“i am a water polo instructor and a horse rider / i’m a duplicator and a sex addict / i am an architect and a dog sitter.” So opens ‘water polo instructor’, the latest single from kids on coke by Swedish artist and poet daniel d. hedin. You might know Hedin as the force behind Le Days, which put out its own album Are You Here? back in February, but while that release offered a shadowy, almost orchestral style of melancholy, this is very different. ‘water polo instructor’ is a bare spoken word track which plays like something between a surprise voicemail and oral short story. The monologue of a character which not only digs deep into their personal identity but also their relationship with a significant other, as odd as it is lonely and packed with the kind of strange details which evoke a far wider story in the margins.

i am a wine drinker
a recovering consumerist
and a clown maker
i am a tv conductor
and a manuscript writer
i am a feet enthusiast
and a cat whisperer

Eliza Noxon – You

Songwriter Eliza Noxon has been working towards debut full-length Monsters With Bad Habits for a number of years, having last put out the EP Save Your Breath back in 2017. What began as an attempt to chart a fairly typical experience of growing up and leaving home soon became something else entirely, when the sudden loss of her brother completely changed her life. Written a little over a year after this bereavement, single ‘You’ finds Noxon still in the dark depths of loss, isolated by grief and unable to move beyond it. But it also represents the first steps towards that goal. “In writing this song, I found a way to scream and kick and channel all the rage and fear and loss that I felt into something I could use to connect with people,” she explains. “But, I think the song really came alive in the studio, with the addition of Jake Reed’s gorgeous, driving drums, and Pierre de Reeder’s masterful production. When I play or listen to the song today, It feels like a mass catharsis—I hear the voices of everyone who’s ever lost their person and had to figure out how to keep living with that hole in their heart.”

Hank Bee – Corner

The project of Liverpool-based Hannah Brown, Hank Bee is an outlet for a distinctive brand of indie rock that is very much influenced by folk and country traditions. “I liked the idea of an androgynous queer woman going by Hank,” Brown explains of the project’s name. “It harks back to male country singers of a certain era, but I’m not a man and I don’t make traditional country music. It makes me giggle to think of someone seeing the name and expecting a fella in a cowboy hat.” In January Hank Bee will release a sudden hankering, a five-song EP on Memorials of Distinction that promises to be the wider world’s introduction to an act that’s already well established in its hometown. Lead single ‘Corner’ is our first taste, what Brown says is about “that point of transition—being at the corner of something, at a crossroads,” but still sounds warm and welcoming to my ears.

Jeffrey Martin – 1519

“The climate is collapsing, diseases rising, robots striving to take over the globe, and still there’s not enough money for the people who actually need it,” we wrote of Jeffrey Martin‘s Thank God We Left The Garden back in 2023, and while his latest single ‘1519’ sets its sights on a different era entirely, it still looks to evoke something of the politics of the present day. Inspired by Buddy Levy’s book Conquistador about Hernán Cortés, the track looks to both occupy the mind of its colonial subject in all of its faults and folly, and draw lines to the forces of exceptionalism and greed which mark the present day. “From his own letters [Cortés] seemed blindly certain that his mission, no matter how brutal to the people he met in the Americas, was a righteous one,” Martin explains. “That with God and Spain on his side he was infallible. It made me wonder what we are blind to today that future historians might look back on in disbelief and disgust. ‘1519’ is an attempt to place myself on the boat, to stand next to Cortés, to feel him as a man instead of some unreachable, towering, historical figure.” The track is part of Alive July 25, 2025, new live album coming early next year on Fluff & Gravy Records.

Major Murphy – Like A Wrecking Ball

Following on from the success of 2024 mini album Fallout, Grand Rapids outfit Major Murphy have returned with brand new single ‘Like A Wrecking Ball’ on Winspear. The band have always been hard to pin down, Fallout, as we put it in our review, “stitching together a patchwork of styles into a cohesive album,” and the new track sees them lean closer than ever to folk and alt country. A bright if wistful acoustic number not afraid to take its time, slowly drawing the audience in with an easygoing rhythm before packing its emotional punch. And, clocking well over seven minutes, the track is certainly immersive, core members Jacob Bullard (vocals, guitar), Jacki Warren (vocals, bass) and Chad Houseman (drums) joined by Mark Lavengood (steel guitar, mandolin, percussion) and Dutcher Snedeker (piano, organ) to lift the sound towards its full richness.

Mol Sullivan – Dog

We featured Mol Sullivan numerous times last year, with album GOOSE landing itself a place among among our favourites of 2024. A record which “serves as a portrait of a person within the arc of great change […] written in the aftermath of a relationship and during a nascent sobriety,” as we wrote. “An artist moving forwards and looking back, reflecting on who they were and who they want to be, reaching beyond stories of love and addiction for a more nuanced picture of life.” Of course, such personal change rarely comes without support from others, and new single ‘Dog’ is an ode to one such crutch amid an otherwise tragic time. “This song is a love song to my dog who came into my life in the last year of severe alcoholism and was with me through the bitter days of early sobriety,” as Sullivan describes of the Americana-tinged track. “In May of this year, there was a horrific fire in my home on the same day as my mother’s funeral and we lost my partner’s dog to it. My partner and I had been working on my next record but decided to throw ourselves into the recording and release it early as a way to process our grief.”

Robber Robber – Talkback

Burlington, Vermont quartet Robber Robber made a splash in 2024 with the release of their debut record Wild Guess, Nina Cates, Zack James, Will Krulak and Carney Hemler rejecting genre conventions for something looser, instinctive and curious. Post-punk by way of art rock and a few other styles besides, the songs felt delivered straight from the central nervous system, all reaction and twitch and pure feeling. Having recently signed with Fire Talk, Robber Robber have shared new track ‘Talkback’ in celebration. A song which doubles down on the spontaneous, impulsive style of the previous record, Cates’s vocals spiralling over the wiry rhythm like the contents of a racing mind blown up and projected onto a wall.

Oops I thought you wouldn’t see this
Start into it
Think twice look again
If I had come to this, to this
It would’ve been the perfect talkback, perfect quip
Stand clap from all around,
Gold win
So quick, hard stop, land flat, good talkback,
Clever, quick, the double threat, I win

Watch the video directed and filmed by James and Cates themselves below:

Talkback is out now via Fire Talk and available from Bandcamp.

Zoya Zafar – Strange Heaven

We’ve followed the Lahore-born, Orlando-based songwriter Zoya Zafar for a number of years, applauding how she uses “a controlled, unadorned style to communicate a considerable depth of feeling.” Latest track ‘Strange Heaven’ is both another lesson in the power of minimalism, and proof that restraint need not sound austere or stark. “I wrote ‘Strange Heaven’ from the liminal place where grief turns memories into dreams and dreams into memories,” Zafar explains. “After losing my father, I dreamt of him in soft cinematic flashes that were pulled from both real life and invented by my mind.”

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

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

Having orbited around one another in the LA music scene for a short while, Derek Ted and Braden Lawrence gradually began to collaborate, helping one another with solo work, producing other artists, then eventually writing original material as a duo. The product of the relationship is beaming, a brand new project which will release its debut self-titled EP this June via Rose Garden, and lead single ‘slow sinkin’ gives a flavour of what to expect from the outfit. With Field Medic adding guest vocals, the track possesses all of the earnestness fans of Ted and Lawrence’s solo work will know well, the bright rhythm and heartfelt tone the sonic equivalent of shaking clarity into a clouded mind. “Lyrically, it’s about looking back on the past and how easy it is to get caught up in your own BS,” the band explain. “It’s our most acoustic track on the EP, and we wanted it to feel more natural and organic.”

Watch the video directed by Olivia Alonso Gough with cinematography and colour by Michael Greenwood below:

Beaming EP is out on the 13th June via Rose Garden and you can pre-save it now.

Bouquet – Hold On

Almost a decade since their previous album was released, LA-based dream pop duo Bouquet are preparing to unveil a brand new full-length. Consisting of interdisciplinary artist, writer and composer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs and songwriter and producer Max Foreman, the project made a name with a rich and romantic style that championed restraint within a genre often prone to excesses, and new single ‘Hold On’ represents a continuation of the style. With Pennypacker Riggs providing vocals and guitar and Foreman vocals, synthesizer and drum machine, the song is a lesson in precision, not drowning the audience in reverb and haze but instead beckoning them into its ethereal, wistful world.

Course – Hue Mirror

Led by Jess Robbins, Chicago synth pop outfit Course formed in the months before the pandemic, so adapting to challenging conditions has always been part of the project’s DNA. Their third album Hue Mirror is no exception. After suffering with chronic pain for years, Robbins was diagnosed with the autoimmune condition ankylosing spondylitis, and wrote the record within the vertiginous early days of processing the news. The lead single and title track introduces the tone of the record, one delivered with equal doses of tenderness and fear. “I wrote this song during the confusion and uncertainty of my future,” Robbins explains. “The song touches on the idea of how a medicine for this disease comes at a price, the pain I had been having for so long, and the sneakiness of not knowing when the next flare will come.”

You find me again
And again
Driving fear
Comes over me
In the light of pain

Hue Mirror is out on the 25th April and you can pre-order it via the Spondylitis Association of America, with all proceeds being donated to research.

Jess Kerber – I Wonder If I’ll Forget This

Born to musician parents, and a guitarist herself since the age of twelve, Nashville’s Jess Kerber makes warm and timeless songs that feel like worthy entries to the American folk tradition. New single ‘I Wonder If I’ll Forget This’ is a case in point, a wonderfully understated track that aches with real emotion. Kerber’s vocals are flanked by acoustic guitar and the barely-there texture of organ drone, an arrangement that allows the songwriting to shine through. It’s impressively mature, particularly in the way it combines genuine vulnerability with a sense of steadfast tenacity, a sensation Kerber likens to “the feeling of being little and learning to swim, grabbing the edge of the pool.”

‘I Wonder If I’ll Forget This’ is out now via Felte Records and is available on streaming services.

JLJR – Arms For Eyes

With new EP The Rest of Your Life coming soon via Paper Moon Records, JLJR has shared new single ‘Arms For Eyes’. Building upon the mix of emotion and narrative which marked the JLJR debut, the track adopts a tone both reflective and defiant to chart the end of a distinctive kind of relationship. One troubled and difficult to live through, yet equally one whose closure takes something from you too. “It’s a reflection on the disintegration of a bad friendship,” as JLJR puts it, “and the struggle to be yourself after someone robs you of part of your identity.”

‘Arms For Eyes’ is out now via Paper Moon Records.

Luah – Wanting You

“Something like a memory, or rather several memories superimposed. A way in which to not so much return to the past as view it more vividly, somehow striking in both its intimacy and remove. That place we long for but can never return to.” So we wrote of ‘Ocean O. (home 4 the holidays)’ by Brendan Paul Sullivan’s Luah back in January. It was a song which embodied the sincerity and heart of the project, not to mention the gentle patience with with emotion is brought to life. With album Some Blue Heaven coming next month, latest new single ‘Wanting You’ takes this sense of patience even further. A layered, slow burning psych folk song that taps into the rhythms of the diurnal cycle, moving from day to night as it progresses and gradually coalescing into something almost cosmic.

Molly Ganley – Comparisons

Last week saw the release of Eldest Daughter, the debut album from NYC indie folk artist Molly Ganley. Described as “a nostalgic and honest account of finding your way,” it’s a very human record about growth and change and navigating life’s strange turns with as much grace as is possible. One standout is ‘Comparisons’, a track that sits at the centre of the album and proves the perfect introduction to what Ganley does so well. Backed by pedal steel, piano and backing vocals from country folk duo Raising Daughters, the song confronts the futile and needless woes that result from comparing oneself to others.

Monnone Alone – Dry Doubt

Eighteen months ago, Melbourne‘s Monnone Alone released single ‘Loose Terrain’, a stellar slice of jangle pop where bright playfulness was shadowed by the slightest mark of wistful longing. With three albums already under their belt, the track seemed to be a culmination of their talents and experience, only for the project to settle into a prolonged period of radio silence. Such quiet can go one of two ways in the music industry—positive or negative—but luckily for us, in Monnone Alone’s case, the answer is the former. Because while they might have have appeared inactive from the outside, the truth was they were hard at work on brand new full-length, Here Comes the Afternoon. Pencilled for early May, the release is a joint endeavour, with Lost And Lonesome (Aus), Meritorio (EU), Safe Suburban Home (UK) and Repeating Cloud (US) teaming up to spread the record far and wide. Album opener and new single ‘Dry Doubt’ suggests ‘Loose Terrain’ was anything but a flash in the pan, so the date can’t arrive soon enough.

Orchid Mantis – Spirit Circle

Over the years, Atlanta, Georgia-based artist Thomas Howard has used the Orchid Mantis project as a space in which to explore a host of musical styles, each release responding to and building upon that which came before it so that the work was always in flux. Coming this spring on Daydream Records and Start-Track, the latest Orchid Mantis full-length Possession Pact pivots towards a nineties slowcore style, channeling forebears like Low, Bedhead and Codeine to offer a new dimension to the project. Opener and lead single ‘Spirit Circle’ typifies the understated brooding atmosphere. A song bathed in shadowy textures and melancholic quiet, always threatening to rise into something more intense but for the most part maintaining its muted darkness.

Steven van Betten & Andrew Rowan – Cloud Behind the Sun

Back in 2023 we wrote about Friends and Family, the debut solo full-length by Steven van Betten on Future Gods which highlighted the LA songwriter’s distinctively compassionate, humane style. Now van Betten has returned with brand new EP Cloud Behind the Sun, though has parked the solo venture in favour of continuing a collaboration with composer Andrew Rowan which stretches back more than a decade. The lead single title track shows the three-song release to be every bit as thoughtful and heartfelt as its predecessor, taking the ostensibly ordinary experience of passing an ex on the street and mining the moment for all of its depth and weight. Something made possible not least thanks to Rowan’s almost cinematic arrangement, its intricacy revealing itself as slowly yet decisively as spring through a thawing winter ground.

Wryn – Only Thing

We’ve covered a couple of singles by Californian songwriter Wryn in recent weeks, with both ‘Snake‘ and ‘Slow Down‘ introducing the themes of change and self-actualisation which run through their upcoming full-length, Shapes. The record’s release is fast approaching on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records, and Wryn has returned with new single ‘Only Thing’ to further expand upon these ideas. The song opens with a spare, almost hesitant tone, but gradually builds in momentum, as though deciding to embrace life’s inevitable forward motion. “Life is always shifting and evolving,” as Wryn puts it, “and that’s a good thing. Change is the only constant.”

Watch the suitably literal video directed by DanTroon-Sazani below:

Shapes will be released on the 28th March via Righteous Babe Records and you can pre-order it now.

Zoya Zafar – I don’t love you

Writing of release Spring Songs in April of last year, we described how Lahore-born, Orlando-based songwriter Zoya Zafar utilised a controlled, unadorned style to communicate a considerable depth of feeling. “Zafar uses minimalism not as an austere stylistic choice but as a tool to hone her music’s emotional weight,” as we put it, “suffusing it with warmth despite its direct and unfussy arrangement.” New single ‘i don’t love you’ is no less charged in its mood, beginning life with no accompaniment other than acoustic guitar before Max Helgemo helped evolve it into something richer without sacrificing the poignant spareness.

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

A song that she says “comes from acknowledging the type of magic that exists all around us and yearning to get a taste of it,” ‘rosemary’ is the new single from addy (the project led by Philadelphia’s Addy Watkins). Her first new music since last year’s temperance, the song takes indie pop and stripped-back folk and refracts them into a new shape entirely, something warm and fond and all-enveloping.  “I was in love with a witch once,” Watkins describes of the song’s inspiration, “who taught me rosemary hung over my bed would help with my crippling nightmares. which it did and still does whenever I remember to hang it.”

Alice Hebborn – Saisons – Movement 2

December sees the release of Saisons, the debut album from Belgian composer Alice Hebborn on Western Vinyl. Created following a move to the countryside, the record draws inspiration from theories of ecofeminism and environmental harmony and presents a world cast volatile and disordered in the wake of human impacts. Across seven movements, built of piano and electronics, Hebborn imagines a different future. One in which humans cease to throw the natural balance and instead become a key link in a harmonious web of reciprocal relationships. Lead single ‘Movement 2’ is “the starting point of Saisons,” Hebborn describes. “It was written in the spring and draws its inspiration from the captivating images of this season: the awakening of nature and our senses, the great activity of all living things.”

Banti Buli – Hennessy Song

“Refusing to commit fully to irony or sincerity […] as though a song about relationships couldn’t really function without equal doses of heartfelt emotion and tongue-in-cheek humour.” So we wrote of Banti Buli‘s ‘Something Like a Honda Odyssey’ last year, a song which mixed languid rhythms with a distinctively verbose lyricism. Ahead of an album due next spring, Banti Gheneti is now back with ‘Hennessy Song’, a track which see the US-based Dutch-Oromo artist take samples from his surroundings to build an earnest soundscape exploring the transience of even the most steadfast habits. “The closest thing to a home (the Ethiopian corner store) becomes a hole in the ground and your lover leaves you,” as Gheneti says. “Even routines and promises are ephemeral.”

figure eight – 1999 (cherry)

A mainstay of the Bay Area scene, figure eight originated as the experimental noise project of duo Nash Rood and Abby Goeser, starting out with nothing but a distorted synthesizer and acoustic drum kit. However, on welcoming a number of additional members in recent years (including Nicholas Coleman on bass and Nicky Esparza on drums), the band has now evolved into something altogether more full-bodied. Take new single ‘1999 (cherry)’, a song with finds the outfit at their most boisterous and reserved within the same three minutes. The searing opening is indebted to hardcore, though the crushing momentum soon breaks into something almost delicate. These twin threads of lightness and weight weave across the track into what appears to be the spirit of this new version of figure eight—a band aware of the transcendent power available at both ends of the spectrum.

His His – My Friend Wants to be a Freemason

We last featured Aidan Belo’s His His project almost exactly a year ago when we covered the single ‘Ford Econoline’, a song about life in a tour van that we said felt “like the sensation of returning home in your mind as you cruise down an unfamiliar stretch of highway in some faraway city.” The Toronto-based artist returns with a new EP, Good Gold, coming out next month, and has just released the final single ahead of the release. Informatively titled ‘My Friend Wants to be a Freemason’, it’s a track about a childhood friend who became obsessed with joining a masonic lodge. “The idea of joining this secret society consumed my friend, and for a couple of months it was all that he’d talk about,” as Belo describes. Musically the song follows a familiar His His formula, a gentle and folk-inflected indie pop song that wears an air of weary wistfulness like the grain in an old film photograph.

Good Gold is due to be released on 15th November via Victory Pool Records. You can pre-save it now on streaming services.

Kassie Krut – Reckless

Kassie Krut are wasting no time introducing themselves. “K / A / S / S / I / E / K / R / U / T / T / T / T,” goes the opening line of new single ‘Reckless’, a de facto theme song for the new project of Kasra Kurt, Eve Alpert (formerly of Palm) and Matt Anderegg (Mothers, Body Meat). The band have just signed to Fire Talk Records, and new single offers a glimpse at the core of the project. Something undoubtedly contemporary yet possessing a rawer dimension too, as though through the idiosyncratic art pop style comes an altogether more atavistic, primal energy. Directed by Guy Kozak, the video for the song was filmed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and offers a visual representation of the sound’s frantic playfulness.

‘Reckless’ is out now and available via the Kassie Krut Bandcamp page.

Mark Trecka – Witch’s Hat (ft. Midwife & An Heap)

The work of Mark Trecka never sits still, the Chicago-born artist and activist utilising sound to explore a diverse set of styles and themes in a practice as inventive as it is ambitious. More recent work has turned towards post-punk as an avenue of exploration, and latest single ‘Witch’s Hat’ continues to plough that same furrow. Recorded between Paris and Colorado, the track is described as Trecka’s “Halloween song,” existing with the common ground between that which is haunting and beautiful. Midwife joins on backing vocals and An Heap on synths to further elevate the dynamic, the song moving from apparent minimalism into a gauzy atmosphere as though pushing through the layers of time itself.

Michael Younker – Bad News

Michael Younker is a Detroit-born, Brooklyn-based production designer who also makes rock & roll music that he says “melds lighthearted cynicism with unashamed big rock motifs.” He has just released his debut EP, Sweet Things, a four-song record that’s brash and chaotic and amped up with bratty energy. “Sonically & lyrically, Sweet Things feels like the kid who ate too much sugar, bounced off walls, and passed out on the floor,” Younker describes. “Music of obsession, excess, indulgence, and…consequences?” ‘Bad News’ is perhaps the best place to start, capturing the EP’s manic motion and carefree bravado. “I can’t make you love me,” Younker sings, before snottily trying his best anyway in the following line – “C’mon, give it a go!”

Old Man of the Woods – Ghost

“A visceral exploration of a villain’s arc, tracing her devolution from possession to obsession to dissolution.” So reads the album notes for Triptych I: Devolve, the latest release from Seattle-based project Old Man of the Woods. The first in a series of EPs, the three-song collection offers a self-described “goth ethereal mycelial” sound to chart a fall from grace in all of its tragedy, majesty and strange avenues of agency. Such as with single ‘Ghost’, where the central character moves from resentment to something closer to power with the realisation that the ability to haunt can represent its own form of control.

Orchid Mantis – Dead Malls (feat. Cathedral Bells)

Following a collaboration with Sign Crushes Motorist earlier this year, not to mention several more singles in the meantime, Orchid Mantis (the recording project of Atlanta‘s Thomas Howard) has returned with a new single ‘Dead Malls’. This time featuring Orlando, Florida shoegazey bedroom pop act Cathedral Bells, the track uses imagery of an abandoned shopping mall to explore emotions altogether more personal. Where past hopes, once bright and shiny and full of promise, have withered on the vine, now little more than empty husks. But the atmosphere is not downbeat, rather wistful and hazy, looking back on old memories as though flickering warm and grainy from an old film projector.

The post Weekly Listening: October 2024 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Such care is a signature of Some Songs, the forthcoming album from Zoya Zafar, set for release later this year. Featuring songs written in her early twenties yet developed with patience over the years, the album was originally meant to be released in 2018, only for life to get in the way. “I put a pause on music and ended up moving across the world,” Zafar explains. “I went through a very numb phase where I hardly even listened to music. Shortly after I developed an aggressive auto-immune disease that left me barely able to walk for three years. It also caused bone erosion in my shoulder making it difficult to play instruments.” But if any blessing could come from such a difficult period it was the kind of patience only gained via the slow passage of years. Time allowed Zafar opportunity to understand the tracks beyond the usual level, and thus gradually shape them towards their ideal, essential form.

Latest single ‘Sweet Talk’ is the perfect example. A dispatch from isolation which yearns for human contact, voiced against a precise dream pop arrangement which evokes both the still space of loneliness and the possibility of some freeing alternative. Zoya Zafar’s vocals barely break a murmur, though come loaded with a longing which far exceeds the given moment, as though the song condenses months of suffering into a single prayer released into an empty room.

The post Zoya Zafar – Sweet Talk appeared first on Various Small Flames.

There is much space for variation within the Jim Calico sound. Latest single ‘Come Through’ leans into an almost industrial territory, its abrasive electro sound coupled with Carrier’s sensual vocals to produce a song at once brooding and groove laden.

However, an older single is finding renewed urgency. First released back in 2019, ‘Land of Crow’ leans further into folk territory, a patient, slow-burning track that builds in subtle intensity. Confronting national wounds, the song reaches back to the original pain in an attempt to chart its continued presence, finding not just violence and cruelty but a loss of agency that far outlasts emancipation or any of the following efforts at equality.

With ‘Land of Crow’, Jim Calico evokes the past to highlight how little has changed. Confronting how to be black is to be asked to forgive crimes that never faced justice. To do so without anger or retribution. To be asked to buy into a country of dreams in the full knowledge that those dreams were forgotten long ago, and likely never existed. “I wrote it to help heal some of my own personal wounds,” Calico explains. “I hope it helps others still struggling with hatred and pain. Black Lives Matter.”

I’ll sing your soul to sleep, underneath your hanging tree
where the elders swing and twilight’s dim.
Fire burns, wood line glows, hooded men ride off like ghosts
linen face hides their grin.
Time moves on, the young folks grow
forgot their dreams in the Land of crow
where broken men hum songs to cope
where my mama said I should forgive you
and the good book says you gotta let it go

In the Land of Crow

You can find Jim Calico on Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The post Jim Calico – Land of Crow appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Well, somehow we managed to skip over the EP and now Lauren Morgan and Jordan Shih are back with a new single (and Questell is back with new artwork). The single, ‘Big Sis’, sees the band continue with their now trademark summery indie pop, equal parts bedroom pop quirk and radio indie polish. Check it out below:

The band are also embarking on a mammoth tour of the US and Europe. Here are the dates:

US DATES

08.05.15 – Orlando, FL – Uncle Lou’s (all ages)
08.17.15 – Denver, CO – Hi-Dive (18+)
08.18.15 – San Diego, CA – Soda Bar (21+)
08.19.15 – Los Angeles, CA – The Echo (all ages)
08.20.15 – San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Stop (all ages)
08.22.15 – Portland, OR – MUSICFESTNW

EU DATES

30.09.15 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Vega Ideal Bar
01.10.15 – Aalborg, Denmark – 1000 Fryd
02.10.15 – Stockholm, Sweden – Scandic Grand Central
03.10.15 – Oslo, Norway – Ingensteds
04.10.15 – Darmstadt, Germany – Secret living room show
05.10.15 – Berlin, Germany – Monarch
06.10.15 – Hannover – Germany – Cafe Glocksee
07.10.15 – Hamburg, Germany – Volt
08.10.15 – Geneva, Switzerland – La Graviere
09.10.15 – Aarau, Switzerland – Kiff
10.10.15 – Rorschach, Switzerland – Treppenhaus
11.10.15 – Paris, France – La Mécanique Ondulatoire
12.10.15 – London, UK – Birthdays
13.10.15 – Leeds, UK – Nation of Shopkeepers
14.10.15 – Cardiff, UK – Buffalo Bar
15.10.15 – Exeter, UK – The Cavern
16.10.15 – Bournemouth, UK – 60 Million Postcards
17.10.15 – Manchester, UK – A Carefully Planned Festival (matinee)
17.10.15 – Liverpool, UK – The Shipping Forecast
18.10.15 – Dublin, Ireland – Whelan’s
20.10.15 – Liège, Belgium – L’An Vert
21.10.15 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso
22.10.15 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Ekko
23.10.15 – Rotterdam, Netherlands – Rotown
24.10.15 – Zwolle, Netherlands – Let’s Get Lost Festival
25.10.15 – Gent, Belgium – Charlatan
26.10.15 – Cologne, Germany – King Georg
27.10.15 – Dortmund, Germany – Sissikingkong
28.10.15 – Munich, Germany – Ampere
29.10.15 – Nurnberg, Germany – Club Stereo

The post A new song from SALES appeared first on Various Small Flames.

They have recently released a brand new single, ‘vow’, which is due to appear on their forthcoming debut album. The track is a lovely little indie pop number, all languid guitars and Morgan’s sweet vocals. As with the band’s previous singles, ‘vow’ comes complete with some very nice collage-style artwork courtesy of Alana Questell.

You can buy the single right now via the band’s Bandcamp page. I highly suggest you check out their other tracks too.

SALES are also embarking on a tour of the East Coast. Check the nifty poster below for dates, venues and some pretty excellent companions (including acts such as Small Wonder, Alex G, Told Slant and Hundred Waters).

The post SALES – Vow appeared first on Various Small Flames.