Recording under the moniker Bernardo, vocalist, guitarist and producer Sonia Bernardo combines elements of jazz, indie rock and alt-soul to create songs which owe equal debts to her Portuguese and British heritage. Last week saw the release of Secrets Of Six-Figure Women, Bernardo’s debut full-length album which builds upon the promise of early releases to realise this sound fully—a record packed with confidence and sophistication which meditates on what it means to strive and desire within contemporary society. Single ‘Bobby’s Song’ serves as an ideal entry for the uninitiated, highlighting the sleek mood, intricate detail and assured attitude of the release as a whole.

EERA – Honey, do you see me

The recording project of Berlin-based Norwegian artist Anna Lena Kirsten Bruland, EERA has made a mark in recent years with a moody brand of dream pop. New full-length I’ll stop when I’m done, coming soon via Test Card Recordings, has picked a suitably evocative subject to further the style. Taking its title from a quote by Marilyn Monroe, the album explores the lives of the iconic starlets of Hollywood’s Golden Era, as well as those of the characters they brought to life on the silver screen. Ahead of the album’s release, EERA has shared new single ‘Honey, do you see me’, a track inspired by Billy Wilder’s sixties classic The Apartment. “I was fascinated by the fact that the main character (an intelligent and beautiful woman) is madly in love with a man who has a wife and the boss of a big company,” Bruland explains. “It affected her self-confidence with this man playing with her feelings, promising her the ‘world’ etc. I wanted to write a song from her side of the story but also exaggerate these types of feelings in the song, where you almost feel a bit mad. The desperation of trying to be loved by someone who really doesn’t want to be with you takes over your self-worth. You forget about yourself, and all the focus is on him.”

I’ll Stop When I’m Done will be released on the 26th September via Test Card Recordings.

ear – Ceremony

The project of Yaelle Avtan and Jonah Paz, ear make glitchy collages of indie pop and electronic music that draw on the duo’s background in “experimental electronic hardcore” and twee folk. Following some near-viral success on streaming services with early singles, ear recently released their debut album The Most Dear and the Future, which presents their unique and oddly compelling style to the world proper. Each of the eight songs are short and sweet, slipping effortlessly from gentle, near-whispered pop to headphone-shaking electronica in the blink of an eye. It all feels very now. Like indie pop for the age of short form video, kind of wild and hyperactive but also sad and lonely in a way that’s not easy to describe, nostalgic for something that has never existed. It would fit on the soundtrack to the next Jane Schoenbrun film for sure. You could really start anywhere, but ‘Ceremony’s is my current favourite, so check it out below.

His His – Hardcore Band

We last wrote about His His, AKA Toronto-based songwriter Aidan Belo, back in October 2024 with the release of EP Good Gold, with songs like ‘My Friend Wants to be a Freemason‘ offering “a gentle and folk-inflected [sound] that wears an air of weary wistfulness like the grain in an old film photograph.” Now Belo is returning with brand new EP ’25 via Victory Pool, and single ‘Hardcore Band’ indicates the direction of the release. Recorded entirely to a Tascam cassette deck, the track finds His His at its most fuzzy and intimate, maintaining the earnest tone which has long marked the project and dialling up the closeness through a gauze of DIY texture. Lyrically, the song takes on the age old problem of any folk songwriter. Namely, all of your friends wishing you were in something cooler like a hardcore band instead.

Jamie Lidell & Luke Schneider – The Passing

Fans of experimental music will no doubt be familiar with Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider, the former one of the UK’s premier practitioners of neo-soul, the latter a renowned pedal steel player pioneering within the genre of ambient country. But their new collaborative album is something different. One designed to aid in the inner explorations brought about by Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy, and awake to the true depths of art’s potential. “A mind is often found more exposed during psychedelic experiences,” Lidell explains. “Specifically in a therapeutic setting, where trust is key to approach issues and work through events in the way of growth. This is music to support and guide the listening with or without psychedelic sensory heightening.” Single ‘The Passing’ is a suitably immersive introduction, regardless of whether you go in sober or substance-assisted.

Jonny Tex – Heifer

Hailing from Boston, MA, Jonny Tex is a youth pastor turned songwriter who makes what has been described as “post-faith slacker rock.” Out via Happene Twice, debut single Heifer / Cherubhead welcomes listeners into this distinctive style, with the lead track pairing playfulness, peculiarity and something more grievous. A song inspired by “Texas floods and Southern dread” which twists the easygoing rhythms and droll swagger of the slacker genre into strange shapes, a sense of desperation needling beneath the surface as the clatter of percussion veers between roguish and unnerving. “I don’t wanna be / Cattle in a flash flood where I’m / Tangled in the trees,” as Tex sings in one verse. “Sucking on salinity for all eternity / Buried by the water that just washes over me / Everything i had / I’d give it all away.”

Mia Wilson – Face To Face

Southern California singer-songwriter Mia Wilson is preparing to release her self-titled debut full-length via Royal Oakie Records this November. The album continues the lineage of LA records from the sixties and seventies, taking inspiration from released like Tapestry by Carole King, Heart Food by Judee Sill and Jackson Browne’s Late For the Sky. Latest single ‘Face To Face’ embodies the lush, honeyed light of this sound, not to mention Wilson’s warm and wistful croon. What results is something rich and welcoming and charged with longing, Wilson’s piano, Wurlitzer and Rhodes accentuated by further instrumentation from Skyler Lusteg (bass buitar, acoustic guitar) and Tim Ramsey (acoustic and electric guitars, organ, percussion, bass VI, Mellotron, pedal steel, bass harmonica, string).

Watch the video filmed by Julia Schwebel and edited by Skyler Lusteg below:

Mia Wilson will be released on the 14th November via Royal Oakie and you can pre-order it now.

Petey USA – Anything In Between

Earlier in the year, Petey USA released The Yips, a concept album set within the fictional dive bar The Yips Tavern, imagining a series of interactions between the diverse clientele who all, in one way or another, struggle through life and experience the dreaded titular phenomenon. Ahead of a fall headline tour, Petey is releasing A Case of The Yips, a new extended version of the record complete with three bonus tracks, one of which is being released now as a single. Described by the artist as “a song about being scared about any possible outcome,” ‘Anything In Between’ was written as a b-side to album favourite ‘Ask Someone Else’ though is far more than a handmaid. Better to think of it as the small devil on the shoulder versus the angel of ‘Ask Someone Else’, corrupting the encouragement of the previous track with a creeping sense of doubt. But, true to the Petey USA sound, the result burns through its anxious concern with equal parts unguarded sincerity and cathartic momentum, making for a worthy addition to barstools at The Yips.

A Case Of Yips will be released later this year.

Weirs – Everlasting

“To ponder whether Weirs exist in defiance or deference of their forebears is to miss the point completely. This is not an attempt to raze conventions, nor reproduce them. But rather imagine how folk could and should sound today.” So we wrote of the North Carolina outfit’s new album Diamond Grove, coming next month via Dear Life Records. Lead single ‘‘I Want to Die Easy’ introduced the style. “A hymn” as we continued, “delivered not from the still air and stone of a cathedral but God’s own Earth,” and now Weirs have returned with new track ‘Everlasting’ to further ground the album’s terrestrial textures. It’s an instrumental recorded during a late night improvisation session and furthered with layers of field recordings. These additional sounds range from drain grates at wastewater plants and street preachers in bus terminals to a walk the old “cow cemetery” in the woods at Diamond Grove farm and scooping cheese curd from the vat in Cedar Grove. The result feels like an accumulation of the area’s history, years superimposed to create something able to transcend the ordinary flow of time.

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Because while the previous Jouska record Suddenly My Mind Is Blank was crafted from a notably polished electro pop, the new record sees Thorvik favour something more textured, wrapping raw emotion with a gauzy style. The result, as ‘Pierced’ shows, owes a debt to both dream pop and trip hop. A sound full of contradiction, somehow managing to conjure a sparse night time atmosphere without sacrificing any weight, and managing to pair emotional immediacy with an ambiguously dreamy drift.

This juxtaposition speaks to the track’s thematic concerns too. “This one grew out of a shame tied to being seen at all,” Thorvik describes. “I’ve always struggled with visibility. Part of me wants to be seen and heard; another part just wants to disappear. Artistry brings that tension to the surface. I often feel like I’m stepping into a role that doesn’t quite fit, exposing parts of myself I’d rather keep hidden. It feels too personal, too raw, and often uncomfortable. This song captures that feeling.”

Photo by Hans Olav Settem

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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.

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

Described as a song “about having the capacity to love different people (friends, partners, etc) in different ways, using a lot of silly car and public transit metaphors along the way,” ‘Something Like a Honda Odyssey’ is the latest single from Cambridge, Massachusetts artist Banti Gheneti, AKA Banti Buli. The track emerges with all the heart and playfulness this description suggests, with a languid rhythm ticking over below Gheneti’s verbose vocal style, refusing to commit fully to irony or sincerity, instead hovering in the ambiguous middle ground. As though a song about relationships couldn’t really function without equal doses of heartfelt emotion and tongue-in-cheek humour.

My love is no tesla model e
It’s something like a honda odyssey
Don’t worry though, it’ll play nice with a model e
If that’s how you want things to be
So let me know what you think
Any takers out there?

Gorgeous – Raindrop

Gorgeous are a “frenetic yet friendly” noise pop duo from New York, comprising of Dana Lipperman (guitar and vocals) and Judd Anderman (drums). Next month they will release their sophomore album, Sapsucker, via Sad Cactus Records, which promises to develop the band’s dynamic signature blend of fractured rhythms, cynical lyricism and sweet and sour melodies. The record features songs about everything from “technological dread,” to “literal and figurative monsters, liars, dreamers, and true believers,” and lead single ‘Raindrop’ drops us in the deep end. “Our bones are made of cosmic dust,” Lipperman sings over jerky clockwork percussion before the track slams into life, “exploded stars, we’ve come apart.” Strange, unpredictable and gloriously noisy. What’s not to love?

Graves – Little Dumb Dogs

California-based Greg Olin has been releasing music under the Graves alias for almost two decades. On his next release, Gary Owens: I Have Some Thoughts, which comes out late June via Perpetual Doom and Curly Cassettes, he adopts a new name as a kind of Country music alter-ego. The album’s sixteen songs are a throwback to Nashville’s golden age, loaded with a sense of bittersweet nostalgia and a wry humour that brings new vigour to a timeless style. As Perpetual Doom put it, “[they] sway with the moonstruck sweetness of classic country, blending the sounds of golden age AM radio with a laidback West Count vibe.” Lead single ‘Little Dumb Dogs’ is a good introduction, its laidback atmosphere and gently cutting lyrics (“If little dumb dogs and the finest of drugs don’t kill you / and a smile from a child and walking down the aisle don’t thrill you”) capturing the album’s essence in less than two minutes.

Gary Owens: I Have Some Thoughts will be released on 30th June. Pre-order it rom the Perpetual Doom Bandcamp page.

The High Water Marks – American Candy

Led by Hilarie Sidney, founding member of the revered Elephant Six Recording Company and flagship band The Apples In Stereo, The High Water Marks are making their third ‘comeback’ this summer, with album Your Next Wolf coming very Minty Fresh. Based between Lexington, Kentucky and Grøa, Norway, the outfit had never played in the same room before opening for Pavement in Oslo is 2022, and the new record is their first recorded together and in-person. If latest single ‘American Candy’ is anything to go by, the set-up was conducive to the band’s creative energies, kicking along with an infectious momentum, capturing all the addictive sweet and sour overtones of its namesake and drenched in fuzz for good measure.

Lauren O’Connell – Joangeline

‘Joangeline’, the latest single from LA-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Lauren O’Connell, is a song of strength and vulnerability. “I saw me there in the half light / As shapeless there as the dawn,” they sing near the beginning of, a tenderness juxtaposed by tangible weight of the the drums. “And every promise it brings / Dying to feel even half right.” What quickly becomes apparent is that the source of the fragility is not any sense of uncertainty or hesitation, rather the inherent sensitivity of exposing core truths. Shedding outer armour as an act of defiance, deciding to be open no matter how much pain this might invite.

And all I wanted to know
All I wanted to know
Who would want me
The way I want you

Drag me out, baby
Drag me out, baby I’m in it now

Leeann Skoda – Little Star

With EP Living Room Sessions out later this month, Leeann Skoda has unveiled the slow-burning ‘Little Star’ by way of introduction. Emerging from the “familial Americana scene” of LA’s The Grand Ole Echo, and recorded with on one afternoon in the living room of Malachi DeLorenzo (Langhorne Slim, Izaak Opatz), the release is one built around an authentic folk spirit, and the single embraces the style with its lush, intimate warmth. A track stripped of all excesses, standing instead on its own simplicity, like some lullaby which has been crafted through years of repetition into a perfect state of function.

Living Room Sessions will be released on 26th May and is available via the Leeann Skoda Bandcamp page.

Paper Lady – Starcross

Back in January we introduced Paper Lady, an “immortal crone” brought to life by Allston’s Alli Raina and company in a kind of musical ritual. Previous single ‘Five of Swords‘ saw the project push their spiritualism out into noisier, shoegaze territory, and new single ‘Starcross’ continues the path with gauzy textures and a pummelling momentum. Described as “a scathing account of an almost-romance with a farmer gone awry,” the song burns with what could be spurned fury or frustrated embarrassment, building nonetheless into with unerring intensity of an ancient curse.

You feel it
Logic overrun
Conceal it
What else is there to be done

‘Starcross’ is out now and available via streaming services.

Ruth Radelet – Leaving the Table

Though best known as the front of synth pop stars Chromatics, Ruth Radelet has recently turned toward solo music as a means of exploring dimensions perhaps neglected in her work thus far. The Other Side EP confronted classic themes of love, loss and renewal after a traumatic period, with songs like ‘Crimes’ retaining the vivid Chromatics sound while those such as ‘Strangers’ allowed Radelet to break new ground with its almost orchestral pop tones. Ruth Radelet’s latest single, a take on Leonard Cohen’s ‘Leaving the Table’, straddles the fence between pop and folk, with the timeless vocals and echoing melancholy adding a dash of Julee Cruise to Cohen’s classic.

‘Leaving the Table’ is out now and available from the Ruth Radelet Bandcamp page.

Symbol Soup – Airglow

Writing of previous single ‘Overdressed‘, we described Symbol Soup (AKA London‘s Michael Rea) as a combination of “classic British folk charm with something rather more American, including faint notes of country and a couple of spoonfuls of Alex G-style lo-fi indie rock.” Latest track ‘Airglow’, again on Sad Club Records, continues the arrangement, the intimate sensibilities of bedroom pop polished with a golden psych-folk sheen, resulting in a sound able to evoke the slow hours of a summer afternoon without sanding down the snags and edges beneath the surface. The sound plays into the themes too, with Rea offering a take on the information overload of the internet age, though subverting its usual framing to instead present it on more grounded terms. So there’s no dystopian chill here, just a willingness to float above the sea of data and embrace peaceful ignorance instead.

‘Airglow’ is out now via Sad Club Records and available via the Symbol Soup Bandcamp.

The post Weekly Listening: May 2023 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

New single ‘Good Kid’ sees the Bergen-based artist turn her attention to perhaps the most pressing problem of all—The climate emergency and our responsibility to act upon it. “My parents’ reaction to my own civil disobedience has pretty much been: ‘you’re a good kid, you don’t have to change the world’,” Bo Milli explains, echoing the chorus of the song. But as the extent of the climate’s collapse becomes clearer each day, such an opinion seems increasingly fanciful. The world in which previous generations lived no longer exists no matter how much we might hope for it. “I think younger people implicitly live as if that world still exists — if I get some kind of education, I’ll land a steady job, at some point I’ll settle down, I’ll grow old and have a pension. But I think, if we interrogate these presumptions, this future doesn’t add up.”

“The lines in the chorus are essentially what I’m tempted to say to myself when I want to throw in the towel and see everything play out”, Bo Milli explains. “It’s a logic that’s difficult to argue with, but nevertheless, I think it’s the wrong conclusion. It’s an attitude that disregards my responsibility, and it doesn’t feel good to live like that.”

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Best Fern is the ambient pop collaboration between New York’s Alexia Avina and Montreal’s Nick Schofield. The pair met while in residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where they drew on the surrounding Rocky Mountain landscape to devise a style that sits in the ethereal middle ground between ambient and pop. The debut Best Fern album, Earth Then Air, releases early next year on Backward Music and Youngbloods, and lead single ‘Way Inside’ is an indicator of what is to come. A track at once soaring and earthy, the fecund mistiness eradicating any distinction between organic and dream matter. The song comes complete with a video directed & edited by Hugo Bernier. Watch it below:

Earth Then Air releases on 3^rd February via Youngbloods. Preorder it now via the Best Fern Bandcamp page.

CO-ED DORMS – Milk Drinker

Part of what they call the “Neo-Classical Post-Industrial Post-Punk Revival,” English four-piece CO-ED DORMS have shared new single ‘Milk Drinker’ as a statement of intent. A finely crafted track which grasps for a number of stylistic influences, the lush instrumentation held in line by almost marching percussion, while the near spoken-word vocals are sardonic and playful and wry.  Think Black Country, New Road fronted by Mark E. Smith, this time sponsored by Big Dairy. Drink the damn milk.

Cynthia Hamar – Where Your Love Lives

Back in June, we wrote about Alberta-born Métis singer-songwriter Cynthia Hamar, labelling single ‘Shaken’ as “a track which finds a balance between soulful confidence and poignant sadness, led by the kind of bitter assurance gained only from learning the hard way.” Again out via Neon Moon Records, latest track ‘Where Your Love Lives’ is no less mature and reflective in its tone, taking a nostalgic look at the past in all its bittersweet glory. Charting the things gained and lost along the way, and the slow change constantly unfolding. The song’s video furthers this excavation of bygone years, with director Korban Hamar and editor Jessica Lowe creating a collage of home videos from Hamar’s family collection.

‘Where Your Love Lives’ is out now via Neon Moon Records and you can listen in the usual places.

Dunebug – Still Dreaming

Now based in London, Dunebug is the project of Manchester-born Chi Limpiroj. Regular readers will be familiar with her work as we’ve covered a couple of singles in the last few years which, along with a self-titled EP released in 2019, have established a distinctively bittersweet lo-fi indie pop style. Now Dunebug has returned with a new single, ‘Still Dreaming’, the latest release ahead of a forthcoming debut album. Limpiroj describes ‘Still Dreaming’ as “a song about being afraid to sleep due to recurring nightmares of an abusive past lover,” but despite this heavy subject matter it’s presented as a surprisingly sweet laidback pop song. The track comes complete with a contradictorily bright video by Alyssa Mello, which you can check out below:

‘Still Dreaming’ is out now and available from the Dunebug Bandcamp page.

Esme White – Pearly Gate Crashers

Hailing from New York and now based in London, singer-songwriter Esme White started writing during the early months of the pandemic and has worked with Spiritual Records in Chalk Farm on new tracks. Single ‘Pearly Gate Crashers’ is a great introduction to White’s sound, an infectiously upbeat folk rock track with real narrative weight. God is real but heaven is closed, great crowds gathering at the gates demanding to be let in. Shady snakes in suits bribe angels for backdoor entries as old ladies threaten to burn the whole thing down, the rhythm building as a sense of desperation grows.

Yeah I may be human
but that’s not on me, that’s on you, man

‘Pearly Gate Crashers’ is out now. You can find Esme White on Instagram.

LIES – Camera Chimera

The new project of Mike and Nate Kinsella, LIES have won attention with a string of singles which combine beauty and strangeness into something fitting for the contemporary moment. Latest track ‘Camera Chimera’ further develops this style, an exploration of life online which starts out seductively mellow and soon morphs into something dark and unnerving. “It’s about not only feeling manipulated by others, but also being confronted with the reality and consequences of your own lies and manipulation,” Mike Kinsella explains, “and how that can mentally and emotionally cause one to spiral.” The song comes with a video directed by Rachel Cabbit of POND Creative which furthers these themes, amplifying the mood of shadowy mystery by printing and scanning frames to produce a distorted, lo-fi style.

‘Camera Chimera’ is out now via Polyvinyl Record Co. and available from the usual places.

Mizan K – Go

‘Go’ is the latest single from New York’s Mizan K, an effortless pop song that bubbles with quiet energy that she describes as a “four-minute fever-dream inspired by fragments of fantastical children’s novels.” Built on an infectious melody and adorned with quirky embellishments, the track is a strange, kaleidoscopic commentary on our hyperactive, money-focused world. As Mizan K goes on to explain: “A dozen celestial characters including myself, float in a space-casino and chase their fate in a speedy and unstable world. The singer (me) is a trickster, presenting glimmers of opportunity, then changing voices to relay worldly wisdom and warnings of failure. The song winds its way through a frantic universe while angling towards fun and optimism.”

My Politic – Cursing at the Night & the Morning

Next month, Nashville-based duo My Politic will release Missouri Folklore: Songs & Stories From Home, an album grounded in the landscape of the Ozark Mountains which looks to explore the nuanced and often conflicted identities of those who call Missouri home. “There are songs about judgment, existentialism, forgiveness, love, death, growing, and healing,” as Kaston Guffey explains. “It’s a lot of material focused on the nuance and mundanity, in some sense, of being a person.” Latest single ‘Cursing at the Night & the Morning’ captures this spirit of imperfection with a keen eye and careful charm, steeped in the wistful ache of all the best folk music but choosing to confront this nostalgia too.

What I know and what I’ve heard
Are different things I’m sure
But the differences all blur
Cuz time’s a warping glass

Siv Jakobsen x Ane Brun – Sun, Moon, Stars

With new album Gardening coming next January on The Nordic Mellow, Oslo songwriter Siv Jakobsen has unveiled latest single, ‘Sun, Moon Stars’. With Jakobsen joined by renowned Norwegian songwriter Ane Brun, the track weaves a plaintive mood scored with careful details and evocative harmonies. An ode to the people who stand steadfast through the worst moments, reliable points which allow us to navigate our own ways through. The song is “inspired by my least favourite month of the year and the heaviness I tend to feel during it,” as Jakobsen explains, “as well as the beauty and hope I’ve found in a companion that has the ability to pull me out of the dreariest corner of my mind, even during the darkest month of the year.”

Gardening is out on the 20th January via The Nordic Mellow.

The post Weekly Listening: November 2022 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Bo Milli is the recording project of Emilie Østebø, who is based in the Norwegian city of Bergen. Her debut single ‘At The Wheel’ caught the attention of the management firm who also look after Sigrid and AURORA and sent her on a trajectory toward indie rock stardom. New single ‘How is it’ makes good on the first’s promise, a “power-chordy” number that’s a very youthful mix of apathy, anxiety and self-confidence. Think Soccer Mommy meets The Beths, telling tales of hungover bus rides, dancing to The Strokes and a lingering unease that persists despite everything. “It was the second day in a row on the verge of crying,” Østebø sings. “And I had no idea as to why.”

Buggs – Mother

Following on from the success of previous single ‘Flaws‘, a track which landed on Killing Eve no less, London-based outfit Buggs are back with a brand new song on Sad Club Records. With its volatile tempo and nods to Greek myth, ‘Mother’ is full of the idiosyncratic personality of the previous releases. An examination of motherhood and femininity which doubles as both ode and urgent question. “It’s a cry out to my mother/women of the world,” lead Alice Western explains, “asking ‘how do we do this! How do you do this? How do we get through it!'”

Deniz Cuylan – Hidden Language Of Four

Back in 2021, Turkey-born, LA-based guitarist and composer Deniz Cuylan released No Such Thing as Free Will with Hush Hush Records, an album of which fused classic guitar, jazz and minimalist ambient styles into something playful and unique. Never one to settle, follow-up album Rings of Juniper sees Cuylan build this foundation, aiming for a more direct approach which allows his guitar and compositional work to test the line between natural spontaneity and an almost automated efficiency. The result, as shown by single ‘Hidden Language of Four’, is both of those things, possessing an organic sense of order akin to the inner workings of biology.

Gloria de Oliveira & Dean Hurley – Something to Behold

Next month sees the release of Oceans of Time, a collaboration between Gloria de Oliveira and Dean Hurley on Sacred Bones Records. Those familiar with Hurley’s work will recognise the ethereal, suggestive quality of the atmosphere, dreamscapes across which de Oliveira’s vocals play, though amid the intangible shimmer lies something more direct too. An understanding of the elastic strangeness of time, an appreciation of deep emotional truths. Single ‘Something to Behold’ sets the tone, its immersive, Lynchian blend of alluring and eerie all the more impressive for having been crafted between two people who have never met or spoken.

Mim Jensen – Germaphobe

Based in Ōtautahi (Christchurch), Mim Jensen makes soaring indie rock that rides the highs and braves the lows of love and loss. A prolific member of the local scene for a number of years, Jensen has just released her debut single, ‘Germaphobe’. It’s a song about that difficult point in a relationship when it becomes clear things are not working out. “Germaphobe was the result of some uncomfortable emotions and self-reflection,” Jensen explains. “It’s about navigating an incredibly hard time in your life but ultimately learning how to stand in your own power.” But despite its awkward subject matter, the song is delivered with gusto, growing from a quietly turbulent opening into a rock song full of energy and emotion.

Sister Gemini – Scooter Song

Sister Gemini is the indie pop project of Los Angeles-based songwriter Remy Gassman. A vehicle for songs both sharp and sweet, turning toward the rosy past in an effort to flee a difficult present. Latest single ‘Scooter Song’ deals with the process head on, presenting a series of images and events from childhood, remembering them fondly while mourning the inability to return. “Now that I’m older I still see things the same,” Gassman sings, “look back and wonder if you’ve grown into your face / and I’d give everything to go back to that place.”

Swamp Dogg – Soul To Blessed Soul

Back in February, Don Giovanni Records released I Need A Job​.​.​.​So I Can Buy More Auto​-​Tune by legendary soul/R&B artist Swamp Dogg (the musical alter ego of Jerry Williams). The album felt like a celebration of a long career, and proved that there is plenty life in the old Dogg yet, bursting at the seams with his characteristic risqué humour and irreverent persona. Fresh from celebrating his eightieth birthday with a sold out show in LA and a festival appearance in Berlin, Swamp Dogg has recently released a new video for the track ‘Soul To Blessed Soul’, the album’s swaying slow-burner that’s a genuine heartfelt love song beneath the smooth, suggestive surface. Take a look at the typically eccentric video, directed by MoogStar Clemon below:

I Need A Job​.​.​.​So I Can Buy More Auto​-​Tune is out now via Don Giovanni Records and you can get it from the Swamp Dogg Bandcamp page.

Tommy Lefroy – Dog Eat Dog

Based between London and LA, Tommy Lefroy is the project of Wynter Bethel and Tessa Mouzourakis, who make literate and pop-tinged indie rock in the vein of Phoebe Bridgers or Lucy Dacus. Latest single ‘Dog Eat Dog’ is a song that takes aim at the patriarchy from a position of dogged strength, full of the tenacious determination to live on one’s own terms. Check out the music video, which sees Bethel and Mouzourakis channel Joan of Arc and don literal armour in preparation for this fight, below:

‘Dog Eat Dog’ is out now via LAB Records and available via Bandcamp.

Why Dogs Why – List of Fears

The music of Why Dogs Why has caught our eye in the past with what we’ve called its “tongue-in-cheek humour and razor sharp commentary on the banality of contemporary life.” Yet none of the previous releases have been quite as sharp as new single ‘List of Fears’, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it slice of hyperactive panic delivered without even a pause for breath. Dying alone, answering phones, spinal injury, tall stacks of loans… all your worries are catered for, but they’ve never sounded like so much fun.

The post Weekly Listening: August 2022 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Native to Texas and now based in Ojai, CA, Austin Leonard Jones has made a name braiding melancholy and wit into his country style. Described as “somewhere between a funeral and a costume party,” new album Dead Calm continues to develop this apparent juxtaposition. Though as lead single ‘Back in Black Lagoon’ shows, humour and sadness might not be such odd bedfellows. “I’m the sole survivor of the all-night show,” Jones sings, “it cost a thousand tears for every episode.” Check out the video starring Bill Wedden below:

Dead Calm is out on the 29th July via Perpetual Doom and you can pre-order it via Bandcamp.

bedbugz – bedbugz / golf jumper

Hailing from Canterbury, shoegaze outfit bedbugz is the latest addition to the roster of Tonetic Records, a new youth-led label run via the Arts Education Exchange. Their new self-titled single and b-side ‘golf jumper’ first came into being in demo form while the members were still at school, and periods spent in the studio alongside continued world-building developed them further, creating a sense of ambition and energy which mark the band (the songs even come complete with a text-based adventure game). With its upbeat rhythm and searching vocals, the title track is a bittersweet tale of young love, while the b-side sets out further into shoegaze territory, its pace slower but weightier, the feedback gathering slowly before breaking in a stormy finale.

Easy Sleeper – D.T.F.S.

Having formed in DC and now based in LA, indie rock outfit Easy Sleeper have cut their teeth across various locals scenes on both coasts. Following on from previous single ‘Access Reply’, their latest release celebrates the value in creation and community. Titled ‘D.T.F.S.’, or Drive That Fucking Stake, the song is a searing reminder of how powerful the present moment can be, blocking out yesterday and tomorrow in favour of making something worthwhile today.

Every breath that you take
is another chance
to drive that fucking stake

Editrix – Hieroglyphics

As with all the work of Wendy Eisenberg, Editrix is a project which eschews binary thinking to transcend usual labels. To describe new album Editrix II: Editrix Goes To Hell as precise or chaotic would be misleading. Likewise accessible or challenging. It is all these things simultaneously, not only furthering the marvel at Eisenberg’s invention, but also pushing the burning questions of their work. Single ‘Hieroglyphics’ descends into the hell of the title, a depth not burning miles beneath our feet but centred square in our heads. “I don’t think all hells are other people,” Eisenberg explains. “Most of the hells I’ve experienced are the effects of solitary, circular thoughts, the kind that make a person attack themselves, while claiming they’re helping them gain a kind of clarity. This song is a dispatch from that place.”

Enumclaw – Jimmy Neutron

Ahead of debut album Save the Baby on Luminelle Recordings, Tacoma’s Enumclaw have unveiled brand new single, ‘Jimmy Neutron’. Drawing equally from the Pacific Northwest’s grunge history and the working class dreams of Britpop, the song introduces a band aiming for the stars, with lead Aramis Johnson pointing to Oasis’ rise from small-time to stadiums as an arc to emulate. The single’s combination of genuine heart and rock swagger suggests Enumclaw have all the elements required to achieve these ambitions, and its themes of self-sabotage hint at an awareness behind the bravado which will keep them grounded no matter how far into the stratosphere they might shoot. Check out the video directed by John C. Peterson below:

Save the Baby releases on 14th October via Luminelle Recordings. Pre-order a copy now from the Enumclaw Bandcamp page.

headboy – Toothrot

With equal parts riot grrrl ferocity and bedroom pop charm, London‘s headboy capture the worrying absurdity of our decidedly volatile times. Out via Blitz Cat Records, new single ‘Toothrot’ attacks the theme with classic nightmare imagery. Teeth falling into palms with no explanation, the world getting smaller and you shrinking too. Between the deadpan verses and frantic chorus, the song finds both horror and wry humour in the situation, where fear is ever-present but bewildered exasperation never far behind.

You’ve got toothrot
There’s nothing we can do about it
You keep your teeth clean
But it’s still all coming out

Jasmyn – Blank Paper

After fronting Toronto‘s Weaves for a number of albums and EPs, Jasmyn Burke has now gone it alone under her first name with debut solo record, In the Wild. Single ‘Blank Paper’ seizes the sense of freedom and possibility, turning away from self-doubt with a conviction present across much of the record. Uncertainty can be frightening, but it can also be an opportunity. With In the Wild, Jasmyn has decided to make it the latter, finding joy and meaning in music once again, and urging the listener to join her for the ride.

Open up your eyes
Look for what you want to see

Little Mazarn – Dew Nears Yay

Austin‘s Little Mazarn formed in local dive bar The Hole in the Wall, a club famous for hosting the likes of Nancy Griffith, Lucinda Williams and Townes Van Zandt. It’s tempting to say some of the ghosts which lingered there somehow attached themselves to the project, but the experimental folk style of new single ‘Dew Nears Yay’ (from LP Texas River Song on Dear Life Records) suggests the opposite transaction occurred. As though Lindsey Verrill and Jeff Johnston instead joined the spirits there, themselves now phantoms content to haunt the Texan land around them. Scouring for details, salvaging what they find.

Check out the video directed, shot, and edited by Jordan Moser below:

Texas River Song is out via Dear Life Records on the 19th August and you can pre-order it now.

Louien – No

After last year’s No Tomorrow, Norway folk rock outfit Louien have returned with single ‘No’ ahead of new EP, Figure Me Out, coming later this year on Jansen Records. Something of a sequel to the previous release, the EP continues the style and themes established there while shaking up the formula by co-writing with Preben Sælid Andersen. The single highlights the release’s balance between vulnerability and empowerment, confronting the issue of personal boundaries to show how honesty and openness might be painful but ultimately always more affirming. Check out the video filmed, directed and cut by Marthe Amanda Vannebo below:

Figure Me Out releases in September, bundled with No Tomorrow. Order it now from the Louien Bandcamp page.

Occupants – Serpent Shine

Having formed in Portsmouth over a shared appreciate of noisy punk and Father Ted, it is fitting London’s Occupants combine ferocious energy and whip-smart wit within their sound. Forthcoming EP Serpent Shine sees the trio direct this sound toward themes of narcissism, paranoia and grief, and the title track highlights their ability to repurpose cynicism into a purging force. Naked fury scorching all before it, eradicating anything bothersome and banal.

Boring protagonist,
Recycles used plot twists,
Repeats the same catch phrase,
Dripping with tired cliches

I was sent here to destroy you

The post Weekly Listening: June 2022 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

To celebrate the arrival of their brand new record, Embody, Hamilton’s Basement Revolver have unveiled the final single, ‘Dissolve’. We previously described how the album displays a “willingness to confront the intricacies of modern life with a newfound steel and depth,” and the new single is full of the compassion and solidarity which makes this possible. An ode to figuring things out together.

Carli & The Dark – Voicemail

Carli & The Dark is the folk rock project of Phoenix-born, Brooklyn-based songwriter Carli Naff. Latest single ‘Voicemail’ concerns losing a parent, specifically that strange half second when the urge to contact them arises out of well-worn habit, a wish to share a simple moment of a day. The song emerges from this brief period where they are still alive, still waiting, and follows it through the renewed sense of loss before culminating in a compassionate group refrain which features Naff’s mother and siblings among other loved ones. “All my peeps who grieved together,” as she puts it. “It’s a little detail that really brings me a sense of safety at the end, of being held.”

Saying my nickname in a voicemail from your car
You were there, there you are
And though you are not around,
You would love this song I found

Cinder Well x Jim Ghedi – I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Ramble

Cinder Well and Jim Ghedi have teamed up for a new two-song single, reinterpreting traditional folk ballads. ‘I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Rambled’ highlights how the pair accentuate the stark loneliness of the material with sparse arrangements haunted by foreboding drone. A song of vast distances and separation, sung into a soundscape as empty and inscrutable as the ocean itself.

I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Ramble is out now via Free Dirt Records and is available from the Cinder Well Bandcamp page.

hemlock – to carry (feat. Laith)

Described as an “interstate phone-fi bedroom folk saga of sorts,” talk soon is the full-band Chicago-based project hemlock. Latest single invites long-time friend and collaborator Laith Scherer and explores the nuances of a relationship as it changes over time and distance. A song of hushed yet heartfelt vignettes which rises toward an impassioned finale, providing snapshots of love in its various guises.

it’s okay
we carry our pain
in separate ways
on different days
but I’ll be there for you

Jeremy Squires – Drift

We’ve written about North Carolina native Jeremy Squires numerous times, an artist working in the American songwriting tradition of sharing heart and soul with generous helpings of grit and honesty. Ahead of a new album, slated for release later this year on Blackbird Record Label, Squires has unveiled a new single, ‘Drift’. It’s a song that finds him at his devastating best, built on just acoustic guitar, harmonica and vocals that quaver with both exhausted despondency and a steely inner strength. “I was sad,” he sings, “Now I’m lost / I forgot where I belong.”

Knuckle Pups – Soft Attraction

Ahead of their upcoming album, TV Ready, Denver “soda punk” outfit Knuckle Pups have unveiled single ‘Soft Attraction’. The track is an encapsulation of what such a genre entails, taking the fizzy energy of indie and adding an anarchic punk edge, though the songs are far from one-dimensional sugar rushes. Principle songwriter Oliver Holloway writes songs spread across the gamut of moods and tones, making room for earnest emotion and ironic playfulness within the same track, and as the new single shows, this often builds into triumphantly cathartic crescendos.

TV Ready is set for release sometime later this year.

Mouse – Pinned To An Avalanche

Based between Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, Mouse formed over a mutual appreciation of noisy DIY music, and thus set about making it themselves. The first single from forthcoming debut Here Was Then on Kitty Records, ‘Pinned to an Avalanche’ is all about escaping worry and doubt through some larger, consuming present, and Mouse oblige by recreating the descending wall of snow with their dense and hefty sound. Check out the video directed by the band and shot by Harley Jones:

Here Was Then will be released by Kitty Records later this year.

nudista – inasmuch

Next month sees the release of nudista’s Halfway Here EP on Sad Club Records, but in the meantime they have unveiled a new standalone single, ‘inasmuch’. The song is a great introduction to Pilar Matji Cabello and Robbie Carman’s work, a clarified dream pop which seeks to communicate directly and honestly. “It is a message to say that we are capable of evolving and moving forward even when it is scary,” as Cabello puts it, the gentle rhythmic pull drawing the listener close and compelling them onward.

Oceanator – Bad Brain Daze

April sees the return of Oceanator with Nothing’s Ever Fine, a brand new album on Polyvinyl Records and Big Scary Monsters which looks to build upon the apocalyptic themes of 2020’s Things I Never Said. Lead single ‘Bad Brain Daze’ typifies the duality of tenuous optimism and crushing pessimism which marks the record. The sound of existing within an unfolding disaster where the conclusion is still unclear, and nevertheless delivered with Elise Okusami’s characteristically triumphant energy. Check out the video directed by Chris Farren below:

Nothing’s Ever Fine is out on the 8th April via Polyvinyl Records and Big Scary Monsters and you can pre-order it now from the Oceanator Bandcamp page.

Sonic Løland – Up to You

Norwegian musician Anders Løland spent much of 2020 experimenting with styles and sounds, building up a library of ideas and demos which would form the basis of And Then The Sun Came Up, the debut album of his Sonic Løland project. Due for release this autumn via Koke Plate, the album shows off the full spectrum of Løland’s inspiration, creating a new brand of indie folk with ambient styles, electronic drums and rich 60s sensibilities, as shown by lead single, ‘Up to You’.

And Then The Sun Came Up will be released by Koke Plate this coming autumn.

Stephen Durkan – Prayer

Combining spoken word with electronic and ambient styles, Glasgow’s Stephen Durkan seems the latest in a long line of cynical Scottish preachers, bitter and sardonic yet bursting with a verbal energy. Written in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist/producer Niko O’Brien and released via Upcycled Sounds Records, his debut EP The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Ourselves both confirms and subverts this label. The anger and frustration are palpable, but beneath this lies something else. A flimsy belief in the continued value of critiquing the society in which we find ourselves, in imagining something new. Check out the first single ‘Prayer’ below:

Teen Idle – Burning

The music of Teen Idle might be an almost entirely solo endeavour recorded in a New Jersey basement, but you’d never guess it from the sound. For Sara Abdelbarry rejects the lo-fi aesthetics of many garage and bedroom acts for something more full-bodied. Take latest single, ‘Burning’, its rich sound featuring electric guitar, bass guitar, keys, synth, shaker, maracas, claps, lighter and sound effects all played by Abdelbarry, with only the drums delegated to Danny Murray. What emerges is an examination of unrequited love in all of its vivid detail, hope, bitterness and unabashed emotion rising into a huge climax.

I climbed up to the top alone
And watch the city burn below
If you won’t help me put her to rest
I’ll dig the hole by myself

The post Weekly Listening: Feb 2022 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Last week, Juni Habel released her debut album, All Ears, a record that proved as much a journey of self-discovery as it did an artistic endeavour. Created at home using mostly Garageband and her own equipment, Habel started out writing songs just for herself, but as her technique improved so too did her excitement and happiness. Add to that extra time afforded by the pandemic, and the songs began to form an album, one that is suffused with the joy of its own creation. “All Ears [is] a collection of the first songs I wrote,” Habel describes. “It was a great and joyful discovery that I could make music.”

Perhaps the standout track is the closer, ‘Fortune’, a beautifully timeless folk song combines Habel’s voice and guitar with hummed backing vocals that warble and wane like voices from an antique radio set. It’s a poignant song but not a sad one, glowing with it’s own quiet energy despite its understated composition. As Habel writes in a Facebook post: “This music has opened big rooms in me while I’ve made it and I hope it can give something to you too.”

Photo by E Petersen

The post Juni Habel – Fortune appeared first on Various Small Flames.