“Picks through self-destructive tendencies in something like a lament, swapping guitar for organ to further amplify the sorrowful atmosphere of the Minneapolis-based songwriter’s work.” So we wrote of Annie Schultz’s recent single ‘MIS‘, a track which marked a conscious effort to move away from the blueprint of previous album It Bends Until It Breaks to open up new territory. Latest single ‘Search and Destroy’ is further proof such experimentation yields fruit. Schultz uses a woozily layered combination of drum machine and keyboards to evoke a dreamlike world, though a pressing electric bassline pulls the listener through. What emerges is something hypnotic and slightly ambiguous, playing somewhere between antagonistic and alluring and never quite showing its hand.

‘Search and Destroy’ is out now via Trailing Twelve and available from the usual places.

Bleary – Foyer

“If Bleary‘s new single ‘bug’ seems to carry a notable sense of depth, then it is with good reason,” we wrote in a preview of the Nashville band’s full-length Little Brain back in February, the song taken from a body of work first developed before the pandemic then more recently honed into something special. With the album’s release little over a month away via yk records, the outfit have shared brand new track ‘Foyer’, and the result is no less impressive. The perfect introduction to the signature Bleary aesthetic, where big wall-of-sound shoegaze sensibilities are paired with a mood more reflective and melancholic. The result is something equal parts visceral and thoughtful that’s sure to swallow you in its embrace.

Death Tennis – Racehorse

Based in Montreal, Death Tennis are a indie rock band unafraid of emotion, as new EP Thank You. No, Thank You attests. Talya Gad (vocals) Marco Petrella (guitar, vocals), Dave Hjin (electric guitars, acoustic guitars), Nathan Cann (electric guitars), Matthew McCormack (bass) and Daniel Pavkeje (drums) add healthy dollops of alt and shoegaze influences to bring these high stakes to life, allowing tenderness and weight to sit side by side. Take opener and single ‘Racehorse’, an emotive number which places Gad’s sincere vocals front and centre, though gradually deepens into something epic. “‘Racehorse’ is a song about loss, told from the perspective of the recently departed,” the band explain. “Do we get a chance to communicate with those we loved from the other side?”

Frog – Dark Out

“Thank you for the day but go slow when you walk out, its dark out,” sings Daniel Bateman on ‘Dark Out’, the latest single from Frog‘s new album Frog for Sale, coming soon via Audio Antihero. “The dogs are barking like Dachau / I need you when it’s dark out.” These lines might sound like depression condensed into half a verse, but the track itself is altogether more jaunty and cool, continuing the new sleek style introduced on previous albums 1000 Variations of the Same Song and The Count. The result has all the idiosyncratic style which has won the New York outfit such a following, managing to maintain a toe-tapping brightness despite the desperation and soul bubbling beneath the surface.

Golden Tiles – Peace

Portland trio Golden Tiles announced themselves to the world in late 2024 with The First EP. Back then we described their sound as “a bright, laidback brand of basement rock which combines playful melodies, fuzzy textures and reflective vocals,” inspired by the last forty-odd years of PNW lo-fi indie rock. Next month, Golden Tiles will release their debut LP, Set Up on the Leaves, via Antiquated Future Records, and the record looks to build on the band’s early promise. Expect catchy pop melodies, left-field song structures and an eye for improvisation, taking something that could feel nostalgic and twisting it into new shapes. Lead single ‘Peace’ is a great introduction. A fleeting sub two-minute rock song that feels warm and intimate but with an air of bittersweet mystery, there and then gone in a flash of satisfying guitar, rambling percussion and fragmentary lyrics.

Josephine Illingworth – The Mythical

The work of London-based musician and multi-disciplinary artist Josephine Illingworth sits at the intersection of song, storytelling and soundscape, drawing on traditions of folk music and folklore but with a modern, experimental edge. Her forthcoming EP, Bright Things I Found In The Dark, follows the narrative of a girl raised by wolves, mapped across the lunar cycle and enveloped in field recordings to intertwine each song in the rhythms of nature. Lead single ‘The Mythical’ was in some ways the record’s genesis, the first song written for it and a critical inflection point in the story where it is still unclear which direction it will take. “[‘The Mythical’] sits in the moment of childhood awakening where reality sharpens and the soft edges of fairytale fall away,” Illingworth describes, “when you can no longer see shapes in the clouds or voices under the bed. It’s about refusing to quite let that other world go.”

Bright Things I Found In The Dark will be released on 1st May.

Motherhood – Kyle Hangs Ten

Canadian rock outfit Motherhood have never been content to sit still, constantly hopping between genres and moods across their five full-length albums, and often within those records too. When working on last year’s Thunder Perfect Mind, they couldn’t quite settle on a single form of one of the songs, vacillating between surf and spaghetti western sensibilities. The later vibe won out for the eventual album track ‘Kyle Hangs At Noon’, but the sister version was also recorded and is now being released as a b-side. ‘Kyle Hangs Ten’ is an interesting counterpart to its twin, ramping up the tempo to make for a perfect slice of summer, while also serving as a window into the creative spirit of a band constantly pushing at the boundaries of their own work. “Usually by the time we release a song, the original influences have been hidden under layers of subterfuge, with our attraction to play far outweighing our ability to stay put,” they explain. “With ‘Kyle Hangs Ten,’ we were trying to write the most surfy song we could without over-complicating a genre that, at it’s core, is just swaggy country music.”

Nic Panken – Out in the Rain

“An compassionate number which takes the image of its title further than you might expect, pushing the love song beyond romance and into something existential.” That’s how we described ‘2 Hearts‘ by Nic Panken back in March, the latest single from the Spirit Family Reunion frontperson’s forthcoming solo album, Near Divine or Merely Rhyme. With the record now just a week away, Panken has unveiled brand new single ‘Out in the Rain’ to further whet appetites. A song which again elevates a personal experience into something near spiritual, it finds Panken positioning love and beauty as things which connect us to older, more mysterious forces. “Did I see you baring your soul / Uncovered the holy portal,” as he sings in one typically striking verse, “Heart was free then, resting in flight / A parcel of light immortal.”

villagerrr – Swimming

Last month we shared ‘Locket’, the lead single from villagerrr’s new record Carousel. We described how the record celebrates the act of opening up, that combination of fear and joy involved in, as we put it “the attempt to communicate in earnest with another person within a world which often seems designed to hinder such a thing.” Winspear will release the record at the end of next month, and villagerrr have dropped a new track to tide us over until then. Titled ‘Swimming’, it’s another slice of sincere indie pop, this time nudged in a country-ish direction with sparkles of pedal steel and Mark Scott’s signature heart-on-sleeve lyrics that focus on small pleasures in the face of the day-to-day trials of existence. “I cried watching the TV, it felt a lot like healing,” he sings in a typically frank line that captures the song’s balance between struggle and self-acceptance. “This song will be my enemy / My brain it wants to kill me.”

Zoon – One Too Many Nights (feat. Sam Jr.)

We have previously described the work of Daniel Monkman’s project Zoon as “an ever-evolving sound rooted in shoegaze that explores themes of activism and Indigenous experience.” The Polaris Prize-shortlisted musician draws as much from traditional First Nations music as they do contemporary indie rock, and in doing so explores themes both national and intensely personal. June sees the release of a brand new Zoon record, Happy Thought School, on Paper Bag Records, and lead single ‘One Too Many Nights’ is our first glimpse. Monkman is joined by Sam Jr. for a cathartic exploration of the strange unmooring caused by the end of a relationship. “When a relationship ends, it’s not just the person you lose it’s the version of yourself that existed beside them,” Monkman describes. ‘“One Too Many Nights’ is about that recalibration. I don’t date often, so when something shifts, it shifts my whole orbit. In that moment, being alone felt like the honest path forward.”

The post Weekly Listening: April 2026 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“An introspective view on shame,” was how we described ‘Wave’ from Annie Schultz‘s It Bends Until It Breaks, released via Trailing Twelve Records back in 2023. A song which paired Catholic guilt with a more ecstatic aspect of religious imagery to rise through darkness towards something almost triumphant. Now Schultz is back with ‘MIS’, a similarly evocative track that picks through self-destructive tendencies in something like a lament, swapping guitar for organ to further amplify the sorrowful atmosphere of the Minneapolis-based songwriter’s work. “With ‘MIS,’ I wanted to move away from the guitar-based formula I’m used to,” as Schultz explains. “I filled the song out with Casio organ patches, layered harmonies, and a double bass arrangement, which I later realized was a subconscious influence from songs like ‘Oh Well, OK’ by Elliott Smith.”

‘MIS’ is out now via Trailing Twelve Records and available from the usual places.

Bleary – bug

If Bleary‘s new single ‘bug’ seems to carry a notable sense of depth, then it is with good reason. Featuring on the Nashville group’s full-length Little Brain, coming this May via yk records, the track is part of a larger body of work that was first developed prior to the pandemic. Callan Dwan, Peter Mercer, Taro Yamazaki and Luke Fedorko pushed these songs further in their home studio during lockdowns, before taking them to Joshua Ditty and Mike Purcell to record them in their final, sumptuous form. As ‘bug’ attests, this long gestation period bears real fruit. The Bleary sound packs an emotional punch with its combination of soaring energy and considerable heft. A wall of sound in the truest sense, yet one which boosts the listener up so that they might see further over its height.

Exam Season – Dreaming of a Dog

Ringwood indie pop band Exam Season formed in 2016 and, despite releasing a series of singles and EPs, have never put out a full-length record. That is, until now. The four-piece, Ed Watson (guitar/vocals), Jack Laurilla (guitar), Louis Kneale (bass) and Toby Matthews (drums), have unveiled their first new song in over five years, and with it the promise of a debut record sometime in 2026. You will have to be patient for news on the record, but single ‘Dreaming of a Dog’ should tide you over just fine. It’s a love song, though not exactly a saccharine one. Instead the narrator addresses his significant other and their lives together with all the imperfections left in. “We’re two shards of glass, with a key piece missing,” as he puts it in the final line, “We both feel like dying and that’s what keeps us living.”

The Foot & Leg Clinic – Where did all the fruit go?

Glasgow-based self-described ‘wonk-rockers’ The Foot & Leg Clinic (FKA The Wife Guys of Reddit) are gearing up to release new album Sit Down for Rock and Roll via Bingo Records next month, and the album promises to be something of an inflection point for the band. After a difficult few years of illness, bereavement and general unpleasantness, the quartet (Niamh R MacPhail, Arion Xenos, Angus Fernie and Elise Atkinson) saw the opportunity to re-examine their methods of working and lean into the constraints brought about by change. “We were kind of forced to work at a slower pace, but probably for the better of the final product,” MacPhail explains. And Xenos agrees: “It still feels eclectic, but it’s a little bit more focused. We definitely thought about this as an album project when working on it, as opposed to other things before.” Any fans worried something might be lost in the process need not worry, because lead single ‘Where did all the fruit go?’ finds the band as idiosyncratic as ever. Although the song perhaps represents a newfound sincerity for The Foot & Leg Clinic, some earnest attempt to communicate fighting through the chaotic energy to make itself heard.

GREBE – Insurance

A melting pot of slowcore, shoegaze, alternative and indie rock influences, GREBE‘s 2025 debut EP If You Squint It’s All Soup established the dynamism and versatility of the Atlanta outfit, and now a year later they are ready to let loose full-length Hell Diver to build upon these beginnings and capitalise on the momentum. Coming in April via Indecent Artistry and Rope Bridge, the album sees Kade Whitlark (vocals, rhythm guitar) Logan Neely (guitar) and William Gunnin (drums) match attention to detail with raw energy, practising a tried and tested quiet-loud dynamic to achieve songs of considerable size and cathartic potential. Take ingle ‘Insurance’, a track which simmers with promise before sparking to life periodically, a sound which matches the radical conflagration that’s suggested in the lyrics.

Hell Diver will be released on the 17th April via Indecent Artistry and Rope Bridge.

Hockitay – over/over

Born in Guatemala and now based in Montreal, Hockitay won serious attention with the EP slo mach back in 2025, the release straddling bedroom pop, slowcore, R&B and electronic styles to explore a present moment marked by exhaustion and alienation. Out via Future Gods, latest single ‘over/over’ builds upon these foundations to conjure another very contemporary sound. One where loneliness and restlessness overlap, that curiously digital phenomenon where even an empty room can now be overwhelming. The lyrics dig further into this online world, probing at questions of performance and authenticity (“I haven’t had an opinion / Since high school,” Hockitay sings on one verse. “I wear the jersey / But I’ve never seen them play”), and the result plays like an urgent plea from an otherwise numb persona.

‘over/over’ is out now via Future Gods and available from Bandcamp.

The Montvales – Carolina

Touring in the wake of their successful 2024 album Born Strangers, Knoxville folk duo The Montvales (songwriters Sally Buice and Molly Rochelson) found their journey coincidentally align with the path of a solar eclipse, every stop filled with people gathered for the once-in-a-lifetime event. But that was not the only notable event unfolding at that time—genocide was taking place in Gaza, student protests were being violently quelled in the US, war dragged on in Europe and the cost of living kept on climbing. New album Path of Totality emerged from this period, a picture of an America seized by a variety of spectacles, and haunted by the possibility of a second term Trump. Ahead of release new month via Free Dirt Records, The Montvales have shared single ‘Carolina’, and the single is indicative of the compassionate, unapologetically political brand of songwriting which marks the record. “Written in the wake of Hurricane Helene, ‘Carolina’ explores the creeping feeling that late-stage capitalism has left us with very few places that still feel safe,” Buice explains. “A testament to the folks who forge ahead in beauty.”

Path of Totality will be released on the 20th March via Free Dirt Records and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Nic Panken – Dear Companion

You might know Nic Panken as the lead of Brooklyn folk outfit Spirit Family Reunion, though he has also recorded solo under his own name in recent years, putting out a variety of singles. This spring sees the release of Near Divine or Merely Rhyme, Panken’s debut full-length which makes good on the promise of the initial releases. He enlisted an enviable ensemble of guests to bring the songs to life, with Mat Davidson (Big Thief, Twain), Ken Woodward (Buck Meek, Sam Evian), Austin Vaughn (Cassandra Jenkins, Cass McCombs) and David Christian (Karen O, Curtis Harding) all appearing, alongside others, and the result is every bit as rich as such a line-up suggests. Take the earthy warmth of lead single ‘Dear Companion’, the arrangement wrapping around Panken’s reflective, wistful vocals and elevating the cryptic lyricism into something stirring. “What began as an afterthought became a central part of this record,” Panken explains. “After working through the first batch of songs I brought in, more material was needed, and on a whim I shared an early sketch of an idea with my co-producer Jared Samuel. He grabbed a pair of scissors, directing me to cut out each line, shuffle them all up and piece together something new. In the end we added just a few lines to weave it together, and found a wonderfully mysterious place for it all to land.”

No Spinoza – Airport

The recording project of York-based musician, poet and artist Thomas Pearson, No Spinoza has made a name with an inventive, often conceptual style of music which is more than happy to jump between genres. After Maxim, an album of nursery rhymes recorded together with Drew Worthley, No Spinoza is now preparing to release brand new full-length Jupiter’s Great Hurricane, and lead single ‘Airport’ shows the record is no less ambitious or thought-provoking. “Before leaving for the airport I asked Saint Anthony: how then should I live my life?” Pearson sings in the opening lines over a brooding post-punk/art-rock sound. “He replied: Have no confidence in your own righteousness, your virtue.” The track takes off from this point, continuing its philosophical musings while transporting the listener high above a stark desert landscape via a combination of taut drums, shimmering synths and jazz-adjacent playfulness.

Jupiter’s Great Hurricane will be released soon.

The Same Sky – What’s Left

Based in Montreal and founded by Joseph Simon, The Same Sky is an indie rock outfit which takes elements of shoegaze and post-punk to create what they have labelled ‘outsider pop’. With full-length Haunting in the Mountains coming this April via Casa Joven, The Same Sky have shared new single ‘What’s Left’ to introduce this style. A track where dreamy textures meet an almost mechanical sense of forward motion, and the growing momentum is punctuated by intermittent squalls of noise. Thematically, the single borrows imagery from Greek myth, namely The Odyssey, to explore the experience of a break-up, and the result sits between the real and the fantastical. A voyage forward into the unknown which seems to be both emerging and sailing towards tragedy.

Wendy Eisenberg – Old Myth Dying

Last month we previewed Wendy Eisenberg‘s self-titled album, forthcoming this spring with Joyful Noise Recordings, noting the significance of an experienced, endlessly inventive artist deciding to put their own name as the title of the release, “as though for the first time willing or able to put forward a halfway static vision of themselves within the maelstrom of change.” Indeed, Eisenberg has said the album emerged from a period of self-confrontation, something they liken to “a personal exorcism,” and the result promises to be their most personal and daring record to date. Following the golden classic folk sound of ‘Will You Dare‘ and the Lynch-inspired ‘Meaning Business‘, Eisenberg has now shared new track, ‘Old Myth Dying’. “I wrote ‘Old Myth Dying’ in early 2024 during an insane fever,” they explain. “Although I knew I should have been trying to sleep it off, I wanted to see if I could do this polyrhythmic thing in my right hand and sing over it. Historically, practicing has allowed me to forget that I have a body that feels pain—I disappear into the action, in pursuit of becoming beauty. This time, my lyrics came out straightforward and wary, blunter than usual. They revealed a different pain I was feeling, the pain of actually knowing what you can and can’t control, and what inherited myths have been lies designed to control you all along.”

The post Weekly Listening: February 2026 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“They say it was a failed utopia / but it ain’t failed if you’re flexible.” So sings LA-based songwriter Dolly Creamer on latest single ‘Like Water’, two lines which could be said to serve as the mission statement of the song. With a loose, easygoing spirit, the track embraces this philosophy to create its own small world within the imperfect whole, leaning into the image of the title to stay attuned to the natural world and go with the flow of life. Sarah Harris, Sasha Massey, Joon Voigt, Riley Geare and Joel Crocco lend their talents to flesh out the sound, and Voigt also created a suitably lo-fi video to further bring the mood to life as part of their thunderwurld motion picture co. The result is an affirming reminder of the hope inherent within any community.

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

Erik Hall – A Folk Study (Laurie Spiegel)

Back in November we introduced Solo Three, the closing release in a trilogy of albums by Erik Hall on Western Vinyl which sees the Michigan-based composer and multi-instrumentalist reimagining contemporary classical pieces by passing them through the prism of his own unique minimalist sensibilities. Where predecessors Music for 18 Musicians and Canto Ostinato focused solely on the work of Steve Reich and Simeon ten Holt respectively, Solo Three casts a wider net, the release featuring reinterpretations of pieces by Glenn Branca, Charlemagne Palestine, Reich again and, as with the latest single, Laurie Spiegel. As though led by the title, Hall brings an added tempo and warmth to ‘A Folk Study’, favouring an acoustic palette to tease out the organic spirit of Spiegel’s original.

Hiding Places – Holy Roller

“I’m a holy roller / I move so much.” So sings Audrey Keelin of Hiding Places on single ‘Holy Roller’, invoking a phrase in the Holiness movement for those of the congregation so struck by the presence of God they dance and shake uncontrollably. Released to celebrate the Brooklyn-based outfit’s signing with Keeled Scales, the single embraces this sense of spontaneity in more ways than one, not only in how it explores the restless spirit of its creator but also in terms of its very construction. “’Holy Roller’ was a lesson for me, a song that happened with no planning, no ‘trying to write’, but a pure, detached channeling,” Keelin explains. “That metaphor made perfect sense to me after the fact, there is a voice in my heart that I have a complex relationship with that tells me to move around, be somewhat nomadic, not really settle down in one specific place. During that writing session, that bittersweet feeling of moving from my home state kept returning,”

Howling Bells – Chimera

Back in October we introduced Strange Life, the first new album from Sydney-born, London-based outfit Howling Bells for over a decade. “The album not only breaks the hiatus but reflects on it,” we described when talking of lead single ‘Heavy Lifting’, a testament to the effort and resilience required to persist within the music industry and develop a sense of confidence. Latest single ‘Chimera’ continues this meditation on making art, exploring the double-edged sword of ambition and how it can both cut you down and lift you towards higher achievements. “Chimera is a strange word. It means a few different and curious things; in this context, however, I’m using it to mean something of an absurd nature, unattainable, a fantasy. Such is the relationship we have with music at times,” lead Juanita Stein explains. “This song speaks to my experience as a musician, surviving the perpetual ups and downs of the game. But if you’re lucky enough, you have someone who can cut through the noise and help you realise that the fantasy is half the joy. That the longing is part of the journey and that our achievements along the way are deeply meaningful. At its core, ‘Chimera’ is a song about hope and relinquishing control.”

Strange Life will be released on the 13th February via Nude Records.

Ken Wohlrob – William

“A song is a stubborn thing. It’ll resist you with all its might. As you try to bend it and twist it, it will reject your strokes of genius, leaving you feeling like a damn fool for thinking they would work in the first place. A song will tell you, in no uncertain terms, what it wants to be.” So explains musician and composer Ken Wohlrob of new single ‘William’, a track which seemed to repel all attempts to develop it beyond its core guitar riff. You might know Wohlrob from acts like End of Hope, Swarm of Flies, Northern Heretic and Eternal Black, but his solo work offers space for something more meditative. And it was with that spirit he decided to drop the attempt to complicate the sound and let ‘William’ have its own way. “What I had was a single take of a repetitive guitar riff, played live through a reverse-echo feedback loop for eleven minutes,” he continues. “The feedback loop created oscillations and repetitions that took on a life of their own, extending past the riff, even re-absorbing it. There was a compelling journey in that single guitar line.”

No Singing – Care Takers

In recent years, Ben Godfrey has made a name with baroque, off-the-cuff recordings under the moniker Belaver, offering what we’ve called “a blend of deadpan humour and human heart which proves ideally suited to capturing the bleak and bizarre milieu to which it belongs.” Now Godfrey is back with new project No Singing, and there’s something of a stylistic change. Gone are the live arrangements and wry sensibilities in favour of something more considered, personal and nostalgic. Single ‘Care Takers’ introduces the sound, the tale of a character who intends to find a car and drive until the gas runs out. Only this yearning for forward motion is complicated by its very existence, both the lo-fi sound and Godfrey’s vocals betraying a sense of stasis. The stuck feeling of being young and lonely within a city which barely knows you exist, longing for any sense of speed which might allow an escape.

Sam Wenc – Limitless of Blue

Recording under the moniker Post Moves, Philadelphia-based composer, improviser and interdisciplinary artist Sam Wenc released fifteen albums across a variety of labels, establishing the sonic strand of his work as something intricate, finely crafted yet always surprising (just check out Cut Into Your Own Dimension or Heart Music). Wenc has decided to release latest album Language At An Angle under his own name, though it very much feels a continuation of an ongoing body of work. Inspired by and dedicated to pedal steel virtuoso Susan Alcorn who passed away earlier in the year, the record is a lesson in the possibilities of the instrument, one grounded in years of experience and deepened by an ongoing practice of sitting meditation, as well as a reminder of the raw power of art. Perhaps the only real way we can truly confront the unknowable and create meaning, this record suggests, is to continue the work of our forebears and never stop pushing the boundaries. Listen to lead track ‘Limitless of Blue’ now, and watch the video directed by Mikel Patrick Avery below:

Language At An Angle will be released via Lobby Art Editions on the 30th January and you can pre-order it now.

Sophie Gault – Is There Anyone Out There

We last wrote about Nashville-based songwriter Sophie Gault back in 2023 with the release of ‘Christmas in the Psych Ward‘ from album Baltic Street Hotel, a track which followed a lineage of Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams and Patty Griffin to delve, as we put it, “into highly personal experiences of bipolar disorder with a tone both steely and wry.” With new album UNHINGED set for release in January 2026 via Torrez Music Group, Gault has now returned with single ‘Is There Anyone Out There’, and the track is no less emotive or evocative. A version of the Gurf Morlix song of the same name, the track preserves the intimacy of the original while reaching towards something more connected and communal. Morlix’s album Kiss of the Diamondback came out in the heaviest days of the pandemic and its sound was very much informed by the isolation and solitude of the period, but Gault adds a certain layer of warmth to create a mood that’s still melancholic but a little more bittersweet.

Unhinged will be released via Torrez Music Group on the 23rd January and you can pre-save it now.

vireo – the great golden gloom

We’ve featured a couple of tracks from vireo‘s forthcoming album The Great Golden Gloom in recent weeks, firstly ‘catching minnows’ back in September and more recently ‘icanicanican‘. Both tracks highlighted the spirit of a project attuned, as we put it, “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.” With the record now out, Chris Beaulieu and co. have shared the title track as one final single. Serving as the conclusion of the album, the track is in many ways a culmination of its ideas and tones. One grounded in the richness of nature yet marked by a trademark sense of invention, its bright style is as earnest as anything vireo have put out to date, and perhaps more accomplished and assured. The sound of a band who have discovered both their musical style and view of the world and have taken great pleasure in committing it to tape.

Weirs – Lord Bateman (Live at Feast V)

“A hymn delivered not from the still air and stone of a cathedral but God’s own Earth,” was how we described ‘I Want to Die Easy‘ from Weirs‘ album Diamond Grove earlier in the year. “Where fellow contemporary traditionalists like Lankum and ØXN highlight the stark, foreboding tones of the genre to push towards the realm of folk horror, the Weirs sound is more in line with the work of Terrence Mallick. Songs heightened not by an emergent dread or the suggestion of the supernatural but rather an abundance of life itself. The humblest of details given the closest of attention and the latent beauty revealed.” To celebrate the album and kick off a new tour, Weirs have shared a live version of the epic ‘Lord Bateman’, complete with a video filmed at their album release show at the 5th annual Feast in Orange County, North Carolina. “Each year in the fall, friends and I host Feast, a harvest meal and music event that spans the first weekend of October,” explains lead Oliver Child-Lanning. “This year, to mark the release of Weirs’ new album Diamond Grove, we opened Saturday night by playing through ‘Lord Bateman’ from the album in its entirety, with shadow puppets by my sister Violet and other friends and family. Everyone gathered around the glowing puppet theater as we played and sang, accompanied by insects and the fall breeze.”

Diamond Grove is out now via Dear Life Records and you can get it from the Weirs Bandcamp page.

Where’s Beth – Overtime Waltz

Following on from 2024 album Bone Broth, a release we described as “a picture of domesticity in the weeks and days around marriage,” which “for all its tender fondness, still finds room for the peculiar and idiosyncratic details,” Sarabeth Weszely’s Where’s Beth has returned with a festive offering that uses the pressures of the period to highlight chronic struggles and loneliness. “I wrote ‘Overtime Waltz’ from a place of burnout,” Weszely explains, “working long hours in NYC, struggling to connect with loved ones even when we were physically together, and feeling a vague and relentless sense of grief.” Abbey Blackwell (Alvvways) contributes upright bass and harmonies while Steve Moore (Sufjan Stevens) adds Wurlitzer and synth, lifting the sound to its full, melancholic warmth.

Is the snow ever coming, will it always be rain?
Will the cold bring numbing to take away the pain?
I’m needing some kindness to show me the way

Watch the lyric video below:

‘Overtime Waltz’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

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

“Employ[s] the apocalyptic tones of Waits and Cohen at their darkest to explore the dangerous present. A world that feels unwell, with climate collapse, rising fascism, televised genocide and a whole manner of other symptoms racking a planet in the vice grip of whatever stage of capitalism we’ve passed into now.” So we wrote last month of All That’s Solid Melts Into Air, the forthcoming album from Winnipeg-born, New York-based songwriter Devon Church. The title track paired stark Biblical imagery with earnest emotion, and latest single ‘Fall Like Lightning’ continues the style. One which sees pessimism and hope exist simultaneously, a spirit tied to the overtly leftist position of the record as whole. The album notes aptly describe the song as “a kind of ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ for dejected denizens of the internet,” railing against the myriad of contemporary curses brought forth by capitalism’s iron grip, as well as the false prophets who have risen within this milieu, promising the world while grinding us under their boots.

The track also comes with a video, filmed by Ada Roth, edited by Danny Scales and directed by Church himself. Watch it below:

All That’s Solid Melts Into Air will be released on the 7th November and you can pre-order it from the Devon Church Bandcamp page.

Dwi Riana – Dysphoria

Next year Dwi Riana will release her debut full-length Songs from the Yellow Couch, and the Toronto-based songwriter has been releasing singles in recent weeks to offer a preview. Most recently ‘Springtime‘, a song which evoked, as we put it, “the thaw after a long winter where the possibility of growth and love becomes real again.” Now Riana has returned with ‘Dysphoria’, a track which explores the ongoing experience of gender dysphoria via a mix of bossa-nova, indie jazz and folk influences. “I initially wrote this song as a very short interlude for my album, with no hook, just the bossa guitar and one verse. After playing it more, I developed it into a full song and it turned into this indie-jazz version,” Riana explains. “We wanted to create a feeling of controlled chaos, using dissonance and blending differing sounds together to add to the theme of dysphoria.”

Fealty – Walking on Hands

Thad Kopec has been putting out music for years under his own name, the Nashville artist flitting between styles and genres with each passing release and slowly building up a significant back catalogue that covers everything from ornate indie rock to hushed folk and digital pop. However, such a history gets heavy after a while, and Kopec found himself itching for the freedom of a fresh start. Hence Fealty, a brand new project which sees him turn over production duties for the first time as Bennett Littlejohn takes the reins, allowing for a newfound focus solely on performance. After a self-titled EP earlier in the year, Fealty is now back with new single ‘Walking on Hands’. A song of equal parts intimacy and invention, where Kopec’s renewed drive and curiosity are on full show for all to see.

‘Walking on Hands’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Howling Bells – Heavy Lifting

Hailing from Sydney and now based in London, Howling Bells made a name for themselves in the mid-aughties with a dark, brooding and often cinematic style of indie rock, releasing a string of albums which reached out towards folk, krautrock and various other influences too. After the release of Heartstrings back in 2014, the band went quiet for over a decade, but have now announced their return in 2026 with new full-length, Strange Life. The album not only breaks the hiatus but reflects on it, as shown by latest single ‘Heavy Lifting’. “A hazy and grunge-fuelled declaration,” as lead Juanita Stein puts it. “Like anyone who’s worked at the thing they love tirelessly, you build up great resilience. The callouses on your hands, the muscles you’ve strengthened, the swagger in your stride. ‘Heavy Lifting’ is a song about the thousands of miles you walk to acquire this kind of confidence; this is not anything that can be stripped away from you.” Watch the video directed by Orlando Cubitt below:

Strange Life will be released on the 13th February via Nude Records.

Living Hour – Texting

“A song, like The Weakerthans’ ‘One Great City!’ before it, which uses the dismal skies and cityscape of Winnipeg as a kind of mirror, evoking a personal lethargy and lack of colour […] But for all of its sombre gloom, the track refuses to settle within the leaden environment, each chorus like an upward grasp towards something brighter in the hope of piercing the clouds.” So we wrote of ‘Best I Did It’ from Living Hour‘s new album Internal Drone Infinity a few weeks ago, a song indicative of the band’s ability to excavate the magical from the mundane. With the album out now via Keeled Scales (US), Paper Bag Records (Canada) and Beloved Records (Australia), the outfit have unveiled a video for the track ‘Texting’, a track which continues the mood. “‘Texting’ is written from this really mundane but intimate point of view of trying to explain Winnipeg to someone over text,” explains lyricist Sam Sarty. “In the winter, everything disappears in the snow, but when the snow melts, we’re left with the mosaic of shit. I keep a list on my phone of things I see on the sidewalk: garbage that breaks my heart or situations that I try to explain, either to myself or over text—that blue bubble carrying my thoughts somewhere else.”

Watch the video filmed by Eden Carter below:

Internal Drone Infinity is out now via Keeled Scales, Paper Bag Records (Canada) and Beloved Records (Australia). Order a copy now from the Living Hour Bandcamp page.

The Michigans – Spring Ahead (Fall In Line)

Consisting of Jeff Mensch (guitar, vocals), Jessica Keuskamp (drums, vocals) and Patrick Greer (bass), The Michigans are a brand new indie rock outfit out of New Jersey channelling the spirit of their Northeastern forebears. As debut single ‘Spring Ahead (Fall In Line)’ attests, fans of the like of Yo La Tengo, Dinosaur Jr. and our old favourites Oxford Collapse would be advised to take notice. The track is executed with the kind of confidence most new projects could only dream of, slowly shapeshifting from the jangling brightness of the front half into something heavier and hazier as psych influences descend like a fog. But regardless of where you find yourself in the song, you can bet on the thrilling sense of forward motion to be barrelling onwards, giving everything an infectious, affirming tone that’s only elevated by the singalong vocals.

More Like Shadows – Hive Mind

Recording under the moniker More Like Shadows, Toronto‘s Jordan Allen combines music and visual art to form his own unique aesthetic. Raw, lo-fi indie rock and collage-based visuals meet and intertwine, each element as playful and inventive as the other. New album Vacation Mode was released earlier this month, and single ‘Hive Mind’ serves as the perfect intro to the project for anyone unfamiliar. What Allen describes as “a song about the mindsets and 10-step programs of media addiction, the collective yearning for uprising, and the job market economy comment section wishlists of now,” it manages to capture the wiry spirit of classic post-punk while offering a more muscular dimension too, all tied together by vocals which phase between sardonic and sincere. “Can we eat the rich? / I just think we’ve had enough of their bullshit,” as Allen asks in one verse, a line wryly humorous for sure, but not without its hopeful sentiment.

Pearla – To Love Something

We last featured Pearla back in 2023, including the album Oh Glistening Onion, The Nighttime Is Coming among our favourite releases of the year. A record where “playful whimsy and unfiltered introspection are kept in check by a certain self-awareness,” as we wrote, “though cannot help but tend towards the potential of some higher mystery,” and thus marking the project as one which “works in awe of life’s mysteries, determined to see the beautiful and the surreal rise above the grind of the everyday.” The first new release since Oh Glistening Onion, new single ‘To Love Something’ builds upon this style with care and grace, again searching for those small details which lift an otherwise mundane existence into something significant. The track is the first taste of a promised full-length set for release sometime next year, and everything points to the record being one to watch out for over the coming months.

‘To Love Something’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

since torino – reunion dinner

Earlier in the year we let you know Sheffield‘s since torino were preparing to release their debut EP, describing ‘transatlantic flight song’ as the perfect entry point to the project. “Opening with a restrained hush, the song sets out a quiet, reflective mood, combining organ and murmured vocals to create an easy meandering fondness, and gradually develops to push the mood further,” we wrote. “First with glitched guitars and eventually sweeps of violin, all working together to create a song which aches with the fondness of nostalgic contemplation.” The EP, which it turns out is titled reunion dinner, is now available, and the title track embodies its ornate literary folk rock style. Another slow burner, the song draws the audience in with the muted quiet of the opening before blooming with the introduction of horns and strings. But it resists the temptation to puncture the overriding restraint to create a wistful, decidedly autumnal air.

Sweet Nobody – Forget Me

“Embraces the twin joys of melody and noise, utilising both pop and garage rock aesthetics to write songs for the meek and modest among us.” So we wrote back in September of the Long Beach, California-based band Sweet Nobody, single ‘Revenge‘ giving a glimpse at new full-length Driving Off to Nowhere. With the album’s release only weeks away via Repeating Cloud, Sweet Nobody are back with new track ‘Forget Me’. The song is heavier and darker than its predecessor, switching out the sunny indie pop energy for something more clouded and stormy. But for all of its shadowy tones and brooding weight, the prevailing mood is one of catharsis. As though across the track a sense of conviction develops, a decision to voice those things unsaid and let go of the past.

Tara Kannangara – Here We Are Again (From Alice Is Fine)

Back in 2024, we wrote about Extraordinary People, the EP by Sri Lankan–Canadian songwriter and musician Tara Kannangara, describing how the JUNO-nominated artist draws on classical training and jazz sensibilities to push synth pop in new directions. Written for the short film Alice Is Fine, new single ‘Here We Are Again’ is no less evocative or inventive. A track Kannangara describes as “an indie pop song about the repressed rage of not being believed,” able to offer both intimate hush and big, bold defiance. The film follows a female protagonist who decides to stand up for herself against a doctor who dismisses her pain, and ‘Here We Are Again’ gives the scenario all the fury and catharsis it warrants.

‘Here We Are Again’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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The title track opens the record, “a rich and fond slice of folk rock which blooms like a slow-dawning epiphany,” as we described previously, “Orchard’s vocals building in conviction along with the rhythm, as though emerging through long years-worth of accumulated doubts to embrace a preferred state of being.” ‘Nothing Fog’ follows, using what we called “a decidedly sincere style” to “explore a sense of uncertainty, its confessional tone unafraid of revealing its own vulnerabilities and loss of confidence,” while ‘Pale Blue’ builds upon this compassionate style with a picture of fondness and longing with backing vocals by Jess Kerber. Living up to its title ‘It Took Me So Long To See I Was Not Here At All’ continues with equal parts questioning and gradual insight, again the tempo lifting as the song progresses as though Orchard is finding strength through its very delivery.

It took me so long to see I was not here at all
In my selfie camera a transparent fading doll
Prick my finger
Drink my blood
Make me feel something
Wake me up

Which is not to say this path to fulfillment is linear and ever-improving. “I feel so damn nervous / Like there’s cracks in the floor / And the whole world’s a stranger / Knocking at my door,” Orchard sings on the hushed, hesitant ‘Moonfall’, a mood echoed on ‘Together Alone’. After these songs, the earthy ‘Something’s Gotta Go’ arrives like a newfound determination to work. A song which, as we put it, “finds Orchard with his sleeves rolled up as he digs through the dirt. Crunchy Americana meets Neil Young folk rock which sees him picks through internal knots and tangles that have been tripping him up over the years.” In the end, it is closer ‘Down‘ which suggests a viable path forward. “A dream-folk track which preaches the benefits submission within an overwhelming world,” we wrote back in April, “complicating the lines between playfulness, sadness and acquiescence.” A fitting conclusion to a record which doesn’t pretend to have the answers, only displays the value asking honest questions all the same.

I get lost in a maze
And I just lay down
I don’t want to be found

Behind The Shadow Glass is out now and available from the Will Orchard Bandcamp page.

Cover art by Adi Dahlke

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With the release of Behind the Shadow Glass fast approaching, Will Orchard has now returned with new single and album opener, ‘In The Shadow of Their Dark’. A rich and fond slice of folk rock which blooms like a slow-dawning epiphany, Orchard’s vocals building in conviction along with the rhythm, as though emerging through long years-worth of accumulated doubts to embrace a preferred state of being. “I wrote ‘In The Shadow of Their Dark’ while feeling deeply anonymous in a new city,” he explains. “When you don’t feel intertwined with a place, you feel like a stranger. This song embraces that feeling of invisibility and loneliness. It made it all the more freeing to leave that place, and helped me to remember that life is impermanent and nothing is certain. There’s a certain magic in that reminder, when it encourages you to be your truest self.”

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In preparation, Ava Swan has been releasing a steady drip of singles in recent months. Featuring fellow Nashville artist Noah Luna, ‘Cassie’ takes inspiration from drag icon RuPaul and their concept of the ‘Inner Saboteur’—that voice inside each of us which seems intent on undermining our confidence. Swan names her inner critic, the titular Cassie, a decision which helps separate it from herself and better examine its effect. “I gave everything to Cassie / But she always brought me down,” as the opening lines go. “Said I never give her nothing / But the sweat upon her brow / She grew up to be fantastic / Never had the chance to doubt / That she ever would be packing /  But she’s gotta leave now.” Watch the video, directed by Em Lasater and edited by Aaron Lasater, below:

As its title suggests, ‘I Really Hurt Myself’ follows a similar theme, confronting self-sabotage in its various forms, especially those insidious coping mechanisms which feel like quick fixes but ultimately worsen the situation. “When I stay in bed all day / When I drink so much I sway / When I push away the ones who try to help  / I really hurt myself,” Swan sings in the opening verse, and the track uses this awareness to push towards a better way of living. As though confessing bad habits might be the key to warding them off. Watch the video, again by Em and Aaron Lasater, below:

Sun Safari will be released in August and you can pre-save it now.

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Back in May we introduced Part Of The Problem, Baby, the new full-length from Fortitude Valley coming this August on Specialist Subject Records, with single ‘Sunshine State‘. “A track which finds [lead Laura] Kovac addressing her younger self,” we described, “delving into the person she was before and during her move from Brisbane to the UK, and how the competing desires for home and escape never really go away.” With the album’s release edging closer, Fortitude Valley are back with new track ‘Video (Right There With You)’. “The song is about trying to get inside the head of someone you love, and how hard it can be surviving together in what feels like an increasingly hostile and scary world,” Kovic explains. “It also plays into the central theme of the album, which is about feeling distant from people you care about, both literally and figuratively.”

Watch the video directed by Stuart Laws below, shot as the band performed at the Machynlleth Comedy Fest and starring comedian Celya AB.

Part Of The Problem, Baby is out 1st August on Specialist Subject Records and you can pre-order it now from the Fortitude Valley Bandcamp page.

 French for Rabbits – Gold and Blue

Ahead of the Matariki holiday and an upcoming winter tour around Aotearoa, Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington-based outfit French for Rabbits have returned with brand new standalone single, ‘Gold and Blue’. Written by lead Brooke Singer in a prolific period before the birth of her son, the track meditates on the future and the mysterious ways in which it realises itself, be it through chance, fate or an intuitive reaching forward. The song comes complete with a video by director Martin Sagadin and cinematographer Bill Bycroft. “For the video, we wanted to throw the listener through time and space,” Singer explains, “feel a gasp for breath as they tumble them through the present and past to moments of change, connection, and fluctuation.”

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

Glenn Echo – Give + Take

The project of Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist Matt Gaydar, Glenn Echo is an outlet for patient and introspective folk music. Gaydar has just released a new Glenn Echo EP, No Believer, a collection of five songs recorded with help from Will Stratton that showcase this style perfectly. Second track ‘Give + Take is perhaps the standout, opening with the warm country croon of guitar before settling into a slow, contemplative momentum. “Been driving away, over the county line,” Gaydar sings in the opening line which immediately captures the song’s sense of night-time hush, “past the firehouse, all through the night, blind driving, silent.”

Jess Kerber – Tropical Storm

We’ve written about a number of singles from Jess Kerber‘s debut album From Way Down Here in recent months, describing how the Nashville-based songwriter melds traditional folk and contemporary electronic sensibilities to bring her emotive style to life. ‘Next to You’ rose from a dreamy haze to clarity, while ‘Never Again’ introduced the themes of loss and belonging so central to the record. With the album now out via Felte Records, Kerber has released latest single ‘Tropical Storm’. Another poignant, wistful slice of nostalgic longing, rooted in the specific imagery of memories as imprinted on the young mind. Watch the video edited by Kerber herself below:

From Way Down Here is out now via Felte Records and available from the Jess Kerber Bandcamp page.

Jeffrey Martin – Edge of Lost

With albums like One Go Around and Thank God We Left The Garden, Portland, Oregon songwriter Jeffrey Martin has developed an evocative brand of folk concerned with both the personal and the societal, centring the classic Americana style within the unique circumstances of the present (“The climate is collapsing, diseases rising, robots striving to take over the globe, and still there’s not enough money for the people who actually need it,” as we wrote of the latter album, “still the future holds a distant promise, the past haunts with its glory and regret”). Out via Fluff and Gravy Records, new single ‘Edge of Lost’ is every bit as heartfelt and urgent. Inspired by Davey Schaupp’s No Place to Grow Old, a documentary interviewing people experiencing homelessness or the threat of it across Portland, the song explores the strange contradictions of such a life. Where existence is at once heavier than it should be yet also translucently thin, the eyes of society sliding past as you though barely exist at all. “I tried to capture the chasm between the housed and unhoused,” Martin explains, “and how the psychological burden of that divide is a very difficult thing to hold as people try to navigate their way out of homelessness.”

Jillian Lake – Tactile

“There’s a city in my head,” sings Jillian Lake on latest single ‘Tactile’, a line repeated across the track in what might be warning or explanation. Based in Vancouver, the singer-songwriter has made a name with intimate, personal folk songs, though has increasingly pushed her sound into richer, more urgent territory without sacrificing any of the heartfelt charm. The new single is a lesson in how effective such a combination can be. Indeed, the refrain can be held as a key to the song’s spirit, presenting an exploration of grief in all of its complexity, an emotional landscape as bustling, nuanced and contradictory as any urban space. ‘Tactile’ is about how grief is this invisible and intangible thing that is so hard to navigate,” Lake explains. “A scraped knee, a black eye, a broken arm—is so much easier to make sense of than something you can’t pinpoint. Something you can’t bandage or brace.”

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

Jouska – Flower Moon

Jouska is the recording project of  Norwegian songwriter and producer Marit Othilie Thorvik. Originally a duo, the project started out making pop-orientated electronic music, but now that it’s Thorvik alone, the atmosphere has evolved into something more intimate and introspective. New single ‘Flower Moon’, Jouska’s first since 2023 record Suddenly My Mind Is Blank, leans into dream pop dimension of the project to invoke a sense of detachment, the vocals drifting through a wash of ethereal tones as though untethered yet longing for solid ground. “I was anxious,” as Thorvik explains, “distracted by things at home. Physically in one place, emotionally somewhere else, missing out on both.”

múm – Mild At Heart

Icelandic experimental royalty múm have established themselves as one of the most interesting and atmospheric projects since their inception in the nineties, each of the six previous albums building upon the last while always exploring new territory. Their first full-length in over ten years, History of Silence finds the band as ambitious as ever. An album “recorded, deconstructed, put back together again, refined and finished over the course of two years,” the release blends electronic and analogue sounds to explore ideas of distance in our fast-changing world, the songs rejecting linear progress to instead embrace tangents and digressions. Take the way lead single ‘Mild at Heart’ shifts and drifts across its length, a controlled, ever-curious track that shows the power of understatement while also reaching towards new ground.

Watch the video filmed & edited by Sigurlaug Gísladóttir below:

History of Silence will be released via Morr Music on 15th September. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

The Noisy – Twos

Back in 2024 Philly dream pop outfit The Noisy released The Secret Ingredient is More Meat, an album written for and funded by the queer community which served as a celebration of their kinship, performance, joyous excesses and plurity. Now The Noisy are preparing to release a deluxe version of the record via Audio Antihero, appropriately titled The Secret Ingredient is Even More Meat, offering reimagined versions of the songs. Single ‘Twos’ and its gloriously cinematic video by Sam Cush indicates the new direction they take. “I wrote this song like a pop song but wanted the production to bend towards Mannequin Pussy with sludgy guitars and twinkly keys,” frontperson Sara Mae Henke explains. “The music video literalizes the too much-ness of the story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Grey Gardens meets two dates to the prom.”

‘Twos’ is out now via Audio Antihero and available from Bandcamp.

Tyler Bradley Walker – Because of the Many

We introduced The Sun The Moon The Earth and Me, the debut solo album from Tyler Bradley Walker, back in May, describing how the artist best known as one half of electronic rock duo Gone to Color was every bit as ambitious and adventurous in his solo work. ” Single ‘Moon Broke Quiet’ offered “a spacious, evocative soundscape which seems to sit at an angle to reality,” we wrote, “everything a little stark and surreal and strange […] occup[ying] that nocturnal liminal space between waking life and dreams.” With the album now out, TBW has shared opening track ‘Because of the Many’ as a new single, an experimental pop protest song that takes aim at modern day USA. The track’s idiosyncrasy and slow-burn intensity is intensified with a video every bit as odd.

Out gunned, not done
The fucking light is green
No one eats their eggs that way
Wise man funny man
Write your own story
Very large worlds untouched untouched

Watch the video directed by Andrew Petersson and produced By Carson Cox (Mod Visual) below:

The Sun The Moon The Earth and Me is out now and available to purchase from the Tyler Bradley Walker Bandcamp page.

Will Orchard – Something’s Gotta Go

If you’ve been reading VSF over the last few months, you may know that Nashville-via-New England songwriter Will Orchard has a new record, Behind the Shadow Glass, coming out later this year. The initial two singles ‘Down’ and ‘Nothing Fog’ gave a pretty good idea of what to expect, and now we have a third cut to further whet appetites. Titled ‘Something’s Gotta Go’, the song finds Orchard with his sleeves rolled up as he digs through the dirt. Crunchy Americana meets Neil Young folk rock which sees him picks through internal knots and tangles that have been tripping him up over the years. “[The song] is a cathartic release, and an acknowledgement of self-inflicted pain.” Orchard describes. “It’s about getting into the pattern of never being satisfied with yourself. Calling the song finished was somewhat of a challenge because of how raw and in some ways, non-poetic it felt. But that’s the spirit of the song, just putting it all out there and letting go of your will to try so hard.”

Wombo – Neon Bog

“Feeling every inch the product of a band nearing ten years together, [Danger in Fives] finds the Wombo sound realised in its purest form,” we wrote of the Louisville trio’s new album coming later this summer on Fire Talk Records, “combining the experimentation and risk-taking which marked their earlier releases with the growing confidence so evident on Fairy Rust. That is, the sound of project which has come to understand its spirit and ambitions and is now committing to them with total conviction.” Latest single ‘Neon Bog’ shows just how deep such conviction runs, the band embracing happenstance and happy accidents during the recording process to create something as atmospheric as it is idiosyncratic.

The song comes complete with a video directed by Cameron Lowe along with assistant director Scotty “Sleepy” Anderson. The film leans further into the haunting tones of the song, using practical effects a la Michel Gondry. “I’ve been watching a lot of the TV show Ghost Adventures and have been somewhat haunted by the implications of the paranormal,” as Lowe explains. “I thought the video was a good outlet for expressing that in an abstract way.”

Danger in Fives is out on the 8th August via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it now from the Wombo Bandcamp page.

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The album felt like Will Orchard finding his groove, and subsequent releases have built upon it. The 2023 record Learning to Stand “unfurl[ed] with a careful tenderness,” as we wrote, “and [drew] the listener into a space of calm contemplation,” and his latest single ‘Down’ further pushes into the style. A dream-folk track which preaches the benefits submission within an overwhelming world, complicating the lines between playfulness, sadness and acquiescence. “I get lost in a maze / And I just lay down / I don’t want to be found,” Orchard sings in the opening lines. “There go the bright red dragons scorching overhead / I am a fading star gone to bed.”

When the light of the morning
Creeps over the hill
The honey bees find me
Eyes open and still

Even if I taste like everyone else
Can I at least have my own sweet finish
As I sink down, down?

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Writing of Astra Forward back in 2022, we described how the London-based artist combines “classic folk stylings as well as a timeless ethereal atmosphere channeling a bond between human emotion and the natural world that feels somehow ancient.” New single ‘Ben’s Birds’ again possesses a link to nature, though this time the real focus is memory. Joe Taylor (drums/percussion), Callum McGuinness (production/bass/nylon strung guitar) and Laura Hussey (violin) help create a sound capable of conjuring thoughts of a past friendship in vivid detail, and thus breath new life into something precious. “With writing ‘Ben’s Birds’, I hoped to bring into colour ageing memories that felt like they were fading,” the artist explains. “The song seeks to reflect something of this gentle soul’s beauty and our connection, while expressing broader themes of memory, endurance and grief.”

Bennett Heidelberger – Eater of God/100usd

Having been around the Nashville music scene for a number of years, Bennett Heidelberger finally decided to release some songs of his own in 2024, starting with EP Wood Ducks. That record was a collection of small, tender tracks which centred on loss in various guises, from bereavement to the end of a romantic relationship. Now Heidelberger is back with new double single ‘Eater of God/100usd’, a pair of songs no less heartfelt in their execution yet showing a newfound sense of scale and weight. The former opens in a sincere hush before developing into something bigger and bolder, and ‘100usd’ follows suit with Heidelberger’s weightiest sound to date, the tone slightly more wry but lacking none of the emotion.

boyhood. – looking for you

Back in August we wrote about boyhood., a project which represents “an attempt […] to consider what has been gained and lost through the slow process of self-actualisation,” as we put it. “To save the parts worth saving, and potentially fill in the gaps.” Like previous single ‘wes anderson (your dog)’, new track ‘looking for you’ rises from restrained, downbeat beginnings into something richly affirming, as though the track’s confessional tone coaxes the sound to life. An exploration of love and grief most striking for its authenticity, delivered with the ambience of the moment left intact. “I recorded dozens of ‘clean’ vocal takes between October and now, and ended up just keeping the crude demo and bringing in friends to help me build around it,” boyhood. explains, “keeping the imperfections and clicks and bits of conversation to maintain the emotional space I wrote it in.”

‘looking for you’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Lavender Blue – Wishbone

Based in the mountains of Asheville, NC, Lavender Blue is the recording project of Kayla Zuskin. Following on from 2022 EP Slow Down, Lavender Blue is back with new singles on Ghost Mountain Records. The latest of which, ‘Wishbone’, takes inspiration from the image of a tree split in two yet continuing to grow, something moving in different directions but fundamentally united at the root. “[The song is] about the cognitive dissonance we all can experience when people or places inherently grow apart but alas remain connected,” as Zuskin puts it. Mary Steinbrecher (bass, vocals) and Jack Victor (drums) lend the talents to bring to life a sound that owes as much to emo as it does folk or dream pop, combining sharp and smooth textures to evoke the duality at the track’s heart.

Lofi Legs – Chain

With a new album on the way, San Francisco indie rockers Lofi Legs have returned with the single ‘Chain’. We previously wrote about how they melded “garage rock and bedroom pop with psych and surf sensibilities […] to capture the highs and lows of life,” and the new track builds upon the vibe to gloriously hazy results. Harking back to the buzz bands of the early 00s, ‘Chain’ delivers a brightly carefree spirit within a bundle of scrappy energy and fuzzed-out textures, leading to a sound that is entirely committed despite not taking itself too seriously. Watch the suitably surreal video below:

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

Matthew Squires – Song of a Cactus

‘Song of a Cactus’, the latest single from Matthew Squires, was penned during the pandemic, though its sense of lost direction was familiar before the virus, and has persisted to the present day. “I have that annoying songwriter habit of wanting to defer to the work itself rather than my explanation of it,” Squires says, “but I’d say it’s about finding some quiet sense of desperate hope in an apocalypse.” Fans of the Texas songwriter will recognise the idiosyncratic and heartfelt tone, with a newfound use of synths deepening the mood without sacrificing the raw immediacy so key to Squires’s work. The result feels like an urgent dispatch from within an uncertain present. As Squires concludes: “I wanted to make sure I released it before the election as my little quixotic attempt at creating a psychical place of refuge in anticipation of whatever direction the world might lurch.”

Routine Caffeine – Philodendron

We first wrote about Routine Caffeine at the beginning of the year, describing how single ‘In The End Now’ embodied the Louisville outfit’s “penchant for rich, bittersweet soundscapes” and introduced their EP, Weeds Under Concrete Stones. With the full release now out in the world, Routine Caffeine have shared new single and opener ‘Philodendron’. It’s a track which marries a taut central rhythm with a dreamy haze, and hints at a sharp bite too, all highlighting just how much control Katie O’Brien Kelley (vocals, guitar), Madison Elizabeth Case (bass, synth, background vocals) and Emma Treganowan (drums) have over the mood of their work.

Sarah Swire – Tight!

Recording under the moniker Sister Swire, Toronto songwriter and actor Sarah Swire has caught our attention with with a delightfully idiosyncratic brand of art rock, from the nuanced, ominous take on psychosis on ‘I Shot the President’ to the unapologetically malicious fun of ‘Pulleys and Gears‘. Released under her own name, new single ‘Tight!’ is every bit as inventive as its predecessors, and has no less force in its bite. Owing as much to the weird fiction of Joy Williams as it does Captain Beefhart or Nick Cave, the track is a monologue delivered in the manner of a wound spring, twisting tighter and tighter until it unravels in a moment of chaotic release. The video—directed by Swire and shot by Nicole Cecile Holland, with animations and editing by Eric Stephen Martin—only furthers the surreal intensity of the track, Swire’s movements charged and contorted by her words as if not so much speaking or singing as channelling a deeper energy.

‘Tight! is out now and available from the usual places.

Shady Baby – Held In

Released to celebrate a successful year including a performance on the main stage at Y Not Festival and shows with Malice K, Shady Baby‘s new single ‘Held In’ is a fitting way to cap off 2024. With the Brighton outfit leaning further than ever into the bittersweet drama of nineties alt rock, the song finds Sam Leaver and co. pairing weighty crescendos with emotional depth, leading to what might be their most assured, evocative sound to date. A sense of control binds the majority of the track, though the constant simmer of its energies pays off in the soaring conclusion. Watch the video filmed by Meg Sweeney and directed and edited by Leaver below:

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

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