To bring this to life, King Ropes offer a sound to match the landscape. One where beauty and harshness sit side by side, and imperfections are just part of the rustic charm. Whether that be the bright and buoyant opener ‘Two Shoes’ or the brooding ‘Radio Jane’ which flickers with an edge of what might be sultry romance or latent violence. ‘Way Too High’ follows with a far smoother, languid flow, though beneath the lazy haze lies a simmering unease. As though, true to the title, the narrator is finding themselves overtaken by a sense of deepening unreality, peculiarities bleeding into the everyday, the sense nothing is quite what it seems.

It is this balance between the ordinary and the extraordinary that marks Idaho, just as it has the other records in the King Ropes oeuvre, and represents that elusive Spirit of The West. The upending combination of familiarity and alienation that comes with living in the middle of nowhere, where isolation is both a confine and a wide-open space. Sun-baked, unrefined, a world within a world. Something as evident in the laconic rhythm of songs like ‘Broken Cup’ and ‘Ride In Your Car’ as it is spacious wonder of ‘International Shortwave’ or the sleek mischievousness of ‘Succulent Thief’, not to mention ‘Live Like an Animal’ with its mean swagger and bite. A song in which sardonic humour meets something primal to the point where you are never quite sure what its next move might be.

Idaho is out now via Big and Just Little and available from the usual places.

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The title of the latest King Ropes record therefore feels fitting. Super Natural. A manifestation or event “attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature,” is how the dictionary defines supernatural, but the title isn’t quite that. Perhaps it instead refers to the opposite. Something perfectly in line with scientific understanding and the laws of nature. Something especially natural.

With equal parts realism and oddness, the album does not fall on one side or the other, instead embracing both simultaneously. Be it the unexplained symptoms of ‘Breathing’ or ideas of reincarnation on ‘My Brother’s a Bear Now’, or the very human sense of loss and worry which ghosts across both. The mood is typified by single ‘Greedy‘, what we described as “a deadpan stream of consciousness which captures the vibe of an album that is a ramshackle ode to both the grace and difficulty of our strange world.” A slacker rock track about a trip to Coney Island, but also so much more than that. As though the garish lights of the tilt a whirl and the made-up faces of mermaids on parade are not some departure from reality but rather its essence distilled. “Kinda trippy,” as the lyrics go. “Kinda dreamy.”

We took the opportunity to speak with the band to dig a little deeper into the ideas and stories behind the record:

Hi Dave and everyone at King Ropes, thanks for speaking with us and congratulations on the release of Super Natural. How’s it feel to put another record into the world?

Hi, great speaking with you too! And thanks, we always appreciate what you do at Various Small Flames. It always feels good releasing a record, but this one feels (laughing) extra special to us somehow. We recorded this in our spot in Bozeman (Montana) in a way that somehow felt more relaxed, and at the same time more focussed and direct than anything we’ve done before. Ben (Roth) brought his gear out from Seattle and we set up in our spot for about 8 or 10 days, and dove in without any real outside distractions. I had written the songs, and worked them out with Jeff (Jensen) pretty well, but we’d never played them before. We’d work on a song for a while until it felt like something was gelling, then Jeff and I would go get coffees while Ben set up mic’s, and we’d hit record. It kept feeling like we were capturing lightening in a bottle. Pretty great feeling!

There’s a directness to many of the songs which feels different to your previous work, with tracks like ‘Breathing’ facing things in a pretty unflinching manner. Was this something you set out to achieve with the new record, or did the songs just happen to emerge this way?

I think you’re right. And yeah, it was something we were all trying to do. I wrote these songs as the lockdown stuff was really settling in, and we were all, the whole world, realizing it was going to go on and on, who knew how long. Somehow that helped me approach the songwriting in a more focussed way, I guess. Like with the recording, it felt both more focussed and more relaxed. I can’t really explain why. Maybe something to do with some of the distractions of normal life being put on the back burner? The more I got into that mode the more I was conscious of what was happening, and I kept leaning into it. ‘Breathing’ for sure is a good example. And ‘Blind Eye’. Maybe even more, ’Drunk Donny’ and ‘Sure’ which both have hardly any lyrics at all. They just say the thing, and I leave it at that. I’d never written so sparely before, and it felt like a bit of a revelation.

I’m also interested in the wry humour of your work, and how this relates to the painful and personal aspects of the songs. Does the playful side of your style let you push deeper than you perhaps otherwise might?

For sure! I mean life can be brutal and painful and unrelenting, but it’s also bizarre and hilarious, right? I guess in the broadest sense I’m trying to address, to express, some of the ways that we all have very particular experiences that relate to the human experience broadly, universally, you know? It’s what bonds us all. It wouldn’t feel honest to just give a voice to one side or the other, tragedy or comedy. They really are inseparable.

That said, there’s a weird, inscrutable side to the music too. Be it on ‘Real Live Tiger’ or the appropriately titled closer ‘Mystery’. Not to ask a magician to reveal his tricks, but do you have a good handle on what these more cryptic elements refer too? Or are you just working with what feels interesting or right, a conduit for something none of us can quite pin down?

(Laughing) It’s true, there’s some stuff in these that might leave you thinking “what this f*** is this about, anyway?” There’s always a touchstone to real experiences for me, but I like the way leaving things a bit obscure can give the listener a chance to fill in the blanks in a way that might make it feel more directly relevant to their own life, right? I was a painter before I dove so deep into making music, and I was always interested in the line between figurative art and abstract art. What makes some paint on a canvas look like a smear of paint, and a human face at the same time? Or not! I guess I’m doing something like that with songwriting.

Anyway, yes, almost all these cryptic obscure things I sing about come from some specific thing in my life, or that I’ve seen up close. I won’t pull back the curtain, so to speak, and get into a ton of detail here. But we could sit down and have a beer sometime and I’ll tell some stories.

It’s fair to say the record is a melting pot of sounds. There’s the Americana influence, there’s psych and stoner sensibilities, there are synths, noise-based tracks, all sort of things bouncing around. Could you talk a little about how this range evolved?

Sure! I think I’m speaking for all of us when I say we’re fans of music first. And we love all kinds of music. (Which is different from saying we like everything!). But we’ve all been influenced by, and moved by and fallen in love with, a lot of music. So it feels limiting, and honestly, boring, to try to fit ourselves into one genre or another. The challenge is to allow all these different influences to come into play without having it sound like total chaos, or worse, just random, like it’s some kind of party trick. So we’re always trying to stay between the lines of being boring and predictable on one side, and just random chaotic nonsense on the other. I guess that’s another way of saying we’re always trying to figure out how to make songs that on the surface can sound wildly diverse, but feel viscerally related to each other, and identifiable as King Ropes songs. Makes for a fun little puzzle to solve sometimes.

Could we talk about influences? I think most writers feel they’re working in some kind of lineage, and not always that which seems most apparent from the outside. Which artists, songwriters or otherwise, would you align your work with?

Hm. There are so many songwriters I admire, and who I try to learn something from where I can. I’ll just throw some out and feel bad tomorrow about some of the one’s I should have mentioned. Willie Nelson is way up there. Tom Petty. Lucinda Williams. Frank Black from Pixies. I mean, Kurt Cobain. Bowie. Sharon Van Etten, Elton John, (with Bernie Taupin of course, but damn some of those songs are great), Phoebe Bridgers. Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish. Beck. Al Green. Elliott Smith. Ok. I’ll stop now….

What does the future hold for King Ropes?

Ha! More of the same, without being the same! The real goal is to figure out how to keep doing exactly what we’re doing. Writing songs, recording, and playing music that feels fresh and new to us, and hopefully resonates with the people who hear it. In order to do that we’re working at building a bit broader audience, and a little more exposure in the “industry”, or whatever. But the reason for us to do that is to be able to keep doing what we’re already doing.

And touring! We’re so happy to be back at it. We’ve been out a couple times this year and have a fair amount of shows lined up for the rest of the year. Keep your ears open. Come see us if we make it to your town!

Super Natural is out now via Big and Just Little and available from the King Ropes Bandcamp page.

Portrait photo by Courtney Fitzpatrick

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“Strange DIY songs for strange DIY times,” is how we’ve described the work of California‘s Derek Ted in the past, though 2021’s KEEP TRYING hinted at a warmer, sentimental side. Latest single ‘someday soon’ develops this aspect of Ted’s work, finding a ray of light in otherwise dark circumstances and working to persevere if only for the sight of it. “I wanted to capture that pure magic you feel when you’re first crushing on someone special,” Ted explains. “Like a springtime daydream played out in your head.”

gotten used to having my heart wasted
but then you came around
could it be true?
there’s beauty on the horizon
i’d wait around all just if just for you

For Breakfast – Orfordness Lighthouse

Ahead of their forthcoming EP Trapped in the Big Room on Glasshouse Records, London-based art rock outfit For Breakfast have unveiled brand new single, ‘Orfordness Lighthouse’. The single is as detailed and inventive as you might expect from a seven-piece band, each member bringing their own musical sensibilities to achieve a sound incorporating everything from dream pop and noise rock to trip hop and psychedelica. The brass and flutes of ‘Orfordness Lighthouse’ weave a nuanced, playful sound, though this is anchored by a post-rock depth which rises as the song progresses and thunders into the cathartic conclusion.

Horseface – Sanakirjan Takana

Based in Umeå, Sweden, Horseface work at the intersection of dream pop and post-punk to create their immersive songs. Next month sees the release of their latest album Sanakirjan Takana on Sing a Song Fighter and they have shared the title track by way of an introduction. With rhythmic percussion and synths/mellotron from David Lundberg (of Gösta Berlings Saga), the song combines emotive atmospherics with off-kilter charm. The title, which translates as “behind the dictionary,” alludes to a short story by the mother of the lead vocalist which was sadly only found after her untimely passing, and there’s a sense of cryptic fondness running through the sound.

King Ropes – Greedy

Bozeman, Montana outfit King Ropes won our attention back in 2021 with the release of Way Out West, an album which took inspiration from the rural landscape and mindset as well as a healthy slice of weirdness. Songs marked “by odd wisdom and surreal images, all cloaked in a psych-inflected air that only accentuates the strangeness,” as we put it. With trauma, reincarnation and inexplicable ailments, this balance between natural beauty and eeriness is again a feature of new LP Super Natural, out next month on Big and Just Little, as shown by latest single ‘Greedy’. A deadpan stream of consciousness which captures the vibe of an album that is a ramshackle ode to both the grace and difficulty of our strange world.

Super Natural is out on the 26th May and you can order your copy from the King Ropes Bandcamp page.

Mal Not Bad – Oven

The recording project of Los Angeles-based visual artist and musician Mallory Hauser, Mal Not Bad makes a lush brand of indie folk which blurs the line between mundane reality and ethereal dreams. Ahead of new EP Continuous Short Feature Film and a EU/UK tour with Illuminati Hotties, Mal has released the single ‘Oven’. A slow, foggy track which captures this spirit perfectly. “Smells like something’s burning,” Hauser sings, the delivery more sluggish than panicked as dissonant tones scramble the once-pillowy sound, like a nightmare where the terrible is happening but you can hardly move.

Continuous Short Feature Film is due to be released later this year.

Sinead O’Brien – There Are Good Times Coming

Ahead of debut album Time Bend and Break The Bower, out via Chess Club Records this summer, Ireland’s Sinead O’Brien has unveiled latest single, ‘There Are Good Times Coming’. The song captures the idiosyncratic aesthetic O’Brien has developed, one reliant on words and images as much as sound, and able to be at once twitchy and fluid, alluring and menacing, forthright and mysterious. “Throw a coin in the fountain,” O’Brien sings. “A curse in your name / A praise in vein of kindness / There are good times coming / For love or for money there are good times coming.” Check out the video directed by Chloé le Drezen below:

Time Bend and Break The Bower is out via Chess Club Records on the 10th June and you can pre-order it now.

Yves Jarvis – At the Whims

We’ve followed the work on Montreal‘s Yves Jarvis since his days recording under the moniker Un Blonde, always appreciating how Jarvis maintains such a sense of detail and invention in his sound. Ahead of new album The Zug on ANTI-, Yves Jarvis is back with brand new single ‘At the Whims’. Described as depicting “the arc of civilization,” the track uses psych pop as the thread to weave a tapestry of human history, starting with creation and extending out into a time yet to be realised. A future marked by collapsing empires, as foretold in all empires past.

The Zug is out on the 13th May via ANTI- and you can pre-order it from the Yves Jarvis Bandcamp page.

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If Go Back was in some way an album about returning from the city, then new album Way Out West is what comes after. To be released this June, the record takes direct inspiration from the rural landscape and mindset. A Montana record, made at home, about home. “I’m trying to carve out a sound for us that reflects our Montana roots,” he explains. “I’m trying to evoke the open space. Rural, open— just where we’re from.”

The mood is caught by lead single, ‘Magical Floating Eye’, an unsettled, creeping track that blurs the banal and the mystical. There’s something Lynchian in both the lyricism and delivery, the easy-going rhythm interrupted intermittently by odd wisdom and surreal images, all cloaked in a psych-inflected air that only accentuates the strangeness. But beneath it all, somewhere between the peculiar demands and esoteric vibes, something else stirs. Something that looks surprisingly like hope.

Say something smart, say something funny
walk backwards, speak in tongues
A magical floating eye on a blue plate hanging on a wall in a motel in Deer Lodge, Montana
might make you free

Way Out West is out on the 11th June and you can pre-order it now from the King Ropes Bandcamp page, including on CD and LP.

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Equipped with an electric guitar, 80s Casio keyboard and (in her own words) “all the heartbreak she can wring out of wet cloth vocals,” Ash Nataanii solo is, on the surface, a very different beast to the Ash Nataanii that fronts Fuuls. Gone is the ferocious aggression, the throat-shredding yells reined in, replaced with something far more tender but no less cathartic. This is vulnerable indie pop with a steely edge, Nataanii exploring life as a queer indigenous person in a style that is fun and defiant and very much unique. “Exit Music for Exit Wounds is as much exorcism as it is prophecy,” she explains. “It’s a scrapbook of familiar sounds and a sneak peek at heartbreak yet to be.”

Today we have the pleasure of unveiling the album’s debut single. Titled ‘Everything Must Go’ it is a three minute illustration of what to expect from the album and the perfect introduction to Ash Nataanii as a solo artist. The lo-fi aesthetic is juxtaposed by a depth afforded by the rich combination of buoyant beats and electric guitar, giving the impression that Nataanii has wrung out every drop of potential without sacrificing that DIY rawness. Above all this, Nataanii’s expressive and direct vocals are given license to take centre stage, quickly proving that she can express herself just as well with a “whimper” as a shout.

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The influence of musical history is even more overt in the forthcoming King Ropes record, Go Back Where They Came From. Recorded between Brooklyn and Tacoma across three sessions squeezed into breaks on tour, the album compromises entirely of covers, the band offering reworkings and interpretations of classic songs from the likes of Elton John, Steve Earle, Al Green and Talking Heads.

The goal of the record is far more than emulation. “Most of what I know about songwriting I’ve learned by covering other people’s songs,” Hollier explains. “But I’ve never been interested in copying the original version of a song. The covers I love to hear are when someone takes a great song, and makes it into something new.” A successful cover for King Ropes is not that which is closest to the original, rather a re-imagining that does justice to the creative and emotional power that the first artist worked with.

The process was therefore one of de- and reconstruction. “On this album, we’ve tried to strip the songs down to the bare bones, and then build them back up again and take them pretty far from their original context,” Hollier continues. “I’ve been thinking about cover songs for a long time, and I thought it would be fun to try a covers album with a bunch of songs from all over the map, and take those songs in a bunch of directions.”

Their version of ‘Girls Like Us’ by Mike Ferrio’s Tandy is the perfect example. Taking the slow burn country spirit of the original and pushing it into a newly vivid territory, King Ropes offer a brighter song, the added flourish of trombone from Lucy Hollier lending a real richness. With it’s quiet power, Ferrio’s original occupied a space akin to the too-dark afternoon of a deep winter sunset, and while the King Ropes version is no less wistful, there’s a longevity to the light in the track—a summer’s dusk where the sun’s honeyed drop does not come with the same sense of loss.

Check out the video by Kathy Kasic of Metamorph Films below:

Go Back Where They Came From is out on the 22nd May and you can find more on the King Ropes website.

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Having been a major part of the music scene in Bozeman for the best part of six years, self-releasing a handful of EPs and demo collections, this week sees the release of the debut full-length Panther Car record, Pomegranate, on Anything Bagel. The complete realisation of the band’s vision, the album sees Panther Car marry their divergent influences seamlessly, as opening track ‘Lull’ attests. The prog-rock heft and psych swirls are tied together with a grungy edge, the through line that allows the track a real sense of focus despite its sprawling ambition.

‘Cool Lies’ is equally inventive, glimpses of Panther Car’s arty sensibilities flickering into view as the track lurches between heavy garage rock and languid dream pop. Such size and juxtaposition could be said to have something to do with the album’s home state. As Meredith Schneider writes for Imperfect Fifth, the expansive beauty of ‘Rainbows’ is lifted from the Montana landscape, the vastness interspersed by large and looming mountains of noise. For every colossal peak there are valleys and gullies, and an active listener will find new ground upon repeated plays, each track an unmapped expanse that is only brought into relief by exploration.

And there’s plenty to explore with Pomegranate. The angular stomp of ‘Nonpareil’ leads into the weightless opening of ‘Behave’, but even within the latter the tone is shifting, meandering in slack water for spells before finding turbulent eddies that cast it forward. The ominous, off-kilter rhythms of ‘Hearts’ follow, before the breezy sixties-style psych-pop of ‘Ladders’. ‘The Way’ morphs a proggy soundscape into something altogether more brooding, rising with a volatile energy that threatens to blow as the track develops, and the mood passes over onto the mean and dark closer, ‘Thought Up’. A slow-moving juggernaut that pitches emotions into a swirling mass, the track grows and grows, culminating in a cathartic avalanche of sound that closes out the album.

We’re lucky enough to be streaming the record a few days early, so grab you headphones and let Panther Car take you by the hand into the grand, weird world of Pomegranate.

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The variation extends to the moods and themes of the songs too. Other Days is a record about the “ups and downs of daily life as a young adult in the current age of technology,” Cardiello tells The Seed in a Q&A, “dealing with social media, having friends living near and far, being constantly reminded of things happening elsewhere.” The result is a record that allows the joyous and the difficult to exist side by side, the celebratory energy bubbling to the surface no matter what.

After the taut, LVL UP style opener of ‘Afternoon’, ‘Thunderstorm’ arrives with bendy elastic guitar like bright strokes of synaesthesiac colour, before thumping percussion adds an air of magnitude and negative space. It’s a good introduction to the Wrinkles aesthetic, an upbeat and unpredictable combination of manic energy and moments of sweeping grandeur. The chorus is the case-in-point, the Fang Island-esque buoyancy supporting Cardiello as he channels his inner Spencer Krug, nearly-wailing lines about an unexpected and inexplicable connection to a distant land via the internet.

“There was a thunderstorm, I wanted to be part of it,
I went into the basement and banged on the drums,
there was a scene that I found on the internet,
I wanted to be part of it but didn’t know how”

Operating at a slower pace (at least initially), ‘Shores’ is built on a repetitive synth line that sounds like it could soundtrack the seafloor level of some retro platformer. Eventually the track blossoms into something equally anxious and earnest, at times accelerating into helter skelter motion before grinding back to a near-halt. It follows the record’s thematic blueprint, traversing the peaks and troughs of contemporary existence, exploring how sometimes the future can be as uncertain as sand at the bottom of the murkiest waters.

As you can probably tell from those descriptions, Wrinkles are not content to slip into a familiar groove. Every track on the record hums and pulses with its own unique energy, and it’s a testament to the band that the result is such a cohesive whole. Described as a “high energy rocker with frenetic guitar lines and punchy syncopation,” ‘Some Days’ see Cardiello wander into a new vocal landscape, a shouty delivery that the band refer to as “David Byrne-esque,” adding to the kind of twitchy, yelpy rhythm that jolts into expressive drawn-out sections.

‘Total Control’ spits and stomps behind squealing guitar before morphing into something almost anthemic, while closer ‘Black Jeans’ skitters and glows while the lyrics swerve from childhood memories to the comforting melancholy of watching The Lion King, earnestness delivered with disarming humour (“I’m wearing black jeans like my father did, I always thought they were ugly when I was a kid”). It’s one final confirmation that Wrinkles are dedicated to making something that sounds quite unlike anything else around at the moment. But don’t take our word for it, stream the whole thing below ahead of its release:

Photo by Amy Donovan

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Placid Lake is an album based around themes of grief, mourning and self-doubt, adopting an earnest, vulnerable tone that aims for sincerity and honest connection. The songs serve not only as a personal process of grieving but also a communal invitation to the listener to do likewise. Through this, remembrance and longing are wrought into something altogether more joyful, memories and emotions used in a celebration of life, and those now gone but not forgotten. After first single ‘Your Eyes‘ introduced the Bombshell Nightlight sound, we’re happy to be able to share the second single, ‘Death Day’, which picks up many of these themes directly. As the label describes:

The song deals with celebrating the death day anniversary of a loved one who has passed, and the emotions of grief that come with it. Specifically, Cardiello sings about the loss of his father when he was a child and the years of processing and grief that have accompanied that loss.

The video, directed by Marshall Granger, supports this. Shot at the the location of Cardiello’s recording, the film brings to life the simplicity and natural beauty of the area, and further draws the impact of that space from the music. Furthermore, it reinforces the urgency of Cardiello’s words, railing against the accepted wisdom of death and loss through imagery both peaceful and frantic. This is something of a theme for the track as a whole, competing emotions mirroring the condition of bereavement, where intrinsic beliefs are guessed at and questioned by outsiders, conventional wisdom stretched over an unconventional state, and serving no purpose beyond the creation of tension and guilt.

“I don’t see the difference,” Cardiello sings at the crescendo of the song, “no-one’s gone forever / we’re swimming in the pool of memories.” The statement becomes something of a mantra, and forms the overriding position of the track. The message here does not appear to be one of ‘moving on’ from loss, but rather re-configuring its meaning into a more useful shape. Which is to say, a lack of reason or explanation does not equate to a lack of meaning. Bombshell Nightlight use absence not as proof of nothingness but the very opposite, as validation of life and evidence of meaning, emptiness mapped by what surrounds it.

Placid Lake is set for release on the 17th August via Anything Bagel and Reflective Tapes.

Photo by Emily Johnson

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‘Graveyard Fields’ puts some rock and some blues into the classic country formula, lazy electric guitars buzzing around like big fat flies in the late afternoon. The track is about locations near his home in North Carolina, namely the Pisgah National Forest near Asheville and an area called Black Balsam Knob, and is imbued with a decidedly Appalachian brand of creeping mysticism. “I see a dead moon rising, over graveyard fields” Gustafson sings, “I see a dead moon rising from the top of a hill, and I feel like I’m drowning in my own wishing well”. Just one track in and fans of Phosphorescent’s more recent countrified work will already find lots to like. Follow-up ‘Empire Builder’ is spangled with banjo and lyrics about leaving the state on the Empire Line and and taking to the high seas, while ‘Black Flower Blooming’ is one if the album’s most straightforward singer songwriter folk songs, all wrapped up in evocative country instrumentation.

“Got a way out and climbed the highest mountaintop
thought about walking down then took to jumping off
grew some wings and flew away with ketamine
looking back to her those days are like a bad dream”

‘The Gold Is Deep’ is a banjo-led back-porch folk song that wobbles into psych territory, its reverberating vocals like the pleasant but delusional visions of striking rich that flicker in shimmering campfire flames. ‘My Companion’ sounds like a classic party folk song, the banjo joined by fiddle a, while ‘Capitol Blues’ is a sparse instrumental. There’s a real backwoods country feel on ‘Wildflower Perfume’, in which the narrator takes a flower to remind him of home, before another instrumental ‘Nostalgia’ rises from its ashes. My current favourite, ‘Stained Glass Eyes’, has more than a shade of Dylan, a folk song that feels urgent and impassioned and reverberates in your soul, the streams of lyrics working on multiple levels, from basic gut-level poetry to lofty metaphysical musings.

“Fifth wind brought a howl got me in a storm
I saw a lighthouse spinning at the edge of the world
like looking through a window to the day
I was born”

If that sounds as good to you as it does to me, you’ll probably want to check out this outdoors performance too. All that’s left then is for ‘Embers of Midnight’ to end on a lighter tone, a wistful, lonely-cowboy country track. “Ships set sail on clouds of grey,” he sings. “I close my eyes for a moment’s escape / Out of the hills into the blue, my silver star is fading”.

Montana is a great album and a must for anyone who likes their folk kinda strange and beamed out of the hills of Appalachia. You can buy it now from The Dead Tongues Bandcamp page.

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