“Rise in the west, set in the east / do what I want, go where I please / just gravity keep holding me.” So sings Abbey Blackwell on ‘Rise and Set’, the lead single from the Seattle-based artist’s forthcoming album Dream a Day. Emerging from the aftermath of a relationship, the song is at once playful and heartbroken, existing in that disorienting space where everything you thought you knew is upended and you are left to hope at least physics will hold true. The arrangement is built to support Blackwell’s distinctive vocals, building from acoustic beginnings into something far richer with the help of Norman Robbins (electric guitar, lap steel) and Evan Woodle (drums, percussion). The result transforms a decidedly personal experience into something universal.

DoYeon Kim – The Beats of Distant Thunder

It is telling that Brooklyn-based composer, improvisor and vocalist DoYeon Kim is one of, if not the only, Gayageum player within contemporary music. Her embrace of the centuries-old Korean zither within her boundary-pushing work is indicative of Kim’s willingness to harness both cultural traditions and cutting edge vision in order to bring to life her singular sound. Her first release as a bandleader, forthcoming album Wellspring is an encapsulation of this spirit and sign of its radical potential. Because, with Tyshawn Sorey (drums), Henry Fraser (double bass) and Mat Maneri (viola) in support, the record sees Kim utilise these sensibilities to create something of a sonic manifesto. A desperate, timely plea for humanist connection within an otherwise fractured world. “This is the first time I open my hand to the world, a first greeting,” Kim explains. “I wish people hearing this music [receive] energy and comfort. I want to be there with them.” Listen to first single ‘The Beats of Distant Thunder’ now:

Mudgoose – Yum Cha Takeover

The recording project of Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington-based songwriter Fletcher Ng, Mudgoose put out album Chasing Horse a few weeks ago, introducing a sound that sits somewhere in the middle grounded between slowcore, bedroom pop and alt-country, with sprinklings of a slacker vibe thrown in for good measure. Recorded to tape with a Tascam 4-track, the songs are textured, hazy and patient, delivered as though through the fog of memory and further clouded by a drink or two. Single ‘Yum Cha Takeover’ is a good place to dive in, the opening so slow its almost sedated, the vocals emerging from beneath these rhythms with what might be resignation or desperation. “[The] lyrics are loosely based on an embarrassing moment in which I screamed at a group of strangers to get out of my kitchen during a party,” Ng explains, though the resulting track is by no means a funny anecdote. More a murmured plea from the end of a rope, one last attempt to communicate something before fatalism settles for good.

Otracami – Perfect Reach

We’ve featured a couple of singles from Otracami‘s new album Runoff in recent months, first ‘Please‘ back in January then ‘Sirens’ a few weeks later.  Taking the story of Persephone from Greek myth, the latter saw Camila Ortiz weave “mythic elements with personal reflection,” we wrote, asking “How far do the obligations of loyalty extend? […] When you are linked to a person involved with something bad, how much responsibility are you expected to take?” With the album coming this week via Figure & Ground, Otracami is back with ‘Perfect Reach’. A song written during a winter School of Song class with Adrianne Lenker and partly inspired by the novel Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, it sees Ortiz lean into a darker, almost threatening atmosphere. “I was writing in a way that was less directly narrative and more vibes-based, using images, feelings, textures,” she explains, though a narrative thrust is implied by the very mood. A certain sense of guilt, even villainy marks the shadowed sound. The sensation of having committed a regretful act and having to acknowledge the fact.

Ramsey Thornton – Rocking

Back in October, we featured ‘Riverside’, a single by Tulsa-based songwriter, banjoist, and drummer Ramsey Thornton. It was released to announce his signing with the good folks at Gar Hole Records, and at the time we mentioned how a full-length record was in the pipeline. Well that time has now come. Titled I Called It! and set for release in May, the album collects 13 songs that perfectly introduce Thornton’s warm, down-to-earth sound. “I like my music to sound natural,” he describes. “These are songs that I wrote around my kitchen table. I recorded them with my friends. I hope they just sound like me.” New single ‘Rocking’ is a great example, Thornton’s fingerpicked guitar backed with drums, bass and lap steel to conjure something that feels both understated and emotionally deep.

runo plum – butterflies

Following on from 2025 full-length patching, an album we described as “equipped to elucidate the highs and lows of life,” Minneapolis songwriter runo plum is sharing brand new EP Bloom Again this May via Winspear. Released in support of an upcoming West Coast tour and SXSW, the EP sees plum expand upon her diaristic, emotionally-charged style, as introduced by lead single ‘butterflies’. “I showed you butterflies / You took ‘em in and burned them alive / In a house buried in smoke,” she sings in the song’s opening verse, “shoved myself to the ground to lay low.” The blunt, bleak lyricism is juxtaposed with the warm richness of the sound itself, the track playing like a confession or unburdening, runo plum unveiling all of her doubts and disappointments as though the only path to new growth is by clearing the ground.

The Same Sky – Sad Songs

Montreal ‘outsider pop’ band The Same Sky have a new record, Haunting in the Mountains, on the way via Casa Joven. Following lead single ‘What’s Left’, which we described previously as “a track where dreamy textures meet an almost mechanical sense of forward motion,” the four-piece have now unveiled a second preview, titled ‘Sad Songs’. Existing at the heavier end of the post punk / shoegaze spectrum, the song is soaked in fuzz and noise, siren-like guitar riffs and violent percussion carrying the minimal lyrics toward something almost ritualistic. “The track moves through hypnotic repetition like a ritual, closer to a chant than a traditional song,” describes lead Joseph Simon. “Unless ‘traditional’ means a psychotic monk howling through a wall of distortion.”

This Lonesome Paradise – Unending

When previewing This Lonesome Paradise‘s upcoming release Death Motels back in January, we described how the album “position[s] the project as one working slightly outside of time with a sound that conjures a mythic past while always facing forwards.” Following on from single ‘Changelings’, what we called a “brooding, Lynchian number as dark as the night itself,” This Lonesome Paradise have shared new single ‘Unending’ to celebrate the release of the record. Another shadowy slice of desert rock which plays as something both stark and romantic, the cinematic sound and E Ray Béchard’s pathos-filled vocals combining into an evocative picture of America. A landscape littered with broken dreams and unrealised futures, dark and dangerous and haunted by the ghosts of all that was sacrificed to establish itself upon the world.

Watch the video directed, shot and edited by David Lampley on Super 8 film below:

Death Motels is out now and available from the This Lonesome Paradise Bandcamp page.

Thomas Dollbaum – Dozen Roses

Born in Tampa and now based in New Orleans, songwriter Thomas Dollbaum has put out several releases in recent years, 2022 LP Wellswood and 2025 EP Drive All Night, though grew frustrated with the slow process as recording was hampered by a variety of factors. For latest album Birds of Paradise, coming this May on Dear Life Records, Dollbaum was determined to buck this trend. After writing for no more than three months, he enlisted the help of most trusted collaborators Nick Corson, Josh Halper and MJ Lenderman and travelled to Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Mississippi to work with producer/engineer Clay Jones. There, the album came to life in a handful of days, the recording process finally matching the urgency and charge that Dollbaum’s style of music demands. Lead single ‘Dozen Roses’ serves as a window into the album and its themes, tapping into the magic and beauty of the natural world to enliven personal memories, and ultimately displaying the lightning-in-a-bottle intensity these songs promise to bring.

Watch the video by ALLUVIAL below:

Birds of Paradise is set for release on 22nd May via Dear Life Records. Order it now from the Thomas Dollbaum Bandcamp page.

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“In my body / On my skin / In the cool October wind / You’re there.” So sings country girl on ‘miracle’, a brand new single out now via FADER Label. Following on from debut EP meet me at the fountain, a richly nostalgic release we described as “reflecting on the joys of a rose-tinted past, looking to preserve that sense of possibility and fun in the face of life’s inevitable progression,” the new track again offers an earnest if dusky sound which presents the on-set of autumn as something to be celebrated. As though, having been battered by a summer heat for months, the October winds promise to arrive as something of a balm, country girl’s trademark fondness transforming what might normally be considered a melancholic time into something to be savoured.

‘miracle’ is out now via FADER Label and available from the usual places.

Greg Freeman – Salesman

The word-of-mouth success of 2022 debut I Looked Out earned Burlington, Vermont-based artist Greg Freeman something of a cult following. His twangy style of indie rock, evocative songwriting and strong sense of place that reflects his home of the northeastern US won lots of fans, and expectations for his sophomore album Burnover, released last week via Canvasback Music and Transgressive Records have been sky high. A steady stream of solid singles, like the “assured and surprising verbose” ‘Curtain’ allayed any concerns of a sophomore slump, and final single ‘Salesman’ is further proof that Freeman is firing on all cylinders. What he describes as “technically a serious song about something sad,” it’s actually one of the record’s livelier tracks, recorded almost entirely live with Freeman’s touring band to capture a sense of immediate energy.

Home Videos – the devil’s credit score

Described as “a tape obsessed band of slackers,” Rochester’s Home Videos has evolved across its lifetime. Debut EP (the fittingly titled EP) featured nothing but two acoustic guitars, a four track recorder and a whole lot of tape hiss, though the project has gradually blossomed into a full band. New album Home Taping is Killing Music, recently released via Raincoated Records, shows just what this change means, Home Videos retaining the intimacy that marked their early material but now capable of far greater depth. A reimagining of a track from the prior EP, single ‘the devil’s credit score’ offers the perfect comparison. None of the texture or tenderness is lost, but where the original never puntured its fuzzy wrappings, this version of the song carries a tangible weight, the emo underpinnings of the Home Videos sound fully apparent as the song rises towards its big, cathartic climax.

Jacob Faurholt – Painfully Alone

The first single from his forthcoming self-titled new album, ‘Painfully Alone’ finds Danish songwriter Jacob Faurholt stripping things back to the bare bones. Ever prolific, Faurholt has been making music for decades, releasing twelve records under his own name alongside work with experimental project Crystal Shipsss and Danish language outlet Statisk Støj. But the new album sees him breaking new ground. Recorded in “the quiet corners of his home studio,” it finds him at his most restrained and vulnerable, resulting in what he describes as “an intimate portrait of existential dread, inner turmoil, and fragile love.” ‘Painfully Alone’ proves the perfect introduction, a stark and intimate affair that builds from plucked guitar and Faurholt’s solitary vocals into something almost romantic, as his wife adds her voice too and they sing together “Alone, with you.”

Jacob Faurholt will be released later this year. Keep an eye on his Bandcamp page for updates.

Lydia Luce – Quiet

Born in Fort Lauderdale and now based in Nashville via Boston and LA, Lydia Luce has been on something of a journey in life, though her forthcoming full-length Mammoth centres on a journey of a different kind. One, that is, out of suffering, charting the path of recovery from chronic pain and the hard-won bonds which came with it. Lead single ‘Quiet’ embodies the tenderness with which Luce takes on this challenge. A song all about the slow process of learning to not only tolerate silence but embrace its power within a noisy world. Be that finding healing in the stillness of nature or coming to appreciate the beauty of sitting in quiet with the people you love. Watch a performance of the track below, with Luce supported by Lockeland Strings to bring the track’s subtle power to life.

Mammoth will be released on the 30th October and you can pre-order it now.

Mappe Of – Terraforming Moons

We are inching closer to the release of Afterglades, the new record from Mappe Of (the project of Toronto singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tom Meikle). Following the weighty ‘A Scourge Laid Upon The Earth’, which we wrote about back in June, Meikle has unveiled another single ahead of the record’s September release date. Titled ‘Terraforming Moons’, it’s a song that takes very personal difficulties and sends them spinning into the cosmos, a gentle, folk-inflected indie pop song with an almost sci-fi twist. “A few years ago my partner got really sick,” Meikle explains. “I felt helpless, despite doing everything I could to make things better. I thought there was something romantic and terrifying about the idea of going as far as terraforming a planet to create the right conditions for a person you love to live.”

Ny Oh – Aperture

It is fair to say UK-born, NZ-raised and LA-based songwriter Ny Oh has travelled a lot across her life and career. Be it fronting jazz outfit Neon Gru, collaborating with the likes of Margo Price and Madison Cunningham or performing as part of Harry Styles’s band across stadium tours. But her new single ‘Aperture’ is all about coming home. Written in Aotearoa and developed with producer Jonathan Wilson (Father John Misty, Angel Olsen, Conor Oberst), the song unfurls with the distinctive mix of dreaminess and clarity that any place dear to the heart comes to possess. “I deserved a glove touch / Softness played it school yard rough,” Oh sings in one verse, balancing the allure of the familiar in all of its soft comfort and with a tactile level of detail. “Light flooded in / Gentle and warm / Reveal where I came from.” Watch the video by Victor Grossling and Anna Anderson below:

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

Patrick Shiroishi – Mountains that take wing

“An attempt to wrestle with [racism] as both a historical fact and contemporary shame, and furthermore one which confronts the impossibility of living in this world without participating in its ongoing function. Acknowledging that if the desire to eradicate another is something allowed into the world, then no aspect of a culture can be said to exist above or beyond it.” So we wrote of Forgetting is Violent, the new album from Patrick Shiroishi forthcoming next month via American Dreams Records. Lead single ‘There is no moment in my life in which this is not happening’ offered what we described as “a window into the poignant and evocative sound which results,” and new single ‘Mountains that take wing’ is every bit as striking as its predecessor, as Gemma Thompson (Savages) and Aaron Turner (SUMAC, ISIS) join Shiroishi to conjure a sound which ebbs and flows between fierce intensity and elegiac quiet.

Forgetting is Violent is out on the 19th September via American Dreams Records and you can pre-order it now from the Patrick Shiroishi Bandcamp page.

Pickle Darling – Congratulations Champion

We have written about Pickle Darling a couple of times in recent months, songs which heralded a new era for Aotearoa/New Zealand-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Lukas Mayo. First the Robyn, Cher and Madonna-inspired pop gem ‘Massive Everything’, what we called “a love song with all the complications left in,” then the sprawling ‘Human Bean Instruction Manual‘. “A track perhaps not direct in terms of style,” we wrote, “but every bit as forthright as its predecessor when it comes to the message it carries,” urging us to stand together against the multitude of threats which haunt our present moment. With the album’s release via Father/Daughter Records a matter of weeks away, Pickle Darling is back with ‘Congratulations Champion’, a sub-ninety-second single which might sit at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of runtime yet nevertheless packs an equal emotional punch. A collage of lines collected from Mayo’s phone, the song pieces together incomplete, ostensibly mismatched thoughts into a satisfying whole. “An Oscar for Jane Campion / I found a note written in crumbs inside a biscuit tin,” as one couplet goes. Or the final verse, which sums up the strange, playful and completely sincere style of Bots as a whole:

You know i’m gonna love you still
Like black mould loves the window sill
Like oceans love an oil spill
Like ducks towards an air rifle

Shabason, Krgovich, Tenniscoats – Departed Bird

“A snapshot of a group of musicians pitched together for a short window of time, subject to the small moments of chance and happenstance and all the more special for it.” That’s how we described Wao, the forthcoming album by Shabason, Krgovich, Tenniscoats back in July, writing of how the outfit—Joseph Shabason, Nicholas Krgovich and Saya and Takashi Ueno of Tenniscoats—embrace ephemerality and imperfection. With the album set for release at the end of the week via Western Vinyl, the quartet have shared new single ‘Departed Bird’. The opening track of the record which highlights the mix of melancholy and magic which marks a release able to conjure wonder at the simplest of things.

Watch the visualizer below, shot at at Guggenheim House in Kobe, Japan:

Wao will be released on the 29th August via Western Vinyl and you can pre-order it now.

Silver Synthetic – Happy Ever After

Back in March, Silver Synthetic released their second full-length Rosalie on Curation Records, an album which saw the New Orleans outfit push the self-described ‘Home Fi’ style of their debut (a self-titled LP released with Third Man Records in 2021) towards the full richness and confidence of classic indie rock. The label had wanted the specific song ‘Happy Ever After’ to be the lead single, though the band themselves feared the track was something of an outlier and ended up not featuring it on the record at all. Whether or not that was an error, you can now decide for yourself, because fast forward several months Silver Synthetic have released the track as part of a double single, Happy Ever After / Say The Wrong Word. Charged with the same sunny swagger that marked Rosalie, ‘Happy Ever After’ couldn’t have been timed better, the peppy rhythms, smooth delivery and slight pysch wooze combining into the ideal soundtrack to which to milk these last weeks of summer.

SQORE – INTERNAL///VS.EXTERNAL[forces]

Recording under the moniker SQORE, New York-based producer, multi-instrumentalist and sound artist Em Sgouros blends field recordings with synthesized sounds to create small worlds of their own. Last week saw the release of reGENERATION, the sophomore SQORE EP, via Ambient Pasta, a collection of three tracks they say “explore the struggle of generating a new reality within yourself in the midst of fear and anger and ask as humans, ‘what are we capable of?'” Centrepiece ‘INTERNAL///VS.EXTERNAL[forces]’ is a good place to start, a song which sees field samples and drones play across waves of digital strings and flourishing arpeggios, resulting in something that feels part organic and part virtual. The track confronts fear and the strangling grip it can hold on both a personal and societal level, offering a sense of meditative understanding as a path towards joy and the regeneration of the record’s title.

The post Weekly Listening: August 2025 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

However, as latest single ‘Human Bean Instruction Manual’ demonstrates, this new era of Pickle Darling does not jettison the idiosyncratic charm which has won the project so many fans. Nor does a commitment to forthright communication elide any sense of ambiguity. Indeed, this is a song all about such ambiguity, and how learning to embrace the doubt inherent within growing up in this strange present. “I just turned thirty and there’s no damn manual for this,” as Mayo explains. “Transitioning out of being a young adult in 2025 is like suddenly landing on a hostile planet our bodies haven’t adapted to.”

As if to mirror this tangle of uncertainty, the song sprawls to near seven fuzzy minutes. A track perhaps not direct in terms of style, but every bit as forthright as its predecessor when it comes to the message it carries. As Mayo concludes: “Everything we thought was important doesn’t mean shit. Everything is out to attack us, so all we can do is form our alliances and hang on tight.”

Watch the visualiser by Christiane Shortal below:

‘Human Bean Instruction Manual’ is out now via Father/Daughter Records and available from Bandcamp.

Photo by Nick Robinson

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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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It has been going on eleven years since Anglo-Australian indie pop outfit Allo Darlin’ released their previous full-length We Come From The Same Place, but next month will see the wait ended with new album, Bright Nights. A joint release between Fika Recordings (UK) and Slumberland Records (US), the album has roots in the height of the pandemic, when the band members gathered online to reminisce and reflect on the music they made together, and ultimately vow to revive Allo Darlin’ once conditions allowed. The resulting collection is understandably bittersweet, marked by the passing of time and the increasing weight of themes like love, birth and death, yet always newly aware of the blessing it is to make music and share it with an audience. Latest single ‘Cologne’ typifies the tone, a song full of the kind of tender joy earned through a life well-lived.

Bright Nights will be released in July via Fika Recordings (UK) and Slumberland Records (US).

Constellation Myths – Shadows on the Wall

“A series of vignettes and character sketches that examine agency, belief, and the tensions between the natural and the human-built environment.” That’s how Massachusetts trio Constellation Myths describe their forthcoming album The Cost of Living, an album preoccupied with all the injustices, cruelties and resentments which have come to mark our age. Latest track ‘Shadows on the Wall’ is cuttingly relevant in this regard, detailing the corrosive impact of our continued slide into the digital, and the resulting isolated, individualistic existence can dislocate a person from reality itself. Taking over lead vocal duties, Andy Arch communicates such themes with a suitably jaded air, and as the sound rises with something like brightness, the effect is that of a man cut off and drifting, slowly slipping away from the world.

Dead Slow Hoot – Satellite

“Despite the careful intricacy of the track, the emotion at its core is delivered with unguarded sincerity, Hugo Lynch’s vocals confronting love and love with direct candour to paint a picture wistful and romantic and wise.” So we wrote of ‘All My Love Remains‘, a recent single from Dead Slow Hoot‘s new album, Orbits Intervened. Such earnestness marks the record, though, as singles like ‘Take It Or Leave It‘ and ‘Sleeping Before The Big Day‘ show, it is a release sprawling in style and scope. With the album now out, Dead Slow Hoot have shared final single ‘Satellite’ to further highlight this fact. An introspective song which starts out as a pleasantly upbeat slice of folk rock but eventually rises towards a cathartic crescendo, before clearing again as though with the newfound clarity of sudden epiphany.

The Duke of Norfolk – I Have Never Seen Volcanoes

The recording project of Oklahoma-born songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Adam Thomas Howard, The Duke of Norfolk has made a name blurring the divide between reality and mythology, offering a brand of folk capable of both intimate detail and sweeping grandeur. Howard’s latest work sees him join forces with Ben Lanz (The National/Beirut/Sufjan Stevens), and new single ‘I Have Never Seen Volcanoes’ shows the fruits of the collaboration. Drawing on the Emily Dickinson poem of the same name, the track evokes the unfolding climate catastrophe in all of its sublime violence. “I have never seen / fire and dust spit / down the hillside, / smoke and choke the machine— / Ashen faces, ashen cowhide,” as the track opens. “Trace a line in the dirt; / cut it deeper, carve a border. / See the blood of the earth, / pump it then, play the driller.” The rest of the song fires forward as though charged by such imagery, finding a fervid rhythm and revelatory foreboding.

Till suspension morn
’Till suspension morn
‘Till the angel’s horn

When the break in the churning,
when the sleeping rise up like rosebay,
and the key starts to turn
like the dagger twist’d in the ribcage.

‘I Have Never Seen Volcanoes’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Editrix – The Big E

Not content to rest on their laurels after last year’s superb full-length Viewfinder (an album which made our favourites of 2024) and more recent single ‘I Don’t Miss You‘, Wendy Eisenberg has reunited with Steve Cameron and Josh Daniel and turned their attention back to Editrix. The band’s first new release since 2022, new album The Big E promises to be every bit as ambitious and intense as previous releases, finding the trio further apart geographically, but tight knit in their vision and execution. The title track and lead single gives an idea of what to expect, a song charged with energy yet slightly unnerved in tone, playing like the chaotic, frantic internal landscape of someone gripped by neurotic concerns. “This song is about alien visitors: hoping they’re friendly and curious like the best of us humans,” the band explain. “It’s also about aging, which feels like you’re an alien to certain generations including your younger selves, and the impossibility of being understood.”

Watch the video by Ryan Hover below:

The Big E will be released on the 25th July via Joyful Noise Recordings and you can pre-order it now.

MacGregor Burns – I’m Not Supposed To Be Here Anymore

Through a number of singles in recent months, LA songwriter MacGregor Burns has established a style at once emotionally resonant and idiosyncratic, with songs like ‘Silent Answers‘ and ‘Can’t Go Back‘ reaching between slacker rock and something more folk-adjacent. Latest single ‘I’m Not Supposed To Be Here Anymore’ continues this style, albeit leaning further than ever towards the latter, its stripped back style removing all distractions from Burns’s distinctively nuanced vocals. A voice straining with the accumulated hopes and regrets of a life well lived, relatively plain in its unguarded tone yet stretched by a certain sense of desperation. As though there’s a fire at his back which is creeping closer, or else a train to somewhere better in the distance and just about to leave.

‘I’m Not Supposed To Be Here Anymore’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Ohly – If I Go

Detroit‘s Christian Ohly, recording as straight Ohly, makes what we’ve called “a rich and heartfelt brand of folk rock that manag[es] to pair intimate emotion with cathartic energy,” not to mention a strong narrative throughline to further ground the songs within the nuances of the intricacies of the human condition. Produced by Jr Jr’s Dan Zott, new single ‘If I Go’ is what Ohly describes as his magnum opus. The embodiment of the project, as though everything which has come before has coalesced into a single song. A track full of tiny details and huge themes, zooming into the smallest moments of life in order to evoke the intangible joy of existence.

‘If I Go’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Pickle Darling – Massive Everything

Described by Lukas Mayo as “maybe the first kind of ‘pop’ song I’ve ever made,” ‘Massive Everything’ is not just a new song from Pickle Darling, but an introduction to a new stage in the evolution of the project. Out now via Father/Daughter Records, the single sees the New Zealand-based producer and multi-instrumentalist drop some of the playfulness and poetry of previous releases to instead embrace the exhilaration of being wholly direct. Mayo cites the likes of Robyn, Cher and Ray of Light-era Madonna as inspiration for this style, channelling such pop royalty in how they manage to conjure the entire topography of a person’s emotional landscape within a bold, vivid sound. The result is a love song with all the complications left in. Moreover, one not attenuated by the attached pain and personal baggage but conversely made larger. A picture of a love substantial enough to bear the weight accumulated through living.

Watch the video by Christiane Shortal below:

‘Massive Everything’ is out now via Father/Daughter Records.

Ryan Cassata – a Knack for Overthinking

As a singer-songwriter, actor, performer, writer, activist and motivational speaker, Ryan Cassata is well-versed in sharing his thoughts and ideas with the world, putting himself forward as a proud trans-person in an increasingly hostile world. His debut album with Kill Rock Stars, Greetings from Echo Park,is every bit as open and cathartic as you might expect, Cassata delving into both the wonders and tribulations he has faced, be those stemming from his trans identity, experiences of chronic illness or else the inherently anxious process of growing up. Focus track ‘a Knack for Overthinking’ embodies the spirit of the release. One unapologetic in its unguarded confessionalism. “Queer love songs are protest songs,” as he explains. “Whenever we’re loud about it, it’s a protest to me.”

I’m looking, at bare skin
In the smell of cigarettes
We hard kiss, my head spins
I want your confidence

I’ve got a knack for overthinking
And saying too much
I’ve got a knack for overthinking

Watch the video directed by Alla Arutcheva below:

Greetings from Echo Park is out now via Kill Rock Stars and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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With the release of Moonlight Hotel fast approaching, Tom Lark has shared brand new track, ‘Fuselage’. Again occupying fertile psych folk territory, the track is no less assured yet nevertheless decidely moodier than its predecessor. Where ‘Rock & Roll Baby’ possessed a loose-limbed confidence, ‘Fuselage’ is all shadowy attitude and brooding edge, a stylistic change which heralds a different reaction to the volatile conditions. Here the carefree spirit falters, change suddenly something dangerous and daunting. With the realisation comes a certain sense of resistance, that inner self-preservation which tells us to retreat to the familiar and refuse to recognise reality as is now exists. But accompanying this desire is a secondary emotion, one which comes to inform the tone of the track. A sense of frustration at this hesitancy and stasis. A desire to kick through the defensive barriers we create around ourselves in order to regain a sense of forward motion.

Watch the video, directed by Sam Kristofski, below:

Moonlight Hotel is out on the 4th April and you can pre-order it now.

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San Diego-based songwriter Bella Cloud sits somewhere between contemporaries like Phoebe Bridgers and Merce Lemon, grafting pop and shoegaze sensibilities onto an indie folk style to create something both emotionally charged and richly immersive. With new EP The Limerence on the horizon, Cloud has shared new single ‘The Littlest Death’, and the track is the ideal entry point for newcomers. Spencer Dugan (guitar), Jeremy Field (viola) and Rebecca Sykes (drums) lend their talents too, helping to create a sound vivid enough to match the sense of reflection and longing which runs through the vocals.

The Limerent is coming soon and you can find Bella Cloud in the usual places.

Green Gardens – Year of Love

“Combining swaying, laidback harmonies with fuzzy guitars and an almost Medieval preoccupation with heavy themes and gothic imagery.” That’s how we depicted the work of Leeds outfit Green Gardens when writing of their album This Is Not Your Fault back in 2023. The self-described feudal post-rock outfit are back with new single ‘Years of Love’ with Tiny Library Records, a song which both continues this style and makes certain alterations, swapping out some of the grand scale in favour of increased intimacy. “’Year of Love’ is a step away from the live room,” the band explain. “The guitars and drums suddenly felt too far away, so we brought them and the small room where we recorded them right in to our ears. It’s about the dogs, and it’s about the flies, and it’s about the trees. I’m happy this song is out while the winter closes, and those things grow again.”

Helena Deland – Silver and Red / Bigger Pieces

“When I finished recording what I thought would be my first album, I was faced with a miscellaneous bunch of songs,” describes Montreal singer songwriter Helena Deland. “Instead of wiggling them into the expected format, I released them as a series of short EPs called Altogether Unaccompanied.” Several years since the previous instalments, Deland has released the fifth volume of Altogether Unaccompanied, two songs that very much deserve to see the light of day. ‘Silver and Red’ is wan and wintry, a lo-fi acoustic track that put’s Deland’s vocals at the forefront, while ‘Bigger Pieces’ fleshes things out with contributions from Alexandre Larin (guitar), Francis Ledoux (percussion) and Cédric Martel (bass). Check out Nik Arthur’s video for ‘Silver and Red’ and listen to ‘Bigger Pieces’ below:

Altogether Unaccompanied, Vol. V is out now via the Helena Deland Bandcamp page.

Joni – Things I Left Behind

Having spent the best part of a decade writing songs for other people in New York and Los Angeles, a move to London, a difficult break up and feelings of pandemic-based isolation pushed Joni back to making music of her own. In April she releases Things I Left Behind, her debut LP, via Keeled Scales and Hand in Hive, a collection of ten songs that look backwards in order to move forwards. The latest single and title track is a good example, exploring life’s ever shifting nature via those pieces of oneself cast overboard in the name of pressing on ahead.

Lavender Blue – Scarlet Blood

Next month sees the release of The In Between, the new album from Asheville, NC artist Lavender Blue on Ghost Mountain Records. Previous single ‘Wishbone’ offered what we described as “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,” and though latest offering ‘Scarlet Blood’ opens with a far more restrained, acoustic style, it sacrifices none of the emotional intensity. For while the initial mood is one of numbness and stasis, but the sensation is not lasting. Instead Kayla Zuskin and co. push through to something more keenly felt, and the track settles into a kind of ebb and flow between subdued quiet and rising intensity, accepting such patterns as the natural state of things. As the repeated refrain goes: “What goes around comes back again.”

MAN LEE – Wind

Back in October we wrote about MAN LEE, the recording project of Brooklyn-based duo Sam Reichman and Tim Lee, as single ‘Best Ones’ tapping into the pair’s close-knit connection to evoke “the sense of solidarity between close friends after a challenging break-up with something between open compassion, droll humour and languid cool.” With full-length album Hefty Wimpy coming next month, new single ‘Wind’ offers another look at the distinctive personality of the MAN LEE sound. A nostalgically fuzzy track which reflects on the formative events of life, resisting the urge to revaluate memories with the new perspective of later years to instead inhabit the magic and mystery of the original moment.

Meagre Martin – Comfort Food

We’ve mentioned Up To Snuff, the new EP from Berlin-based project Meagre Martin, several times in recent months. Single ‘Frankie‘ “pair[ed] gauzy shoegaze textures with a persistent rhythm…embrac[ing] a bright spirit of playfulness and curiosity” and ‘In The Room‘ used a “slow, sludgy style to take on the cloying weight of toxic masculinity, opening up a space in which such forces can be acknowledged and confronted once and for all.” With the EP out now via Mansions and Millions, the outfit is back with final single ‘Comfort Food’. It’s the release’s closing track, which puts a peppy, affirming rhythm behind what might otherwise be a wistful sound, powering through the daunting or melancholic aspects of change with a sense of sheer motion, emerging on the other side with something like positivity.

Moontype – Long Country

Led by singer and bassist Margaret McCarthy, Chicago indie rock outfit Moontype won acclaim with their debut full-length Bodies of Water back in 2021, a record which felt like the final painting after the series of sketch-like releases (like ‘The Great Ohio / Not That Easy‘) which preceded it. But if Bodies of Water was the culmination of something, it was not the Moontype project in its entirety but merely one iteration of it. Now it appears a new cycle is beginning, the outfit signing to Orindal Records and unveiling new single ‘Long Country’. The first taste of the fruits of a new gestation period in which McCarthy has both altered the line-up and grown as a songwriter and musician, and a kind of stepping stone between the old version and the new. “I would never leave you without saying goodbye,” as McCarthy sings in the opening line, but every farewell leads to new beginnings.

Watch the video directed and edited by Ian Kelly below:

‘Long Country’ is out now via Orindal Records and available via Bandcamp.

Pink Must – Karaoke of the Bends

“Establishes an interplay between polish and dissonance, as well as an often wryly sardonic vocal style and conscious resistance to easy labelling at every turn.” That’s how we introduced the self-titled album from Brooklyn-based duo Pink Must back in January, with single ‘Morphe Sun’ embodying the ambitious and idiosyncratic vision Mari Rubio (More Eaze) and Lynn Avery bring to the life via the project. With the album coming later this month on Copenhagen label 15 Love, Pink Must have released new single ‘Karaoke of the Bends’. The song highlights both the strange and heartfelt dimensions of the the record, and is unique for being the only track on the record where Avery takes over vocal duties. “It’s that kind of corny ‘I know I’ll see you soon, but I want to see you tonight’ feeling,” they explain, “and doing karaoke of songs from The Bends by Radiohead.”

TOM LARK – Rock & Roll Baby

The recording project of New Zealand songwriter Shannon Fowler, Tom Lark is preparing to release new full-length Moonlight Hotel this spring. An album which spans almost a hundred years to link two experiences of displacement in the wake of natural disasters—that of Shannon’s family after the 1929 earthquake in the pioneer town of Murchison on the South Island, and his own in 2011 following the earthquakes which struck Ōtautahi. Latest single ‘Rock & Roll Baby’ embraces a psych-inflected folk rock sound to lean into the volatility inherent with such themes, facing down the peaks and troughs of life with an easygoing acceptance.

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

The project of Agriculture’s Leah B Levinson, Cali Bellow makes music concerned with the tension and interplay between the interior and exterior, real and fictional. Thematically, new album Ciao Bella owes as much to Dark Souls and The Muppets as it does Ursula Le Guinn and Joanna Russ, not to mention the environment of Altadena, California. A deep consideration of ideas of artifice and abstraction which always challenges limitations, be they of genre, gender or spirituality. Taking inspiration from songs like ‘Full Of Happiness’ by H.O.T. and ‘I, Me, Mine’ by Godflesh, as well as the hyperactive soundtracks of games like Sonic, new single ‘Goldin Scepter’ is a microcosm of the wider album. A myriad of influences deconstructed and rearranged in order to build a world of its own. “I wanted to pull on the zany character that a lot of ska, funk and pop music teases and push it to a more monstrous effect,” as Levinson explains.

country girl – your favorite girl

Blending an upbringing in classical music with a present love of pop, country girl creates music to bring to life those small personal experiences which make life worth living. Having recently signed with the FADER Label, the project is now back with a new single ‘your favorite girl’, the ideal introduction for anyone unfamiliar with the project. “A song about the movie scenes we film, direct, and act in our heads while in the frenzy of a crush,” as the artist explains. That pressing desire to be a main character in story, however small that story might be. Even if it just means being someone else’s favorite girl.

I wanna look you in the eye
Oh man it gets me every time
I wanna shine inside your world
I wanna be your favorite girl

‘your favorite girl’ is out now via FADER label and available from the usual places.

Death And The Maiden – Waratah

Based in Port Chalmers, Dunedin, Aotearoa/New Zealand trio Death And The Maiden take not only their name from an engraving by Edvard Munch, but their entire atmosphere. A meeting of strength and vulnerability, shadow and light. Moreover, a willingness to embrace ambiguity within a sound which draws upon everything from electronic, folk and psych to house and dance. Released via Fishrider Records (southern hemisphere) and Occultation Recordings (northern hemisphere), new album Uneven Ground is perhaps their most experimental to date, though conversely sees them embrace pop too. Single ‘Waratah’ displays such contradictions in all their alluring layers, allowing freedom and restraint to sit side by side.

dog eyes – drive

“A reach towards an almost cinematic brand of pop that leaves none of the emotion behind,” we wrote of ‘moment’ by dog eyes, “where friendship is at once the most intimate and soaring experiences one might be lucky enough to hold in their life.” The song typified the Oakland band’s new album holy friend, which explores how relationships and connection not only shape us but morph over time. With the record now out via Grand Jury Music, dog eyes have released a new single, ‘drive’. An example of the more folk-adjacent side of the album, the song tells the story of a road trip into the mountains with all the quiet seclusion of the leafy backroads, gentle guitar and ramshackle percussion sparkling sleepily behind sincere vocals. The result feels like a small and sweet moment grasped in its moment of transience and fixed to tape.

I would not say words if I did not mean them
Tired of monotony
Just drive this Sequoia please
To some distance where I cannot see
Where I’ll forget how to tell where I am

Dogwood Tales – driver’s side fantasy

Based in Harrisonburg, Virginia, Dogwood Tales originated in 2016 with Ben Ryan and Kyle Grim and soon expanded to become a full band with the addition of Danny Gibney (bass), Stephen Kuester (pedal steel) and Jake Golibart (drums). Working within a country-inflected rock style, the project has released a number of albums and EPs, most recently Rodeo via WarHen Records, and is putting out a brand new tape later this summer. Latest single ‘driver’s side fantasy’ introduces the sound, occupying that post-Drive-By Trucker’s sphere alongside the likes of MJ Lenderman. Watch the video filmed by Travis Legg below:

‘driver’s side fantasy’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Dwi Riana x Orkes Garasi – Ku Bisa

Indonesian-Canadian artist Dwi Riana has made a name for working across genres, finding inspiration in everything from folk, hip hop and traditional music to bossa nova and jazz, and new single ‘Ku Bisa’ is the project of yet another direction. “I had the amazing opportunity of composing for an Indonesian short film titled A Day Apart on the Seventeenth, directed by Noel Pendawa,” they explain, a process which saw them team up with Toronto-based Indonesian Keroncong band, Orkes Garasi. Channelling the themes of Pendawa’s film, the song explores ideas of homesickness by melding Keroncong and folk styles, and the result sees the narrator turning to dreams as their only mode of escape.

‘Ku Bisa’ is out now via streaming services.

Mother Sun – Giant Bog

“I think with these songs we wanted to create a record that sonically speaks to the magic that is constantly unfolding all around in the natural world.” That’s how lead Jared Doherty describes Mother Sun’s latest album, Meadow 6, which is coming soon via Earth Libraries. Fittingly, many of the songs originated when playing guitar outside in the garden, with the Kamloops, BC outfit not only exploring the diversity of nature but humanity’s relationship with it. Something to escape into, to explore and study, cultivate and exploit. Crafted from a vivid psych-rock sound that reaches towards jazz, krautrock and retro folk, the album comes to form an environment of its own, as captured by new single and closer, ‘Giant Bog’. A sprawling track which serves as a kind of retro-futurist hothouse within which all manner of things can sprout and grow wild.

Stephen Becker – I Held An Echo

This October, Stephen Becker is releasing his new full-length Middle Child Syndrome via Record Euphoria. The album sees the LA-born, Brooklyn-based songwriter work in the indie-psych tradition of the late noughties/early 2010s, adding jazz and baroque pop sensibilities to a more traditional singer-songwriter style. An effort, at least in part, to rise above the mundane present, as though to be trapped within conventions is to be restricted by the same inability to communicate effectively that haunts our everyday lives. Single ‘I Held An Echo’ hints at the widescreen scope of the resulting sound, though the glitch and shimmer of the dreamlike arrangement hints at the precarity of any attempt to escape our usual constraints.

Middle Child Syndrome is out on the 25th October via Record Euphoria and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Yammerer – ESZ – Erth Station Zebra

How do you convince people to engage with album-length work in this age of streaming and algorithmic playlists? Liverpool’s Yammerer have one potential solution. Erth Station Zebra might be packaged as an album on Bandcamp and the like, but the release is intended as a single composition. Or as the band put it, “a transcendent odyssey” which runs through six movements across its forty-four minutes. Previous releases like Reality Escape Resort might have positioned them in the contemporary post-punk revival, but there was always something different about the outfit. An extra level of ambition and invention. Erth Station Zebra sees them embrace this side of their work wholeheartedly, leaning into transportive psych to not only revitalise the appetite for in-depth pieces of work, but position themselves as one of the UK’s most interesting projects to keep an eye on moving into the future.

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

Fallout, the forthcoming album from Grand Rapids trio Major Murphy on Winspear, is an album concerned with cycles of ruin and renewal. Drawing equally from the wells of nineties indie and seventies soft rock swagger, the sound lives up to these themes with a careful balance of lightness and weight. The result is something not so much overcome by the turbulence of our times but able to surf atop of it. Lead single ‘Time Out’ typifies the style, where the pressing momentum of the drums is matched by an easy-going spirit, highlighting the band’s ability to be at once punchy and languid.

Even water falling don’t run to an end
Somehow, somewhere it will collect
and life begins again

Marem Ladson – A Song to the Siren

Hailing from the northern Spanish region of Galicia and now based in Brooklyn, Marem Ladson makes introspective music that draws on folk and pop and her home country’s rich tradition. Following 2023 EP Baby Light, Ladson has released a standalone single, a gently haunting take on ‘Song to the Siren’, Tim Buckley’s much-covered doom-laden classic. Ladson’s version is soft and intimate but loses none of the original’s power, loneliness and longing washing together as the narrator find themselves shipwrecked in search of love. The cover originally appeared on the Musicians For a Free Palestine benefit album, a compilation organized by Babehoven’s Maya Bon, Andy Molholt and Raquel Denis, which is still available and very much worth your time.

make yourself at home – High

Hailing from Nashville, Tennessee, make yourself at home—that’s Billy Campbell (lyrics/rhythm guitar), Zach Tittel (lead guitar), Thomas Luminoso (bass) and Husam Suboh (drums)—is a band working at the intersection of shoegaze, noise rock and indie. ‘High’, their latest single via Second Floor Recording Co., serves an the ideal introduction for those unfamiliar with their sound, where angsty desperation meets carefree defiance. “Fucking up, falling down / Another year of trying not to drown,” as Campbell sings in the opening lines. “How can I say what’s on my mind / When all I wanna do is go get / high?” Hopelessness has never sounded so cool.

Nate Terepka – The Woods

“A few years back I did an exercise where I took a several-hours-long night walk in the woods of Maine and thought through every year of my life from birth to present in chronological order, remembering as much as I could,” explains Nate Terepka. “I was surprised by how many forgotten memories were stirred up and came out of it with a feeling of empathy for my younger self, as well as a strong desire to not repeat past mistakes.” He wrote new single ‘The Woods’ the next morning, the latest taste of his upcoming album Not Yet which encapsulates an EP willing to grope into the messy heart of life in order to hold aloft its love and truths. Intuitive in its rhythms yet finely crafted in style, ‘The Woods’ represents the work of an accomplished artist driven by emotional necessity. Watch the video with animation by James Thatcher below:

Not Yet is out on the 19th July and available to pre-order now via Bandcamp.

Noa Jamir – Indebted

“This is a song written for Little Noa, who often struggled with standing up for herself,” explains New Orleans-based songwriter Noa Jamir of new single ‘Indebted’. “While writing it, I channelled all of the things I wish I’d said in moments when I needed to defend myself, but felt too powerless to do so.” The resulting track presents an assured brand of folk rock which pairs an understated sound with almost conversational vocals. The track builds subtly across its runtime but never quite breaks its controlled burn, though the result is all the more powerful for it. There is no need for yelling or bombast here. The message is simple and full of conviction. Able to operate on its own terms.

I’m tougher than I look
My thoughts would scare you off
if I told you everything
And you’re not quite as tall as I recalled you to be
I used to let you look down on me
Now, we’re standing eye to eye
Eye to eye

Saffron – Star Child

Late last month, San Diego psych pop outfit Saffron released a four track cassette by way of farewell. The band, comprising mainly of Ali Mehraban Ramirez (Guitar, Vocals, & Songwriting), Galia Shakked (Guitar and Vocals), Audrey (Drums), Ryan Ebaugh (Guitar and Saxophone) and Cameron Rogers (Bass), made a name for themselves with their experimental live shows, which saw songs morph form set to set in an exercise in freedom and improvisation. The tape is a little different, presenting Saffron at their most “pop,” four songs crystallized into a final, perhaps more easily digestible form. Nowhere is this better illustrated than on final track ‘Star Child’, a sunny and easy-going, Yo La Tengo-style indie pop song that’s all shambling percussion and hooky guitar.

Solid Blood – All I Need

Penned over a span of several years between Brooklyn and Houston, Solid Blood’s new EP Western Sun feels very much a product of the various environments in which it was created. Graham W. Bell looks to preserve the small details of life amid a wider unease, carving out an introspective, inquisitive space in which we might shelter from the dire state of the world. With the EP coming soon via Rue Defense, lead single ‘All I Need’ introduces the style. Where warmth and intimacy are shadowed by an awareness of the wolves at the door.

Wanda What – Big Tree

Building on the nostalgic brand of bedroom pop that made previous LP Startin’ Drama a success, new full-length Dyke TV sees Wanda What (AKA LA’s Harmony Reynolds) push their self-described ‘dyke rock’ sound to new heights. There’s a central tension to the Wanda What project, one which might be crudely described as the friction between dreams and reality. There’s a tangible desire for the glamour and celebrity of stardom, something Reynolds owns wholeheartedly within the Wanda What persona, though this is balanced by a more earnest, down-to-earth side too. It’s no surprise then that Dyke TV vacillates between moods—playful and serious, ironic and sincere—but what makes the project so exciting is its willingness to embrace this duality. With a newfound country twang, latest single ‘Big Tree’ offers a glimpse of the human behind the personality, landing somewhere between sincere bedroom pop honesty and lonesome cowboy croon.

‘Big Tree’ is out now via Youth Riot Records and available from the usual places. Dyke TV is coming soon.

Yon Loader – Another Year

After sketching out a series of demos which would come to form his self-titled debut album, James Stuteley of Aotearoa project Yon Loader took the songs to an array of friends and collaborators who helped realise their full potential. Those involved is something of a who’s who of the New Zealand indie scene with members of acts like members of Recitals, Welcomer, For Everest, Model Home, Fouler, First Move and Bad Friend all contributing, as well as engineer and producer Harry Lilley. With the album’s release pencilled for later this year on Tiny Engines, Lead single ‘Another Year’ shows how this team elevate the Yon Loader sound into something as hefty as it is detailed, Stuteley’s intimate emo-adjacent lyricism given all the supporting momentum it deserves without being overwhelmed.

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This past summer, the band recorded new EP In the End I Won’t Be Coming Home, and invited Auckland’s The Black Quartet to add strings to the tracks. The result elevated the French for Rabbits style to some of its most vivid and dramatic forms to date. We previewed the release with single ‘Leech‘ back in October. “An exploration of ‘the push and pull of love’ suffused with ethereal harmonies and a soaring atmosphere,” as we described. “At once epic and fragile, the lingering melancholy burning away to reveal the rousing chorus.” An array of details both subtle and stark coalescing into something forthright.

What emerges is a perfect marriage of the early and later French for Rabbits sensibilities, where rustic charm and elegant polish can coexist. Songs like ‘Baring Head’ typify this style, a sonic representation of rugged coastline which sounds windswept and isolated and inviting all at once. The natural landscape in all its ambiguity, welcoming and uncaring and all the more mysterious for it.

The title track is perhaps the clearest example of this style. An epic five minutes which swoops over vast distances, a bird’s eye view of tenderness and violence and that strange place between the two. “When the fog has lifted all will be revealed,” Singer offers. “Like a gem formed through the pressure of the years / Or a bomb blast, car crash, landslide, nose dive / Losing my balance between happiness and fear.” But true to the French for Rabbits style, in probing into this ambiguity they emerge with a growing conviction, and the cathartic brightness of the closing refrain

In the end I won’t be coming home
Through the rocks and all the burnt out fields
Through the mist, a shot, a frozen gun
In the hands of her…

In the end I won’t be coming home
Through the frozen fields
In the end I won’t be coming home

In the End I Won’t Be Coming Home is out now via AllGood Absolute Alternative Records and available from the French for Rabbits Bandcamp page.

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