“I tend to get lost in nostalgia—fixated on the past, out-of-touch with the present, uninterested in the future,” explains Balto lead Daniel Sheron. The Californian outfit’s latest single ‘Spanish Wine’ confronts this habit head on, albeit with digressions toward trysts in laundromats, conga lines in Cuba and the ghost of an imagined future with no distinction between state and civil society. “I wrote this song in the height of the pandemic as a rejection of that concept,” Sheron continues. “I needed a reminder that the past is an illusion—it doesn’t exist anymore!”

Big Joanie – In My Arms

London punk trio Big Joanie return later this year with new album Gone Home on Kill Rock Stars and the Daydream Library Series from Ecstatic Peace Library. A record which promises to examine the concept of home in all of its variety, be it where we’ve come from, where we’re going, or some imagined place we work towards and dream about. Single ‘In My Arms’ combines these elements of past and future, reflecting on fond memories as a way to instigate a desired future. Check out the video directed by Lydia Garnett below:

Back Home is out via Kill Rock Stars and Ecstatic Peace Library on the 4th November and you can pre-order it now.

Butch Wifey – Eighteen

Based in Boise, Idaho, Butch Wifey is the recording project of Chloe Ponder, who makes indie pop songs she says “aim to dredge up the uncomfortable feelings associated with queer relationships.” Her latest single ‘Eighteen’ draws upon two periods of anxiety faced several years apart. The first was leaving home for the first time at eighteen, and the second was early-twenties romantic troubles, both of which elicited a similar sense of unease and confusion. But for all the discomfort of the subject matter, the single is ostensibly a slick and summery pop song, Ponder’s vocals providing a nostalgic and wistful edge.

Canary – i used to write you love songs

If there seems to be something of a paradox at work on ‘i used to write you love songs’, the latest single from Pennsylvania‘s Canary, then it’s one which depends on the definition of a love song. Because though the track has all of the tenderness and contemplation of a classic love song, it doesn’t take long for the track to reveal its fangs. By the time Zach Dennis’s guitar goes spiralling and Kat Leverenz sings the titular refrain, it becomes clear this isn’t a love song at all, at least not in the usual sense. What begins soft and sedate blooms into a heavy and dynamic exploration of heartbreak and betrayal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1MYacMeP9s&ab_channel=Canary

‘i used to write you love songs’ is out now and available on streaming services.

Couch Prints – All I Know

Described as “centred around the American car crash,” New York-based Couch Prints’ forthcoming mixtape Waterfall looks to capture the contemporary moment. The project of Jayanna Roberts, Brandon Tong, and Jacob Truax, Couch Prints make synth pop that’s equal parts danceable and introspective, and latest single ‘All I Know’ represents perhaps their furthest foray into the latter aspect of their sound. The song is “a simple expression of the unease caused by the boundless media and content of the modern world,” say the band, “an ode to ignorance is bliss”. Sonically it feels like a balm for this sensory overload, stripping back the dance elements to leave a gently spacious song built on gentle guitar and Roberts’ soft vocals.

dani mack – fleabag

We first featured dani mack, the project of Baylee Barrett, back in April when we covered her single ‘Someday’, released via LA label Future Gods. We called it “bright and disarmingly straightforward…weav[ing] a careful balance between strength and vulnerability.” Now Barrett returns with a new single, ‘fleabag’, a taut and irreverent pop song about trying to let go of residual shame. “In simplest terms, which most can relate to, it’s a nod to dating and how terrible it is,” Barrett explains. “[But] on a deeper level, it’s a song about my own sexual repression and my difficulties with casual relationships. I grew up a devout Christian and letting go of the guilt that was instilled in me from such a young age is still something I still struggle with. There’s still a little part of me that’s afraid that come judgment day.”

‘fleabag’ is available now via streaming services.

Fusilier – No Words

Fusilier is the project of Atlanta-born, Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Blake Fusilier. Later this month he will release a new EP, Treason, which promises to explore themes of selfhood, alienation and belonging in a style that draws on a diversity of influences, from Bill Withers and Fela Kuti to TV on the Radio and Nine Inch Nails. But as lead single ‘No Words’ shows, the result is something wholly his own, sleek and sinuous yet charged with a desire to make meaningful change. Namely through a reframing of the self within a wider picture, reaffirming one’s own ability to define themselves beyond whatever outside forces might think or want them to be. As Fusilier puts it, the song is about “letting go of the thought that I’m not the main character in my own story.”

Maya Lucia – numb or something

‘numb or something’ is the latest single by indie rock artist Maya Lucia, who makes angsty and exuberant songs that allow her to vent her emotions in the healthiest way possible. Taken from a forthcoming album, miss girl world, the song is a great introduction for newcomers, a stormy and infectious pop song that’s noisy enough to purge any lingering frustrations. “This is the song you scream in your room after a long day,” Lucia describes. “It’s melodrama at its core — the feeling of the world ending only to realize you’re crying over nothing.”

You wouldn’t care if I went and disappeared
You wouldn’t care if I drowned myself in tears

miss girl world comes out on August 19th and you can preorder it from the Maya Lucia Bandcamp page.

 Mol Sullivan – Deep End Dive

Cincinnati‘s Mol Sullivan has made a name over the last decade making earnest and unflinchingly intimate songs leavened with pop melodies and confident vocals. Latest single ‘Deep End Dive’ is described as “a reflection of a regretful approach to a loved one,” and combines difficult soul searching with feelings of growth and hope. Born of Sullivan’s recent sobriety, the track displays a genuine sense of self-reflection and reconciliation, a clear mind piercing the storm clouds of the past and allowing more positive progress into the future.

‘Deep End Dive’ is out now and available from the Mol Sullivan Bandcamp page.

Prudence – Waste Some Time

The recording project of Sydney‘s Tom Crandles, Prudence makes what we’ve described previously as “human traits wrapped up in a gloominess as grey and chilly as the Cold War-era of the post-punk and new wave it references, revealed only in the intermittent illuminations made so prominent by the twilit tones.” New album Negatives looks to continue the aesthetic, a fitting soundtrack for the troubled world in which it was created. Lead single ‘Waste Some Time’ introduces the shadowy and conflicted atmosphere, a lean and linear pop song that’s all sinew and forward motion, forgoing the repetition of the conventional verse-chorus structure.

Negatives is out on 26th August and you can pre-order it now from the Prudence Bandcamp page.

Snake Lips – Braindead II

After a series of releases on Repeating Cloud and Totally Real Records, Portland, Maine’s Snake Lips have unveiled brand new record Happy Anxious. The title feels like the perfect fit for their hectic sound, lead Cody Mitchell’s vocals delivered with both volatility and wry humour, as though strung out between hope and despair and choosing to ride the instability. Single ‘Braindead II’ sets the mood, its lo-fi punk style barrelling along with real pace as Mitchell shouts, shrieks and smirks about the hand life has dealt him.

Zack Keim – Canyon

Pittsburgh singer-songwriter Zack Keim cut his teeth in music from an early age, forming bands from his early teens and touring as the frontperson of punk outfit Nox Boys when only sixteen. But, despite the band’s success, his creativity wasn’t satisfied, turning to solo work as a new outlet with the 2017 album First Step. New single ‘Canyon’ represents Keim’s first solo work since, emerging from some major life changes as well as the usual global turmoil with a newfound freshness and confidence. A bright-eyed refusal to back down from his passions and will to create, and perhaps the first time he has really started to develop his artistic voice.

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Human traits are wrapped up in a gloominess as grey and chilly as the Cold War-era of the post-punk and new wave it references, revealed only in the intermittent illuminations made so prominent by the twilit tones—the dancing sparkles, the fog-bound will-o’-the-wisps, the great flashes of light.

After a number of singles in the intervening years, this month sees Crandles return with a brand new Prudence EP, Untitled, this time released via Endless Recordings. The record again delves into a chaotic and contradictory blend of moods, a swirl only exacerbated by the current predicament. Indeed, Untitled is something of a product of the pandemic. “In the past year I have taken an involuntary break from music and life in general,” he explains. “Obviously 2020 was one great collective struggle. I decided to print some music as motivation to help find my balance and connect again. This music is a reflection of my year in static.”

In other words, the juxtaposition that Crandles usually seeks out for the Prudence sound was all too apparent. A mismatch between exterior stasis and internal turmoil, and the dizzying present that results. Latest single ‘Celestial’ faces this head on, leaning on piano to amp up the intimacy and confront the pessimistic picture of the world unfolding outside. The song “is more of a reflection of the face of futility that stares me down day to day,” Crandles explains, “and the harmful ways in which I try to defy it which ultimately lead me further away from where I want to be.”

Untitled will be released on 14th May on Endless Recordings and you can get it now from the Prudence Bandcamp page.

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Pezzettino – Somewhere North of Pescadero

Pezzetino has been the recording moniker of Oakland-based multi-instrumentalist Margaret Stutt since 2008, with the releases numbering into double figures. Indeed, Venus, the 10″ EP out this month, is the eleventh Pezzetino release. “Success to me means having the opportunity each day to witness beauty in life, big or small,” Strutt says. “I just so happen to write music along the way to help me through.”

Lead single ‘Somewhere North of Pescadero’ operates according to this sentiment. Led by a mellow piano line, the track is an encapsulation of the calmness to be found in the small details of nature—mindfulness in its pure sense, before it became co-opted by the productivity ghouls of our age. “I enjoy the flavor of fruit and the color of sunsets,” Strutt explains. “I can’t believe how many sunsets I wasted in my 20s. There is so much to be found beneath the surface of everyday, boring life.”

Check out the video below, which was edited by Christiana Charalambous, with footage by Chris Coad:

Venus is out now and you can get it from the Pezzetino Bandcamp page.

Bedtime Khal – Black Tears

Bedtime Khal is the recording moniker of Michigan-based bedroom artist Khal Malik. After releasing two EPs last year, Malik has teamed up with the good people at Devil Town Tapes for a brand new release. Described as an “introspective” EP of ” love, isolation and the feeling of nostalgia,” Fog finds Bedtime Khal at its most developed and honed, taking inspiration from the aesthetics of the late 90s/early 00s and combining post-punk, indie rock and singer-songwriter styles.

Lead single ‘Black Tears’ gives a good indication of how this turns out. Intended as a meditation “on life as a black and brown individual,” the song’s tight rhythm evokes both frustration and unease, though below this energy lies an overwhelming sadness too. The restless melancholy of post-punk has sometimes fallen victim to existential navel gazing, and Bedtime Khal is here to revitalise the sound and direct it toward more pressing concerns.

City Dress – Showing Up

City Dress is the recording moniker of Brooklyn-based songwriter Christina Skramstad. With help from Johnny Simon Jr., Skramstad draws from folk, rock-and-roll and jazz to create lush, narrative-based songs that combine emotional immediacy with a desire to evoke memories and tell stories.

New single ‘Showing Up’ serves as the perfect introduction. “‘Showing Up’ is a response to a tension that built up with my best friend as we navigated walking deeper into the wonders and hardships of adulthood,” Skramstad explains. “It speaks to the insecurities that follow us as we get older. There are still so many humbling moments when we feel small and vulnerable, just like we did when we were young.”

Check out the video by Glenn Gallagher with visual narrative and illustrations by Liana Finck:

Prudence – Heart Sways

We covered Prudence, the recording project of Australian multi-instrumentalist Tom Crandles (of COLOURS and Au.Ra), a few times last year. First the single ‘Euphoria’ introduced a smoky dream-like atmosphere before the full EP Major Tom was released on Forged Artifacts. The release explored “realms both strange and reassuring, disquieting and beautiful,” drawing on post-punk and new wave to capture an alluring blend of the joyous and sinister.

This month sees Prudence return with a brand new single, and something of a shift in the project. Enlisting the talents of pianist Aleesha Dibbs (of Divebell, Lorelei), bassist Kat Harley (The Laurels, Mezko) and drummer Steve West (Obscura Hail), Prudence has evolved into a full band, and new song ‘Heart Sways’ utilises this to weave a vivid dream pop soundscape. The warm currents evoke the themes too, with the volatile patterns of love charted in all of their fickle beauty.

You know it’s not done.
Don’t ruin all the fun,
Cos’ I’m becoming numb.

I know your mood swings with the moon.
I know your heart sways

Check out the video directed by McLean Stephenson:

Heart Sways is out now and available from the Prudence Bandcamp page.

Jess Williamson – Wind on Tin

LA-based songwriter Jess Williamson has been steadily establishing herself as a leading name in the Californian folk movement. Released in 2018, her last record Cosmic Wink introduced a subtle esoteric edge to her country-inspired sound, and Williamson’s forthcoming fourth full-length album looks sets to continue in that direction. Sorceress, to be released this month on Mexican Summer, might not be overtly psychedelic, but it carries a mysticism nonetheless.

Lead single ‘Wind on Tin’ is the perfect example. Born out of an experience during a memorial service for a friend in a remote town, the track sees Williamson lean into the spiritual dimension of the desert, where the air shimmers over the land and the wind carries its own mystique and power. “We heard an unexplainable sound in the wind that made us all pause,” she explains. “Like a flute, but more angelic. It kept going. We tried, unsuccessfully, to record it. The sound was indescribably beautiful and heavenly.”

Helpless, helpless, helpless
We all sang along
There is a braid that binds us
And his thread ain’t gone
Heard a sound so heavenly
Were the angels singing just for us?
Or is that what the wind
Out here does on tin?

I heard god

Sorceress is out via Mexican Summer on the 15th May and you can pre-order it now.

Toner – Dark Ecstasy

Oakland band Toner describe their music as ‘lovers rock’, though the tag doesn’t quite get close to the noisy amalgamation of slacker, garage rock and slowcore that constitutes their sound. Last month saw the release of their brand new record, Silk Road, on Smoking Room, an album that completes the outfit’s total transformation from solo project of lead Samuelito Cruz to no holds barred rock band.

Single ‘Dark Ecstasy’ sets the tone, Cruz’s vocals perched atop of the dense sound and weaving a carefree, nocturnal air. But beneath the buoyant energy runs another force, some desperation, as though everything is slipping away with the motion of the track, leaving Cruz to reach out as they move away. “No sleep, gin on the backstreets,” he sings. “My time is on your lease just to calm / your ease but you leave.”

Karina – Teko

Helsinki duo Karin Mäkiranta and Helmi Tikkanen record under the moniker Karina, and in 2018 won critical acclaim with their self-titled debut album. Built from a sense of intimacy that veered between warm and haunting, Karina was a record of serious emotion, blending folk sensibilities with the indie rock weight of Daughter, and maintaining a certain mysteriousness too—establishing them as one of Scandinavia’s most intriguing acts.

Ahead of their second record, the aptly titled 2 that’s out on GEMS this summer, Karina has unveiled a brand new single, ‘Teko’. Weaving a detailed soundscape populated by the pair’s ethereal vocals, the track sits at the intersection of dream pop and indie rock, pushing the Karina sound in an increasingly ambitious direction. Indeed, with the peaks and troughs, ‘Teko’ has roots in post-rock too, and the transcendent climax (which in fact kicks in around halfway through and refuses to let up) packs a punch of which Sigur Ros would be proud.

2 will be released via GEMS on 3rd July.

Eliza Edens – Garden of Sound

Raised in Massachusetts and currently residing in Philadelphia, Eliza Edens weaves a delicate, finger picked brand of folk music. Taking inspiration from the slower rhythms of geological time, her debut full-length Time Away From Time removes itself from the rush of modern life to probe and ponder at a more leisurely place, finding beauty and melancholy in both nature and the process of living.

Lead track ‘Garden of Sound’ welcomes you into this world. Carved from a wistful fondness, the song balances intuition with mystery, offering a natural ambiguity where knowing and unknowing marble into something wonderful.

I lay down
In a garden of sound
And I remembered
I remembered
Inside of you
Is a place that has never been wounded
Don’t you remember?

State Park Ranger – Mountain Kin / Anodyne

Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, State Park Ranger are a folk rock duo with an added bluesy streak. Released last month, Days Gone is a three song EP that’s paving the way for a forthcoming full-length, and each of the tracks capture a different side to the outfit that suggest the album will be both versatile and ambitious.

There’s much to admire in the gentle acoustic strum of the title track, and the hauntingly spacious hymn ‘Bright Morning Stars’, but the slow-burning ‘Mountain Kin / Anodyne’ really stands out. Shaking into life with a lazy flow, there’s a deep-set anger at the heart of the track, one that is allowed out not in melodramatic bursts of noise but rather the flat delivery and spikes of guitar. “‘Well it never ends’ is all I’ve been thinking lately,” they explain, referencing the opening line of the song. “Being caught at the bottom of the economy never allows for a break. Even being at home now, I am spending borrowed and stolen time. I don’t own my time, I’m a thief for resting, and I’m lazy if I do not desire more than what I need. Capitalism is unsustainable.”

Renée Reed – Out Loud

Born and raised in southern Louisiana, Renée Reed makes music as a continuation of a rich cultural lineage. She is the granddaughter of Cajun accordion player Harry Trahan and both her parents are Cajun musicians too. Reed is currently studying Traditional Music and French at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and working in the Archives of the Center for Louisiana Studies, in some ways following in the footsteps of another family member, great-uncle Revon Reed who was a folklorist from Mamou, Louisiana.

Adapting the blueprint of contemporary artists such as Cate le Bon and Jessica Pratt, Renée Reed uses her music to bring this sense of history and culture into the present moment, resulting in what she describes as “dream-fi folk from the Cajun prairies.” ‘Out Loud’, Reed’s first single on the reliably excellent Keeled Scales, is a wonderful introduction. It’s a beguiling and magnetically dreamlike folk song which Reed says is about “surviving an unhealthy relationship… by embracing and being yourself fully.” Check it out below:

‘Out Loud’ is out now on Keeled Scales. Get it from the Renée Reed Bandcamp page.

That’s all folks for Vol. 34! Be sure to check out the Reviews and Previews sections for more in-depth writing, and do let us know what you’ve been listening to on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

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Real Life Buildings – Racing the Sun
Nice Apple – Are You Still There?
V.V. Lightbody – Babe, Honestly
Nico Hedley – Late Bloomer
Gracie Gray – Morphine
Spencer Radcliffe & Everyone Else – Bloodletting
Pleasure Systems – Heirloom
Ana Roxanne – Slowness
Kin Hana – Fog
Rainwater – Pink Flowers
Christelle Bofale – U Ouchea
Prudence – Smile & Nod
Operators – Faithless
Belaver – Driver
Mr Husband – Friends
Rose Hotel – Running Behind
Jeremy Squires – Somersault
Bad Books – Lake House
Yammerer – Poisonous Reptilian Colleague’s & Co
Britt – Trial Period
Wild Yawp – Femme Girl
Forest Management – Blue Leaves
Robert Stillman – Ritual
Everyone is Dirty – Hit-Girl
Merin – Coral Island
Lavender Bones – Over Again
Luke De-Sciscio – R.O.B.Y.N.
Anna Wiebe – Fortune
Young Elk – Gossip Magazines
Emma Frank – I Thought
Eamon McGrath – GUTS
Jacob Faurholt – The Dark Isn’t Right

Like what you hear? Catch up with the rest of our Monthly Mixes.

The post May 2019 Roundup Mix appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Prudence makes music that is oddly magnetic, Crandles’s experience as a session bass player influencing a sound he calls “a natural disaster of dissonance and melody.” Major Tom “occupies the space between electric and ethereal,” we wrote previously, getting to the heart of EP’s aesthetic, “songs that blend an ominous technological murk with transcendental brightness […] an off-kilter vision that could be a dream or simulation, the only clear fact that the songs are not quite of our world.”

Opener ‘Smile & Nod’ arrives from amidst a cloud of icy synths, an effortlessly pulsating pop song that sighs and aches with an uneasy allure. The vibe is an illustration of the EP as a whole, which Crandles himself describes as an “amalgamation of all things holy and sinister”—capturing the abrasive bitterness, smoky uncertainty and heart-quickening euphoria that come with addictions and relationships of all colours. “I’ll never be what you want me to be,” Crandles sings, “so for now leave unrest to me.” But for all the brooding darkness, the chorus sparkles with life, early signs that there are chinks in Prudence’s atmospheric fog.

How heavy is this ocean?
come lift me from the deep end
and spread salt beneath my skin
so I’m buoyant again

‘Euphoria’ follows suit, an intravenous shot of slinky pop that’s offset by a thick sense of tension. “A friction between conflicting moods and tempos […] disrupts even the glossy rhythms of the track’s chorus,” we described in the previous piece, “hiding something unchoreographed, near paroxysmal.” Such a pattern is set for Major Tom, urgent pop songs whose rich shadowy texture belies the fact they were recorded by Crandles alone in Margate, Kent. ‘S on S’ sparkles and sighs its way towards an energetic outro, while ‘Save it For Me’ has big bright flashes of synth illuminating an angsty 80s-inflected electrop pop song. Closer ‘Sound of Your Voice’ smoulders in an easy slow burn, Crandles channeling the Gallagher brothers as he delivers his lines with nonchalant intensity.

On Major Tom, Prudence explores realms both strange and reassuring, disquieting and beautiful. Human traits are wrapped up in a gloominess as grey and chilly as the Cold War-era of the post-punk and new wave it references, revealed only in the intermittent illuminations made so prominent by the twilit tones—the dancing sparkles, the fog-bound will-o’-the-wisps, the great flashes of light.

Major Tom is out today on Forged Artifacts, and you can get it from the Prudence Bandcamp page.

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Swim Camp – Pretty Bird
Black Belt Eagle Scout – Indian Never Die
Pedro The Lion – Quietest Friend
Cat Clyde – Anymore
She Keeps Bees – Coyote
Cartwheel – Nothing
Tempertwig – Comfort Blanket
Downhaul – Wires / Enough
Witching Waves – Eye 2 Eye
LISA – Primitive Us
Yamachan – Rose Gold Blue
Spelling Reform – The Second Coming
Faith & Majesty – Summer Fling
Caroline Lazar – Georgia
Jeffrey Silverstein – Easy Rider
Ronnie Rogers – Leaning On
Nanami Ozone – Alone Too
Fresh – Willa
Perfume V – Perfume Homes Movies
Hand Habits – Can’t Calm Down
MUNYA – Benjamin
LUNCH – Forget Everything
Control Top – Chain Reaction
Prudence – Euphoria
Cult Film – Bored to Death
Walking Bicycles – Fat Cat
Lost Dog – DFT
Sharkmuffin – Serpentina
Bandy – Trying to Reach You
Gold Connections – Like a Shadow
AllegrA – Spoon or Fork
Parkway & Columbia – Wondering and Wandering
la loye – to live underwater
Kitchen – Claws
Spectator – Waves
Sailor Boyfriend – The Battle of Sugarhill
Ladada – My Van
The Exbats – 2027
Adir L.C. – Reacting
minihorse – Drink You Dry
Trevor Stott – Halfway in the Night
Tyler Burkhart – Waiting For You
Or Sobre Blau – Mártires

Like what you hear? Catch up with the rest of our Monthly Mixes!

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We’re delighted to share a video for the album’s lead single, ‘Euphoria’, a few weeks ahead of release. A snaking track pitched on the no man’s land between dream pop and post-punk, the single’s languid haze belies an undercurrent altogether more insistent, a driving rhythm at the heart of the track upon which Crandles’ vocals surf, barely moving. A sense of tension develops, a friction between conflicting moods and tempos that disrupts even the glossy rhythms of the track’s chorus, even slinky movement hiding something unchoreographed, near paroxysmal.

This discrepancy lends a curious, uneasy edge, a volatility hidden beneath the easy facade that unnerves and delights in equal measure. It is fitting then that the video, directed by McLean Stephenson, has a distinctly Lynchian vibe, the footage governed by a logic that hovers just out of view. The result is hypnotic and vaguely bizarre, the sort of oblique eccentricity that plays out behind locked doors and blank faces, always threatening to show itself and drag you in.

Major Tom is out on the 26th April via Forged Artifacts and you can pre-order it now.

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