This autumn sees the release of Electric Bouquet, a new full-length from Anna McClellan on Father/Daughter Records. An account of the past four years, the album charts a period which saw McClellan go to school to become an electrician, move cross country and experience the end of relationships, and single ‘Endlessly’ captures the release’s atmosphere of bittersweet tenderness. A slow burner which slowly shakes itself from a melancholic piano-led opening into something freer and more affirming, McClellan rising from the blues in real time with an overarching message of hope. “‘Endlessly’ is definitely a mile marker song for me,” McClellan describes. “I think it retains all of the common traits of my songwriting while reaching a new level of maturity. It feels important and urgent to express this idea that we are each other’s truths. We can’t look to the supposed leaders of our system or the media for truth.”

Watch the video filmed by McClellan, Mychal Marasco and Ryan McKeever and edited by Harrison Martin below:

Electric Bouquet will be released via Father/Daughter Records on 25th October. Pre-order it now from the Anna McClellan Bandcamp page.

Anne Malin – River

“I saw my heart beating in a river and left it there for the earth to save / Some muscle wet in the weeds, and flooded through still I will sing.” So sings Anne Malin on ‘River’, the lead single from forthcoming album Strange Power!, set to be released next month via Dear Life Records. The lines not only capture the essence of the song but the wider thematic resonance of the album as a whole. The Durham, NC-based songwriter and poet explores how nature and its inherent motion might possess the key to the process of healing in the aftermath of trauma and loss. The album is being released in tandem with book-length poem, What Floods (published under the name AM Ringwalt), the two not only complimenting and deepening one another, but intersecting on ‘River’, whose lyrics appear within text.

Strange Power! is out on the 25th October via Dear Life Records and you can pre-order it now. What Floods will be published by Inside the Castle and you can find more here.

El Tee – Baby

Based in Naarm/Melbourne by way of California, El Tee (AKA songwriter Lauren Tarver) introduced itself in 2020 with debut full-length album, Everything Is Fine—an album built around an ongoing quest for self-realisation and acceptance. Building upon these themes, new single ‘Baby’ sees El Tee once against push against the grain in the knowledge that confronting discomfort is the only path towards the truth, and moreover directly calls out those who would prefer to avoid vulnerability via the sly tactic of self-sabotage. “I wrote ‘Baby’ about the experience of doing this to myself, but also about being on the receiving end of someone sabotaging a good thing when it feels hard,” as Tarver explains. “Self-sabotage can be a form of protection—creating predictability can give the illusion of safety. At least, that’s what my therapist says…”

Watch the video by Tarver herself below:

‘Baby’ is out now and available from the El Tee Bandcamp page.

Kareem Rahma & Tiny Guns – Baby I Could Never Win

Kareem Rahma might be best known as the comedian, host and creator behind viral TikTok and Instagram series Subway Takes and Keep The Meter Running, but also records as part of the band Tiny Guns along with Tyler McCauley (guitar), Joe Tirabassi (guitar), Matt Morello (bass, piano, backing vocals) and Dale Eisinger (drums, percussion). With new EP No Worries If Not coming next week, Rahma and co. have shared opener ‘Baby I Could Never Win’ to whet the appetite. A hectic dash of a track which pulls the audience into its forward momentum alongside Rahma’s uber cool delivery.

Oceanator – Get Out

Oceanator has long offered lead Elise Okusami a vehicle to explore the emotional landscape of life in a collapsing world, with previous albums Things I Never Said and Nothing’s Ever Fine wrestling with what it means to love and long for things in a time where the approaching end is so apparent. Their latest record, out now via Polyvinyl Records, is the culmination of these ideas, something written in its very title—Everything is Love and Death. As you might expect, the range of emotions on show is vast and ever-changing, but don’t be fooled into thinking such high stakes sap any of the defiant energy from the songs. Take ‘Get Out’, a promise to meet the world on its own stark terms and seize the moment to make itself heard.

Get up get up get out tonight
I’m not going down without a fight
I wanna be here not stuck in my head
Imagining all the things I never said

The track comes with a video directed by Paul DeSilva which casts Okusami as an actual demon slayer. Watch below:

Everything is Love and Death is out now via Polyvinyl and available from Bandcamp.

Quarterly – Illuminati

Last week saw the release of Adonis, the third album from Brooklyn duo Quarterly. The husband and wife duo Kristen Drymala and Christopher DiPietro work at the intersection of folk and neoclassical, combining guitar and cello in wordless compositions of rich depth and sober intensity. Their most formally adventurous yet, the new record sees the pair throw off the shackles of trying to make something that can be played live in favour of experimental tunings, polyrhythms and innovative forms. Album closer and final single ‘Illuminati’ is a good introduction. What the press release calls an “A24-soundtrack-ready track [which] imagines the sound of pre-Christian folk music,” it’s mysteriously beautiful, Drymala’s cello following DiPetro’s guitar in intricate passages before soaring off on its own.

Sea Lemon – Crystals (feat. Benjamin Gibbard)

Hot on the heels of 2023 album Stop At Nothing on Luminelle Recordings, Sea Lemon has returned with a brand new single ‘Crystals’. The previous record saw the Natalia Lew draw on ideas more typically seen in horror films or literary fiction, with narrators which feel, as we put it, “at once fearful and dangerous, some absence at the heart of their existence pushing them toward the darkest of places.” The new single, which sees Benjamin Gibbard lend vocals too, might not be quite so foreboding, but still bucks expectation with its willingness to forgo escape attempts and instead embrace the gloomy present. “I wrote most of the song after coming to this realization that ‘manifesting’ or looking for signs in nature or everyday life is mostly just a coping mechanism to get by day to day,” Lew explains. “When Ben came on and wrote his verse, I loved his added angle—rather than attempting lighter coping mechanisms, just submitting oneself to being upset and living in that darkness for a while can be a way to cope in and of itself.”

‘Crystals’ is out now via Luminelle Recordings and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Shovel Dance Collective – The Rolling Wave

“A stripped back sea shanty hushed with the inevitable loss of grand adventure, the titular vessel just another claimed by the ocean’s mysterious whims.” So we wrote of The Shovel Dance, the forthcoming album from Shovel Dance Collective on American Dreams. As it progressed, the track revealed itself as more than a simple folk song, landing alongside the likes of Lankum and Shane Parish in its mission, as we put it, “to push old sounds and stories into new dimensions.” With the album’s release fast approaching, the London nine-piece have shared new single, ‘The Rolling Wave’. It’s another example of the depth and intricacy of the Shovel Dance Collective sound, not to mention the intuitive spirit which hangs everything together. The humble three-minute runtime might seem modest compared with the previous single, but with a wistful and inherently playful arrangement, the track again offers a portal through which the audience is invited.

Check out the video by Tom Hardwick-Allan, with finishing and colour by Rafi Siraj and bleeds by Nick Granata:

The Shovel Dance is out on the 11th October via American Dreams and you can pre-order it now from the Shovel Dance Collective Bandcamp page.

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Back in December we introduced a new release from East Vancouver post-punks Aversions with single ‘New Whip’, a track which “combine[d] heavyweight riffs, pounded percussion and acerbic vocals to comment on our contemporary moment.” Album You Wanted the Bike has now been released, and as single ‘Undecider’ shows, the record builds upon the promised heft, leaning towards post-hardcore in its pummelling momentum. Written in the chaotic final days of the Trump presidency, it’s a song full of anxiety and latent violence, drawing on a whole host of political and social themes in three and a half minutes of Strummer-esque polit-punk. Check out the video directed by Bruno Trivelli of Death XII:

You Wanted the Bike is out now and available from the Aversion Bandcamp page.

Green Gardens – This Is My Fault

Leeds art rock outfit Green Gardens have announced a new record, This Is Not Your Fault, with the release of lead single ‘This Is My Fault’. Written in what the band say was “a whirlwind state of inspiration after hearing a Ralph Ineson monologue in which he’s crying and pleading with God to lift an imagined curse from him,” the track is the perfect introduction to the four-piece’s distinctive style, combining swaying, laidback harmonies with fuzzy guitars and an almost Medieval preoccupation with heavy themes and gothic imagery.

Gabby’s World – Mussel

When we say Gabby’s World, the project of New York producer and songwriter Gabby Smith, is releasing new album GABBY SWORD this this year on Carrot All Records, we mean year quite literally. Because Smith is unveiling a new song every month, concluding in a full release in December. The final offering of what Smith calls a “triad of gay awakening songs,” latest offering ‘Mussel’ represents the evolution of Smith’s sound and focus since albums like 2015’s O.K. A sincere engagement with what it means to become entwined with another person captured in a style at once physical and ethereal. Watch the video directed by Grace Weir, Barrie Lindsay, and Gabby Smith themselves below:

GABBY SWORD will be released on the 1st December via Carrot All Records.

The Handsome Family – Joseph

Hollow, the forthcoming album from The Handsome Family, originated in a single, unnerving moment shared by Brett and Rennie Sparks during a long winter night. “One night around 4 a.m. Rennie started screaming in her sleep,” Brett explains. “She screamed, ‘Come into the circle Joseph! There’s no moon tonight.’ Scary as it was, I thought, man, that’s a good chorus!” The resulting track ‘Joseph’ develops this moment into a wider context of supernatural foreboding, though within the ominous imagery lies a sense of humanity too. Something nostalgic, a sense of longing, as though within the portents and omens lies the promise of something almost romantic.

It’s 1:49AM
Crawl under the bed
Whisper my name
It’s time to begin

Hollow is out on the 8th September and you can find out more on The Handsome Family website.

Katherine Kyu Hyeon Lim – As It All Goes By

Starling, the debut album from New York-based composer and violinist Katherine Kyu Hyeon Lim, is both an encapsulation of an individual’s unique understanding of patterns and sound and a testament to the value collaboration. Together with Alfredo Colón (EWI/soprano saxophone) and Kalia Vandever (trombone/fx), Lim creates soundscapes within this spirit—unapologetically singular in its improvisation yet fully dependent on the input of others—with each musician offering one solo track on the album as though to call attention to their individuality before knitting back into the wider sound. Closer ‘As It All Goes By’ plays as the triumphant reunion of the these forces, bringing Lim’s vision to life it all of its detail and wonder. As Joey Chang’s album notes so cogently conclude: “Starling demands the right to self-determine, to be the driver of one’s own story, and to say, without apology, who you are.”

Oceanator – Part Time

We’ve written about Elise Okusami’s Oceanator quite a lot over the last few years, taken with her ability to explore pretty deep themes and feelings with fun and energetic indie rock. Co-written with Greg Katz (of Cheekface), new standalone single ‘Part Time’ (out now via Polyvinyl Records) might be the catchiest thing Okusami has made to date. A song about taking small steps toward making positive changes, it captures a sunny 60s rock & roll vibe with springy keys, crisp guitar riffs and the ear-worm chorus of “I know that I can get by if I try /Part time!”

Patio – En Plein Air

Their first new music since 2019 LP Essentials (which we described as “a knowing smile, a bitter laugh and an angry scream, all at once.”), ‘En Plein Air’ is the new single from New York post-punk trio Patio. Released via the good folks at Fire Talk Records, the song immediately shows that the band have still got it; all negative space, skittering percussion and razor-sharp stabs of guitar. There’s deadpan delivery and wry humour, a luminous vulnerability and even a subtle glow of disco bliss. The band say its a song about “winning a fight, for once, but by proxy—finding the right thing to say, but five years too late.” But as they say, better late than never.

‘En Plein Air’ is out now via Fire Talk and available via the Patio Bandcamp page.

Snake Lips – Smooth Brain No Wrinkles

Portland, Maine punk outfit Snake Lips are set to return with Dice EP later this summer with Repeating Cloud and Totally Real Records, and lead single ‘Smooth Brain No Wrinkles’ invites listeners into the distinctive personality of the project. Because, as the song’s title might suggest, the Snake Lips style combines its compelling energy with a mischievous irony, tapping into a Japandroids-esque momentum to unleash the cathartic potential of self-deprecation. Couple in the FromSoftware-inspired video, and the ‘Smooth Brain No Wrinkles’ will have you dodgerolling right the way through the summer months.

Dice EP is out on the 11th August via Repeating Cloud and Totally Real Records and you can pre-order it now.

 Strawberry Runners – Circle Circle

Their first new release proper since 2017’s superb In the Garden, In the Night, Strawberry Runners have returned with single ‘Circle Circle’ on Duper Moon Records. Lead Emi Night arranged the track alongside Michael Cormier O’Leary, and invited the likes of Benedict Kupstas, Erika Nininger and Stephen Becker to lend their talents. Written during the fevered state of illness, the song taps into the cyclical movements of a troubled mind, though Night pushes through the experience to find solid ground on the other side. As though learning to suspend attempts to fight against exhausting rhythms and instead recognise them as a part of life. What emerges is a sense of stability informed by understanding an compassion, a patience which lessens the impact of any specific discomfort or frustration in favour of a wider curiosity.

Find out more about Strawberry Runners here.

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

San Francisco band Cindy specialise in a dreamy, slo-mo brand of pop music, centred on lead Karina Gill’s distinctive vocals and poetic vision. At the beginning of April, Cindy will release a brand new record Why Not Now? via Tough Love and have unveiled lead single ‘A Trumpet on the Hillside’ by way of introduction. Landing somewhere between Galaxie 500 style slowcore and a half-speed Au Revoir Simone track, the song is a quietly transcendent hymn to the wonder that’s threaded into even the most mundane experiences. “It’s about being in a room with people, the closeness and distance involved in that,” Gill describes. “And it’s about the vividness and grandness (sometimes) of the most ordinary experience.”

En Attendant Ana – Wonder

Back in January we wrote a little about ‘Same Old Story’ by Paris indie pop band En Attendant Ana, taken from their new LP Principia. We described it as “a blend of playful indie pop rhythms and post-punk angles… [that] pitch[es] the listener into a funhouse room of mirrors with only the smooth clarity of Margaux Bouchaudon’s vocals as a guide.” The album is out now on Trouble In Mind and the band have released an animated music video for single ‘Wonder’ to celebrate. A song that explores conflicting emotions of legitimacy, opening gentle and pensive before a motorik beat drops with a clockwork energy, building towards a cathartic close, embodying that weird blend of strength and doubt of trying to do your best but always second guessing yourself. Watch the video by Jérôme Papaphotiou below:

Principia is out now via Trouble in Mind and available from the En Attendant Ana Bandcamp page.

Eric Angelo Bessel – Secret Lake

We’ve written about Laura Mariposa Williams and Eric Angelo Bessel’s Lore City several times in the recent years, with 2021 LP Participation Mystique and last year’s Under Way highlighting the band’s evocative, esoteric style and the manner in which it blurs the physical and metaphysical so seamlessly. The pair set up Lore City Music to facilitate the release of their work, and April sees the imprint release Bessel’s debut solo album, Visitations. Single ‘Secret Lake’ invites us into the world of the record, its slack drift like some sitting bogland but soon deepening into something more. A depth alluring in its own way, beautiful and strange in the manner unique to hidden spaces, allowing the listener to descend through its column while refusing to give anything away freely.

Visitation comes out on 21st April and you can pre-order it from the Lore City Music Bandcamp page.

Foyer Red – Plumbers Unite!

Yarn The Hours Away, the debut full-length from Brooklyn‘s Foyer Red coming this spring on Carpark Records, is described as a collection of short stories—where each track aims to build a fully rendered sense of character and place. Previous single ‘Etc‘ hinted at the depth of such an intention (“exploring,” as we put it, “a mismatched relationship of indistinct philosophical musings and robotic computations.”), and new single ‘Plumbers Unite!’ is no less ambitious. A song which not only uses the relentless trials of a side-scrolling videogame as a metaphor for life’s daily grind, but then imagines the sentience of the console once the power has been cut. “When I was little I was obsessed with my Gamecube, but after entering cheat codes on my Harvest Moon game, I felt sooooooo guilty,” explains Elana Riorda. “I impulsively deleted my game data and later had recurring nightmares about my Gamecube’s anger towards me, something I knew was unrealistic but felt so creepy and real.” Watch the video filmed, edited and directed by Leif Morton below:

Yarn The Hours Away is out on the 19th May via Carpark Records.

Nicolas Krgovich – Front Stoop #2

“For years and years I guess I was lonely / but refused to call it so.” So opens ‘Front Stoop #2’, the first single from Nicolas Krgovich’s Ducks, out next month on Orindal Records. The realisation is prompted by a direct question on the titular front stoop, one the narrator answers simply. Yes, he is lonely. “
To answer a plain question with a plain reply / Feels new to me and good.” What follows is so rooted in specific details it almost feels, paradoxically, like a dream. That weird summer, the smoke, the deserted beach. Tossed pebbles and sand and shells and “things that don’t matter and things to forget.” With Ducks, Krgovich promises to explore how moments are catalogued and remembered via minutiae, and the manner in which complexity of any present is not so much reduced to images but coded in them. “I let them whirl, a little cyclone,” as he concludes at the end of the song. “Living in a world of love.”

Seminar Shadow – Luring (Excerpt)

Seminar Shadow, AKA duo Lucie Vítková and Teerapat Parnmongkol, are preparing to unveil their new release HEATWAVE via Dear Life Records. Recorded on a pair of baby grand pianos during the August 2022 heatwave and comprising of two improvised side-length tracks, the release probes the present for the full weight of the past, exploring how any apparently ‘live’ moment rests upon an unseen foundation of everything which preceded it. “Liveness as in a self-organization in action can’t detach or distinguish from skeleton of memory,” as they explain. “A wave of heat is rinsing out inseparably within this heat, where the liveliness is revealing itself as a part of motion and movement that lives through this instinctual response to the environment around it.” You can hear an excerpt of the opening track ‘Luring’ now:

Shit Present – Voice in Your Head

“It really did come as breaking news to me in 2016 that I am not my thoughts and I might learn to have some agency over them,” explains Shit Present’s vocalist and guitarist Iona Cairns of new single ‘Voice in Your Head’. What they describe as a ‘textbook’ I’ve-been-to-therapy song which serves as the perfect introduction for those unfamiliar with the Bristol outfit’s blend of emo and power pop. Committed to offering honest dispatches from the trials of mental health, wide open in their vulnerability but armed with the power of noisy catharsis. ‘Voice in Your Head’ is sincere in its message, wry in its tone, and ultimately empowered by the realisation that you can learn to live with your thoughts. “I could fucking destroy you or be your best friend,” sings the titular being in the chorus. “I’m here ’til you’re dead.”

talker – Don’t Want You To Love Me (Oceanator Remix)

“Indie rock with glitter all over it,” that’s how Celeste Tauchar describes the talker sound. Last year’s In Awe of Insignificance showed off the style in all its vivid glory, working to elevate Tauchar’s moody, emotionally-driven vocals. Following on from the success of the release, talker is putting out a brand new EP of remixes, with offerings from the likes of Overcoats and FRENSHIP. Latest single sees VSF fav Oceanator reimagine ‘Don’t Want You To Love Me’, adding gauzy textures over the clarity of the original without losing any of the sound’s urgent motion.

Zoon – Manitou

‘Manitou’ is the second single from Bekka Ma’iingan, the forthcoming sophomore record by Daniel Monkman’s Zoon on Paper Bag Records. Regular readers will by now be familiar with Monkman’s work, an ever-evolving sound rooted in shoegaze that explores themes of activism and Indigenous experience. The new song continues this trajectory, a lush orchestral piece that strips any notion of shoegaze back to its bare bones, emotional swells rising up amidst the atmosphere of lingering melancholy. “‘Manitou’ is about the group of friends I had growing up in Selkirk Manitoba,” Monkman explains. “We’d run a cross the red bridge and have fires and drink. Our little piece of heaven.” But far from a simple rose-tinted exercise in nostalgia, ‘Manitou’ reflects on the difficulties of that time too, acknowledging struggles and vowing never forget friends lost before their time.

And live out your youth
And all the stars shine fine
And keep this close to me
And live out your youth

Bekka Ma’iingan will be released by Paper Bag Records on 28th April and you can pre-order it now from the Zoon Bandcamp page.

The post Weekly Listening: February 2023 #4 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.

The idea feels pertinent in These Unprecedented Times, especially when faced with the slew of so-called prescient media. Movies about natural disasters and pandemics, TV shows of protest and violence. Music too, the singles from Protomartyr’s Ultimate Success Today emerging as though timed to fit into the news—disease, death, brutality. But to assign these pieces clairvoyance is to miss the point entirely. The end of the world is not some snap cataclysm. The writing has long been on the wall.

With its apocalyptic imagery and sense of lurking doom, Things I Never Said by Oceanator is another such example. The debut full-length of Elise Okusami, released by Plastic Miracles and Big Scary Monsters, is all the stranger for the fact it was recorded two years ago, delayed by label issues and other problems to eventually be released into a reality as close to its imagined world as we’ve ever witnessed. “There’s a crack in the world,” Okusami sings on a song of the same name. “and we’re all hanging on, hanging on trying not to fall through the void.”

Like the aforementioned Protomartyr record, Things I Never Said is album of endings. It’s there from the opening track, suitably titled ‘Goodbye, Goodnight’. The sense that a chance has been missed, the time for repairs and atonement somewhere in the rear-view. The presiding emotion of ‘A Crack in the World’ is the desertion of tangible answers. “It’s all as confusing as ever,” Okusami sings, “and every day adds something new.” That sense of progression has been lost, things are not destined to improve.

And I’m still trying my best
you know it keeps getting harder and harder every day
when you see the news on the TV, on the radio
but i’ll keep trying to keep the skies blue anyway

Where Oceanator stand apart is in how they choose to direct the energies of this dread. Protomartyr’s Joe Casey, the patron saint of us wry pessimists, finds no way out, but Okusami at least tries, if only to use the approaching dark to accentuate the remaining glimmers of light.  The chaotic rumble of ‘Hide Away’ retreats from the climate’s breakdown, but finds catharsis in the numbered days too. The runaway rhythm of ‘Heartbeat’ finds solace, even joy, in the presence of cherished relationships. As though in returning to the personal there might be some respite.

The cool taut motion of ‘I Would Find You’ goes further still, rising to the challenge of the end to promise compassion and unity in the face of the very worst. This spirit follows through the back half of the album with tracks like ‘Walk With You’, and culminates in ‘Sunshine’, the most positive and determined song on the record. Oceanator suggest that, though there may be no hope in the future, there can be hope in other things. In solidarity, in the present. In dreams if nothing else. And, like Baudrillard’s nightmares made real, who is to say that a strong enough dream, envisioned by enough people, might not come down to us?

Things I Never Said is out now via Plastic Miracles and Big Scary Monsters and is available from the Oceanator Bandcamp page in a variety of formats.

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Various Small Flames’

Songs of 2017

Anamon – Kneel Old
Android Automatic – Dark Roads*
Angie McMahon – Slow Mover
Basement Revolver – Johnny Pt. 2
Baxter Roy Long – Paribanou
Bea Troxel – Let Them Know
Big Thief – Mary
Black Belt Eagle Scout – Soft Stud
Bully – Running
Cayetana – Mesa
Charly Bliss – Percolator
Chastity Belt – Different Now
CHUCK – Happy Birthday
The County Liners – Maria
The Courtneys – Tour
Craig Finn – God in Chicago
Crumb – Locket
Crushing – Emery Board
Cut Worms – Like Going Down Sideways
David Bazan – Care
Distant Reader – First Try
Emperor X – God Save Coastal Dorset
Fits – Ice Cream on a Nice Day
German Error Message – 2017*
Gleemer – Soothe Me
Great Grandpa – Favorite Show
Haley Heynderickx – Oom Sha Lala
Hiccup – Teasin’
Horse Culture – Texaco
Illuminati Hotties – ‘(You’re Better) Than Ever’
Japandroids – No Known Drink or Drug
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – If We Were Vampires
Jay Som – The Bus Song
Jeremy Squires – Night Cars
Katie Ellen – Drawing Room
Lizzie No – Monuments
Lomelda – Bam Sha Klam
Mike Pace and the Child Actors – Audits & Surveys
Meursault – The Mill
Mount Eerie – Crow
Nice Legs – Mighty Three
Oceanator – Nowhere Nothing
Ohyeahsumi – Daisy
Old Earth – Pit Dynamics
PASTEL – Stammer
Peter Silberman – New York
Phoebe Bridgers – Motion Sickness
Pope – Talk Me Out of It
Protomartyr – Windsor Hum
Rainwater – Place
Ratboys – Elvis is in the Freezer
Rick Rude – Bald & Fat in Houston, TX
Roadkill Ghost Choir – Classics (Die Young)
Rose Dorn – Dirt
See Through Dresses – Lucy’s Arm
Shannen Moser – A Funeral, A Friend, My Sanity
Sinai Vessel – Died On My Birthday
Slaughter Beach, Dog – Phoenix
SOAR – Fort Funston
Soft Fangs – Jordan // Jackson Elementary
Spartan Jet-Plex – We Believe
Strange Ranger – House Show
Strawberry Runners – Garden Hose
Timid, The Brave – Alice
Us and Only Us – Bored of Black
Vagabon – Cold Apartment
Viewfinder – Instant Moonlight
The Washboard Abs – Veil
Waxahatchee – Never Been Wrong
Wild Pink – Albert Ross
William Ryan Fritch – In Our Blood
The Wooden Sky – Swimming in Strange Waters
Ylayali – Cherry Tomatoes

*Strictly released in 2016, but barely, and we covered it in Jan. 2017.

If you missed it, you can see our Favourite Albums of 2017 list here. Also, the curious can find such lists from previous years here.

The post Favourite Songs of 2017 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The aforementioned single opens the release, starting out as “a slow, warm folk song sung in a tone somewhere between forlorn and contemplative” and escalating across its length into a fierce, grungy rock song that signs out in a “maelstrom of noise.” This coupling of introspective reflection and boisterous intensity quickly establishes itself as the Oceanator trademark. ‘Baby Won’t You’ is completely different sound-wise yet established from the same spirit. It’s something to do with anger, and something to do with strength, and something to do with the frustration borne of always having to be angry and strong.

“So don’t try to tell me your gun isn’t fucking loaded
‘cause you still brought it out to scare me.
And I don’t need your comments or your so called compliments
so please won’t you fucking spare me
When you and your friends scream at me from your open car window
When i’m just trying to ride my bike
It’s not alright”

Which isn’t to say the EP is seven variations on a theme. Okusami’s versatility circumvents the problem through sheer imagination and range. ‘Afternoon’ and ‘Sunrise’, although bouncy pop songs on the surface, contain enlightening lyrics full of hopes and expectations rather than realities. The prospect of these versions not coming to pass provides an implicit desperation and sadness, and gives the songs texture and depth that goes far beyond anything that could be described simply as “pop”. Thus, the tracks both expand the Oceanator horizons and avoid undermining the other songs on the release. Conversely, ‘I Don’t Mind’ and ‘First Sight’ are restrained folk songs, the former containing a cynical sort of honesty, the latter allowing a certain degree of romance into the cracks of a failing relationship, both songs stylistically apart form some of the album’s other tracks, but made of the same pure elements.

Closer ‘Fall Back Down’ is the polar opposite, a long, brooding track which eventually tops the noise and intensity of ‘Nowhere Nothing’. It’s a fittingly powerful end to a great collection of songs.

So if I fall all the way back down, I’m taking you with me.
If we have to be underground, then I don’t wanna do it alone.
Everything coming down around us, crumbling at the slightest touch
Take my hand, we’ll go out together

EP is out now and you can grab it from the Oceanator Bandcamp page.

The post Oceanator – EP appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. Fire – Mal Devisa
2. wild fire/flowers – Trust Fall
3. Home Alone – Max Gardener
4. Your Love – Jeremy Squires
5. Veins – Camp Howard
6. How To Dance – Mount Moriah
7. Good Evening – Adeem the Artist
8. Shallow – Candy
9. Francie Cool – Francie Cool
10. Bad Vibes – Zebrafi
11. Piece of Ivy – Jake Bellissimo
12. Snow Day – Julia Brown
13. Alive – Dear Tracks
14. Ted the Radical Westy – Ravetank
15. ft1 – naps
16. We Have The Perimeter Surrounded – Hallelujah the Hills
17. Bullet in a Broken Gun – Oscar Lush
18. Color Peels – The Wandering Lake
19. Nowhere Nothing – Oceanator
20. Suagr Skull – The Washboard Abs
21. Of Wandering – Littler
22. bicycle – Twelve Gardens
23. Ya Ya Ya – You Won’t
24. Find You – Family Video
25. Jack Campbell (Quick Jammer) – Dingus.
26. Candy – Fish Food
27. It May Very Well Do – 100 Watt Horse
28. Life – Whim
29. Meg – Hovvdy
30. Piano Player – The Hotelier
31. Calvary – Chris Bathgate
32. Postman – Sam Moss

The post March 2016 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The track begins as a slow, warm folk song sung in a tone somewhere between forlorn and contemplative, though soon morphs into something more dramatic. Starting with the middle verse, where Okusami’s guitar and vocals slow like a steadying breath, the song slowly emerges into something wider and richer and full of impassioned life, all culminating in the maelstrom of noise that sees the track out.

“Close your eyes
we’ll take the first step at the same time
into that dark unknown
beyond these bulbs
if we ever emerge again
think of what we’ll tell them
when we were nowhere, we were nothing”

You can grab the track on a pay-what-you-can basis now on the Oceanator Bandcamp page, and be sure to keep your eyes peeled for any future releases.

The post Oceanator unveils debut track, Nowhere Nothing appeared first on Various Small Flames.