Originating from Asheville, North Carolina and now based in Los Angeles, Adriana McCassim introduced her distinctive brand of folk rock back in 2020 with the EP Quiet Sides. It was a release equal parts visceral and ethereal which looked for sparks of beauty and solidarity amid difficult circumstances. With debut full length See It Fades coming next year, McCassim has shared the new single ‘TOUCH’. A track which builds upon the previous releases, stripping out all excesses to place the vocals front and centre, left to work through unreciprocated desire with nothing to hide behind. “This song is about finally allowing myself to take up space,” McCassim explains. “To be naked, ugly and loud.”

Arima Ederra – Steel wing

Discovering the Ethiopian spiritual music mezmur in a Las Vegas Ethiopian Orthodox Church during childhood, Arima Ederra was convinced of the power of music from an early age. Her work since 2016 debut Temporary Fixes has been geared towards capturing this joyous, healing force, and latest album An Orange Colored Day feels like the most confident yet, applying everything learned from a life steeped in music to process any and every pressing issue at hand. Single ‘Steel wing’ is a good place to start for a window into what this entails, its inventive and relaxed style imbued with an infectious, toe-tapping rhythm, inviting you in to sit a while and leave your concerns at the door.

Credit Electric – summit sipper

Fresh from single ‘here 4 u‘ on the Royal Oakie Records tenth anniversary compilation, Bay Area outfit Credit Electric have released their latest full-length record, out of love in the face of a shadow. Germinating within the limitations imposed by the global pandemic, the album represents a new era for the Credit Electric style, their moves to adapt to the novel conditions opening up new avenues of inquiry. Which is how the liner notes can describe the album as one drawing from acts as diverse as Hiroshi Yoshimura, American Football, Dire Straits and Magnolia Electric Co. Single ‘summit sipper’ is just one snapshot of this style, a laidback yet affirming pop number penned after a hike in the Sierra Nevadas, overcoming mountains both figuratively and literally to delve into themes of resilience and recovery.

Denitia – My Weakness

We’ve previewed Highways, the new album from Denitia, a few times in recent months, first with the title track in April and then ‘All the Sweet Tea‘ a little later. Wrapped in a wistful atmosphere, the latter “tap[ped] into bluegrass sensibilities to evoke the American landscape in all its nostalgic idealism,” we explained, and served as an introduction to the bittersweet tone of the album and Denitia’s quest to reimagine the concept of home. Final single ‘My Weakness’ sits at the heart of the record, another track of conflicted moods which possesses real depth beneath its controlled burn.

Grace Hellen – Bubblegum Pink

Hailing from the coast of North Carolina and now based in Nashville, singer-songwriter Grace Hellen cut her teeth in jazz and bluegrass but is now turning toward a more indie pop/rock style. Latest single ‘Bubblegum Pink’ is a great introduction to this aesthetic. A combination of psych and surf sensibilities laid over pop tones sweet enough to live up to its title, though the sugary energy belies the tension beneath the surface. “Bubblegum pink when you spit in the sink this morning,” Hellen sings, twisting the tone. “Flash forward, last night’s an empty dream.” Because this is a song “about fighting depression with hyper-femininity and candy-coated optimism,” as Hellen describes it. As though to keep moving is to stay ahead, no matter how exhausting.

‘Bubblegum Pink’ is out now and available to stream from the usual places.

h. pruz – what a long way i’ve come to be destroyed

h. pruz is the recording alias of Brooklyn-based Hannah Pruzinsky, who will soon release debut EP again, there via oof records. Lead single ‘old car’ introduced the style, which finds emotional power in a gentle, intimate hush. Now h. pruz has unveiled the record’s second single, ‘what a long way i’ve come to be destroyed’, another folk-slash-bedroom-pop song that burns with quiet intensity. Lyrically sparse, the song captures one of the EPs main themes—of recognising life’s cycles and rhythms and the feeling of uncertainty experienced after breaking out of them and moving on.

Jenny O. – The Natural World

Following on from ‘Prism‘, a single we described as allowing “us to see fine cracks in a seemingly unscalable wall of disempowerment, and begin to realise we might not be completely helpless after all,” Jenny O. is back with a brand new single on Mama Bird Recording Co. No less ambitious and heartfelt, ‘The Natural World’ confronts the ecological emergency from a new angle. Turning away from the usual visions of doom and destruction to instead offer a vision of what might be. “This is a declaration of wonder and reverence for the living Earth,” Jenny O. explains. “As we phase out fossil fuels, the way through the climate crisis is by the regeneration of this planet’s incredible natural systems. This song is for alignment with life on Earth (including one another). The future requires us to consider everything and everyone; love and curiosity are key.” Check out the suitably celebratory video filmed and edited by Sam Gezari below:

‘The Natural World’ is out now via Mama Bird Recording Co. and available from Bandcamp.

Joe McCarthy and the Faders – Hey Dom

With new release Outpost Truck Stop out later this week, Joe McCarthy and the Faders have unveiled new single ‘Hey Dom’ to raise the anticipation. An ode to friendship, the track captures the road trip spirit of the EP. One following in the footsteps of Craig Finn or The Boss himself, built on a togetherness and camaraderie which faces down life’s difficulties through equal parts compassion and momentum. The result is bittersweet but undeniably joyous, and better yet its triumphant energy invites the listener along for the ride. Check out the video edited by Zach Pulls below:

You’re just as dumb as me
And we’re as thick as thieves when we can stand
Hey dom!
Why don’t you take my hand

Outpost Truck Stop is out on the 21st October and you can pre-order it now.

Poolblood – shabby

Back in July we wrote about ‘twinkie‘ by Poolblood, their first single since signing with Next Door Records. Now the project (Toronto‘s Maryam Said) has announced their debut album, mole, which will release early next year. To celebrate the announcement, Poolblood has unveiled a brand new single ‘shabby’, a song which they says “celebrates the intimacy of friendship.” Fittingly then, the song is reflective and introspective, pairing bedroom pop sincerity with just the faintest hint of country twang. There is also a video featuring friends and collaborators Shamir and Drew Harmon, which you can watch below:

mole will be released on 13th January and you can pre-order a copy from the Poolblood Bandcamp page.

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

Now Michael Cormier is back with a brand new album, More Light!!, a co-release between Dear Life Records and Oof Records which explores similar ideas with a newfound creative assurance and, yes, brightness. For while anxiety and existential woe make up much of the record’s raw material, in Cormier’s hands it is illuminated from within, highlighting small sparks of joy and wonder in even the most distressing circumstances.

Michael was kind enough to answer some questions about the record. Read on for more in-depth insight into psychedelic insomnia, the relationship between fear and beauty, and that striking cover art.

Hi Michael, thanks for speaking with us. How does it feel to be putting another record into the world?

I feel a mix of emotions. I really love making albums, but the release cycle leaves me feeling pretty gutted. This campaign has been particularly drawn out. The record was totally wrapped back in October of 2020, announced six months later in April of 2021 and is now being heard in its entirety in June. Running a label, I recognize all the moving parts that go into releasing an album, but as an artist it can get to be tiresome. After this process, I am excited to work on some improv projects that can be shared more immediately with a little less (self-imposed) pressure. That’s what I say now, but records always have a way of sneaking up on me.

In a conversation with Wendy Eisenberg, you talked about having a “fermentation period” when writing, with sizeable periods of time between the music, the lyrics, the demos, but also how you maintain a degree of improvisation too. I’m fascinated by the interplay between immediacy and distance within this practice. Does the fermentation part allow for more freedom, a truer spontaneity in knowledge you’re not deciding there and then this is the track?

This is interesting to try to think about because I never consciously decided to work like this. Musical ideas come to me very fast, so I am often sitting on multiple records worth of “song bones,” which are just the contours of what could eventually be songs with lyrics or stand-alone instrumental pieces. These accumulate for some time then eventually I start demoing them. I improvise over the demos which can lead to final arrangement ideas or melodies that are later turned into the lead vocal melodies. By the time I am working on a final recording, I know the song inside and out, which I think allows for me to expound on ideas, throw some out, and follow whatever impulses arise during the session. I know none of it is fixed, because once I take a song to a band to perform live, I know it will change again and sound nothing like the recording.

I actually just played on a new record of Wendy’s, and working with them rewrote the script for me on how to approach recording. I had listened to their demos extensively, but I wasn’t even sure I was going to be playing on the music at all. I showed up as a supportive friend and they said “okay wanna lay down some drums?” It felt very much like a jazz session, with Wendy as the bandleader and me responding to the material in real time while the “tape” rolled. I hope to incorporate this sort of approach in my future work, whether it’s me playing along with myself or with fellow collaborators.

From the very first line (“I twitch before I sleep…”), there’s an anxiety that’s woven through the record, something that sits just beneath the gentle tones and lyricism. Did you set out to write something darker than your previous work? Or is it a product of these strange times we’re living through?

I am fascinated by how fear and beauty interact. My anxiety softens me in a way that allows me to feel more receptive to the transcendent, which can be powerful medicine to ward off the worst fears. Aesthetically, I am never looking for something to be 100% beautiful or 100% gruesome. I am way more interested in how darkness and light exist simultaneously in the same space. I wrote a lot about bars on this record because they feel like the perfect archetypal setting for the comingling of darkness and light. Dim yet iridescent. Solipsistic yet communal.

My fascination with these sorts of oppositions seems born out of a year that kept most of us in our homes, glued to our screens for reminders of human connection. This record doesn’t feel exceptionally darker than my other records though. Days Like Pearls is a lamentation that my childhood only exists in memories I am steadily losing access to. And M-F wrestles with how to give yourself wholly to a partner while working a shitty job makes such generosity feel impossible. The blending of melancholy with jubilation has become pretty central to my artistic output.

In contrast, the title More Light!! gives a very different impression, and the title track in particular focuses more on small pools of light that pop up in a sea of darkness. Could you expand a little on this relationship between light and dark?

I inadvertently alluded to this above, but ya this is my bread and butter! ‘Degradation’ and ‘Empty Mugs’ are both insomnia songs. Having bouts of insomnia felt pretty psychedelic, turning my house into a fucked-up hall of mirrors. Everything looked distorted and gross, exacerbated by the feeling that something was horribly wrong. But at the same time, it allowed me to notice things I’d never really paid attention to. How our neighbors had a chandelier in their dining room that was regularly left on throughout the night. The harsh floodlight our landlord put up on the corner of the house that cast everything in an unsettling pale blue.

Thinking about this, I am reminded how often lights cutting through darkness can be more unsettling than the darkness itself. I think that comes across on the record too, that the metaphor of darkness and light works both ways. There can be comfort in total darkness as there can be comfort in total light, and both can be obscured, disfigured, and manipulated. Songs like ‘Degradation’ and ‘Empty Mugs’, which take place at night, feel the most hopeful, whereas bright sunny songs like ‘Buggin’’ and ‘Yellow Sadness’ feel the creepiest to me.

On a related note, I have to ask about the cover art – who painted it and how much input did you have into the concept?

The cover was painted by Philadelphia-based horror artist Hayden Hall. His work adorns countless posters for VHS Film Festivals and album covers for metal records. I know he was inspired at an early age by the cover of Holy Diver by Dio. I had been a fan of his work for a while and knew I wanted the album cover to look like horror art, which often depicts its macabre subjects in excruciating detail.

I came to Hayden with a rough idea that fused the basic composition of the cover of Tom Waits’ Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, & Bastards with imagery inspired by the Northern Lights episode of the show Northern Exposure, a show I cherish deeply. In that episode, set in the darkness of the middle of an Alaskan winter, town DJ/local philosopher Chris steals light sources from people’s homes and workplaces. At the end of the episode, it’s revealed that Chris was constructing a massive art installation on Main St, a monolithic wall of lights. I sent Hayden a clip of the final scene of the episode where the piece is unveiled and asked him to riff on that for the cover with me in the foreground. His flourishes and style were exactly what I was hoping for. Follow Hayden on Instagram @sick_slice.

Although it’s a “solo” album, you had a lot of people contribute and collaborate. How did those connections come about, and was it difficult given the pandemic? What does this kind of collaboration bring to the record?

Honestly it was probably made easier due to the pandemic, because we were all stuck in our houses with not that much to do. Everyone who contributed did so remotely, including folks who I definitely couldn’t have had on the record because they don’t live anywhere near Philly. I really tried to leave a lot more open space than I usually do for the contributions of others. Most of the songs started as guitar, drums, and vocals, then I’d send them over to producer Lucas Knapp who immediately elevated the songs with his additions. I’d sprinkle some more ideas in after that, but each song seemed to demand the work of specific artists I love and trust. The collaborations felt really natural, and took very little management. Most everyone sent in parts that required very few if any notes.

You’re quoted as saying the record is ultimately “about treating our own perceptions as an artistic pursuit,” and I think the idea captures something at the heart of your music. A vulnerability that allows a sense of wonder. Annie Hart spoke of “play in the childish sense” when recording her latest record, and it got thinking of your work too. Childlike in the best possible sense. As open to joy as pain.

Annie’s record is super inspiring to me. We played a show together back in February of 2020, and I was instantly drawn to her work and personality. She exudes so much joy and kindness. She had talked to me later about starting work on instrumental synthesizer music. When the finished record came out, I couldn’t help but notice how teeming with life that music felt. That’s always the goal, to make music that is the embodiment of life the way we would like to live it. Annie was massively successful in that pursuit, and I feel like I am getting a little closer to that with every new project. It’s heartening to know that a childlike sense of wonder is intelligibly communicated on a record that explores my pervasive fear of aging and death.

More Light!! is out now on Dear Life Records and Oof Records. Get it on LP, CD, cassette or digital from the Michael Cormier Bandcamp page.

Photo by Meghan O’Leary, artwork by Hayden Hall

The post Michael Cormier – More Light!! appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The EP welcomes a variety of friends and collaborators too. Jacob Crofoot, Nick Sebastiano and Alenni Davis (Another Michael), Corey Witchlin (Spirit of the Beehive), Sean Hallock (Rozwell Kid), Sam Amidon and members of Hour all lend a hand, with mastering done by Stephen Steinbrink. Indeed, such a collaborative spirit is intrinsic to the Thank You Thank You sound, and something in which Bussey feels strongly. “I really do believe in community and lifting other people up, not as a concept, but as a daily practice,” he explains. “It comes just from loving music and wanting to make music with musicians you love. It’s as simple as that.”

Lead single ‘K P’ serves as the first taste of the Thank You Thank You style, and shows a shared creative process can result in a detailed and cohesive sound. The track explores the precarious and callous healthcare system in the US, and it is telling that its pervasive melancholy is underpinned by a biting urgency, a kind of desperation. “You always just see people crowdsourcing what they should do about some issue they’re having, because that’s their only choice,” Bussey says. “There’s this bleak, everyday cruelty of being left to fend for yourself or to rely on your friends and family for things that should just be basic, guaranteed rights, especially when we have more than enough resources to provide for everyone.”

when you’re asking everyone you know
what they do to get to sleep
everybody knows something that you don’t
‘there’s a million little tricks to it’
‘here’s another one you have to try’
am I the only one I know that doesn’t know
that never figured it out

Photo by Emily Burtner

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