraries and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Marlais – Out of the Window

Recording under the moniker Marlais, Michael Culme-Seymour draws upon British and Irish folk traditions to create reimaginings of old songs. Tales he can step inside and live within, if only for a moment. Out via Treibender Teppich Records, new album Stream of Forms is a collection of such reworkings, its traditional instruments supported by digital choirs and electronics. Single ‘Out of the Window’ demonstrates how Marlais evades any sense of anachronism or irony in this practise, the sound coalescing into a convincing whole, the emotions explored readily transposed onto a new place and period. “Time and time again I am amazed at the cut-throat nature of traditional songs,” Culme-Seymour explains. “How hopes and dreams can be dashed in one line or couplet.”

Melanie MacLaren & Lorkin O’Reilly – Clearance Aisle

Ahead of a forthcoming EP, and with a joint tour of the UK and Ireland on the horizon, songwriters Melanie MacLaren and Lorkin O’Reilly have released new single, ‘Clearance Aisle’. It’s a duet which allows both artists to display their storytelling chops and knack for conjuring intimate emotion. The track is set within two distinct spaces, the mundanity of real life, as represented by the Walmart clearance aisle, but also the less tangible plane of hopes and regrets. Just how pleasant and welcoming either of these places prove varies day to day, but the truth at the heart of ‘Clearance Aisle’ is that we have no choice but to inhabit both, day after day.

Queen Kwong – Sad Man

This summer saw Queen Kwong release their latest album, Couples Only, on Sonic Ritual. It’s a record which sees Carré Kwong Callaway confront the despair of loss and deception with caustic anger, its ominous nocturnal tones conjuring a noir-like combo of swagger and danger. Single ‘Sad Man’ is the perfect introduction, showing off both the wrath and wry humour of the album, and a new video directed by Joe Cardamone and starring Johnny Knoxville as the titular sad man takes inspiration from Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant to further elevate this heady blend.

But I just wanna grow up
I’m too old for this shit
Paying rent by selling guitars and DJing shitty bars
I don’t want to be another sad man in another sad band Dropping the same names
Playing the same games
I just wanna grow up
He’s a sad sad man

Couples Only is out now via Sonic Ritual and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Raavi – no bodies

“Its nods to the 90s are evocative without feeling derivative, and for all its blunt honesty and self-deprecating worry, it rocks hard enough to bring a genuine sense of catharsis.” That’s how we described ‘Lazy Susan‘ from Raavi‘s last EP, It Grows on Trees, back in April. Since then, Raavi Sita has wasted no time in working on new material. Released as part of the Hardly Art Records 15th anniversary single series, the project has just unveiled brand new single ‘no bodies’. A meditation on the pitfalls of striving for success in the music industry, where reaching the top of one ladder merely sees you emerge at the bottom of a bigger, more dauting climb.

Remember Sports – Leap Day

Philadelphia‘s Remember Sports returned this month with Leap Day, a brand new four-song EP on Father/Daughter Records. With a slightly less frantic tempo than the sound they’ve perfected over four records, the release offers a more reflective, patient side to the band, though do not be fooled. The emotional ferocity and immediacy that has so long marked Remember Sports has not been lost but redirected. Their energies channelled into a newly layered sound with drum machine, electronics and distortion complimenting the pop rock anthems we’ve come to love.

Leap Day is out now via Father/Daughter Records and you can get it from the Remember Sports Bandcamp page.

Ruby Gill – I’m gonna die with this frown on my face

Last year we wrote about South Africa-born, Melbourne/Naarm-based artist Ruby Gill, describing single ‘You Should Do This For a Living‘ as “setting its sights on the overbearing, patronising force of male entitlement,” and “aris[ing] from a very personal situation but end[ing] up speaking to a far wider experience.” Gill has now released her debut full-length I’m gonna die with this frown on my face, and the title track shows that the same combination of fury and compassion underlines these songs too. “I’m gonna die with this frown on my face / they’re going to lower me down,” she sings in the opening lines. “Asking why I’ve been this angry all of my days / even when you came around / and I don’t have the answers.” Check out the video directed and edited by Samuel H. Galloway below:

I’m gonna die with this frown on my face is out now and available from the usual places.

Yara Asmar – it’s always october on sunday

Yara Asmar is a multi-instrumentalist, video artist and puppeteer based in Beirut who recently unveiled her debut release on Brighton label Hive Mind Records. Titled Home Recordings 2018 – 2021, the album is a collection of pieces Asmar recorded to cassette and her phone in the last few years, utilising a range of instruments from piano and synths to deconstructed music boxes and an old accordion she found in her grandparents’ attic. Add in field recordings of Lebanese hymns sung in churches across the country and you’ve got an ambient/classical collection quite unlike any other. Opening track ‘it’s always october on sunday’ is a good place to start, its pensive atmosphere capturing something about the record as a whole. As the label put it, “The atmosphere of melancholy that pervades the album should be familiar to anyone living in the twenty-first century.”

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

The work of Royal Leamington Spa’s Bastien Kalb has always reached wide in search of inspiration, be it toward Zinedine Zidane for 2015’s Dinking In The Shadows of Zizou or Giallo and 70s crime flicks for 2020’s The Killing of Eugene Peeps. Latest record Organ Recital, out next month on Gearbox Records, is no less ambitious. Something of a sequel to Eugene Peeps, the album is conceived as a fantasy world beyond our own, a dimension distinct from reality if not entirely insulated from it, various elements leaking through just as real sounds and sensations might enter a dream. Single ‘In The Woods’ displays just how immersive such a style can be, VHS textures and cinematic strings combining into a collision of real and unreal.

Cynthia Hamar – Shaken

Cynthia Hamar is a Métis singer-songwriter from Alberta who has just released brand new single ‘Shaken’ on Neon Moon Records. With its languid rhythms and evocative delivery, the track finds a balance between soulful confidence and poignant sadness, led by the kind of bitter assurance gained only from learning the hard way. “‘Shaken’ is an internal conversation about trauma,” Hamar explains, “recognizing the deep groaning and the need to let go of the pain to embrace a brighter future.” Hamar wrote the song over a period of years, addressed to herself amid changing family dynamics and relationship issues. “It’s written from a point of exhaustion,” she continues, “surrendering to a solution and I hope it inspires the listener to process their own pain and see the comfort in choosing to forgive and move on.”

Rise up and take the place you been
Designed for from the start
Leave the haunted place behind my friend,
Boldly make your mark
But you gotta let it go
love knows when to let it go
I know

Dolfiin Alexander – Free Wheeler

Dolfiin Alexander is set to release new album Free Wheeler via Anxiety Blanket Records on the 1st July, with the title track offering a glimpse of what you can expect. The release was for the most part written and recorded during a summer road trip through Germany, Italy and Estonia, and the single possesses that hybrid blend of wonder and melancholy unique to travelling. Its lo-fi textures and heartfelt vocals capture a heightened awareness of both the surroundings and the self, appreciative of the small moments yet already mourning their passing.

Free Wheeler is out on the 1st July via Anxiety Blanket Records and you can pre-order it now.

Emily Fairlight x The Shifting Sands – Head Above

Ahead of collaborative album Sun Casts A Shadow on Fishrider Records and Occultation Records, Emily Fairlight and The Shifting Sands have unveiled brand new single, ‘Head Above’. The track serves as a perfect introduction to the stripped-back intimacy of the album, where stylistic excesses are stripped away in favour of direct emotion. “We never meant it to result in an album,” explains The Shifting Sands’ Mike McLeod. “We went to record a song or two and got on a roll. After making heavily layered sonic pop albums with the Sands, where I’d hide behind my songs with layers of guitars and synths and bury my vocals, I wanted to get past that. This album sounds like playing in your lounge, a complete work that captures a special moment.”

Free Lunch – Burnt O

Bournemouth duo Free Lunch are set to release mini-album Dumbwaiter this July on Devil Town Tapes, and single ‘Burnt O’ gives an indication what to expect from the release. Drawing from their parents’ record collection (Neil Young and Supertramp are cited) and possessing a rich country twang, the song builds with a loveably leftfield sensibility, harking back to the lo-fi beginnings of the Free Lunch project and culminating with best duelling banjos this side of the Chattooga River. Just one slice of a release described as “an audio scrapbook of characters—mostly loners and oddballs, but each with a heart of gold.”

Hunter Ellis – For the Beast (feat. Lady Dan)

Later this summer, Earth Libraries are releasing Princess Daddy, the new album from songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Hunter Ellis. Recorded between Prairie Sun and Hunter’s own Koala Pocket Studios and featuring an array of friends and guests, the LP draws on Ellis’s Californian roots to develop a psych- and surf-inflected sound. Single ‘For the Best’ shows how such a sound can produce a nuanced and immersive atmosphere, with labelmate Lady Dan lending vocals to a soundscape simultaneously stark and colourful.

Princess Daddy is out on the 26th August via Earth Libraries and you can pre-order it now from the Hunter Ellis website.

Matthew Bailey – Full – Time Hobby

Matthew Bailey views forthcoming album Peachfruit as a collection of short stories. The Toronto-based songwriter, guitarist, producer and recording engineer uses each track to interrogate the influence memories can have on our sense of identity and history. Written while on tour playing guitar for Andy Shauf, single ‘Full – Time Hobby’ wrestles with Bailey’s experiences in the music industry, and how its insidious facets, be they rooted in finances or pride, can wither the purity of creation and lead the artist away from the reason the work started in the first place.

Melanie MacLaren – Orion

Back in August we wrote about Nashville-based songwriter Melanie MacLaren with the single, ‘Graveyard Shift‘, a song which “possess[ed] the timeless country spirit without sacrificing any sense of immediacy.” New track ‘Orion’ lives up to this style, its slow, rich opening soon giving way to a palpable urgency. A declaration of love and intent rising on a bed of synths and pedal steel, MacLaren’s voice at once affectionate and fierce. “And I know I said that I would die before I settle down,” she sings, the sentimental tone wielding a cynical edge, “but Jesus Christ, its just nice when you’re around.”

‘Orion’ is out now and available to purchase from the Melanie Maclaren Bandcamp page.

Sigh Down One – Durocher

Sigh Down One is the recording project of Vancouver resident Sasha J. Langford, who this month released their latest album, Desire, or a Common Place. Signalling something of a pivot away from the ‘contemplative grunge’ of previous records, the album sees Langford embraces a vivid dream pop aesthetic, swapping out raw energy in favour of drifting richness. Single ‘Durocher’ channels the Lynchian brand of dream pop, its tender tones possessing a certain otherworldliness which gradually gathers a sense of weight, taking the listener by the hand to show them something new.

Slim Wrist – The Soft

Consisting of Edinburgh duo Fern Morris and Brian Pokora, Slim Wrist combine the organic and the digital to conjure an unconventional pop somewhere between Sylvan Esso and Kraków Loves Adana. With album Closer For Comforting forthcoming later this year, the pair have released new single ‘The Soft’, a perfect introduction for those unfamiliar with the band’s dreamy and dramatic style. A sound at once spacious and detailed, its glitching electronics washed with lush textures, the fragmented beat eventually making good on its promise to kick into rhythm as Morris’s vocals soar above.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2022 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Ahead of her debut EP, Kill My Time, later this autumn, Melanie MacLaren has unveiled her first single, ‘Graveyard Shift’, a song which highlights this aesthetic perfectly. Grounded by the bright fingerpicked guitar, the track begins as a bona fide folk song and slowly unfurls into something more. Because as it develops, the subtle ethereal tone playing behind the track blooms into something far richer, the retro harmonies and vivid synths painting an all-enveloping wistfulness that carries the listener through. Buoyant drums kick in too, giving the track a growing intensity to match the lush textures, and in doing so display Melanie MacLaren’s knack for combining heartfelt emotion and transportive atmopshere.

Graveyard shift,
without a ghost to haunt me
Kill my time,
I am yours if you want me

Check out the video by Sofie Præstgaard below:

Kill My Time will be released in 2022, so keep an eye on the Melanie MacLaren website for more information.

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