In ‘Passing Through’ “a stark guitar line draws the listener through the track’s shadows,” as we put it, “where the muted ambient sounds blur into the background to evoke a sense of empty clarity,” while ‘Heaven’ draws inspiration from Olivier Nakache’s film The Specials (originally Hors normes). “Marbling intimate tenderness and haunting space to form something airy yet loaded with unseen weight,” as we wrote in a recent preview, the song evoked the spirit of the film to offer “a testament to the compassionate potential of people in a world which can seem determined to prove the opposite.” This balance between sparsity and warmth is clear on ‘You Can Have It Your Way’ too, another track economical in its lyricism and almost spectral in sound, an attempt to communicate fundamental truths via stark elements: “Between / The lines / You’ll see / You’ll find / Your light / Is light / In time / Heals mine.”

With a shadowed, brooding tone which calls to mind the likes of Logan Farmer, ‘Hourglass’ offers a plaintive sound, though even within this seemingly morose soundscape comes a quiet urgency. An exhortation to act and free oneself. Closer ‘Bird Cage’ follows with its own prospects of escape. The song in many ways feels like the encapsulation of the entire EP. An ode to the beauty of sparsity, as though the aim is to strip down language until there nothing remains but its bare bones and some intuitive truth might reveal itself. “Before words,” as the the song concludes, “We knew / Without knowing.”

Proprioception is out now and available from the MVSO Bandcamp page.

The post MVSO – Proprioception appeared first on Various Small Flames.

We’ve long followed the work of Hamilton’s Basement Revolver, most recently in 2022 with the full-length Embody, which used the band’s signature weight and compassion “to confront the intricacies of modern life with a newfound steel and depth.” This usually involves complicated themes of identity and faith, though latest single ‘Red Light’ offers a picture of a far more specific problem of modern living—the infuriating experience of getting a red light ticket that costs far more than a pay check. But through a blend of pummelling energy, dreamy textures and Chrisy Hurn’s earnest vocals, the song becomes a wider meditation on the inevitable costs of pursuing one’s dreams, and how society can appear to be constructed in opposition to anyone looking to pursue creative ideals.

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

Casual Technicians – Homecoming

Following last year’s Four Corners EP, Portland-centred but now geographically separated indie rock band Casual Technicians have announced their debut full-length record. Self-titled and comprising of 19 tracks, it promises to be a comprehensive introduction to the band’s style, what we described previously as “[a] playful sound that’s not only willing to experiment between genres but to meld them together seamlessly.” Following the oddball lo-fi pop of lead single ‘Lucy in the Dark’, Casual Technicians have now released a second song from the record, ‘Homecoming’. It’s just as strange, but in a different way, possessing a homebrew folk style that centres around the signature deadpan delivery.

clay pigeon – Dark Blue

The new recording project of Canadian songwriter James Clayton, clay pigeon makes songs that combine a laidback, listenable quality with impressive emotional depth. In July, he will release The Aching Taste of Blue, his debut full-length recorded at Hotel2Tango in Montreal with acclaimed engineer Howard Bilerman. In anticipation, he has released lead single ‘Dark Blue’, a song that acts as the perfect calling card for what clay pigeon is all about. “’Dark Blue’ was one of the first songs I wrote for the project and in hindsight, it set the canvas for the rest of the record,” Clayton describes. “The fingerpicking pattern melted the beginning and end of the phrase together and everything became very meditative, yet unresolved, as if to ask a question. Is everything okay?”

Daniel Brouns – Lizard Killer

Described as a concept album about first experiences, Stock Music For The Cosmos sees songwriter Daniel Brouns condense his life into nine seminal moments—including brushes with love, death, pornography. With the album coming this May on Anxiety Blanket Records, Brouns has unveiled single ‘Lizard Killer’. As the title suggests, the song presents an encounter with loss in the form of a class pet, Brouns describing the experience of finding the lizard dead in its cage with the flat, near-spoken despondency of David Bazan. Indeed, the latest Pedro The Lion albums are a good touchstone for the Daniel Brouns sound, where the past is presented as a kind of duality between fond nostalgia and bitter regret. Watch the video by Dalton Pate below:

Stock Music For The Cosmos is out on the 17th May 17th via Anxiety Blanket Records.

DD Island – Runnin’

Originating as a solo project in Nashville, DD Island moved to New York in 2021, where lead Brandon Rhodes recruited an assortment of friends and accomplices to build a fresh line-up capable of bringing a new era of the project to life. Rhodes used live shows as the nursery for this version of the band, so its fitting that the new DD Island EP Runnin’ was recorded live to embrace this spirit. But as the lead single and title track confirms, this immediacy does not preclude a sense of intention, the band tapping into an easy-going rhythm to support the wistful lyrics and warm sound to create something as heartfelt as it is fun.

Runnin’ is out now and available from the usual places.

MVSO – Heaven

An exploration of the “universal themes of life, death and the passing of time through a decidedly personal lens.” That’s how we’ve previously described the work of MVSO (AKA duo Mat Vairo and Saumon Oboudiyat), singing the praises of both ‘Hold Clear’ and ‘Passing Through‘. With the release of EP Proprioception fast approaching, new single ‘Heaven’ follows suit with another sparsely evocative sound, marbling intimate tenderness and haunting space to form something airy yet loaded with unseen weight. The song was inspired by the 2019 film The Specials (originally Hors normes) directed by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, which tells the true story of two men who train underprivileged youth to care for young people with autism. It serves as a testament to the compassionate potential of people in a world which can seem determined to prove the opposite.

Oscilla – Tongue-Tied

Back in December, we featured Oscilla, the project of San Francisco‘s Frances England, describing how the quiet sincerity of single ‘Tornado’ “functions something like a plea in the face of elemental danger. An attempt to will oneself onto surer ground.” The song was the first from a forthcoming EP called Drink Up the Sun, which is due for release later in the Spring. Now Oscilla have unveiled the record’s second single, ‘Tongue-Tied’, a nostalgic indie pop song with the warm and oversaturated tones of a photograph from an old summer vacation. England creates this sound with the help of producer Omar Akrouche (who also plays in LA art pop band Worthitpurchase), elevating what would be a pretty and melodic song into something thick with the sweet and hazy poignance of long summertime days.

July, cherry juice stains on your chin and fingers
Sweet grass almost knee high
Rolling down the windows past the field and pine trees
Power lines flash by

Razor Braids – It Goes Quiet

Back in November we introduced Brooklyn-based outfit Razor Braids with single ‘She’. A song which typified both the band’s nineties rock aesthetic and the spirit at the heart of their work, “willingly shaking itself from past desires in order to find new hope and joy in desires as of yet unrealised.” The track was taken from upcoming full-length Big Wave, and new single ‘It Goes Quiet’ offers another glimpse at the album’s bittersweet mood. Hesitant uncertainty and cathartic motion collide on the same song, encapsulating an album that promises to explore not only love but the constant process of growth and change which accompanies it.

 Roselove – Marionette

‘Marionette’ is the latest single from Roselove, a musician, photographer, visual artist and writer based between New York and Philadelphia. Taking equal parts London indie sleaze pop and Philly shoegaze, the song draws on personal experience of the difficulty living and working as transgender woman in creative industries to explore loneliness more generally. But while the track comes with an understandable degree of frustration and longing, it is far more than such emotions. Rather, it offers a voice of empathy and solidarity to every person suffering within this contemporary epidemic, as well as a steely intensity to face down those who reinforce the conditions which allow it to fester.

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

The understated, simmering style of ‘Hold Clear’ suggested the form such an endeavour  takes, “where,” as we continued, “the intimacy of the personal opens out into something cryptic and deep.” Now MVSO have returned with brand new single ‘Passing Through’ to further introduce their evocative sound. A stark guitar line draws the listener through the track’s shadows, where the muted ambient sounds blur into the background to evoke a sense of empty clarity. When the vocals emerge into this soundscape, they are all the more striking for it. Restrained in tone but foregrounded by the arrangement’s haunted quiet, murmured as though in distant regret or world weary contemplation.

Proprioception will be released in spring 2024. You can find MSVO on socials and streaming services.

The post MVSO – Passing Through appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Working between soul, jazz and R&B, Portland, ME-based artist Angelikah Fahray is a rising star of the New England scene, winning attention with a sound willing to embrace both haunting and sensual styles. Latest single ‘In My Coffin’ is the perfect introduction for those unfamiliar. A slow, sultry croon which envelopes the audience, the song occupies an ambiguous tone which never quite shows its hand. Is it romantic, bitter, melancholic? Or perhaps all three spun into an enthralling web?

‘In My Coffin’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Casual Technicians – On A Trip To Nowhere

Though now separated by geography, all three members of Casual Technicians have a long history with the music scene in Portland, Oregon. Tyler Keene and Nathan Baumgartner were founding members of And And And while Boone Howard fronted The We Shared Milk and the Boone Howard band. This experience shined through on Four Corners EP, the latest release from Repeating Cloud, where the band offer a confident and playful sound that’s not only willing to experiment between genres but to meld them together seamlessly. Opener and single ‘On a Trip to Nowhere’ plays something like the bummed-out dispatch from contemporary existence a la talons’ as processed through a laidback Steely Dan warmth.

there’s so many times that I’m tired and I’m in the basement
working on stuff and I take a nap
and I go out in the backyard and cut the grass
and shave it down as close as my old head

I feel beefed up but burnt down
burping up bubbles from a weird old beer
that looks like its been open for a half of a year
imagine that

makes me wish it was later in the day

French For Rabbits – Leech

Towards the end of next month, Aotearoa dream pop band French For Rabbits return with a brand new EP In the End I Won’t Be Coming Home. The follow-up to 2021 LP The Overflow, the four song release was recorded this past summer with strings from Auckland’s The Black Quartet and sees an evolution of the French For Rabbits style that we’ve previous described as “translucent and melancholic and alive.” Latest single ‘Leech’ is the perfect introduction, an exploration of “the push and pull of love” suffused with ethereal harmonies and a soaring atmosphere, at once epic and fragile, the lingering melancholy burning away to reveal the rousing chorus.

Cause your love is my only comfort
And your love is my only reward
But if my heart is a leech and you’re still out of reach
All I’m left with is all of my thoughts.

German Error Message & Noah Kittinger – It’s night and you’re alone

The latest release in Furious Hooves‘ Furhoof Halloween Split Series, It’s night and you’re alone offers two ambient instrumental tracks—one by German Error Message and one by Noah Kittinger (of Bedroom)—which live up to the release’s title and offer the ideal Halloween soundtrack for those looking beyond the cliched and the camp. The songs were written six years, eleven months and one day apart from one another, though despite the gap somehow seem to be in conversation. Paul Kintzing’s ‘10.30.16’ plays as a walk down a lonely forest path as night descends, its slowly gathering momentum mimicking the kind of latent dread which comes down with the dark, while Kittinger’s ‘10.1.23’ offers a different sort of night-time passage. A lonely journey through a darkening countryside as viewed from the window of a train, and furthermore one complicated by the liminal strangeness of such an experience. Time both upended and hauntologically conspicuous, your own reflection mirrored back to you in the glass, both part of the view and not.

It’s night and you’re alone is out now via Furious Hooves. Get it via Bandcamp.

Library Card – Cognitive Dissonance

Drawing inspiration from acts like Protomartyr and Life Without Buildings as well as poets such as Anne Clark, Rotterdam’s Library Card are a band of contradictions. Dissonant yet melodious, rambunctious yet taut, volatile yet cool. Lead by Lot van Teylingen and featuring Emre Karayalçin, Kat Kalkman and Mitchell Quitz, the outfit are now preparing to release their new EP Nothing Interesting, and single ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ serves as a encapsulation of this incongruous sound. An examination of the competing forces which coexist within us, an internal struggle between the desire to be selfish and altruistic.

Unspeakable
Unthinkable
Do we simply stare at what’s horrible and forgive it?
Do we simply notice but not see at all?
Truth is a beautiful illusion
Where is your truth now

‘Cognitive Dissonance’ is out now via AT EASE. Get it from the Library Card Bandcamp page.

MVSO – Hold Clear

A collaboration between songwriter/vocalist duo Mat Vairo and Saumon Oboudiyat, MVSO originated as little more than a space for the pair to experiment with music, though soon developed into something more considered and official. The result is Proprioception, an EP pencilled for release in spring 2024 which sees the artists explore universal themes of life, death and the passing of time through a decidedly personal lens. This allows them to take on the biggest ideas while also recording a specific moment in their lives and the position of their friendship within it. Single ‘Hold Clear’ hints at the evocative, simmering style this takes, where the intimacy of the personal opens out into something cryptic and deep.

MX LONELY – Rest In Salt

With their new EP SPIT coming on Candlepin Records early in 2024, Brooklyn‘s MX LONELY have unveiled single ‘Rest In Salt’ to signal their pivot towards a heavier alt rock/shoegaze aesthetic. With Rae Hass taking over lead vocal duties, the song pitches the listener into a shadowy, foreboding world full of needling intensity and crushing weight, the vocals emerging from within this tumult like the helpless cries of the damned. “’Rest In Salt’ is about being trapped in purgatory, pure and simple,” as Hass explains, “about being ridden with anxiety and stuck to the couch. It’s that feeling of jealousy for the dead and the tinge of guilt that follows. When you lie so still you think you can almost remember the freedom of being nothing at all.”

SPIT is out on the 6th February via Candlepin Records and you can pre-order it now.

See Jazz – 1982

Described as a band for “uncool people everywhere scattered to the edges of contemporary anywheres,” See Jazz might be the solo vehicle of Aaron Pfannebecker, though the endeavor is far from a one-person project. Forthcoming album Is This Anything?, out next month via Flower Sounds, sees the likes of Adam Langellotti (Kurt Vile and the Violators), Jed Smith (My Teenage Stride and Jeanines) and Zara Bode (Sweetback Sisters) lend their talents to bring to life a sound at once ethereal and danceable. Take single ‘1982’, so airy if feels on the verge of drifting upwards and away, though all the while anchored by Pfannebecker’s vocals and their exploration of the stubborn nature of human perspective.

Is This Anything? is out on the 10th November via Flower Sounds and you can pre-order it now.

Wet Fruit – Dandelions at the Gate

Hailing from Portland, OR, Wet Fruit take inspiration from a grab bag of genres to create their own singular sound. New album Dandelions at the Gate, out now via Half Shell Records, has indie rock, punk, psych and experimental DNA. But far from an unwieldy mutant, the result is something honed and cohesive. Take opener and title track, its dreamy textures and harmonies cut through with a propulsive energy, giving the sense of escalating towards some moment of chaos or clarity. But as songs like ‘St. Charles’ show, the band are about more than hectic rhythms, stripping away the frenetic elements in favour of something more drifting. Like a late-night drive, sealed into your own little world and estranged from passing cars, left instead to consider the finer textures of solitude.

Dandelions at the Gate is out now via Half Shell Records.

The post Weekly Listening: October 2023 #5 appeared first on Various Small Flames.