To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the EP, ON AIR LIBRARY have decided to make the release available on streaming services for the first time alongside a brand new vinyl edition, not only reintroducing themselves as a pioneering outfit but also hinting towards new material that will soon be unveiled. For the who might have missed things the first time around, single ‘A Word From Benjamin Spock is an ideal place to dive in. A sound at once richly crafted and cryptically opaque which pairs layers of guitars and feeback to envelope the listener, though it is up to interpretation whether this ethereal space is undergoing a process of blooming or decay.

ON AIR LIBRARY can be found at the usual places.

Photo by Dan Mazikowski

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This month will see the release of 2 Women, a brand new EP released with Dots Per Inch Music which builds upon its predecessor and sees Amiture Music bloom into something even more inventive and challenging. Again built in the spirit of collective creation, each of the four members bring their own quirks and sensibilities to the sound, though all work towards a common goal. The result, like all the best collaborations, feels larger than the sum of its parts and seems to operate according to some higher logic. Experimentation not as some effort in grandstanding or novelty for novelty’s sake, but rather in order to delve further into psychological experience.

The release’s first single, ‘Idela’, is a testament to the power of such cooperation. Initially composed as an instrumental piece, Whitescarver and co. decided to invite New York-based songwriter and pianist Eliana Glass to sing on the track, allowing Glass listen to the song and write her own lyrics in response. A widening of the Amiture Music project to include a fifth member who was given the freedom to work with the same instinctiveness and cohesion as the core group. “The process was magical and it only made sense to attempt to replicate it with the video,” Whitescarver explains. “Eliana and I started with an image of a woman swimming in an indoor pool and worked backwards. I liked how many uncomfortable places you could get with a camera as small as a GoPro. It was cathartic to bring such a satisfying collaboration to life through image.”

2 Women will be released on the 30th via Dots Per Inch Music and you can pre-order it now from the Amiture Music Bandcamp page.

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With the release of Howling World just under a month away via Black Meadow, Kin Hana has shared brand new track ‘Earthrise’. This time turning to the Apollo 8 ‘Earthrise’ photograph as well as Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey for influence, Hodges considers the human condition across its full timespan, from our primitive beginnings to the frontiers of technological possibility. In doing so, he manages to locate the yearning for connection and community which has persisted from our first days, and will persist to the last. The result centers the mythic presence of both the past and the future, twin otherworlds which loom large over the present, warping the material of our existence with equal parts pessimism and possibility.

Watch the video directed and edited by Marjorie LeWit below:

Howling World is set for release on the 23rd October via Black Meadow and you can pre-order it now.

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These themes are apparent from the very beginning. Opener ‘The Ground Here’ is rich with a sense of place both past and present, longing for the familiar rhythm of distinct seasons, and centring on the anxiety of living through human-induced destruction. Houdei wrote the track following a move from her home in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri to Topanga in southern California, an area devastated by the Palisades wildfire in early 2025. “[The California] landscape is undeniably beautiful,” she explains. “I, however, being painfully aware of how strained the land had grown to be during years that I lived there, longed for natural bodies of water and the simple rainstorm.”

Why must I be quiet
I have grown to long to doubt
The ground here’s turned to dust yeah
All the lizards running about
I walk in search of grassland but the hills have all burned down
I see it in my reflection
May the river wash me out

It is not just the name of the record that is important to this release. This Bed Was Made For Me is Biita Houdei’s first release under her own new name (her given name is Lisa, and she previously recorded under the moniker LéPonds), which was gifted by her aunt and translates from Farsi as “unique”. “I proudly take this name,” Houdei says of receiving this gift. “It makes me feel that much closer to my Persian heritage.” One of the strengths of the collection is the melding of influences, pulling in threads of this family heritage and weaving them into Houdei’s own, very much American, lived experience. What sound like timeless US folk songs take surprising turns, adorned with gentle orchestral elements and playful flourishes. ‘Frog Song’ has the whimsical simplicity of a children’s rhyme, while ‘Burnin’ is suffused with the slow build and incense-scented atmosphere of a ritual, Houdei’s voice moving from whisper to full-throated cries. Each track rewarding those who give it the space and time of repeated listens, eschewing the contemporary urge to seize attention with blunt force to instead foster a more collaborative relationship between artist and listener, one of mutual attention, curiosity and wonder.

Far from a solo endeavour, collaboration was key to the creation of the record too. Celebrated songwriter Haley Heynderickx, who leads on production for the first time in her career, is a central presence in the songs. The pair met when Houdei opened for Heynderickx in 2018, a moment that sparked a strong bond and creative synergy. Before making This Bed Was Made for Me they headed to rural Oregon for a writing retreat, and upon their return brought the same sense of cosy solitude and connection to the studio. The songs came into being over the course of ten days which Houdei says “began with fermented tea and ended with a shared meal together,” the recording process a practical embodiment of the spirit of an album all about the ways in which we shape, and are in turned shaped by, one another and the world around us.

More than a neat anecdote, this origin story feels fundamental to the very sound of the release. How else to bring an album of careful, patient songs to life other than a careful, patient process? Because more than the ten days in the studio, This Bed Was Made for Me was crafted in the slow forging of a friendship over eight years, not to mention the life lived before it. Even the preparation of tea and sharing of a meal together feels important in this light, the album earning its authenticity by stacking moment upon painstaking moment with no thought of cutting corners in the name of efficiency.

The mindset is evoked most clearly in a parallel project Houdei undertook alongside the record, sewing a patch for each tracks, and then combining them into the quilt you can see on the cover. “Making the quilt was laborious. Taking the cover photo was laborious’ says Houdei. “No shortcuts, but rather a manual and tangible approach. I am thankful for the time it took.” Because, more than a prop for the artwork, the finished object became a tangible symbol the ethos of the album, one particularly poignant in this age of automation. “I encourage people to dive deeper into everything that they choose to consume,” she continues. “It is not my intention to sound pretentious, but instead, I am trying harder to explain the gratitude I have for being able to craft every part of this album— using my hands, my brain, my voice, my visions. To me, it is an all encompassing work of art.”  For all of its nuanced meanings, there’s a hidden irony to the title of This Bed Was Made for Me. Because in truth, with help from a number of friends, Biita Houdei made this bed herself, and wants to remind you that your bed is there to be made too.

This Bed Was Made For Me is released via Basin Rock and Father/Daughter Records. Order it now from the Biita Houdei Bandcamp page.

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I had the feeling that most writing in this environment becomes an advertisement for yourself and your virtues. There is importance and beauty in writing characters and stories that are filled with the good you wish to see in the real world, but sitting around a table of like-minded individuals doesn’t always leave a lot of room for narrative art that is ugly and weird.

The story I’m telling is ugly and weird. It’s mean-spirited, it makes fun of its characters, it’s violent, and I go for cheap laughs. The songs that emerged for this project, the first I’ve written in over a decade, probably speak to an urge to make art like that, which I’ve likely repressed in my fiction writing for polite academia and peer-to-peer workshopping.

After foreshadowing opener ‘The Television Watcher’, single ‘I’m a Soldier’ introduced the tone of the record, not least how The Male Pattern’s style of storytelling manages to carry emotional and thematic weight despite its wacky, off-the-wall charms. “The undeniable irony and playfulness do nothing to undermine the heartbreaking loneliness running through its heart,” as we put it in our preview. “An anthem of America in 2026, where vapidity, ridiculousness and mean-spirited self-interest feel like symptoms of some dark, cursed pathology lurking beneath the surface.”

Latest single ‘Charlie (The Robbery)’ zips us further through the story, finding our protagonist sinking ever further into the underbelly of society, and teetering on the precipice of something far worse. He can’t quite get back on the job market, can’t keep his urine clean enough to satisying the state, has taken to carrying a gun around with the American urge that someone might give him an excuse to use it (“It’s my God-given right”). But firearms and narcotics have never been a good mix, especially not when the characters involved are quite so desperate, and an ostensibly foolproof plan to rob a small-time dealer inevitably tilts towards disaster. “This gun might be loaded but we only need to show it,” as the next verse goes, “And then it’s all for the taking, there’s no way to blow it.” Only, of course, there is a way to blow it. The obvious fate for anyone TV-brained swinging a loaded gun.

Stick ‘em up, this is a heist, put your hands up toward the sky
Don’t reach for that piece unless your ready for heat
Charlie looked like he was going to cry
I got too excited
I tried to say a line from The Dark Knight Rises
When Charlie made his move
I blew him half way across the room
I grabbed the score and I ran for the door

Photos by Andrew Piccone, album design & art by Edelweiss Cardenas

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Eliza Edens has now announced brand new album Death Drive, and the title track suggests the record continues this newfound style, tackling difficult themes with unabashed brightness and even wry humour. As you might expect, the idea is informed by the Freudian concept of the title, Edens finding fertile ground in the fact that brushes with death (be they physical or psychic, from childhood ski accidents, digital breakups during lockdown, or their mother’s experience with dementia) bring a greater appreciation of life. So while there might be a certain recklessness to the abandon with which Edens faces this new era, it is all part of deeper pact to seize the moment while it is still present. A joyous, if slightly dangerous, celebration of being alive.

When I was a kid I crushed a rib while skiin’
Dad said I’m glad you didn’t die
Maybe I was flirtin’ with the limit but baby that’s how you win it
Wanna get tangled up
I wanna love my death drive

Watch the video below, directed by Edens themselves with Mod Schwalbe (DP), Michelle Hanks (editing and colour) and Elena Foraker (title design):

Death Drive will be released on the 30rd October via First City Artists and you can pre-order it now.

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This summer, a special version of Advance Base went on tour with Pedro the Lion, Owen Ashworth joined by Moontype to give his songs a rare full band treatment. Thanks to the technical wizardry of front of house engineer Milwaukee Mark Sullivan, the Milwaukee show was recorded well enough that Ashworth decided to release an impromtu live album, hence In Milwaukee is available to download for free today. The set includes tracks from Horrible Occurrances, Animal Companionship, Nephew in the Wild and A Shut-In’s Prayer, as well as recent single ‘Movie Theater Manager‘ and even a few Casiotone For The Painfully Alone numbers too, though it is perhaps the newer tracks which stand out the most in this arrangement. Take ‘Brian’s Golden Hour’, a fitting closer that is charged with extra intensity with a full band behind it, which in our opinion serves as an encapsulation of Ashworth’s stellar career thus far. As we concluded in our review of Horrible Occurrences:

“You’ll be fine,” a paramedic tells the titular character in ‘Brian’s Golden Hour’, a teen skater and would-be Days of Heaven-era Malick who plans to film himself dropping in on a homemade ramp from the roof of his parents house only to bail and shatter his spine. “You’re 15 & paralyzed / & lucky to be alive,” as the refrain goes. But Brian doesn’t actually commit to the trick. His only paralysis is a hesitation at the top of the ramp. This horrible occurrence takes place entirely in his head. Yet the paramedic’s words echo all the same. Kind, if slightly hollow. What they want to be true, or need to be true. Or rather what might as well be true inside that moment, until the opposite is confirmed. You’ll be fine. Words so brittle and tender and heartfelt. Somehow the epitome of both security and vulnerability. The essence of not only Horrible Occurrences but perhaps Ashworth’s entire body of work. Voices heard from beneath the weight of all that has happened, and all that possibly could. You might be dying. The darkness might all be in your head. You’ll be fine.

In Milwaukee is out now and available as a free download from Bandcamp. Moontype are also on Bandcamp, as are Pedro the Lion. Advance Base will play a few solo shows soon: Sept 6th in Chicago, IL (@ Sound & Gravity Festival), Sept 9th in Ann Arbor, MI (@ Funhouse) and Sept 10th in Toronto, ON (@ St Stephen’s). More tickets and information can be found here.

Caleb Elliott – Without Warning

With 2019 debut Forever to Fade and 2023 follow-up Weed, Wine & Time, songwriter, guitarist and cellist Caleb Elliott established vivid, widescreen style of folk rock, his work incorporating sleek grooves and rich string arrangements to elevate the sound. Fast forward a few years and the Florence, Alabama artist is returning with new singles. The latest ‘Without Warning’ suggests he has further honed this style in the intervening period. Moving with an understated grace and blooming gradually in something almost cinematic, the track sits comfortably next to later-era Damien Jurado. Able to offer genuine emotional intimacy while transporting the listener into its own hyperreal world.

‘Without Warning’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Eric Angelo Bessel – Pathways

Fresh off the back of 2025 LP Mirror At Night and its b-side sister release earlier this year, Eric Angelo Bessel is already preparing a brand new full-length, and the quick turnaround has done nothing to dampen the record’s ambition or scope. Consisting of eighteen interlinked compositions, Illusion of an Inland Ocean plays like an exercise in cartography, mapping the contours of a mysterious location which exists just beyond the ordinary confines of the world, inviting the listener along for the expedition so that we too might wander in our own act of discovery. The songs of Mirror At Night sounded like “dispatches from some strange otherworld” as we wrote, Bessel probing the line between the real and unreal, organic and digital, dreams, memory and waking life, and Illusion… pushes this style further than ever. An effort to conjure a sense of place which goes beyond traditional world-building, working to not merely create something new but evoke the sense of revealing something which has always been present, waiting for someone with the patience and attention to bring them to light. Listen to lead track ‘Pathways’ now.

Lamplight – Clover

We last featured Lamplight back in February with the release of ‘Year 2083‘, a stand alone single featuring hemlock which marked the crossover from the project’s 2024 self-titled album and whatever was to come next. What was to come, it now turns out, was Lick The Spoon, Let It Soften, a brand new full-length with Western Vinyl which sees Ian Williams paint a picture of life in all of its uncertainty and with both the love and the grief left intact. Single ‘Clover’ introduces the themes of the record, a track which seems suspended between the retrospection of mourning and a look towards future dreams, turning to the small certainties of the present as a kind of balm against the otherwise debilitating doubt which might set in when asking life’s big questions. “Lick the spoon and let it soften, it’ll melt,” as Williams sings in the verse which give the album its title, “you don’t need another mouthful, draw it out / all you need you’ve already gotten.”

Rayland Baxter – Better Man

After losing his father Bucky Baxter back in 2020, Rayland Baxter found his attempts at songwriting falling flat no matter how much effort he put it, only for a conversation with his sister to change his perspective. “We talked about life and family and love and heartache, and our individual experiences with all of that,” he explains. “She simply encouraged me to write about what I was feeling, something I was avoiding in the early stages of writing.” Baxter’s new full-length True Violet emerged from this inflection point, an album “personal and bloody” attuned to both the immediate pain of suffering and the enlightenment which slowly seeps in. Lead single and opening track ‘Better Man’ functions as a prologue for this story, the first step in a journey through grief from one stage of life to another.

Watch the video directed by Joshua Shoemaker below:

True Violet will be released on the 23rd October via ATO Records and you can pre-order it now.

Spring Colours – Femur In The Dust (Who Told You There’s A Better Life!?)

After putting in the hard yards on tour and building up a fanbase the old-fashioned way, Toronto “digital-punk” outfit Spring Colours finally released their anticipated debut full-length The Courage Cloak this year, a bold, cathartic album which rails against the masks and armour society demands we wear in order to stand out. “The ‘Courage Cloak’ we put on is red and angry, a symbol of the patriarchal need to perform and to be seen,” Lukas Lyjak explains, “and hides the simple need for genuine connection we all have. It is that cloak that we explore across the album, and more than anything, are striving to shake off.” There’s no better place to dive into the record than the snappily titled focus track ‘Femur In The Dust (Who Told You There’s A Better Life!?)’, a song which channels everything from Tokyo Police Club and Foxing to the hyperactive indie rock of Johnny Foreigner to create a sound that’s simultaneously fatalistic and defiant (As Lyjak puts it: “It’s that Slavic state of mind I grew up with—life’s unfair and tiring, get over it”).

Watch the video directed by Riley Campbell with director of photography Spencer Campbell below:

The Courage Cloak is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Stephen Steinbrink – Magic Mirror

“The spirit [of the record] is captured in the conjurer’s trick of the title, where reality is ruptured by a brief spark of magic. Buoyed by the experience and wisdom gleaned from outside activities, Steinbrink returns to music as a kind of magician himself. A figure who, guided by invention and playfulness, looks to use mastery of a physical craft in order to open the door to small, intangible miracles.” So we wrote of Stephen Steinbrink‘s 2023 LP Disappearing Coin, an album which made the list of our favourites released that year in no small part thanks to its willingness to look for freshness and curiosity so far into a career. In a Split Mirror, Steinbrink’s latest full-length coming via Mansions and Millions this autumn, functions as a direct continuation of this mission, not because if its stylistic similarities to its predecessor, but because of its differences. There’s a newfound openness to these songs, a colour and clarity which might at first appear at odds with the imagery of mirrors, doubles and distortions, but which ultimately makes perfect sense. Because, as lead single ‘Magic Mirror’ displays, this is an album about the ever-changing nature of identity which embraces instability not as some exercises in postmodern slipperiness but rather a firm, confident grasp of human truth.

Watch the video directed, shot and edited by Steinbrink himself below:

In a Split Mirror will be released on the 30th October via Mansions and Millions and you can pre-order it now.

Tasha – Quick!

“Finds an artist embracing the pace and breadth of their new life. Confronting each day with a sense of defiance rather than looking for somewhere to hide.” So we wrote of Tasha‘s 2024 full-length All This and So Much More, the New York-based songwriter emerging from a whirlwind period of experiences both thrilling and painful with a freshly honed appreciation of the possibilities of life. Released this June via Bayonet Records, follow-up You Are Spring! carried this spirit to new heights, channelling the season of its title to offer a warm and colourful sound pregnant with the promise of new growth. Undeterred by the present tip towards autumn, Tasha is preparing to head out on tour and has released a brand new video for single and closer ‘Quick!’ in celebration, along with a roundtable discussion with Taja Cheek (AKA L’Rain) and Jamila Woods (who both feature on the record) for Talkhouse. But listen to ‘Quick!’ and the rest of the record and it becomes clear autumn might in fact be a perfect time to dive into You Are Spring!, because more than a celebration of the season, it is an ode to all that we endure in order to enjoy the fruitful periods when they finally arrive. “Quick! See how this beauty rushes by?” as Tasha asks on the track. Let this be a reminder for us to concentrate on what we have in front of us before the wheel turns again.

Watch the video by V.E. Haddad (along with Annie Klebano) below:

You Are Spring! is out now via Bayonet Records and available from Bandcamp.

Tough Old Bird – Come Back, Come Back

The Buffalo, New York outfit Tough Old Bird have released a steady stream of singles across this summer, with tracks like ‘Wednesday’s Child‘, ‘Shape Of Our Love‘ and ‘I Was a Giant‘ highlighting how evocative and versatile the project has become. “Tough Old Bird have not pivoted to a new sound so much as expanded their armoury,” as we wrote, “and are now equipped to tackle whatever emotional palette any given song demands.” Latest track ‘Come Back, Come Back’ provides yet further evidence of the promise of this new era, its sound electrified but lacking none of the patience as a result, telling a poetic narrative that’s at once brooding and compassionate and little world weary too. “Well, it was such a long way to go / To come back, come back alone,” as Corrigan sings around halfway through, two lines which embody the solitude which marks the track, though from that point things tilt towards something more intense, allowing for a final sense of catharsis with the reflection.

The post Weekly Listening: August 2026 #5 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

After ‘‘cowboy bebop & eric’s trip’ (what we labelled “a characteristically off-the-wall and hyperactive slice of electronic (anti-)pop”) and ‘return of jafar‘ (“sits in the sweet spot between unapologetic nostalgia and contemporary neurosis, its tone unafraid of self-deprecation yet so bright and bouncy that it seems to simultaneously conquer it”), applied communications is back with new single ‘tarot sans tinseltown’ ahead of new full-length applied communications bites the big one, coming via Rare Noodles and Bar/None Records. We described the album as sitting in the centre of “a Venn diagram consisting of early Casiotone For the Painfully Alone, Emperor X and Dan Deacon,” and while the latest track could be said to conforms to this label, it also shows the limitations of comparisons when dealing with an act so singular. But however idiosyncratic the track might seem, it is only bringing to life the bizarre details of the time and place which inspired it. The song is about “an impromptu trip to LA during a depressive spiral,” Max Wood describes:

during the trip, pope benedict came out of the conclave and i saw beck at the scientology celebrity center while taking advantage of their free brunch. (i’m not a scientologist, don’t worry!) the song leans on LA’s weird history (eatonville, dw griffith, amy mcpherson) as a well of metaphors for the mental health precipice i was on at the time.”

applied communications bites the big one will be released on the 25th September via Rare Noodles and Bar/None Records and you can pre-order it via the applied communications Bandcamp page.

Black Duck – Funeral in my Brain

Over recent months, we’ve covered a couple of singles from the upcoming album between Chicago‘s Black Duck (that’s Douglas McCombs on bass/guitar, Bill MacKay on guitar and Charles Rumback on drums) and Basque musician Elena Setién, with both ‘Land of Many Eyes‘ and ‘Connects By Water‘ proving how stimulating collaboration can be. “[Meeting Setién], the trio felt they had discovered someone else clearly attuned to the Black Duck spirit,” as we wrote, “and have taken this forward to not only invigorate the project, but to reimagine its very boundaries [becoming] a quartet in order to bottle the lightning of this live performance.” With the release fast approaching via Thrill Jockey, the outfit have now unveiled new track ‘Funeral in my Brain’. The song is inspired by the Emily Dickinson poem for which it is named, elevating the emotional landscape of the work into something larger and more forceful, an almost cinematic vista which performs a kind of transubstantiation, the fear of death morphed into its own form of transcendence. “This one is a funeral, but a surrealistic one in some way,” as Setién explains. “In a sense, as a performer, and as a listener, I lose fear of death and just embrace it.”

Black Duck with Elena Setién will be released on the 28th August via Thrill Jockey Records and you can pre-order it now from the Black Duck Bandcamp page.

Burley – Change

Following on from a self-titled EP released last year, Brooklyn folk project Burley are teasing their upcoming full-length with a brand new single ‘Change’. Consisting of Antony Jeffares, Austin Chappell, John Dockery and Sam Lopane, the band make what they call ‘gas station core’ A style of folk rock which pairs the rawness and twang of alt-country with an extra dose of wistfulness, certain to appeal to fans of Fust, Friendship and Sluice. ‘Change’ finds the quartet at their most confident yet, able to confront thorny personal themes with a tone that’s as assured as it is bright. As the title might suggests, these themes involve change in its strange complications, namely how a relationship can reconfigure a person, and how the end of a relationship can be equally seismic, not to mention the ways in which we stay the same no matter how strong the external forces might be. “Light up, sun down / find a big block to walk around / where all the concrete knows your pain,” as one verse goes. “Old friends, same talk / breaking down off of Eastern Park / where all the benches know my name / when all the brightest colours seem to fade // It ain’t too late to change again / no, it ain’t to late to change.”

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

Hockitay – half smile

“”I’m not sure what I want / Except not wanting at all.” So sings Hockitay on latest single ‘half smile’, a deceptively downbeat line on what might be the Montreal artist’s warmest track to date. Hockitay’s 2026 releases have hinted towards this sound, with the almost eerie ‘buttons‘ striving for humanity in the algorithmic present, and ‘two crows‘ looking for hopeful omens to point towards a better future, both songs disillusioned with the world yet struggling for reprieve. A casual listen to ‘half smile’ suggests this struggle might have come good, the sound full of apparent heart and fondness. Though dig a little deeper and it seems the dismay might have just found a new focus. Because, as the above line shows, there’s an existential confusion to at play, the intimacy not so much straight romance as a kind of confession.

Aw baby, don’t cry
I say this with love
I’m not sure what I want
Except not wanting at all

Watch the video directed by David S. Blouin & Buvard and featuring Sékou and Myriam Doumbia, & René Bazinet:

‘half smile’ is out now via Future Gods and available from Bandcamp.

Jordan Sand – Baby with the Sail

Known for her talents with the bowed double bass, string player and singer Jordan Sand has long supported the vision of others, collaborating on everything from film scores to SNL appearances. But it was only after an extended hiatus in making music that her own solo vision started to take shape. Upon her return, Sand found her process and sensibilities had shifted, with the desire to plan and prepare falling away in favour of a more intuitive, impressionistic approach. Sand’s debut solo full-length Baby Ghost feels like the culmination of this new era. A release recorded in single takes and eschewing overdubs and edits, it is what has been described as a “spectral song cycle set within the transition space between life and death.” Lead track ‘Baby in the Sails’ hints at the power of such a style, the song exploring the tension between silence and intensity as it progresses from spacious beginning towards a bold, dissonant conclusion. The video, made in collaboration Berlin-based photographer and videographer Juliane Schütz, offers a visual representation of this mood, presenting a series of images which play like memories as experienced in the liminal space between this life and whatever comes next.

Baby Ghost is set for release on the 2nd October via Hallow Ground and you can pre-order it now.

June McDoom – Without You

June McDoom first came to our attention with her self-titled EP in 2022. We were taken with how the New York-based artist took “relatively simple folk blueprints and weave[d] whole worlds of sound around them,” describing her style as “a constantly shifting collage of her influences, warm and rich and strangely dream-like.” Following another EP and a double EP compilation release, McDoom has now signed with Jagjaguwar and is preparing to release her debut full-length. Titled Follow the Light, and recorded with partner and long-time collaborator Evan Wright, the album promises to double down on the otherworldly atmosphere, which the press notes liken to that liminal space you slip into just before sleep. Lead single ‘Without You’ offers an initial peek at what to expect, a dreamily romantic track that pokes the tender spot that is the realisation of how important a loved one is. “The ending celebrates the awareness and commitment to never take that person for granted,” McDoom explains, “because it’s never too late to change how you’ve been.”

Thavoron – Blurry tattoos

The work of Seattle-based Cambodian-American artist Thavoron has always possessed a cinematic edge, painting vivid if at times challenging pictures of a person search for their true identity with a rich, R&B-inflected pop sound. But latest single ‘Blurry tattoos’ takes things a step further, drawing inspiration from acts like FKA twigs and Kelela to offers sound that’s unapologetic in its widescreen drama and longing. The accompanying video, directed by Thavoron and Maddie Ludgate, even begins with a TMZ-style celeb report before moving through dance numbers and surreal nocturnal landscape, furthering the themes through filmic shots and choreography.

‘Blurry tattoos’s is out now via Trailing Twelve and available from the usual places.

Tough Old Bird – I Was a Giant

“Continuing to display the newly electrified version of the project, the track sees the Corrigans and co. straddle the traditional and the contemporary, maintaining the narrative and emotional heft of classic folk while always striding forwards.” So we wrote of ‘Shape of Our Love’, the second single (after ‘Wednesday’s Child‘) from Tough Old Bird that saw the Buffalo outfit push its traditionally folk-centric sound towards more rock-adjacent territory. However, do not be fooled, Tough Old Bird is still a folk project at heart, something new single ‘I Was a Giant’ certainly attests. After realising the track was resisting attempts to arrange it as a full-band piece, they decided to strip the sound right back to their folk roots, leaving only Nathan Corrigan on vocals and acoustic guitar, with usual drummer Ricky Bechard (usually the band’s drummer) lending a second acoustic guitar. The result proves that sometimes less is more, the relatively sparse arrangement carrying an intimacy that might be overpowered in a busier style, and displays the confidence of the project as a whole. Tough Old Bird have not pivoted to a new sound so much as expanded their armoury, and are now equipped to tackle whatever emotional palette any given song demands.

V.V. Lightbody – Practice Smiling

V.V. Lightbody, the project of Chicago songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and collaborator per excellence Vivian McConnell, returns this October with Period Piece, her third full-length, via Egghunt Records. The record sees McConnell take full control of production, crafting inventive indie folk songs that morph and shift with a chameleonic playfulness. There are also contributions from an impressive list of friends, including Sam Cantor (aka Minor Moon), Emma Hospelhorn (Em Spel), Macie Stewart and Cassandra Jenkins. We got a first taste late last year with lead single ‘Best Problem’, and now V.V. Lightbody has officially announced the album with another track, ‘Practice Smiling’. Light and danceable but with an edge of anxiety, the song was written in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, when everyone (and especially professional musicians) stepped out excited but blinking and unsure of themselves after a period of forced isolation. “In that moment,” McConnell describes, “I so clearly felt the passage of time and a surprising nervousness that had built up in my mind and body, forcing me to reassess my social confidence which I feel like I am still gaining back.”

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Back in 2022, Texas-based songwriter and DIY stalwart Brody Price released Win A Trip To Palm Springs, what we described as “an authentic engagement with the difficult side of life” which nevertheless “refus[ed] to succumb to maudlin yearning or fatalistic cynicism, instead working with enough patience and curiosity to allow the full spectrum of emotions to coexist.” Now Price is set to return with brand new record Leaf Miner’s Daughter, to be released via Gar Hole Records this autumn, and single and album opener ‘Breathing Again’ suggests he is once more prepared to wrestle with hope and despair in his distinctive alt-country style. The subject matter could hardly be darker, dealing with the real-life instance when Price and his wife tried to help two victims of a shooting outside their home in Fort Worth (one of which died while they administered CPR), and again the song’s mission seems to be an attempt to fight off complete doom despite its constant assault. How does one go on living in a country (or indeed entire world) which seems to be collapsing? What hope can be scavenged within the ruins of this disaster? Brody Price might not have the answers, but he’s out there trying to help all the same.

Leaf Miner’s Daughter will be released on the 9th October via Gar Hole Records and you can pre-order it now.

Charlotte Greve – Own Lap

“Considers the multitudes which exist within any one person, and how this array of dimensions is shaped and grown by our immediate surroundings [with a] bright and curious sound, based around syncopated vocals and drum machine beats, [which] flickers like a disco ball in uneven light, as though with every twist and turn, Greve shows a slightly different face to herself, each just as vivid and shining as the last.” So we wrote of ‘Membranes’, the lead track from Charlotte Greve‘s new album WATERBODIES, forthcoming via New Amsterdam. The German-born, Brooklyn-based composer, singer and saxophonist has now shared latest track ‘Own Lap’, the clearest indication yet of both the record’s playful invention and the scale of the intentions which underpin it. Dedicated to her late grandmother and two friends who have moved through adversity, “strong people,” as Greve describes, “who had the ability and strength to keep their head up and keep going,” the song is an eleven-minute epic brought to life with full orchestral grandeur which nevertheless never loses sight of the personal amid the sweeping majesty. Or rather, it is a song which locates the majesty within the personal experience of the everyday.

Jason Calhoun – Enjoy Losing

Last month we introduced revelations of divine love, the new full-length album from Jason Calhoun coming soon via Dear Life Records. It’s the latest offering from “an artist on a mission, or else just asking questions,” as we put it, “someone in perpetual search for something elusive, be it mere solace or transcendence”. The release could be seen as a kind of metacommentary on this quest, coming to understand how the revelations of its title will not arrive as a grand epiphany but in the accumulated experience gleaned from day to day. Latest single ‘Enjoy Losing’ is an embodiment of this spirit, delving into the piecemeal nature of anything artistic or spiritual, as well as the patience required as a result. “[The] title comes from playing chess.com on my phone,” as Calhoun explains:

Going in I decided I wouldn’t learn how to win through theory, but instead through trial and error. I really had to learn to enjoy the game even when I was losing. You can call it poetics if you’re so inclined but that losing process feels tied to my musical and spiritual practice. I’ve learned to be patient with the way my music takes form just as I have tried to learn to welcome difficulty with open arms. The textural piece finds me with a contact mic and a rosary in hand, a representation of my ever-present search for divine love.”

Kate Prascher – They Will Fall Down

After singles ‘Jubilee‘ and ‘Thousand a Million‘, Tennessee-born, Hudson Valley-based songwriter Kate Prascher continues to prepare for the release her new album Sunday Afternoon with latest single ‘They Will Fall Down’. A “collision of the vintage and contemporary is typical of [her] work,” we wrote of her music previously, “Prascher finding fertile ground in the ambiguous space between things, be it mystery and clarity or the old and the new,” and the new song is no exception. A lush and wistful reflection on the end of the world, the track plays as something of a homespun waltz, managing to evoke both the gravity of impending conclusions while retaining a sense of sincerity and fondness too.

Sunday Afternoon will be released on the 28th August via First City Artists.

Matthew Squires & Sunk Coast – What’s Going On?

From ballads about Norm MacDonald to satirical covers of viral conservative country hits, the work of Ithaca, New York-based songwriter Matthew Squires is as surprising as it is inventive. His new project with Zach Totta of Sunk Coast is by no means an exception. Our first taste of new EP Easy Answers To Harder Questions, single ‘Wing Song’ showed how quirk is not mutually exclusive to emotion (“with vocals that rival Daniel Johnston in their ability to echo Kermit the Frog,” we wrote, “the song is classic Matthew Squires, proving that genuinely compassionate music need not leave playfulness or strangeness at the door”), something which latest number ‘What’s Going On?’ really hammers home. With a zany yet caustic personality which would make Thomas Pynchon proud, the song paints a picture of the contemporary US in all of its bizarre idiosyncrasies. But for all of its cartoonish colour and wit, the tone remains locked in a kind of reflective melancholy, as though beneath the dazzling surfaces lies a fundamental emptiness which the modern day has no way to fill.

Max Bien Kahn – Neighbours

San Francisco-born, New Orleans-based songwriter Max Bien Kahn is preparing to release his fifth solo album Baby Green this autumn, a record which looks to capture the full spectrum of life in all its bittersweet nuance. The large and the small sit side by side, bereavement next to dancing in bars, favourite shirts alongside fatherhood, as MBK collapses the line between the significant and insignificant to evoke the very fabric of existence and all its messy threads. The result is tender, often joyous and occasionally heartbreaking, songs which treat life as a privilege no matter what any one day might throw at you. Take latest single ‘Neighbours’, which manages to mine the ostensibly mundane experience of nodding hello to a familiar face in the neighbourhood for all of its uplifting delight, and all without a trace of irony, even if the repeated assertion “I’m not afraid of strangers” suggests something telling about the contemporary moment.

You see that guy down the street
He lives right around the corner
He’s such a friendly neighbor
We’re gonna say hello

He’s taking out the trash now
Rolling the cans to the curb
I’m not afraid to stop and say hello
To all my neighbors

Baby Green will be released on the 23rd October and you can pre-order it now.

Old Man of the Woods – Venus in Virgo

Earlier this year, Miranda Elliott’s Old Man of the Woods released album Cape Perpetua, an album of songs which “employ a certain minimalism, especially in their beginnings, though as a means rather than an end,” as we wrote in our review, “As though by stripping down the present into an ascetic simplicity, Old Man of the Woods is able to push through into another world entirely.” Now Elliott has returned with new single ‘Venus in Virgo’, what the Seattle-based artist describes as “a spell for self preservation” which bends towards post-punk with taut, angular tones and punchy rhythms. But above this newly propulsive groundwork remain the ethereal tones of the project, Elliott’s vocals swirling and slurring with what could be sensual suggestion or sardonic bite.

Protomartyr – Sounds We Cannot Hear

“Another eighty-one dead since dawn / Spiders crawling ‘cross the ceiling / Next door there’s voices moaning / Can’t tell if they’re coming or going.” So sings Joe Casey in the opening lines of Protomartyr’s new single ‘Sounds We Cannot Hear’, the first taste of the Detroit outfit’s seventh studio album, Hotel Usona. Charged with horror and laced with sly humour, the song introduces an album which promises to confront the contemporary American moment in all its pathetic neuroses and heinous excesses, Protomartyr evolving their sound with the addition of horns, tubular bells, xylophone and more, yet retaining the intensity which has long marked them as the real deal amid a crowd of post-punk pretenders. Just consider the needling dread of the opening segment, or indeed Casey’s repeated refrain at the close, a chorus which starts like something of a defeated elegy and rises in sheer desperation. Is there any agency left in a society which engineers gross inequality at home and mass slaughter abroad? If this track is anything to go by, we’re left with two meagre options. We can bury our heads in technological distraction and try to pretend it isn’t happening, or, like poet Hart Crane who is referenced in the second verse, choose to dive headfirst from the ship into the oblivion below.  Watch the video directed by Danny Scharar and Harris Mayersohn, and starring comedian/actor Nate Varrone, below:

Hotel Usona will be released on the 25th September via Domino and you can pre-order it now.

Shredded Sun – Cruel Streak

“Their sound pulls ingredients from all corners of the indie rock pantry, resulting in something that feels both reassuringly familiar and freshly unpredictable.” That’s how we described Chicago‘s Shredded Sun back in June, as jangly-yet-gritty single ‘Skyscrapper’ introduced new full-length Never Odd or Even, coming soon via Repeating Cloud. With the release of the album now just over a week away, Shredded Sun have returned with brand new track, ‘Cruel Streak’. As the title might suggest, this number shows a more raucous dimension to the Shredded Sun sound, though again the swagger and attitude are cut with a certain nostalgic tone too, as though within the boisterous momentum lies a wistful longing for something more.

waltzerr – ciggy b

Later this month, Seattle-based indie rock outfit waltzerr will release new full-length Tomorrow Will Be Better via nonprofit label Share It Music. Originating as the solo project of vocalist and songwriter Emily Waltzer, waltzerr has now grown into a trio with the addition of Anthony Coraggio (bass) and Schuyler Jensen (guitar), and has made a mark in the local music scene with a mix of high energy and unguarded emotion. This combination forms the heart of the new album, Waltzer and co. finding room for both confessional quiet and full-blown catharsis, as demonstrated by vivid lead single, ‘ciggy b’. For while the track might be reflective in tone, looking back on a past relationship and what might have been, the sound itself has its eyes firmly on the horizon, galloping forward with considerable momentum and heft. Who says nostalgia can’t pack a real punch?

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Far from a solo release, Romantix Mixtape sees Winter supported by Joo Joo Ashworth on a variety of instruments, as well as guest appearances specific to various tracks. Idris Vicuña (AKA Eyedress) features on ‘nicotine’, but latest single ‘without you’ sees Soccer Mommy‘s Sophia Allison join on vocals duty. Again reimagined from Adult Romantix, the version is once more shorter than its twin but loses nothing in the cut. Both are undoubtedly dreamy in tone, but where the original emerges through a gauzy hiss and haze, the mixtape version is cleaner and more immediate. What results is a sound that’s able to dial up the intimacy while simultaneously heightening the sound, drawing the audience into a cinematic representation of love, loneliness and longing.

The city has turned a different shade
It feels so strange
Without you
All of the streets spell your name
It feels so strange
Without you

Watch the video below, directed and edited by Justin Kaminuma, with B-cam by Nate Colman:

Romantix Mixtape will be released on the 18th September via Winspear and you can pre-order it now from the Winspear Bandcamp page.

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