In recent months we’ve been following London-based songwriter Eli Carvajal as he prepares to release new full-length Eyen Forever in October via Safe Suburban Home Records. After singles like ‘Stretch Marks‘ (which “manag[es],” we wrote, “to evoke the ways in which love elevates the ordinary into something wonderful, and creates the possibilities of new myths and dreams before us”) and ‘Scar’ (“welcom[es] the audience into the mundane details of everyday existence in order to gesture towards themes more poignant and sweeping”), Carvajal has returned with the album opener, ‘Forever’. Another emotive, tender track, the song finds Carvajal at perhaps his most intimate, the arrangement stripped right back to its bare necessities and possessing the kind of wistful fondness only accessed when one finds themselves far away from home. As he explains: “‘Forever’ was inspired by my two years’ teaching English in Tokyo, Japan. In the song, I play with the language we use around romance, reframing love and loss with poignancy as well as humour.”

Fulton Lights – Hold That Thought

Recording under the moniker Fulton Lights, Andrew Spencer Goldman last put out new music in 2018, when album Moonwalking into the Future highlighted the ambition and invention of his work. New EP Well the Night Has Come shows the hiatus has done nothing to dampen his creative energies. Take single ‘Hold That Thought’, a song concerned with the very process of making art in a world of distraction. Along with guests TJ Lipple (Aloha) on drums, John Davis (ex-QandNotU/Georgie James/Title Tracks/Paint Branch) on backing vocals and Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu) on percussion, Goldman crafts a sound layered and languid, though the laid-back rhythm belies the urgency and depth of feeling present in the delivery. Because this is a track about “trying to remain open to those moments where creativity is born,” as Goldman explains. “Capturing and releasing them before they dissipate. It can be an act of resistance against all of the things conspiring to distract.”

Leilani Patao – Cut

Starting in 2021 at the tender age of seventeen, Brooklyn (via Los Angeles) based songwriter Leilani Patao put out a series of DIY self-releases, culminating in the acclaimed 2024 album But What If? which earned, among other things, a feature on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. But despite this success, Patao grew disallusioned with the biz, not an unfamiliar story within a contemporary music scene which demands not only on hard work in an artistic sense but an even greater degree of effort (and luck) be spent on self-promotion, algorithmic appeasement and any number of equally soul-destorying things. Many criticize this system but few take concrete action against it, which makes Patao’s new EP daisy, forthcoming this autumn via Audio Antihero, all the more notable. A release which promises to shun streaming services, playlists and social media in order to focus on what really matters, and thus an experiment to judge what exactly is possible within the conditions of the twenty-first century. “Is it possible to share my music properly, pay everyone who was involved, get paid myself, and not have to interact with the many systems in place that make me dread music?” Patao asks. Lead single ‘Cut’ is out now for an early glimpse at a release we’re rooting for in more ways that one.

Little Angry – Outerside

You might know Evan Hashi as part of acts like The Hive Dwellers, Mega Bog, Twig Palace and Flying Circles, but the Seattle-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has also long recorded under the moniker Little Angry, blending pop, punk and psych influences with an experimental, DIY spirit. Set for release next month via Antiquated Future Records, the fourth Little Angry album Screamin’ Inside Your Heart!!! is the first to see the project become a full band, and thus a slightly new name—Little Angry & The Sweets—though the spirit remains the same. With Jen Weisberg (bass guitar, vocals) and Joseph Kuta (guitar, vocals), Little Angry sound better than ever, Hashi using the album’s title (taken from COVID-era safety instructions provided to riders of roller coasters in Japan) to explore the idea of being a ‘good immigrant’ in the US, a notion reinforced through generations. Listen to opener and lead single ‘Outerside’ for an idea of the drama and playfulness of the record.

Screamin’ Inside Your Heart!!! will be released on the 2nd October via Antiquated Future Records and you can pre-order it now.

LUCKY – Olden Goldy

We’ve been following Bay Area supergroup LUCKY (that’s Half Stack‘s Peter Kegler and Andrew St James alongside Marika Christine and Zach Elsasser of Affectionately) in recent months as they gear up to release their self-titled album, with songs like ‘Friends‘ embodying the buoyant rhythm and wistful edge of the project. With the album out now via Royal Oakie Records, LUCKY have shared new single ‘Olden Goldy’ to win over anyone not yet on board. The album’s closer, the song encapsulates everything that makes the outfit so special. “Out in the big olive groves / where the warms wind blows / I’m a young man who’s getting old,” go the opening lines, though again the reflection of the lyrics and delivery is slightly at odds with the upbeat, swaggering style of the sound itself. As though understanding, for all of the slow realisations and dawning regrets, life will go on kicking yet.

Up in the lonely pines
the wind haunts my mind
I spent days just losing time.
The sky’s is getting long,
the night is looking cold
and I’m still a young man who’s getting old

But I can’t let go

Night Teacher – New Cage

Consisting of multi-media artist and singer-songwriter Lilly Bechtel and drummer, writer and producer Matt Wyatt, Night Teacher sits somewhere between indie rock, chamber pop and doom folk in its style, a sound tied together by Bechtel’s emotive, often haunting delivery. Ahead of new album Year of the Snake, coming this autumn via First City Artists, Night Teacher have shared new single ‘New Cage’. The song utilises the Charlottesville duo’s evocative and thoughtful style to meditate on pernicious influences of social media in contemporary culture, positioning such forces as a kind of imprisonment we enter on our own volition. “I was reading Naomi Klein’s brilliant book Doppelgänger, where she writes about the original surveillance system as the concept of God, which in many ways has been replaced by the concept of the idealized self,” Bechtel explains. “Social media may be doing a very old thing in a new way: getting people to run surveillance on themselves in order to become better commodities for the marketplace.”

Perish – God I’m Freaking Out

“A vivid slice of folk-inflected rock which sounds at once wistful and affirming, a combination which looks to be a signature of the Perish sound,” we wrote of single ‘Cool Guys‘ back in July when previewing Brooklyn outfit Perish‘s new self-titled album. “Because while [Katie] Callihan’s delivery is thoughtful, her lyrics probing beneath the surface of things, the sound retains an upbeat, exultant air. As though there’s some energy to be found in the act of being open and honest to the point of vulnerability.” With the record out now via Rue Defense, Perish have shared new single ‘God I’m Freaking Out’. The song started life as something of a slow ballad when Callihan was playing solo, but the new version is altogether different, the full band adding extra groove and charge to a track all about the push and pull of solitude in the face of stress.

Ribbon Skirt – LUCKY8

Principally consisting of Anishinaabe musician Tashiina Buswa and guitarist Billy Riley, Montreal’s Ribbon Skirt won acclaim earlier in the year with the release of their debut Bite Down on Mint Records, an album which explored ideas of memory and heritage with a raw, stark style of post-punk. Fast-forward a few months and Ribbon Skirt are back with PENSACOLA, a brand new EP intended as something of an epilogue to its predecessor. One which seems to exist in the wake of Bite Down, powered by the still-charged air and smouldering heat. Lead single ‘LUCKY8’ welcomes listeners into this space, a track of woozy layers and surreal, dreamlike imagery which nevertheless holds a pulsing urgency beneath the surface. Like a memory bathed in the feedback and distortion of time yet still possessing its serrated edge.

One day you’re gonna wake up crystalline and mountain-clear
Left her hanging on a word in Thunder Bay the 15th year
You lift your shirt up and then tell me you’re the chosen one
The family knew back then that god made you the lucky one
You make it easy to believe that you’re so strong like that
It’s not a promise and believe me
he could con like that

Watch the visualizer by Rory Stobart below:

PENSECOLA will be released on the 3rd October via Mint Records and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Starcharm – The Color Clear

The Fire Talk imprint Angel Tapes has been unearthing emergent artists for a number of years now, introducing the likes of Retail Drugs and Jawdropped to audiences, and their latest addition Starcharm is another act you will want to get to know. Featuring Elena Buenrostro (vocals, guitar), Jasmin Feliciano (bass) and Amaya Peña (drums), the Chicago trio has risen from the ashes of Buenrostro’s defunct project Soft and Dumb with all the confidence and energy of new beginnings. Debut single ‘The Color Clear’ displays both pop and noise sensibilities, pairing off-kilter post punk vibes with a rising intensity so that everything feels a little odd and unreal. The song “is inspired by a time when I lost all faith in love and felt like men were seeing me as a projection instead of a real person,” Buenrostro explains. “I was going through a bit of nihilistic mania during this time which I think you can definitely hear. An avoidant attachment anthem if you will.”

Watch the video directed and produced by Peña themselves below:

‘The Color Clear’ is out now via Angel Tapes and available from Bandcamp.

Tiberius – Moab

With the release of new album Troubadour edging nearer via Audio Antihero, Boston farm emo band Tiberius have shared latest single ‘Moab’. After ‘Sag‘ and ‘Felt‘ introduced the conflicted, searching and cathartic style of the record (“ebbs and flows across its runtime,” we wrote of the former, “pulled in all directions by competing emotions. Uncertainty, doubt, desperation, a recurrent yet skittish determination to embrace some inner truth”) the new song highlights a different dimension. A track more farm than emo, leaning closer to alt country in its warm twang and compassionate delivery, though one no less cathartic for its more relaxed approached. “’Moab’ was a song I wrote about trying to let go. At the time I was defining myself by expectations of a strained relationship. I was feeling pretty insane—like the kind of insane you feel back in 8th grade where you come home crying all of the time because you have absolutely no sense of self,” explains lead Brendan Wright. “Writing ‘Moab’ offered catharsis. Looking back, I feel a lot of embarrassment around those feelings, but it was how I felt at the time and that was the place I was in. I wish I had acted differently, and I strive to now.”

The post Weekly Listening: September 2025 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Decribed as “an anthology-like collection” which displays wide-ranging influences including everything from jangle pop and art rock to tin pan alley, americana and progressive folk, Deep Country is the forthcoming album from Albany outfit Bruiser and Bicycle, to be released this autumn. Lead single ‘Waterfight’ shows how this myriad of inspiration registers within songs as well as between them, pairing retro folk with ample melodies and art pop sensibilities to create something inventive and dynamic. But don’t mistake variation for overabundance, because for all the innovation, the track sees Bruiser and Bicycle dial back the maximalist approach that marked their previous record Holy Red Wagon. The result is rich, endlessly surprising and grounded within the natural experimentation inherent to any collaborative act.

Watch the video filmed and edited by Derick Noetzel and directed by Keegan Graziane below:

Deep Country is out on the 8th October and available to pre-order now.

Eric Angelo Bessel – Scavengers

“Plays with our understandings of reality, presenting a version of physical existence which bends toward the esoteric.” That’s how we described the work of American-German visual artist and musician Eric Angelo Bessel back in 2023. Album Visitation offered what we called “spacious soundscape[s] loaded with the weight of reflection yet simmering with a certain foreboding too, the past and future weighing on the present as shadows, echoes emerging from within a granular fog.” This autumn will see Bessel return with Mirror at Night, a brand new album on Lore City Records which again collapses the distinction between the past and the future into something flat and beguiling. Listen to the nocturnal, ambiguous lead single ‘Scavengers’ below:

FONTINE – Home Right Here

Back in July we previewed Good Buddy, the new album from Winnipeg-based songwriter FONTINE forthcoming via Birthday Cake Records, with the lead single and title track. A song which sat “at the intersection of big rig bravado and unashamed sentimentality,” as we put it, “using a blend of good time rock and bedroom pop sensibilities to explore ideas of love, friendship and self-actualisation.” With the record’s release edging closer, FONTINE is back with new single, ‘Home Right Here’, and the song is no less emotive in style. As the title suggests, the track is a meditation on home in all of its dimensions, be it specific locations, special people or even particular times of life. “Running down to the well, through the forests and the fields, with my cousins at my heels,” as the first verse opens. “In the garden with my mom, pulling weeds all day long, picking sweetgrass from the lawn.”

Heaven For Real – Hold Me Back

Hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia and now based in Toronto, Heaven For Real is the brainchild of twins Mark and J. Scott Grundy, offering a genre-bending style of music that draws on everything from post-punk and art rock to psych, ambient, electronic and jazz. The project’s most collaborative release to date, new album Who Died & Made You The Dream pushes this swirl of influences further than ever before, stylistically mirroring the dream logic of its themes to moves between genres with fluidity and subconscious intention. Ahead of release this November via Mint Records, Heaven For Real have unveiled single ‘Hold Me Back’ by way of introduction. A song decidedly dreamlike in style, both in terms of its slightly off-kilter haze and the coiled cryptic meaning which seems to edge closer with every repeated listen.

on relinquishment, I remember the cycle
pinwheel of interest
gone with the wind my genoa sail
on relinquishment;
I surrender to the cycle
fixed on the distance
cured through imagination
on relinquishment;
I remember the cycle

Watch the video by Jordan Minkoff below, though those with a sensitive disposition be warned, it features haunted hair:

Who Died & Made You The Dream? will be released on the 7th November via Mint Records and you can pre-order it now.

Jackie West – Offer

“Content to understand change as a kind of potential, and occupy the present in all of its fluctuating strangeness.” That’s how we described Jackie West‘s Close To The Mystery last year, a full-length which followed its lead character “through a city in the aftermath of a relationship,” as we continued, “the various rented rooms in which they find themselves representative of those liminal days between what was and what will be.” Now the NYC/Hudson-based artist is back with ‘Offer’, a brand new single on Ruination Record Co. which is perhaps simultaneously the most ambitious and laid-back song West has written to date. An almost ten-minute epic that pairs conversational spoken word vocals with a warm and catchy melody, unfolding like an internal monologue as it moves between casual observations, quantum theory, Socrates and a hundred other subjects. “‘Offer’ is about many things,” as West explains:

It’s about propaganda—how it’s difficult to trace a message back to its source; how there’s never been much room to ask why and what do you mean by that? We tend to take things at face value and then wonder why all we see is a mask. Offer is about learning to accept your blindspots and realizing we all have them/ how we see someone is generally how we see ourselves, so we must have compassion for ourselves first—real forgiveness and letting go—to see another clearly. Offer is about being attached to the story, generational trauma, seeing it and loving it enough to say, “you’ve been with me, my mother, grandmother and great grandmother for so long,” now you can go back to them—”I don’t need to live according to your script anymore.

Lefty Parker – Illusions

Taking inspiration from titans like Townes Van Zandt, New York-based troubadour Lefty Parker has released a number of records over recent years, establishing a hushed and heartfelt style tuned to the key of classic folk. Often beset by the weight of loss and longing, yet never quite ready to surrender its romantic hope. Next month sees the release of Ark, Parker’s brand new full-length album produced by Buck Meek and put out by Airloom, and single ‘Illusions’ gives an indication of what to expect. With Meek joining too, the song is restrained yet all the more striking for it, delivered from a state of chronic uncertainty familiar to those down on their luck, though shot through too with a kind of heartbroken fondness for life, no matter how cruel or uncaring it might sometimes be.

Ark will be released on the 21st October via Airloom.

Neti-Neti – Grace In Rot

The self-described “lo-fi ritual project” of vocalist Amirtha Kidambi (Elder Ones, Mary Halvorson) and percussionist Matt Evans (OHYUNG, Ben Seretan), experimental duo Neti-Neti aims to collapse the distinction between the personal and the political via improvision and collaboration. Forthcoming release Echo of Being / Grace in Rot was recorded over a single day, Kidambi and Evans tapping into both individual grief, collective trauma and well-worn traditions to charge the process with a sense of momentum and fluency. Single ‘Grace in Rot’ highlights the palpable energy of the sound and the emotional urgency which follows. “‘Grace in Rot’ heaved its way out of us during the last take of the session,” the pair explain, “an unexpected flame of physicality that came after a long day and a deep discussion about the evil and cruelty we witness daily in the world.” The result is visceral, cathartic and transportive, threatening to unravel under its own chaotic impetus while always reaching towards transcendence.

vireo – catching minnows

Following on from single ‘Cloudgazers’ released back in 2024, a single we described as “a soft and gauzy song that evokes the act of the title with warm textures, gentle electronics and little squiggly guitar lines,” Pittsburgh-based indie pop outfit vireo are gearing up to release a brand new full-length later this year. For now, single ‘catching minnows’ serves as a curtain raiser to the release. Turning to the natural world in the face of personal challenges, the track could be said to embody the vireo project as a whole. One attuned to the curative power of the environment and the small beauties therein, packed full of brightness and wonder as though written in honour of the joy of being alive.

The post Weekly Listening: September 2025 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The first glimpse of her debut full-length Swirl which is coming later this year on 22Twenty, ‘Auto Icon’ is the latest single from London-born, Paris-based songwriter Flora Hibberd. Recorded at the Bungaleau in Eau Claire, WI with Shane Leonard, the track pairs assured confidence with a certain ambiguity, Hibberd’s assured composed guiding the listener beyond the bright rhythm towards something more uncanny. Indeed, the album has been described as “a cycle of songs about codes and decoding,” with Hibberd drawing on her background as a translator of art history texts to seek out those instances where errors and happenstance come to take on a deeper level of meaning.

Watch the video by Victor Claass and Hibberd herself below, with cinematography by Lola Hewison:

‘Auto Icon’ is out now and available from Bandcamp. Swirl will be released via 22TWENTY on the 15th November.

Guidon Bear – Animal Child

Back in 2022 we wrote about Unravel, an album by Olympia-based folk pop duo Guidon Bear on Antiquated Future which saw Mary Water (Little Red Car Wreck) and Pat Maley (Lois, Courtney Love) continue a collaboration now in its third decade. The album offered a realistic, refreshing take on time passing and everyday suffering, “striving forward not out of some misplaced romanticism,” as we put it, “but the mundane and often painful process of simply continuing on.” Now the pair are back with Internal Systems as if to prove the determination of this spirit, an album “about trying to stay well in an unwell world,” as the label put it. Single ‘Animal Child’ taps into this spirit with all the invention and heart we’ve come to expect from Guidon Bear, capturing the experience of real life with a unique sound somewhere between twee folk and indie pop.

Kishi Bashi – Make Believe (feat. Linqua Franqa)

“This song started as a beat that reminded me of that proto-funk-rap from the early ‘80s,” explains Kishi Bashi‘s Kaoru Ishibashi of ‘Make Believe’, the latest single from upcoming LP Kantos. “The only way the verse vocals sounded appropriate was if there was that kind of rapping, so I gave it a go!” Inviting friend and collaborator Mariah Parker, AKA Linqua Franqa, to help, Ishibashi set to creating a song which combines hip hop and psych rock sensibilities to hint at the stylistic depth of the album. Because Kantos is an ambitious release, drawing on both cult sci-fi series Hyperion Cantos and the work of Immanuel Kant to produce something of an apocalyptic party album. When so many threats appear to be coalescing over humanity’s head, Kishi Bashi has returned with a timely reminder of how good old fashioned fun might be the key to fostering the kind of connection we need to escape intact.

Watch the video directed by Ryan Hover below:

Kantos is out on the 23rd August via Joyful Noise Recordings and you can pre-order it now.

knitting – Sleeper

This September, Montreal‘s knitting will release their debut album Some Kind of Heaven via Mint Records, the outfit working with Scott Munro of Preoccupations to bring their nineties-inflected alt-rock sound to life. The result is every bit as dense and noisy as you might expect from such an arrangement, but latest single ‘Sleeper’ offers a more restrained cut from the record. A meditation on Mischa Dempsey’s experience growing into their trans identity, the song maintains a hazy style but swaps out some of the usual knitting intensity to offer more intimate, earnest emotion.

Lia Kohl – Car Alarm, Turn Signal

Chicago-based cellist, composer and multidisciplinary artist Lia Kohl has made a name blurring the borders between music and sound art, utilising an array of media and styles to create soundscapes able to evoke existence in all of its magic and mundanity. Which is to say, new record Normal Sounds is at once normal and very much not, or else it is extraordinarily normal—with Kohl turning her attention to the acoustics of everyday living and presenting them back to the listener as something as something new. The titles give a clue as to what each track offers (‘Tennis Court Light, Snow’, ‘Ice Cream Truck, Tornado Siren,’ ‘Airport Fridge, Self Checkout’) but the first single turns towards the road. ‘Car Alarm, Turn Signal’ represents “an attempt to capture the overlapping polyrhythms of the streets around my house,” as Kohl explains, with Ka Baird joining on flute to bring the soundscape to life.

The video by Kohl herself performs the same action as the song itself, focusing on a seemingly mundane aspect of a street with such attention that its strange beauty is revealed.

Normal Sounds is out on the 30th August via Moon Glyph and available to pre-order from Bandcamp.

lots of hands – rosie

lots of hands have kept audiences on their toes since their inception in 2019, releasing a string of albums, EPs and singles which float between rock, folk and electronic sensibilities without a care for typical genre conventions. The inventive, shapeshifting style has led to tour slots with the likes of Deerhoof, Cola and Claire Rousay, and live shows only see them push their sound further with sax and flute elevating it towards almost orchestral territory. Which is to say, it can be difficult to know what to expect from a new lots of hands release in the best way possible, and latest single ‘rosie’ is every bit as idiosyncratic and interesting as you might anticipate. Released via Fire Talk Records, the single opens as an intimate bedroom pop with melancholic textures and acoustic guitar before lifting towards something altogether more charged and weighty.

rosie walks in from the rain
with her lips she said
i don’t want no pain
i don’t mean any harm
i just wanna know
where i’m from

‘rosie’ is out now via Fire Talk and you can get it from Bandcamp.

MF Tomlinson – Mary (Big Thief Cover)

We’ve covered the work of MF Tomlinson several times in recent years, with album We Are Still Wild Horses winning us over with its attention to detail and bittersweet emotional landscapes. A style which makes the songwriter the ideal candidate to cover something like ‘Mary’ by Big Thief, a song which feels very much in line with the tone and themes Tomlinson and his band reach for. “I first heard Big Thief’s ‘Mary’ whilst on tour with Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever,” Tomlinson explains. “Late night driving, hyperfocused on the road appearing and disappearing in the narrow headlights, I was swallowed up by the quiet and immense power of the piece—an enormous turning wheel of emotion that summons your earliest and most fundamental places. It just felt fucking huge and at the same time incredibly close and tender. That feeling never left me, and so here we are with this recording.”

Silverware – No Expectations

The recording project of San Francisco-based artist, producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ainsley Wagoner, Silverware has long been something of a shapeshifting entity. Previous LP No Plans might have been best described as art pop, though drew from an array of different genres. Follow-up One True Light, coming later this summer on Ghost Mountain Records, appears equally uninterested in simple stylistic conventions. The result is fluid, unpredictable yet always finely crafted, with fittingly titled lead single ‘No Expectations’ introducing the spirit of the record. A vivid pop soundscape precisely mapped but intuitive in style, all anchored around the rich depth of Wagoner’s delivery.

Talk Bazaar – quiet yr mind

Talk Bazaar is the recording project of Brooklyn‘s Alex DeSimine, self confessed “multi-instrumentalist, big pillowy softie, film composer, collaborator [and] confidante.” Upcoming album WHATSPACE? takes all of these facets to capture what DeSimine describes as “the frenetic feeling of both isolation and community, of always trying to slow down and not knowing how to stop.” A whole host of guest musicians lend their talents to better achieve this aim, the wide collaboration a fitting feature of an artist always reaching for new sounds. The record’s closing track, latest single ‘quiet yr mind’ winds things down with an air of soft and smoky contemplation, with contributions from Rebecca El-Saleh (aka Kitba) and Mike Haldeman (Moses Sumney, altopalo, Mk.gee) encapsulating the richness of an album crafted with the kind of care and invention only possible with equal doses of isolation and community.

This Frontier Needs Heroes – Carolina Peaches

Hailing from Brooklyn, NY, but having spent time in Nashville and Jacksonville, FL and Barcelona among other places, Brad Lauretti of This Frontier Needs Heroes has written, recorded and performed music quite literally all over the world. 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. Latest single ‘Carolina Peaches’ charts such an experience directly, portraying a life on the move in all of its ups and downs, and always haunted by that old love never quite bettered no matter how many miles of road pass beneath the wheels.

I want to live 1000 lives, but where do I want to die?
Somewhere where the peaches are falling from the sky
When I got back on that train lord I knew I wanted to cry
Was that my biggest mistake I guess i’ll always wonder why

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

Based in LA, Aaron Weits is a self-described “musical explorer”. He uses guitars, computers, and modular synthesizers to craft an earnest, uncluttered style of pop music which explores themes of grief, joy and spiritual development. Latest single ‘Rapid Eye Movement’ is the ideal entry point for those unfamiliar with his work, the clarity of the sound not only reflecting on the loss of his mother as a child but making a space for her to persist alongside him within the present. “The lyrics embody a Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven moment for me,” as Weits explains, “what I might say to her if I could get a message to heaven.”

Abby Johnson – Wonder Why

Nashville-based songwriter Abby Johnson is also known for her film and photography work, and an attention to concision and detail carries through to her music. With a self-titled album coming this September via Earth Libraries, Johnson has shared ‘Wonder Why’, a track which encapsulates her ability to weave narratives with single snapshots. “Sometimes I pretend that I’m your moon / But still the daylight beats me to you,” go the opening lines, carrying the full weight of an emotional history. “I wonder why / I even try.” With band Ornament in tow, the record is full of such poetic clarity, positioning Johnson as a contemporary continuation of a seventies style birthed by the likes of Linda Ronstadt.

Field of Fear – Cold

The recording project of Oakland-based artist Drew Zercoe, Field of Fear is both a meditation on and escape mechanism from chronic depression, looking to chart the depths of the experience with a combination of ambient, industrial, metal and noise sensibilities. With a new album coming soon via Whited Sepulchre Records, Zercoe has released ‘Cold’, a new single which is every bit as evocative as this suggests. A song which is perhaps not as harsh or outright frightening as some of the previous Field of Fear releases, but instead offers a patient atmosphere, as though descending into the depths of gloom with a willingness to sit within it for however long it takes.

Magana – Afraid of Everybody

We first covered LA-based songwriter Jeni Magana, AKA straight Magana, back in 2016 with the Golden Tongue EP, praising the charged pop sound and its ability to evoke the nuances of relationships with yourself and others. A number of releases have built upon the sound, not least 2020 full-length you are not a morning person, and Magana’s latest single ‘Afraid of Everybody’ uses a careful hand and lush synths to weave one of her most searching songs to date. A subdued sound which rises intermittently to capture an introspective topography, coming to capture both vulnerability and strength as Magana shares her innermost fears. Or, as she herself puts it: “Sometimes you just don’t want to go to the party.”

Nora Kelly Band – Horse Girl

Recent singles ‘Roswell‘ and ‘Lay Down Girl‘ introduced the spirit of Rodeo Clown, Nora Kelly Band‘s forthcoming LP on Mint Records. An album which sees lead Nora Kelly ditching the grunge of previous project DIPSHIT in favour of an alt-country aesthetic. Described as a possible theme song for the band, latest track ‘Horse Girl’ is something of an origin tale for this transformation, with Kelly facing up to the difficulties of being a horse girl in stuck in a city with all of the heart and playfulness we’ve come to expect from her work, and ultimately choosing to own the persona. “I’m no ‘Okie from Muskogee’ or ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’, as she puts it, “but I’m not the first city slicker to love playing ‘cowboy’ either.”

I always tip my waiter but I’ve never tipped a cow
I can rob a Dollarama
Never worked a plough
I like Hank Williams
And I like Townes
I could ride the range
But I don’t know how

Check out the video by director/editor Sasha Khalimonova and cinematographer Evangelos James below

Rodeo Clown is out on the 25th August via Mint Records and you can pre-order it now.

Patio – Sixpence

Back in June, we featured the single ‘En Plein Air’ by Patio, the post-punk band’s first new music since 2019. Details were scant at the time, but the Queens trio—Loren DiBlasi (bass, vocals), Lindsey-Paige “LP” McCloy (guitar, vocals) and Alice Suh (drums)—have since announced their long-awaited sophomore record, Collection, which comes out in September via Fire Talk Records. To celebrate, they have released a second single, ‘Sixpence’. “[The song] was conceived within an early seventies daydream of decadence, glamour, and self-indulgence,” the band explain. “It’s about false identities—how money helps us create illusions that affect how others perceive us, and how we perceive ourselves. Inspired by Roxy Music, David Bowie, and the lethargic boredom that remains when ambition is thwarted by apathy.” Watch the video directed by Ambar Navarro below:

Collection will be released on the 22nd September via Fire Talk Records. Pre-order it now on all sort of formats via the Patio Bandcamp page.

Sargasso – Balancing Act

With their second album, Further Away, coming out later this month on Dead Definition Records, New York indie pop band Sargasso have released a new single titled ‘Balancing Act’. What the band describe as a song about “traveling young and making plans, achieving confidence in spite of uncertainty,” it’s acoustic guitar and gentle vocals build an atmosphere that combines quiet melancholy with a sense of hope and boundless possibility. All this comes together with a raw energy and sense of immediacy. As the band put it: “It sounds more like our band in a room in real life than almost all our other songs do.”

Life is short so go wherever you please
Life is hard so hold your love tightly
It’s a balancing act
When to go, when to come back

Taylah Carroll – Monogamy

Naarm/Melbourne-based songwriter Taylah Carroll is preparing to release her latest EP The After Party in the coming weeks, and latest single ‘Monogamy’ offers an indication of what to expect. A soulful, languid track which nevertheless possesses a building tautness through its heart, a tension which ratchets up as the song progresses to reveal the wounded anger beneath the polished sound. “I’ve been blaming the whole thing on myself,” Carroll sings in the opening verse, “But I know you ain’t no good for my health,” and the rest plays as an extended version of this realisation, hurt crystallising into something sharp-edged and brilliant.

Weave me a tale so I’ll stomach your pride,
Say a limp in your gate need not break your stride,
I learned it all fast, the guise of my past,
Selflessness is not self-sacrifice,
And feeling bad is not trying hard

Watch the video directed by Nick Mckk and Carroll herself below:

‘Monogamy’ is out now and available via the Taylah Carroll Bandcamp page.

the world famous – Hollywood Pawn

“It’s nice enough beneath the palm trees, it’s where I go to make ends meet.” So opens ‘Hollywood Pawn’, the new single by power pop band the world famous. It’s a line that captures something about the LA five-piece, mostly transplants from the East Coast—a kind of love-hate relationship with their new home. The track, lead single from the band’s forthcoming debut full-length totally famous, is based around the lead Will Harris’s experience of pawning and then buying back his guitar. It treats the Californian metropolis with a mixture of derision and delight, both ridiculing its oddities and excesses and riding the crest of its sunny, palm-lined feel-good factor.

totally famous will be released via Lauren Records on the 13th October and you can pre-order it now.

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

Latest single ‘Roswell’ channels a similar sentiment, though swaps out the playful country bop for an altogether slower, wistful croon. It explores not only the tantalising prospect of mystery in this world (as per its title), but moreover how appetites for such possibilities change with the fickle fortunes of life. “A stargazer told me, only cause I asked / He’d seen a thousand UFOs in the past,” Kelly sings in the opening lines. “But he reassured me they’d all been explained / And this had me depressed for many days.” Though any inclination to reduce the complexities of existence is the territory of the overconfident, and once humbled such men come crawling back. As if life is not a process of gaining understanding but one of letting go of such fancies. A fact that Kelly circles back to in the second half:

Some men, all they want is a beauty queen
A woman to support them in all of their dreams
But give me a call when the going gets less clear
At the end of your life you remember what’s weird

Watch the video directed by Sarah Bradshaw below:

Rodeo Clown is out on the 25th August via Mint Records and you can pre-order it now.

The album cover features photography by Gabie Allain, make-up by Neve Kerry and design by Owen Ostrowski

The post Nora Kelly Band – Roswell appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘Been a Long Year’, the lead single from Alex Nicol’s forthcoming EP Been a Long Year Vol. 1, offers a picture of grief as a kind of matryoshka doll. Where a wider context of loss and decay couches the personal, and sadness moves ever-inward with increasing weight. The track’s landscape is a town decimated by both the pandemic and chronic neglect (“And all the shops are empty,” as Nicol sings, “and the diners too / The miller, baker, and seamstress / Gotta find something new to do), within which personal tragedies including the loss of a job and the death of friends and family unfold. But with a compassionate, airy tone and guest vocals from Angel Deradoorian, ‘Been a Long Year’ doesn’t try to make sense of such experiences so much as admit the full implication of their difficulty. “I wanted to express my frustration at running from my feelings for so long,” Nicol explains. “It felt like the world was crumbling at the same time as I was pretending everything was fine, but I really wasn’t, and I finally expressed it. It feels like one long exhale for me.”

Been a Long Year Vol. 1 is out on the 30th June and you can pre-save it now.

Alex Gardner – Upside Down Crown

Inspired by everything from the Anthology of American folk music, rockabilly and bluegrass to fairy tales and experimental poetry, LA‘s Alex Gardner combines classic and contemporary styles in his distinctive music. A kind of outsider folk for the twenty-first century, where Gardner teases out the through line from acts like Michael Hurley to the modern indie style. With album Highly Attainable Dreams coming later this week, single ‘Upside Down Crown’ gives an example of what to expect. A tender folk number propelled by a nineties-style indie rock energy, coupled with a suitably nostalgic video by Lauren Slusser:

Highly Attainable Dreams is out on the 12th May and you can find Alex Gardner on Bandcamp.

Brittany Ann Tranbaugh – Pennsylvania

As much a snapshot of a damaged country as it is a personal narrative, Brittany Ann Tranbaugh’s latest single follows a queer couple as they move from a liberal urban setting to their home in rural Pennsylvania. “It was wonderful to live out west,” go the opening lines, “fun to kid ourselves I guess,” the drive punctuated by second thoughts, uneasy vibes and a “radio blaring about divided times,” but also an undeniable fondness for the familiar landscape too. Tranbaugh’s country style captures this mood in all of its nuance, where fear, fury and bone-weary disappointment coalesce into one dense weight, and wry humour is perhaps the only way to lighten the load.

Pennsylvania, it was never easy to explain ya
Sometimes home’s not just an easy chair
Lately home feels like a cross to bear

Greta Ruth – Holy Omen

Writing of her debut album The Fawn back in 2021, we described the music of Minneapolis artist Greta Ruth as “hum[ming] with a quiet dream-like energy,” where “each track is a composition of poetry and tone which slowly unfurls to reveal layers of depth and meaning.” Last week, Ruth released a brand new single ‘Holy Omen’ which again follows this style. Built on gentle vocals, fingerpicked guitar and Zach Waldon’s subtle piano, it’s a song about the awe and calm that comes with real love, “a love that,” as Ruth puts it, “sweetens and strengthens you while the chaos, mystery, and dissonance of life rage on.” Stark and soft and dream-like, it’s a more than worthy addition to the Greta Ruth oeuvre.

headboy – Reservoir

Next month, London post-punk trio headboy will release their debut EP, Was It What You Thought. Comprising of Mars West (guitar, bass, vocals), Jess Collins (guitar, bass, vocals) and Oli Birbeck (drums), the band make a distinctive blend of raucous punk and lo-fi indie pop which tackles themes both personal and political. “We pretty much condensed every emotion we’ve felt in the past two years into fourteen minutes,” Collins describes. “There are moments of anger, fear, and sadness, but also moments of joy, or acceptance, at least.” Latest single ‘Reservoir’ has all the sweaty, smoky allure of a late-night dive bar dancefloor, a shadowy post-punk exploration of “infatuation and unaddressed sexual tension.” Watch the video, directed by West themselves below:

Was It What You Thought will be released on 9^th June via Blitzcat Records. Order it via the headboy Bandcamp page.

Julez and the Rollerz – Wildest Fantasy

Having originated as a solo project, Julez and the Rollerz really came to life when Jules Batterman moved to LA in 2020 and the Rollerz were enlisted. Soon Rachel David (bass/vocals), Shea Carothers (synth/vocals), Hannah Hughes (guitar/vocals) and Emi Borja (drums) were as important a part of the band as any, and the quintet began honing their psych-inflected punk rock sound. With EP Is This Where The Party Is? coming later this month, the outfit have unveiled latest single ‘Wildest Fantasy’ to rope listeners in. A track which confronts the honest difficulties of negotiating the music industry, fighting to maintain enthusiasm in a space so often appearing to drain dreams from artists. But armed with equal parts playful mischief and heart-on-sleeve passion, Julez and the Rollerz power on through regardless.

Nora Kelly Band – Lay Down Girl

Having made a name as part of grunge outfit DISHPIT, Montreal‘s Nora Kelly has until know been known for her unapologetic attitude and energy. And though a pandemic-induced rebirth pushed new project Nora Kelly Band in an alt-country direction, this defiant tone remains. Album Rodeo Clown is out this summer Mint Records, and lead single ‘Lay Down Girl’ goes some way to explaining the LP’s titular image. A figure made to smile no matter the mood. “The lyrics to this song were direct advice that I was giving to myself,” Kelly explains. “To stop staying put, acting sweet and putting everyone else first. Other people’s approval had been my priority for so long that overtime my connection to what I liked and what I wanted had become weak.” Watch the video directed by Gabie Che below:

Rodeo Clown is out on the 25th August via Mint Records. Find Nora Kelly Band on Bandcamp.

The Phone Booth – Wasted

‘Happier at Home’, the previous single from Santa Barbara outfit The Phone Booth, was a slow-burning ode to living against expectations, moving through a sludgy haze of boredom and anxiety. Something of the track must have served its therapeutic purpose, because new single ‘Wasted’ is altogether more upbeat, blending sunny indie rock with slacker sensibilities to signal something of a return to past album Roman, albeit with a new sheen of polish. The song is the lead single from a forthcoming self-titled album, and gives the impression that The Phone Booth are ready to reintroduce themselves in their most confident form yet.

Sarah Coolidge – Ice Pack

Following several singles and EPs over the last few years, Bay Area musician Sarah Coolidge is set to release her debut album, Call Me When You Get There, a collection of ten songs recorded in John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone Studios in Oakland. Coolidge has a knack for writing deceptively simple songs that are effortlessly catchy and full of tongue-in-cheek humour, and lead single ‘Ice Pack’ is the perfect introduction. Upbeat indie pop soaked in shoegaze shimmer, it’s a song about a litany of eye injuries suffered from 3^rd grade to present, from burnt eyebrows to invasive pepper flakes. Tennessee Mowrey joins on bass and Chris Olson on drums, and together the trio make something genuinely infectious, certainly the most buoyant examination of bodily harm you’ve heard this year.

Virgin of the Birds – Moon Chariot

Following a series of EPs, Seattle‘s Virgin of the Birds caught the attention of Edinburgh label Song, By Toad, with albums Winter Seeds and Secret Kids seeing them join a roster including the likes of Meursault and Adam Stafford. The company felt fitting for a project straddling lo-fi folk and left-field art rock, where literate lyrics are met with experimental sounds, and inventiveness need not come at the expensive of emotion. The Scottish link continues with new EP Viper Summer, with members of Edinburgh folk outfit Storm the Palace joining to add a new dimension to the project, as captured by lead single ‘Moon Chariot’. A track bursting with bright energy and mythical strangeness, where any sense of opacity from the latter is rendered redundant by the conviction of the former. A song of serpents and winged horses in which you can only totally believe.

I rejoiced at seeing the giantess
And the world and its cruelties
And the serpent that sings:
“Now, for the moon, Noreen!”
“Now, for the moon, Noreen!”

The post Weekly Listening: May 2023 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.