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

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

Bleary – Foyer

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

Death Tennis – Racehorse

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

Frog – Dark Out

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

Golden Tiles – Peace

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

Josephine Illingworth – The Mythical

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

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

Motherhood – Kyle Hangs Ten

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

Nic Panken – Out in the Rain

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

villagerrr – Swimming

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

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

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

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

Having now signed with the good folks at Winspear, villagerrr is gearing up to release a new deluxe version Tear Your Heart Out, not only giving the album a much desired vinyl edition but also adding a handful of previously unreleased bonus tracks. Back in August we previewed the release with single ‘Ride Or Die w/ Lydia’ (“featuring feeble little horse‘s Lydia Slocum, the track is characteristically fond and compassionate,” we wrote, “sitting in that liminal space between summer and autumn, where the shadows grow long and the colours tend towards a sepia glow.”

And now villagerrr is back with another b-side ‘Portsmouth Raceway’ as the latest single. Drawing on the famous landmark of its title and the local River Days festival, the track is again a meditation on home and all of its bittersweet connotations, full of summer haze and humid nights yet loaded with a sense of risk too. “If you get mixed up / In this town you can end up stuck,” as Scott sings, “You can say that you made a mistake / Coming home, it’s this place that’s to blame.” Yet counter to this is a warning of the striving required to make it out, the race to be run in the city with its constant competition and everything such efforts require.

You can work real hard
in the city you can be a star
You can learn all the ways to behave
You can be in the front of the race
Picture yourself
at the top with no one else
In the desert on a horse with no name
You can win but you gotta play the game
No one’s coming back to save you

Watch the video by Trevor Hock below:

Tear Your Heart Out [Deluxe Edition] will be released via Winspear on the 10th October and you can pre-order it now.

The post villagerrr – Portsmouth Raceway appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Back in February we described how the music of self-described “depression pop band” bathtub cig lives up to the image of their name. “A project which looks to evoke those private moments of contemplation and small comforts,” as we put it, “be they born of wallowing or self-care.” With EP Good Mourning, I love you out now, bathtub cig are back with new single ‘Marry Me’, a perfect example of an album about loving in a time of loss. “Meet me at your mom’s, boyfriend’s old farm house,” as the song opens. “I’ll be in the field with crickets singing and the frogs.” And it is a testament to the writing that the song fits a number of relationships, doubling as both an ode to platonic friendship or bi love.

Caroline Strickland – Loving You Right

Writing last year, we described how the work of  New York-based songwriter Caroline Strickland combined abrasive energy and intimate tenderness to explore a gamut of conflicting emotions, and her latest single ‘Loving You Right’ builds upon the style expertly. The first taste of EP Martha’s Calling, which is forthcoming on Good Eye Records, the song looks to work through a period of uncertainty and distance through sheer momentum. “The thesis of the song is this,” as Strickland explains. “Mannequin Void. I felt like a hollow, plastic body, a frame, a pencil sketch. I said, ‘I wonder if someday I should take the time to break the MANNEQUIN VOID and give it one last try. Have I been loving you right?'” The mission to break this feeling is applied almost literally, the song gathering a head of steam as though Strickland plans to thrust herself into something hard at high speed in the hope of shattering that which imprisons her.

Martha’s Calling is coming soon via Good Eye Records.

Circus Trees – Trap Door

“Circus Trees makes music that doesn’t fit with their age, their gender, their living conditions;” explains the bio of the Marlborough, Massachusetts band. “They are young, they are sisters, they spend their lives in the wastelands of suburbia.” The sibling trio make a raucous, evocative brand of indie rock capable of evoking the sadness and frustration of suburban living. Coming later this month via Five By Two Records, new full-length This makes me sad, and I miss you shows how cathartic this style can be. Offering a hefty, emotionally charged sound, Circus Trees mine their own personal struggles for the universal experiences of pain, and in doing so invite the listener to burn off their own difficulties through the power of energy and sound.

This makes me sad, and I miss you is out on the 20th September via Five By Two Records and you can pre-order it now.

Dummy – Blue Dada

Last week saw the release of Free Energy, the new album from LA’s Dummy, on Trouble in Mind. The record is a wildly ambitious one, even for a band who have made a name for their creative spirit and left-field choices, taking the basic formula of 2021’s Mandatory Enjoyment and making everything bigger, better, weirder. Think shapeshifting psychedelia, insistent motorik rhythms, jangly guitar rock experimentation and looped vocals and catchy choruses straight out of smash hit electro pop. It’s an album impossible to capture in one song, but perhaps the best introduction is final single ‘Blue Dada’, which takes all of the above and wraps them in a coat of 90s throwback atmospherics. “This was one of the first songs that really came together for Free Energy,” Dummy describe, “with the idea of cross-wiring genres, between ambient dance music, á la Seefeel, and revved-up drone-pop, á la Dunedin sound. ”

Field Report – Trust In Movements Made

Back in 2023, LOTUS Legal Clinic—an organisation in Milwaukee which helps survivors of human trafficking and sexual violence by blending comprehensive civil legal services, victims’ rights representation and therapeutic arts programming—reached out to Field Report‘s Christopher Porterfield about being an artist-in-residence. The following period saw Porterfield work with five writers to create original music inspired by poetry they had written during the program’s creative writing workshops. The resulting five songs are being released as Trust In Movements Made, an EP released under the Field Report name but truly collaborative in practice. “I consider myself co-writer of these songs, along with the original authors,” as Porterfield explains. All proceeds from the release will be donated back to ensure LOTUS can continue their vital work.

Kid Tigrrr – Therapy

Singer-songwriter and visual artist Jenna Fournier made her name as the lead of Cleveland shoegaze outfit Niights, though after a couple of studio recorded albums and international tours, found herself wanting to explore a different kind of music, both in terms of process and style. Hence Fournier split from her record label and started out solo under the moniker Kid Tigrrr. She turned to home recording and production as an antidote to her previous studio experience, and uses the project as a vehicle to explore intensely personal themes and challenge stigmas around mental health, addiction and abuse. Debut album Stoned + Animald therefore represents a fresh start for an artist pining to work with a new level of intimacy, and latest single and album opener ‘Therapy’ is the ideal introduction.

Leif Vollebekk – Peace of Mind (Evening)

“As confident as it is poignant, furthering Vollebekk’s investigations into the deepest of themes. [Namely] the phenomenon of love as it stretches over time. Longing as some echo through the years.” That’s how we described ‘Southern Star’, the recent single from Leif Vollebekk‘s upcoming LP Revelation on Secret City Records. With the release fast approaching, Vollebekk is now back with new track, ‘Peace of Mind (Evening)’, an alternate version of a song on the record which lives up to its title with its golden crepuscular shine. ““This is the evening version of ‘Peace of Mind’,” Vollebekk explains. “This version isn’t even on the record. It just wanted to be its own thing…The melody came along fully formed right after I’d spent a few weeks’ vacation with my family. I rediscovered my solitude for the first time in a while. And, in the stillness, I sang about them. I dreamt a child placed a dandelion on my grave. For some reason, I awoke incredibly peaceful. What does that mean?”

Revelation is out on the 27th September via Secret City Records.

Leila Dandan – my room’s a mess

Hailing from Huntington Beach, California and currently based in Dallas, Texas, Leila Dandan is a songwriter who takes various vulnerabilities and stitches them into a blanket—something capable of offering comfort and protection if you are brave enough to wear it proudly. New single ‘my room’s a mess’ typifies the kind of song Dandan has made their own, embracing their own insecurities in an effort to overcome them. “I wrote this song amid a panic attack,” Dandan explains. “I was at a point where I felt like I couldn’t really tell anyone because I was afraid of being so vulnerable. I didn’t want people to see the mess because it felt embarrassing, but in reality, things wouldn’t have been so messy if I had let myself rely on others for a little help.”

‘my room’s a mess’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Meagre Martin – Never Thought

With Gut Punch, released last year via  Mansions and Millions, Berlin’s Meagre Martin showed off their evocative, politically aware style, from existential ‘The Big Death‘ to the nostalgic ‘Malcolm‘. With a string of appearances at the Reeperbahn Festival, Pop Montreal and Pitchfork London approaching in recent weeks, the band have put out a brand new single, ‘Never Thought’. An example of Meagre Martin’s more relaxed side, the song draws on elements of folk and blues to inform its languid indie rock style, though its seemingly easy-going vibe belies the doubt and desperation running through the lyrics. “‘Never Thought’ questions how well we know the people in our lives, and how our security in them can still be shaken even after years of knowing them,” the band explain. “The chords and melodies encircle and repeat, much like the rumination of thoughts in our heads.”

Moira Smiley x tUnE-yArDs – Go Dig My Grave

Though made popular as the lead single and opener of Lankum‘s most recent album, the song ‘Go Dig My Grave’ has a far longer history, with versions (often titled ‘The Butcher Boy’) stretching back to the 1920s and verses being taken from songs older still. Part of new album The Rhizome Project, Moira Smiley’s take on the track traces its roots back to the haunting Appalachian spirit of Jean Ritchie. Merrill Garbus (AKA tUnE-yArDs) helps craft the stark arrangement, where ominous strings simmer behind the vocals, charging the delivery with the desperation and fury of the song’s forsaken lead, what Smiley describes as “this beautiful, dissonant cry against a loss of bodily autonomy in 2022.”

The Rhizome Project is out now and available from the usual places.

Video Age – Record Shop

Last month we wrote about the release of a new version of Video Age‘s single ‘Out In The Country’ featuring Esther Rose, a reworking of a track which first appeared on the 2023 LP Away From the Castle. Now the New Orleans duo are back with ‘Record Shop’, the A-side of a 7″ single featuring ‘Out In The Country’ released as part of an expanded edition of Away From The Castle on Winspear. Described as “a theme song for record shop employees,” the track charts the days of a humble store clerk with all the lonely nobility of a modern cowboy. “I got my job at the record shop, I play the songs that I like a lot,” as the chorus goes, “My two girlfriends are a broom and mop / And they dance with me when the needle drops.”

The post Weekly Listening: September 2024 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

To keep the devil in me
From her big top, one-man show
A little slip, a little kiss
A little tumble, and a dive-
Head first into a tidal pool
much too shallow to survive

To celebrate the six month anniversary of GOOSE, Mol Sullivan has returned with a brand new video for the single ‘Cautiously’. Directed by Sullivan herself along with Josh Evert, the video pushes further into the emotional landscape of the track to bring to life the paradoxical sensations at the end of a relationship, where everything is at once too physical yet somehow intangible too. “The concept for the ‘Cautiously’ music video came about after experiencing a series of depressive freezes after a partner had moved out of the house,” Sullivan explains:

I realized while I stood motionless in my living room for what seemed like twenty minutes, that I had been suspended in several little vignettes around the house that day—locked in a stare, mind blank—while trying to put the pieces of my life back together. Some of these scenes are mid-action, attention taken away from whatever activity, caught in that state of being firmly planted while somehow slipping out of body.

GOOSE is out now and available from the Mol Sullivan Bandcamp page.

The post Mol Sullivan – Cautiously appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Spoils rise from within this strange space, looking not so much to answer to the question as provide another outlier to an already crowded group. New EP Nothing For A Man, out on the 18th August via Happy Families, reaches across the decades in terms of influence. The nineties rear its head, with echoes of the punky power pop catchiness of that dog and some of their grungier contemporaries, though the sound could slot just as easily next to Soccer Mommy, Spirit of the Beehive or indeed any number of the current wave of indie rock and pop. “Mostly, our music is an answer to living in the Midwest,” explains lead Nina Payiati. “We love it here. The landscape of Ohio feels very lush, vast, closely integrated with nature and sky. The culture is pleasant, it feels rooted in history and community, our music is a part of that quilt.” Ultimately, “it’s Ohio style.”

Lead single ‘Come Closer’ gives a taste of the sound. A meditation of post-pandemic living which simmers and twitches and croons, its tone at once bummed out and strangely triumphant. As though in the aftermath of isolation, every bittersweet detail of the community takes on a new shine.

The post Spoils – Come Closer appeared first on Various Small Flames.

We first wrote about Nashville duo Angel Saint Queen back last summer, describing single ‘Diable Lake’ as “a track which highlights the duo’s bittersweet tone, capturing a sadness for leaving and excitement for what comes next.” Latest single ‘You Were There’ is no less conflicted in its tone, evoking the strange blend of sadness and relief left in the wake of a break-up. Though sound’s raw energy embraces the emotion wholeheartedly, building from restrained beginnings into a blaze of feeling. One last conflagration at the end of a fiery relationship before the new dawn arrives.

‘You Were There’ is out now and available from the usual places.

bugcatcher – Desert

The recording project of Rochester‘s Jake Denning and a variety of friends, Bugcatcher operates within the slacker end of the alt-country spectrum, though crafts its DIY aesthetic with a precise hand. With an album coming soon, the outfit have released new single ‘Desert’, a song which both serves as an ode to the titular landscape and a search for meaning within an otherwise barren milieu. “I’m going across the desert / I’ll find the holy land myself,” Denning sings, buoyed by the understated rhythm of the sound. “I’m going across the desert / Got my soul for all my wealth.”

Running across the desert
The walls of Jordan are calling me
Going across the desert
Where dinosaur bones are buried in sleep

C.J. Red Mouth – Red Line

With EP Greenhouse on the horizon, C.J. Red Mouth (AKA Durham, North Carolina songwriter C.J. Yang) has unveiled brand new single, ‘Red Line’. The EP centres on the search from freedom within restrictive systems and relationships, and the single typifies the building catharsis which results. A reflection on an old commute, the slow creeping sound evokes the grimy dark of the Boston subway with guitar from June Isenhart (Miss Bones). The track gathers momentum as though quite literally barrelling toward the light at the end of the tunnel, culminating in an ecstatic finale complete with primal screaming.

Scream over the roaring dark
Scream until I hear myself

Daneshevskaya – Somewhere in the Middle

When Anna Daneshevskaya Beckerman took her Russian-Jewish middle name as the moniker for her songwriting project, she did so with significant intention. Daneshevskaya is also the surname of her grandmother, a poet who helped to cultivate her granddaughter’s creative sensibilities, and ultimately served as great inspiration for Beckerman’s own voice. In this way, Daneshevskaya represents a continuation of her grandmother’s vocation, though one processed through Beckerman’s own distinctive eye for detail, spinning off from poetry into vivid indie rock. Released to celebrate signing with Winspear and an imminent tour supporting Black Country, New Road, new single ‘Somewhere in the Middle’ is the ideal introduction for the uninitiated. A curious, searching song which broaches the subject of identity from an unguarded, almost child-like perspective. “My grandma had two sisters and her parents would say ‘Anita has the looks, Miriam has the books, and Gloria has the charm’,” Beckerman explains. “I used to think about which one I would want to be. I never questioned having to choose.” Watch the video by Mia Duncan below:

‘Somewhere in the Middle’ is out now via Winspear and available from Bandcamp.

Dustin Mayle – Saturn’s Last Ring

Ohio songwriter Dustin Mayle recently released latest album Dear Loretta, a collection of songs which fall into the DIY folk tradition but nevertheless achieve a tangible richness despite their lo-fi leanings. Take single ‘Saturn’s Last Ring’, its intimate acoustic style periodically coalescing into something bigger and bolder before unwinding to its former state just as quickly. Mayle’s vocals add an opaque lyricism, nodding towards the mythic undertones of Jason Molina or Adrienne Lenker, catching onto a repeated refrain as the instrumentation swells, as though having tapped into some kind of incantation.

Hannah Cameron – Smells Like Leaving

Later this year, Naarm / Melbourne singer-songwriter Hannah Cameron will release Holding Pattern, her third studio album. Recorded with producer Matt Redlich in his studio alongside longtime collaborators Luke Hodgson (bass) and Leigh Fisher (drums), the album was written largely on baritone guitar. This is immediately apparent on latest single ‘Smells Like Leaving’, a sombre slow burner that details a post-breakup road trip with wistful pedal steel and evocative lyrics that read like staccato poetry. Watch the very apt video, shot by Cameron herself, below:

The blink and dash
The petty cash
The cigarette that’s burned to ash
Smells like leaving

Holding Pattern releases on 22nd September. Pre-order a copy from the Hannah Cameron Bandcamp page.

Laura Zarougian – Cairo

Self-described as “one part Armenian cowgirl and one part indie rock,” the music of Laura Zarougian draws on everything from mystical desert rock to the wistful classics of Emmylou Harris and Neil Young in order to tell the story of her forebears. New single ‘Cairo’ applies this to the city of its title, casting Egypt as a distant, almost mythical place, one constructed from old tales and holding secrets too. “My father was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt,” Zarougian explains. “What I know of Cairo is from the stories—the ones my father told me, and the ones that were withheld.”

We don’t have the money to bring his body up the Nile
you will marry an older man, remember to smile
Cairo, you’re a gilded frame,
yeah you’ve got the man beguiled
we’re headed on an aeroplane
we won’t see you for a while

I can tell you’re hiding something,
look at you I know you’re bluffing

Nymphlord – Bougainvillea

A combination of “radio-ready pop hooks” and “a ferocious feminist punk energy,” that’s how we described the music of Nymphlord back in May, along with “an ethereal experimentalism that sees acoustic guitar become otherworldly.” With the release of EP Mothers Cry And Then We Die. fast approaching, the LA-based artist has unveiled a brand new single, ‘Bougainvillea’. A song which blurs hectic energy with a downbeat emotional state to paint a subversive picture of California, drawing equally from retro surf rock and contemporary pop to undermine the sunny stereotypes. A landscape where even the prettiest things have teeth.

Hot day
Muggy day
Same thing
Always
I still feel so cold in LA

Mothers Cry And Then We Die. is out on the 25th August and you can pre-order it now.

Wandering Summer – Show Me The Way

Wandering Summer, the new project of Geddy Laurance (Boyracer, City Yelps, Wonderswan), might be rooted in its Leeds home, but it certainly reaches far and wide to bring the sound to life. An amalgamation of bouncy energy and nostalgic fuzz which owes more to New York noise bands or Californian and Glaswegian pop than anything coming out of Yorkshire. Though as their self-titled EP shows, there’s something particular to the sound that marks its place in the world. An ability to evoke both rolling fields and endless terraced housing, simultaneously embracing its surroundings and dreaming of escape. Single ‘Show Me The Way’ sits at the popppiest end of the Wander Summer style, where wistful fondness is only matched by the sense of eager forward motion.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2023 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Expect lots of sunny acoustic guitar and three-way vocal harmonies, something on full display on the two initial singles—piano-led opener ‘Rina’ and pastoral folk song ‘Babe’. Latest single ‘Harriet Ann’ follows suit, built from Dotson’s fingerpicked acoustic guitar, Schwab’s subtle slide guitar and vocals, led by Richards, that ache despite the song’s sweet nature. It sounds as good now as the day it was recorded, a testament to the band’s skill as songwriters and musicians. “I used to tell my son, ‘You can play all the hot licks, be the Eddie Van Halen of your neighborhood, but nothing will last as long as a good song,” the elder Schwab says, reflecting on the songs’ enduring nature. “We didn’t have the ability to properly record in 1975, but Ben reminded me that it’s the quality of the songs that matters, not the recording.”

The Lost Tapes will be released by Earth Libraries on 30^th June. Pre-order it now via Bandcamp.

The post Mad Anthony – Harriet Ann appeared first on Various Small Flames.

While fighting this battle, Mol Sullivan began to self-produce a record with the help of collaborator Alessandro Corona. After getting sober, the pair moved in together and Sullivan’s work began to change its focus. Taking inspiration from the likes of Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor, she swapped her guitar for a keyboard and began to experiment with her vocal range, testing its limits as a means to convey her emotions in the most radically candid way possible. And that’s where the magic happened. The new instrument and wildly untethered vocals (as Sullivan put its, she began to “howl a bit”) allowed her to process the pain of the previous years and finally purge these songs from her system.

Which isn’t to say these are difficult tracks to listen to. As we described in a preview last year, Mol Sullivan specialises in “earnest and unflinchingly intimate songs leavened with pop melodies and confident vocals,” and A Little Hello has plenty of bounce and sparkle to carry the emotion of its subject matter. The opening title track is a case in point, a lilting pop song with a stop-start whirligig energy that allows Sullivan to showcase her unique delivery and ear for the unexpected. The perky opening is undercut by the slow ache of the second half, which gradually gains momentum as if lofted twirling on a warm updraft.

Despite its sedately groovy surface, there’s a something of a tumultuous atmosphere on ‘Frontrunner’, as Sullivan reflects on a past relationship, the lyrics flitting around like persistent anxious thoughts as she asks “Was it a fling? Was it a front? / Was I a placeholder?” Conversely, ‘We Held Up the Sky’ has a velvety richness, unfurling with a slowness that could suggest romance or heartbreak, depending on the listener, while ‘Golden’ feels somehow both spacious and cozy, suffused with the vastness and intimacy of a summer sunset.

Another standout is the record’s second single ‘Bury the Hatchet’, which further encapsulates its blend of raw emotion and quirky irreverence. What Sullivan describes as “campy, moody, lush, and catchy (all at the same time),” the song is not quite as direct an earworm as the title track, beginning in ruminative fashion before building into a bracingly open examination of a dysfunctional relationship. “How can we bury the hatchet when you’re keepin’ it hidden?” Sullivan asks of an evasive partner in the opening lines. “How can we unearth the truth and still find room for forgivin’?”

But she still finds room for some cathartic fun too, with inventive melodies and even a genuine, capital-Y yeehaw. The music video, created by Sullivan with help from Joey Allen, Olivia Meade and Loren McNames, illustrates the atmosphere perfectly, the austere shots of the first scene morphing into something far sillier after an early twist. Check it out below:

The questions Mol Sullivan poses on ‘Bury the Hatchet’ get at something deep at the heart of the album. Prompts intended to instigate communication. An open-hearted sharing of the fears, quirks and mistakes we all possess. All in the hope the act of posing these questions might better equip herself for the whatever lies ahead, and furthermore offer some hard-won knowledge to others to encourage mutual support. As we described of closing track ‘Deep End Dive’ in a preview, A Little Hello “is the sound of a clear mind piercing the storm clouds of the past and allowing more positive progress into the future.”

A Little Hello is out on 3rd February via Ruination Record Co. Order it now from the Mol Sullivan Bandcamp page.

The post Mol Sullivan – A Little Hello appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Enter The Wizard Clip, a brand new Dear Other record that might just be their most ambitious to date. The album is based around the historic exorcism in Middleway, West Virginia of the same name. “The truest ghost story ever told,” according to Rev. Alfred E. Smith, which started when a dying stranger appeared at the house of one Adam Livingstone asking for a Catholic priest, though passed away before one could be found. The usual phenomena followed—disembodied voices, broken crockery, snuffed candles without apparent cause—as well as a more distinctive detail. The disticntive sound of heavy shears, and people reported half moon shapes being cut into the fabric of their clothes.

Dear Other give this story its full due, each song detailing a development as explained in the maximalist titles. Take opener “Clip Mysterious. Sing in me Holy Ghost, and by the intercession of Servant of God Father Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, in me tell the tale of Adam Livingston, Early American, his passion, his house, his conversion to your Holy Church, in Jesus’ name, Amen! Amen!” But their lyrics push beyond the source material too, the opening line finding time to reference peer-reviewed papers and the Dreamworks Animation logo, pushing an already strange record into something pretty unique.

The tale unfolds with this blend of the playful and the eerie, Dear Other’s sense of humour shining through. “Let’s review the principle facts,” goes ‘Witches, Run!’ “You believe yourself under attack by a demon or a spirit that’s attached to your house.” But their attempts to banish the entity, all decidedly non-Catholic, fail miserably. “You try the Methodists? Of course you’ve tried the Methodists. You try the Presbyterians? Oh, but they didn’t help you none.”

The band’s own musings are no less funny. “I don’t think houses get haunted no more / ’cause everyone rents,” goes the opening verse of ‘Houses Haunted’. “It seems to me owning the thing is prerequisite / for a dead occupant / to take effect.” But however sharp and wry, the ironic overlay never undercuts the story, a feature of the band’s wholehearted commitment to the project at hand. What emerges instead is a picture of a haunting in all of its intricacies. A ghost shot through a prism and separated into its multitudes of meanings. Bizarre, disturbing, vaguely ridiculous. A matter of human fundamentals. Love and pride and terror and faith, not to mention epiphanies both dreadful and glorious.

The Wizard Clip is out now and you can get it from the Dear Other Bandcamp page.

The post Dear Other – The Wizard Clip appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Despite the tumult and uncertainty of the last eighteen months, Lost Tribe Sound persevered with Built Upon A Fearful Void, a subscription series that released 16 new albums between June 2020 and present. Releases from the likes of Claire Deak & Tony Dupé, Several Wives and William Ryan Fritch‘s Vieo Abiungo project formed a rich and varied response to a very difficult year.

Ever prolific, this month sees the start of a brand new Lost Tribe Sound subscription series—Salt and Gravity. The current schedule will see it unveil eight new full-length albums between now and February next year, with what the label promise to be “some of the most texturally pungent music we’ve ever released… the good stuff that makes your whole body hum versus just rattling around inside your head.”

The first release in the series is The Rise and Fall of the Melting World by Arrowounds, the experimental project of Athens, Ohio‘s Ryan S Chamberlain. The album forms something of a continuation of the previous two Arrowounds releases, forming an unofficial trilogy which explores Chamberlain’s role as a carer for a loved one being treated for cancer. While the previous two were claustrophobic and suffocating, The Rise and Fall of the Melting World feels deceptively spacious, as if Chamberlain is able to fill his lungs with air for the first time in too long.

Which is not to say this is a record of blue skies and sunshine. Badness lurks in the shadows, the dark waters of The Loneliness of the Deep Sea Diver puddle and pool and threaten to rise. More general concerns encroach across the six tracks too, reminders that personal crises do not insulate us against global ones. As the press release puts it “[the] overall climate of anxiety [in] the world… threatened to darken and pollute the soundscapes during their creation.” Opening track ‘Antarctica’s Spherical Anomalies Leave Residual Trails’ is the perfect example, pairing ambient recordings of birdsong with a leaden oppressive atmosphere and great rumbling cracks like the sound of icebergs calving into the ocean.

Chamberlain says The Rise and Fall of the Melting World is intended to explore the “aftermath and resurfacing” following the previous two records, and this sense manifests sonically. Songs like ‘Insect Dream Surfacing’ are thick with a shadowy surreal logic, but have pinpricks of lightness too, while ‘Maps to Where Poison Grows,’ feels quite literally like sailing through a tempest. But even as the wind roars, wooden beams creak and threaten to break, the vessel remains above water, refusing to succumb to its murky green depths.

But the sense of re-emergence is perhaps strongest on ‘Caverns of the Behemoth.’ The track is submerged in a briny gloom, but nevertheless emerges into a hidden grotto where there is air to breathe and the mineral drip of stalactites offer a monumental beauty. It captures something intangible that is present across the record, something about perseverance, about survival. It’s comforting only in that it exists, in the inherent rejection of the alternative that sits pale and limp on the kelp-strewn seabed. The most significant element is the systolic percussion, the constant steady pulse that rings in the ears as a reminder in the darkness that even this wreck is survivable.

The Rise and Fall of the Melting World releases on 27th August and you can order it now from the Arrowounds Bandcamp page. You can subscribe to the Salt and Gravity series via the Lost Tribe Sound Bandcamp page.

The post Arrowounds – The Rise and Fall of the Melting World appeared first on Various Small Flames.