With a sound described as “part pop, part doom, part dance,” Court Jester is the new project from Leicester born cross-disciplinary artist, musician and writer Courtney Askey. New release I’m My Favourite Clown introduces the project’s idiosyncratic tone, its electronic beats and emotive vocals twisted and elevated by an experimental edge. Take lead single ‘Holdem’, a contemplative track which proceeds with a restrained, reflective air for a good portion of its length, though always seems on the verge of spilling over into something larger and less controlled. As the momentum gathers, an electrified intensity enters the sonic palette to make good on this promise, the song suddenly charged with what might be conviction, desperation or else simple stark honesty.

Elisa Thorn – Idle Talk

“I’ve spent years searching for a way of playing the harp that feels true to me, and after a decade and a half of relentless curiosity, I think I’ve started to find it.” So describes Vancouver-based harpist, vocalist, and composer Elisa Thorn, whose brand new album xiik manages to utilise the full range of the harp’s potential without succumbing to the ostentation which can sometimes accompany the instrument. The result is introspective, controlled yet full of invention, marrying pop and avant garde sensibilities into something that refuses easy categorisation. Single ‘Idle Talk’ embodies the style, something which might at first sound like sonic daydream yet soon unfurls to reveal a radical heart beneath the surface, moving with precision and purpose to reclaim the female connection which has been co-opted or taken from them.

Bodies soft enough to hold you
Stories strong enough to kill you

Erik Hall – Music for a Large Ensemble (Steve Reich)

Early next year, Michigan-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Erik Hall will release new album Solo Three via Western Vinyl, the third in a trilogy of records which reinterpret and reimagine contemporary classical pieces within his own minimalist style. Previous releases Music for 18 Musicians and Canto Ostinato focused solely on the work of Steve Reich and Simeon ten Holt respectively, but Solo Three expands its reach across four different composers including Glenn Branca, Charlemagne Palestine and Laurie Spiegel. But for the lead single and the album’s closing track, Hall comes full circle and returns to Steve Reich with his version of ‘Music for a Large Ensemble’, playing every note himself and layering them painstakingly, lovingly, into the full arrangement. “I wanted to conclude this series of albums the way it began, as a sort of bookend and an ode to the process of making them,” he explains. “Beyond the interest of his concept or experiment, Reich’s music also simply imbues a gratifying emotional arc that’s accessible to any ears; something akin to a pop sensibility. The CD of his 1980 recording has lived in my car for years, and it was a total joy to transport this work into the sonic world of my studio.”

Leilani Patao – portrait

We’ve covered several singles from Leilani Patao‘s EP daisy in recent weeks, describing how the release is forgoing the rat race of self-promotion and streaming services in favour of old school word of mouth, “possessing,” as we wrote, “that emotional authenticity which marked the earlier generations of bedroom pop.” With the EP now out via Audio Antihero, Patao has shared latest track ‘Portrait’, and the result is no less compassionate and heartfelt. A song relatively restrained in sound but not in sentiment, giving voice to the experience of falling in love in all of its uncertainties and joys, and learning to submit to the overwhelming feelings of such a process. “In the most plain terms I can put it,” Patao says, “this song is about being loved really well by a wonderful lesbian.”

Natalie Jane Hill – Never Left Me

“[What] emerges is an ecosystem as detailed and changeable as any conjured on Azaela, an interior environment as mysterious as that of the Blue Ridge Mountains. One that holds the best and worst of life and, importantly, holds enough space to sit with both simultaneously, never losing sight of the possibility of change on the horizon.” So we wrote of Solely by Texas-born, North Carolina-based songwriter Natalie Jane Hill back in 2021, praising the arrangements as deft, nuanced and intricate. Now Hill is preparing to release Hopeful Woman, her first album since Solely, and one which continues to develop this style of careful, humane folk an proves what might be her most authentic record yet. Lead single ‘Never Left Me’ offers our first glimpse inside, a song which pairs a kind of domestic modesty with something bright and forthright, Hill’s assured vocals leading the listener into a world where the biggest of questions are addressed not through drastic action or bombast but rather a committed embrace of the small gestures and slow rhythms of life.

Watch the video directed and edited by Spencer Kelly below:

Hopeful Woman will be released on the 6th March 6th via Dear Life Records and you can pre-order it now.

Ohly – Not Today

“The embodiment of the project, as though everything which has come before has coalesced into a single song. A track full of tiny details and huge themes, zooming into the smallest moments of life in order to evoke the intangible joy of existence.” That’s how we described Ohly‘s ‘If I Go‘ back in June, a single the Detroit-based songwriter openly described as his magnum opus. How does one go about following up a song which such clear personal significance? Latest release ‘Not Today’ answers this question. Ohly writing about the temptation to put things off, to not grasp the full potential of things, be that friendship, songwriting or self-acceptance. “Not today, not today / there’s too much standing in my way.” Though of course there’s an irony too, because it isn’t a deferral after all, but is itself the answer to the question.

‘Not Today’ is out now via streaming services.

Robert Stillman – Reality Distortion Field

Described by label Orindal Records as a “speculative suite of jazz, ambient and smooth pop-inspired compositions that challenge the myths of Silicon Valley’s early ‘90s techno-utopianism,” 10,000 Rivers is the new album from saxophonist, improviser and composer Robert Stillman. What originated as an exploration of reality and the ways the assertations and delusions of the tech industry attempt to shape it, the release eventually became something of an unintentional concept album based around Steve Jobs. Stillman follows the work of artist and writer James Bridle (whose books New Dark Age and Ways of Being we’d personally recommend) through to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs, and ultimately follows Isaacson’s anti-hagiographic lead to paint a far more complex, challenging and interesting picture. “10,000 Rivers points to an alternative narrative about a man who is tormented by the instability of his reality, so tries to invent his way out of it,” as Stillman explains. “Ultimately, his tech designs become expressions of his will to replace the messy, disordered, temporary nature of the world with something that strives to be barely physical: streamlined, symmetrical, uncomplicated, and deathless.”

The song comes complete with a video by James Bridle himself, who also designed the cover:

10,000 Rivers will be released on the 9th January via Orindal (US) and Kit Records (UK) and you can pre-order it now.

SIKADE – eleven

“Embodies the balance between intimacy and scale which marks the project, drawing the listener in with hushed, harp-led verses before the chorus arrives in waves of drama and intensity.” So we wrote of ‘body of water‘ by Oslo-based singer-songwriter, harpist and producer Linnea Vestre, AKA SIKADE, back in August. The track was taken from their upcoming debut album which gave, as we continued, “the sense of having been pulled into a portentous dream.” With the record’s release approaching via re:memory, SIKADE has returned with new single ‘eleven’, and the result is no less ethereal or enveloping. A track where the line between sensuality and symbolism dissolves, the harp and strings pushing towards a lushness which is almost cinematic.

‘eleven’ is out now via streaming services. Keep an eye on the SIKADE Bandcamp page for further news on the album.

Spell of Leaves – Defrost

“Sometimes I try counting the stars at night / Hanging out there just like bandits in the sky.” So sings Trevor Brown of Spell of Leaves in the opening lines of the North Carolinan band’s new single, ‘Defrost’. The image is a fitting introduction to a track loaded with mystery, the ambiguous lyrics painting a vista that’s stark and lonely yet pregnant with a sense of possibility too, as though some unexpected force might suddenly arrive in the night. This force might merely be the luck of a gambler, the translucent body of a ghost, the aforementioned brigade of bandits, or else the great flaming tale of a comet as Hale Bopp arcs across the sky. The band cite Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 as an influence on the song and it is easy to see why, the cryptic atmosphere full of strange symbols and existential struggle, a place where some malicious meaning seems to hang out of view, and the dead are never far from mind.

I thought heaven was a place beyond that cold seam of light
Not some distant neon vacancy sign
A pattern against all that emptiness, I guess
The bigger the cost the less the coincidence

The post Weekly Listening: November 2025 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Not many albums can claim to draw on inspiration as widely as Good Times, the new full-length from Alexei Shishkin on Rue Defense. Recorded with a spur-of-the-moment immediacy, the record sees Shiskin reaching for whatever happened to be around during the recording process, often writing the music first then adding lyrics about whatever topic might be in mind. Hence recent singles about video games (‘Disco Elysium‘) and football (‘Tiki Taka 2006‘), and new single ‘Ode to Carl Dennis’ switches things up again. As the title suggests, the track turns to literature for its inspiration, Shishkin drawing on one of his favourite poets. “[Dennis] has a poem called “At Home With Cézanne” that I had read the night before and really enjoyed,” he explains. “Again, Brad and I wrote the bulk of the music first, and then I fit lyrics to the music. I couldn’t find the text of the poem anywhere online, so here’s a picture of it. I took his characters, but tried to re-imagine them in a slightly different, parallel universe.”

David James Allen – Platform No. 12 (Old Friends)

Based in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canadian songwriter and multi-instrumentalist David James Allen writes classic country songs, full of aching longing, wistful reflection and undying hope, as well as a small cosmic twist. With new full-length Jubilation Potpourri set for release on 2026, Allen has shared brand new single ‘Platform No. 12 (Old Friends)’ to set the tone. A song which shows how the age-old themes of work, loss and responsibility are as much a facet of contemporary folk as any other era. “I wrote ‘Platform No. 12 (Old Friends)’ just after I got laid off,” Allen explains. “At the time, I was the sole provider for my family, and the weight of that reality hit pretty hard. The song came out of reflecting on that pressure—not just mine, but the collective squeeze so many people feel when work dries up, when bills pile up, and when life becomes a grind.” But rather than dwell on the darkness, Allen instead offers a remedy, reminding us how healing (re)connection can be in a challenging, often lonely life.

Dylan Henner – We Walked all the Way to the Lake and The Water Was So Still We Jumped in Naked

“Late one evening, I was listening to the radio alone at home. I couldn’t find the station I wanted, so I shifted the dial around for a while. Between frequencies, fading in and out of fidelity, I found a station I’d never heard before. To my amazement, the station was broadcasting my own memories. Memories from when I was seventeen.” So explains Dylan Henner of his new album Star Dream FM (forthcoming this autmn via Phantom Limb), the mysterious producer taking this fantastical concept as the basis for a collection which explores both the tactile experience of adolescence and the nostalgia of times now past. Single ‘We Walked all the Way to the Lake and The Water Was So Still We Jumped in Naked’ shows just how rich an experience this proves to be, Henner elaborating an ambient style with piano, marimba, digital choir and synths to prove how human a digital soundscape can be. Personal details might be scant for this secretive artist, yet, perhaps counterintuitively, few acts welcome listeners so close within their work.

Hannah Frances – Surviving You

“Both continues the mission of its predecessor and begins to move beyond it.” So we wrote of ‘Falling From and Further’, the lead single from Hannah Frances‘s new album Nested in Tangles, coming this autumn via Fire Talk Records. The song took “the folk song as a backbone only,” we continued, “elaborating the sound with layers of prog and jazz sensibilities so that the track becomes a world of its own without ever losing the core thread of personal vulnerability which has long run through Frances’s work.” Exploring ideas of generational trauma and the coping mechanisms we develop in response, second single ‘Surviving You’ further builds on this style. Frances utilises the full depth of her jazz-inflected folk rock sound to chart a path towards health and self-acceptance. “It’s a personal account of receiving harm from people who have projected their own pain onto me, who refuse to see themselves or take accountability for the impact of their actions,” she explains. “I was reckoning with my rage, and recognizing how much I’ve lived in survival mode for the majority of my life. This is for anyone who grew up in a turbulent and harmful home and is learning to affirm their lived experience.”

Watch the video filmed by Derrick Alexander, edited and colored by Vanessa Castro, and directed by Frances herself below:

Nested in Tangles will be released on the 10th October via Fire Talk Records and you can pre-order it from the Hannah Frances Bandcamp page.

Kitba – Wolf’s Mouth

“Proof that art can offer a picture of identity more nuanced than simple labels,” we wrote of Kitba‘s self-titled album back in 2023. “A deeper understanding reached via an embrace of confusion. Identity as an ongoing thing.” Fresh from I’ll Send You A Sign, a collaborative release with Dan Knishkowy under the name R&D, Kitba (AKA Brooklyn-based harpist and songwriter Rebecca El-Saleh) is preparing to return with a brand new full-length, Hold the Edges. The record continues and deepens this exploration of identity with a typically lush, detailed and intuitive sound. With the album set for release next month via Ruination Record Co., single ‘Wolf’s Mouth’ serves to introduce the record’s searching tone and its embrace of ambiguity. As though realising the path to self-discovery is not a finite number of epiphanic steps but rather something convoluted and unending, full knowledge always just out of reach. “The song is based on a recurring childhood nightmare where I was in a room with a filing cabinet in the corner and a large wolf that would open its mouth,” El-Saleh describes. “I would place my head inside its mouth and then wake up. I never got to see beyond the bite and I often wonder what was in the cabinet and why.”

Watch the video by Dani Shapiro below:

Hold the Edges will be released via Ruination Record Co. on 19th September and is available to pre-order now.

Piggietails – Cycling Song

Piggietails are a four-piece from Naarm/Melbourne, comprising of Cal Blackburn, Jet Noonan, Izzy Hardisty and Tino D’Onghia. In September, Spoilsport Records will release their self-titled record, a collection of ten songs which introduce the band’s signature easygoing charm and a low-key style they refer to as “everyday music.” The label describe how Piggietails draw inspiration from “eighties Australiana guitar pop, the indie rock stylings of Yo La Tengo and a splash of the revivalist jangle of the noughties.” So, as you might expect, their songs are a little bit jangly but not too twee, favouring gentleness over detailed maximalism. Lead single ‘Cycling Song’ is our first taste, a soft indie pop song that nevertheless has some of the freewheeling energy its title suggests.

SIKADE – body of water

The recording project of Oslo-based singer-songwriter, harpist and producer Linnea Vestre, SIKADE makes an ethereal brand of music, combining alt, indie, dream pop and folk influences into something at once delicate and enveloping. With a debut SIKADE album on the horizon, Vestre has released new single ‘body of water’ via label re:memory. Adding a shoegazey sheen to the sound, the track embodies the balance between intimacy and scale which marks the project, drawing the listener in with hushed, harp-led verses before the chorus arrives in waves of drama and intensity. “A body of water / that’s how she sees you,” the track opens, “a silvery surface / the face of a mirror.” Imagery characteristically striking and ambiguous which gives the sense of having been pulled into a portentous dream.

Soup Dreams – Wonderdog

Next month, Philadelphia’s Soup Dreams will release their debut LP, Hellbender, via Candlepin Records and Pleasure Tapes. The band combine the slight twang and songwriting chops of country rock with some lo-fi fuzz and raw indie rock energy, meaning fans of Merce Lemon, Sadurn, Tuxis Giant and the burgeoning countrygaze scene will finds lots to like. Following the runaway lead single ‘Radiator Baby’ and the heartfelt follow-up ‘Red Bird’, the band have unveiled one final single to herald the record. Titled ‘Wonderdog’, the song is an aching lament but not as you know it, the hazy textures and melancholic reflection countered with equal forces of energy and weight, all driving towards a conclusion that’s as energetic and is it cathartic.

Tiberius – Felt

Introducing Troubadour, the new album from Boston farm emo outfit Tiberius, last month, we described how lead Brendan Wright and co. use the album to reckon with fundamental questions both artistic and personal. Who do you want to be? What role should music play in the decision? Lead single ‘Sag’ was thus understandably conflicted, “pulled in all directions by competing emotions,” as we put it. “Uncertainty, doubt, desperation, a recurrent yet skittish determination to embrace some inner truth. With the album’s release via Audio Antihero edging nearer, Tiberius have shared another single, ‘Felt’. A track which essentially serves as the inflection point which birthed the record, where Wright was forced to confront their identity without the crutch of other people. “When I wrote ‘Felt’, I was fairly fresh out of a breakup and was spending a lot of time looking for distractions,” they explain. “Instead of tackling some bigger questions, and engaging in a healthy recovery, I was tucking away my feelings into compartments and distracting myself with casual dating. I was spending some late nights slipping into the backstories of strangers’ lives—exhilarating, but merely theatrical. It never eased the issue at hand. I was alone, and I was terrified to sit with that.”

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

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

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

Photo by Hans Olav Settem

The post Jouska – Pierced appeared first on Various Small Flames.

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

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

CO-ED DORMS – Milk Drinker

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

Cynthia Hamar – Where Your Love Lives

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

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

Dunebug – Still Dreaming

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

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

Esme White – Pearly Gate Crashers

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

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

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

LIES – Camera Chimera

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

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

Mizan K – Go

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

My Politic – Cursing at the Night & the Morning

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

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

Siv Jakobsen x Ane Brun – Sun, Moon, Stars

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

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

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

Thematically, the EP deals with the frightening size of the contemporary, globalised world, as well as the coping mechanisms we might employ to deal with it. This is supported by a loose and intuitive sound that focuses more on the feel of the music rather than any technical wizardry. “Instrumentally, we just try to run with what feels cool and exciting,” the band explain, “and even a bit silly.” The result is something at once thoughtful and organic, Ē’s double-punch of reflective and ramshackle.

Opening with lead single ‘Afraid of the Ocean’, ĒP throws you headlong into Ē’s distinctive world, carved out of retro-pop textures and supported by a relatable fixation on loneliness and insignificance. “Hiding in the dark,” they sing, “put a fence around my heart / it’s better to isolate / than sit around and wait, for someone to care.”

ĒP is out now via Eget Selskap and you can buy/stream it now.

The post Ē – ĒP appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Less than twelve months later the band are back with the debut full-length, This Is Not The End. Capitalising on the momentum of the EP, the record seizes the exhilarating style and runs with it, doubling down on the racing energy and boisterous joy. The decision seems notable in the current landscape of indie rock—there’s no country rock twang, no 80s synths or Joy Division LARPing, no slow drift toward the techniques of R&B—and the result is a sense of earnestness that emerges from every song.

This earnestness is the trademark of the Spielbergs. Take opener ‘Five on It’ as an example, bursting into life with its raucous guitars, eschewing all window dressing in favour of cathartic energy. The result is a headlong rush, hopeful in the way that decisive moment always is, as though nothing heavy or dark can settle so long as one keeps moving.

That many of the tracks follow this general mood from there on in is a testament to the Spielbergs self-assurance and conviction. ‘Distant Star’ is a hyperactive promise born of the itch to seize the moment. ‘Not For Long’ channels No Age with its clattering storm of noise. ‘Bad Friend’ plays like a pop punk hit with the guitars and drums multiplied exponentially. All deliver the purgative force of high speeds, presenting adrenaline kicks and giddy joy as a salve for whatever woes linger.

However, dig deeper into the record and a hidden diversity is there to be found. The reserved sadness of ‘Sleeper’ shows that the dial need not always set to 100, and the slow-burn brooding of ‘Familiar’ highlights a more patient use of noise. However, in true Spielbergs fashion, the song never loses its sparks of hope, and soon these coalesce into an affirming blaze of light.

Other songs are more divergent still, ‘S.K.’ serving as a sparkling ambient interlude while the mammoth ‘McDonalds (Please Don’t Fuck Up My Order)’ goes a step further, a vast, spacious track that pushes toward post-rock before disintegrating into a tangle of noise, the first and only real departure from the optimism that creeps through the rest of the release.

Still, it’s not long before things are in the ascendancy one more. ‘4AM’ “forgoes none of the emotional intensity,” we wrote in a preview, “turning what could be a fun but superficial track into something far deeper and more rewarding.” What ‘Forevermore loses in sheer dynamism is made up for in emotional intensity, the track breaking into great, soaring crescendos. Both songs plough some of the same ground as Japandroids’ ‘Younger Us’, and in doing so capture the Spielbergs style once and for all. Looking backwards while bursting forward, like nostalgia dressed in racing stripes and set loose, sad but still running until its lungs burn from its chest.

This Is Not The End is out via By The Time It Gets Dark on the 1st February.

The post Spielbergs – This Is Not The End appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“No One Knows That You’re Lost is an album inspired by the Norwegian coast and a human interior, by tight itching doubts and wide open spaces. Here, fragility, strength and beauty become one and the same, parts of a landscape in constant flux yet remaining fundamentally unchanged”

Tina very kindly agreed to write a guest post for our ‘Lit Links‘ series (part of the Quiet, Constant Friends project), where artists and writers create a playlist of songs based around a book of their choice. Arm yourself with headphones and have a read below.

Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding
by Tina Refsnes

I’ve never felt comfortable with answering questions that ask for «the best» or «your all time favourite» as I just feel there’s too much good and different material in the world to hold them up against each other like that. So, I’ll say that one of my favourite books that I enjoyed immensely reading is one called The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. It’s set in an American College and with baseball as the back-drop, and it’s one of those slow books with great meaning but without the drama. It deals with the big hopes that young people usually have to life, with self doubt in performance, and with the social difficulties or shyness that young people sometimes struggle with. But, in a very down to earth way since, at least the main character, is so un-academic. I also imagined this suburban North-American setting for it: Long, wide streets with tall leaf trees on both sides of it. Really big and old campus buildings, and maybe since the characters were so alone in their minds I kept picturing everything as with never that many people around.

Tracklisting:

1. Jenny Come Home- Andy Shauf
   2. Gather, Form and Fly – Megafaun
   3. Own Side – Caitlin Rose
   4. Casimir Pulaski Day – Sufjan Stevens
   5. Easy – Laura Marling
   6. Blue Train – Emmy Lou Harris, Linds Ronstadt and Dolly Parton
   7. Out of the Woodwork – Courtney Barnett
   8. Big Black Road – Thousands
   9. That Knot Unties? – David Karsten Daniels
   10. Mr. Rodriguez – Rayland Baxter
   11. We Are Fine – Sharon Van Etten
   12. Horizons – The Staves
   13. Archie, Marry Me – Alvvays
   14. Friends – 22-20s
   15. Poison Oak – Bright Eyes

The post Lit Links: Tina Refsnes appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Opener ‘I Don’t Know’ is a perfect introduction to the album, a soothing yet energetic brand of folk which acknowledges doubt yet refuses to submit to it, playing like a perfect antidote to a bad day:

“Oh the wane can beat you down and bind you
Leave you blind to the thought
that things could ever look as bright again.
Oh but things will pick up again
I just cant tell you when
but things will pick up again soon.”

The writing is sharp and often beautiful, much of it based on past comfort and present uncertainty. ‘Upside Down Clouds’, with it’s moodier guitars and dramatic vocals, is a good example, as Refsnes pines for the simplicity and familiarity of the Florø coast (“It feels as though the shore that I know is no longer there”). ‘Alaska’ explores the double bind of being an artist, the urge to “show them some more of yourself” but all the while wanting to hide away, in this case through escape to the natural peace of the titular location: “I’ve heard that it’s so quiet there that not even the wind will talk to you”. As with any folk record, heartbreak pays a visit, with ‘Song About Trust’ detailing the disintegration of a relationship in viscerally outspoken tones (“This song’s about trust and how we must talk to our demons like strangers”), while ‘Put It Away’ stems from the doubt of past pain (“I don’t keep secrets anymore as I’ve been made to tell”) and develops into a plea with herself:

“Just don’t break my heart because I can’t break yours.
There’s a city that hold me for dead
and the voice that goes on in my head
saying you’re such a cheat your too easy to beat
put your heart away.”

The influences here are numerous and varied, knitting together to create something fresh and new. Joni Mitchell is an obvious one, but there are shades of Natalie Prass and Laura Marling and Joanna Newsom too, as well as the variation across tracks. ‘Spoilt Rotten Blues’ is a laid back country song, like some long-lost collaboration between Samantha Crain, First Aid Kit and Feist, ‘City City’ and ‘Song About Trust ‘ are slow ballads reminiscent of Sharon van Etten and ‘A Million Things’ is a gentle, evocative strum akin to something from Laura Gibson. While the style changes slightly across the record, the general ambience remains true throughout (a mood captured in the imagery of the ‘I Don’t Know’ video), giving a great sense of cohesiveness and allowing sensations and themes to develop without explicit reinforcement.

No One Knows That You’re Lost is an album inspired by the Norwegian coast and a human interior, by tight itching doubts and wide open spaces. Here, fragility, strength and beauty become one and the same, parts of a landscape in constant flux yet remaining fundamentally unchanged. Basically, it’s the sort of album we are honoured to première. Have a listen to the full album below:

No One Knows That You’re Lost is out today on Vestkyst Records, and you can buy it from all the usual places.

The post Album Première: Tina Refsnes – No One Knows That You’re Lost appeared first on Various Small Flames.