Writing of Astra Forward back in 2022, we described how the London-based artist combines “classic folk stylings as well as a timeless ethereal atmosphere channeling a bond between human emotion and the natural world that feels somehow ancient.” New single ‘Ben’s Birds’ again possesses a link to nature, though this time the real focus is memory. Joe Taylor (drums/percussion), Callum McGuinness (production/bass/nylon strung guitar) and Laura Hussey (violin) help create a sound capable of conjuring thoughts of a past friendship in vivid detail, and thus breath new life into something precious. “With writing ‘Ben’s Birds’, I hoped to bring into colour ageing memories that felt like they were fading,” the artist explains. “The song seeks to reflect something of this gentle soul’s beauty and our connection, while expressing broader themes of memory, endurance and grief.”

Bennett Heidelberger – Eater of God/100usd

Having been around the Nashville music scene for a number of years, Bennett Heidelberger finally decided to release some songs of his own in 2024, starting with EP Wood Ducks. That record was a collection of small, tender tracks which centred on loss in various guises, from bereavement to the end of a romantic relationship. Now Heidelberger is back with new double single ‘Eater of God/100usd’, a pair of songs no less heartfelt in their execution yet showing a newfound sense of scale and weight. The former opens in a sincere hush before developing into something bigger and bolder, and ‘100usd’ follows suit with Heidelberger’s weightiest sound to date, the tone slightly more wry but lacking none of the emotion.

boyhood. – looking for you

Back in August we wrote about boyhood., a project which represents “an attempt […] to consider what has been gained and lost through the slow process of self-actualisation,” as we put it. “To save the parts worth saving, and potentially fill in the gaps.” Like previous single ‘wes anderson (your dog)’, new track ‘looking for you’ rises from restrained, downbeat beginnings into something richly affirming, as though the track’s confessional tone coaxes the sound to life. An exploration of love and grief most striking for its authenticity, delivered with the ambience of the moment left intact. “I recorded dozens of ‘clean’ vocal takes between October and now, and ended up just keeping the crude demo and bringing in friends to help me build around it,” boyhood. explains, “keeping the imperfections and clicks and bits of conversation to maintain the emotional space I wrote it in.”

‘looking for you’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Lavender Blue – Wishbone

Based in the mountains of Asheville, NC, Lavender Blue is the recording project of Kayla Zuskin. Following on from 2022 EP Slow Down, Lavender Blue is back with new singles on Ghost Mountain Records. The latest of which, ‘Wishbone’, takes inspiration from the image of a tree split in two yet continuing to grow, something moving in different directions but fundamentally united at the root. “[The song is] about the cognitive dissonance we all can experience when people or places inherently grow apart but alas remain connected,” as Zuskin puts it. Mary Steinbrecher (bass, vocals) and Jack Victor (drums) lend the talents to bring to life a sound that owes as much to emo as it does folk or dream pop, combining sharp and smooth textures to evoke the duality at the track’s heart.

Lofi Legs – Chain

With a new album on the way, San Francisco indie rockers Lofi Legs have returned with the single ‘Chain’. We previously wrote about how they melded “garage rock and bedroom pop with psych and surf sensibilities […] to capture the highs and lows of life,” and the new track builds upon the vibe to gloriously hazy results. Harking back to the buzz bands of the early 00s, ‘Chain’ delivers a brightly carefree spirit within a bundle of scrappy energy and fuzzed-out textures, leading to a sound that is entirely committed despite not taking itself too seriously. Watch the suitably surreal video below:

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

Matthew Squires – Song of a Cactus

‘Song of a Cactus’, the latest single from Matthew Squires, was penned during the pandemic, though its sense of lost direction was familiar before the virus, and has persisted to the present day. “I have that annoying songwriter habit of wanting to defer to the work itself rather than my explanation of it,” Squires says, “but I’d say it’s about finding some quiet sense of desperate hope in an apocalypse.” Fans of the Texas songwriter will recognise the idiosyncratic and heartfelt tone, with a newfound use of synths deepening the mood without sacrificing the raw immediacy so key to Squires’s work. The result feels like an urgent dispatch from within an uncertain present. As Squires concludes: “I wanted to make sure I released it before the election as my little quixotic attempt at creating a psychical place of refuge in anticipation of whatever direction the world might lurch.”

Routine Caffeine – Philodendron

We first wrote about Routine Caffeine at the beginning of the year, describing how single ‘In The End Now’ embodied the Louisville outfit’s “penchant for rich, bittersweet soundscapes” and introduced their EP, Weeds Under Concrete Stones. With the full release now out in the world, Routine Caffeine have shared new single and opener ‘Philodendron’. It’s a track which marries a taut central rhythm with a dreamy haze, and hints at a sharp bite too, all highlighting just how much control Katie O’Brien Kelley (vocals, guitar), Madison Elizabeth Case (bass, synth, background vocals) and Emma Treganowan (drums) have over the mood of their work.

Sarah Swire – Tight!

Recording under the moniker Sister Swire, Toronto songwriter and actor Sarah Swire has caught our attention with with a delightfully idiosyncratic brand of art rock, from the nuanced, ominous take on psychosis on ‘I Shot the President’ to the unapologetically malicious fun of ‘Pulleys and Gears‘. Released under her own name, new single ‘Tight!’ is every bit as inventive as its predecessors, and has no less force in its bite. Owing as much to the weird fiction of Joy Williams as it does Captain Beefhart or Nick Cave, the track is a monologue delivered in the manner of a wound spring, twisting tighter and tighter until it unravels in a moment of chaotic release. The video—directed by Swire and shot by Nicole Cecile Holland, with animations and editing by Eric Stephen Martin—only furthers the surreal intensity of the track, Swire’s movements charged and contorted by her words as if not so much speaking or singing as channelling a deeper energy.

‘Tight! is out now and available from the usual places.

Shady Baby – Held In

Released to celebrate a successful year including a performance on the main stage at Y Not Festival and shows with Malice K, Shady Baby‘s new single ‘Held In’ is a fitting way to cap off 2024. With the Brighton outfit leaning further than ever into the bittersweet drama of nineties alt rock, the song finds Sam Leaver and co. pairing weighty crescendos with emotional depth, leading to what might be their most assured, evocative sound to date. A sense of control binds the majority of the track, though the constant simmer of its energies pays off in the soaring conclusion. Watch the video filmed by Meg Sweeney and directed and edited by Leaver below:

‘Held In’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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

Back in May we wrote about Turn Around For Me / See You Soon, the new double single from Glasgow‘s Constant Follower ahead of their anticipated second album The Smile You Send Out Returns To You, coming early next year via Last Night From Glasgow. “[Stephen] McAll and co. breathe extra life into the arrangement,” we wrote of ‘Turn Around For Me’, “and the song swells with an affirming rhythm which tips it towards indie rock territory.” The follow-up ‘See You Soon’ is no different. A continuation of the band’s exploration of memory which draws on the concept of saudade—the nostalgic longing for some absent person or thing—the song captures a picture of everyday life as haunted by a missing piece. Something which can never be resolved, a wound which will go on hurting.

Jordan Whitlock, Memory Spells – Heaven and Here

Back in February, we wrote about the collaboration between songwriter/producer Jordan Whitlock and Matt Bauer‘s Memory Spells, describing single ‘Take My Hand’ as “Suffused with the lush, shadowy grandeur of Lynch at his most romantic.” Now the duo have returned with a brand new single ‘ Heaven and Here’, another impressively atmospheric piece of cinematic pop music. Combining ambient and classical elements with Whitlock’s piercingly poignant vocals, it has all the drama and aching emotion of a tragedy. Sombre strings ache and sway over glitchy atmospherics and the muted thump of percussion as Whitlock delivers lyrics that possess a spare and opaque poetry.

Wildflowers bloom
Bend toward the sun
I follow you out through the waves
Nothing between
Heaven and here
Only the words I couldn’t say

‘Heaven and Here’ is out now via streaming services.

Lutalo – Ocean Swallows Him Whole

Following on from 2023’s AGAIN, a record which explored the various forms of oppression woven through our societies, Lutalo is returning this September with debut full-length The Academy on Winspear. Described as a time capsule of lessons learnt in their first chapter of life, the album sees the Vermont-based singer-songwriter delve into their past and invite the audience along for the ride. Single ‘Ocean Swallows Him Whole’ uses the doomed figure of Icarus to capture the peaks and troughs of this journey, drawing an energizing momentum from adrenaline rush, even if it comes from a fall.

Watch the video by director, cinematographer and editor Rich Smith below:

The Academy is out on the 20th September via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

 Melanie MacLaren – Heaven Is

A song she says is “about a lot of the myths and imagery we’re fed about the afterlife,” ‘Heaven Is’ is the latest single from Nashville singer songwriter Melanie MacLaren. Delivered in an easy country-pop style and with equal helpings of bittersweet feeling and wry humour, it combines existential musings with observations altogether more terrestrial. So heaven becomes both “a place up in the air” filled with lost loved ones and something in the here and now, like “sipping beer in folding chairs,” or “eating fruit straight off the vine.” “[‘Heaven Is’] is about the experience of how deconstructing those myths leads to reality check that we really have no idea what happens,” MacLaren describes, “besides that we leave, and everyone else does too.”

Heaven is the place where the dead girls go
Heaven is the place up in the air
Heaven is a place i don’t think about much
But I’ll have to one day I’m aware

‘Heaven Is’ is out now via streaming services.

Miserable chillers – Great American Turn Off

Miserable chillers has made a name with an idiosyncratic, constantly inventive sound, following a myriad of creative directions from Kate Bush-esque art pop to SNES soundtracks and field recordings. A mixtape featuring recordings made between 2018 and 2024, Great American Turn Off not only personifies the spirit of Miguel Gallego’s work, but serves as the ideal introduction for those looking to dive in for the first time. The release functions best as a full entity, rewarding those who take forty minutes to lose themselves in its easy rhythms, but we recommended single ‘The Shaft’ for anyone who needs a quicker dose.

Great American Turn Off is out now and available to hear in full here.

Molly Murphy – Seabird

Specializing in what she calls “lo-fi folk tunes summoned from the Blue Ridge and set loose in New York City,” Molly Murphy makes bright and emotionally resonant folk music. Her latest single is a cover of  The Alessi Brothers 1976 song ‘Seabird’. Complete with vocal harmonies, subtle mandolin and slide guitar, it’s a lush and laidback take on the original. Murphy’s vocals take centre stage, confidently but vulnerably delivering lyrics that use the imagery of the titular bird covering vast distances of remote ocean as a metaphor for distances altogether more human. “Like a lonely seabird,” Murphy sings, “you’ve been away from land too long / Oh, too long.”

Old Amica – Tiden far

Described as a release about time, Old Amica‘s ‘Tiden far’ sees the Swedish project turn their attention memory, looking to invoke how we experience the past, where the amorphous drift comes to form strange patterns and meanings. As such, the single is suitably hazy and slow-moving, its drama arising from a concealed hand as though always masked by something. Familiar sights and sensations as experienced through a gauze curtain. Old voices coming through a crackling radio, messages moving through the accumulated years with something to offer us yet.

Shady Baby – Feel It

Following a couple of singles in 2023, Brighton garage rockers Shady Baby are back with a brand new single, ‘Feel It’. Comprising of Sam Leaver (vocals, guitar), Nick Varnava (bass) and Tom Jackson (drums), Shady Baby draw on late 90s and early 00s alternative rock, and ‘Feel It’ is no different. A rich,  enveloping wall of sound is punctured by energizing electric guitar and crisp percussion, with enough hooks to appeal to the radio and festival circuit and enough grunge to bring in the rock-heads. All this raw energy is used to explore feelings of agitation and doubt. “‘Feel It’ started off as a song about grappling with impatience,” says Leaver, “but along the way it evolved into exploring the uncertainties of new relationships.”

‘Feel It’ is out now on streaming services.

Special World – Cloak in the Attic

This month saw Special World, that’s the solo recording project of Philly‘s Andy Molholt (who you might know from Speedy Ortiz), released their debut physical release with a self-titled collection. Described as ‘early’ songs, the cassette provides a peek into the inventive and often idiosyncratic style of the Special World sound, something demonstrated by the single and opener ‘Cloak in the Attic’. Starting with a glass smash but progressing with a lethargic rhythm, the song slowly crawls over the listener and absorbs them into its peculiar world. A place often strange and always colourful, where the light bends in odd shapes and everything takes on the loaded, abstract logic of dreams.

the cloak in the attic is hidden
obscured by a flowering gem
where is the proof?
no fumes left to reduce
cannot refuse a bargain which i cannot lose

night after night we misconstrue

Stelth Ulvang and the Tigernips – Dissolve

Described as “a visceral journey through the late-night mental crumblings of summer, capturing the essence of spontaneity and sincerity,” ‘Dissolve’ is the first single from Stelth Ulvang’s upcoming self-titled album, Stelth Ulvang and the Tigernips. Ulvang might be best known as the pianist for folk sensation The Lumineers, but has long pursued a variety of creative outlets, and the new album is something of an antidote to radio-friendly anthemic polish which has come to mark The Lumineers sound. ‘Dissolve’ is our first glimpse of a collection of songs which instead leans into the vulnerable and raw side of things, allowing Ulvang to show a slightly stranger but altogether more authentic side to his work.

YULLOLA – Silk Nightdress

At the end of last month, Maine songwriter and producer YULLOLA released Zen Maiden, a brand new record that exists in an unreal world of its own. Direct, pop-inflected indie rock songs sit next to cinematic spiritual jazz segues and dreamy spoken word sections. All of which makes sense when you understand where the album came from. “This year I truly was considering becoming a nun whilst getting obsessed with vocal inflections of kulning and female Bulgarian choirs,” YULLOLA describes, “spending hours in the forests of Maine just making sounds.” Opener ‘Silk Nightdress’ is the perfect introduction, a spoken word track with all the shimmering unreality and dark cinematic romance of Twin Peaks at its most melodramatic.

Zen Maiden is out now and available via the YULLOLA Bandcamp page.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2024 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

In January, Chayse Porter will release his third album Endless / Boundless, what label Earth Libraries describe as “nine new musical excavations and epiphanies the Birmingham-based songwriter dug up from life’s bedrock and polished to a shine in his basement lair.” ‘Flowers in Chains’ is the final single before the record’s release and is the perfect introduction. On the surface it’s sweet and jangly, all warm breeze and syrupy sunlight, but this is a song of contrast and juxtaposition. Porter describes the lyrics as “jutting barbs left for someone clueless to their own cruelty,” and close inspection sees the sweetness sour and the breeze leave goosebumps on your skin.

Do you ever get the feeling
That you’re not so kind of a person
Do you ever stop to think
That your words, they hurt
You’re so sweet, sweet like dirt

Hank Tree – Sweet Saltpeter

With Fergus MacDonald (formerly of State Broadcasters) joined by Roy Shearer (Ultras, Inspector Tapehead) and Bart Owl (Eagleowl, Broken Chanter), Glasgow‘s Hank Tree take folk sensibilities and elevate them into something truly atmospheric with a mixture of field recordings and distortion. But amid their invention and subversion of genre, Hank Tree hark back to folk’s best roots, positioning themselves in the long lineage of artists using the form to write about social history and labour movements. Album The Big North is out now, and latest single ‘Sweet Saltpeter’ is the perfect entry point, capturing the individual experience within an industrial setting, where a worker is as replaceable as any other part of the machine. The track comes with a video by filmmaker Felipe Bustos Sierra, who saw clear links between the record and his documentary Nae Pasaran, and the result is a both moving and visually striking development of the presiding themes.

The Big North is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Islands – Headlines

Earlier this year, Montreal indie rock/pop stalwarts Islands released And That’s Why Dolphins Lost Their Legs, their latest full-length which further developed their idiosyncratic vision and infectious energy. They’ve now released a new video for the single ‘Headlines’ directed by Vali Chandrasekaran, who is perhaps better known as a TV comedy writer for the likes of 30 Rock and Modern Family. A short film which centres on an artist trying to achieve the apotheosis desired by all musicians—the transformation from fallible flesh and blood to mythical rock star deity.

And That’s Why Dolphins Lost Their Legs is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Lizzie No – Annie Oakley

Next January, New York‘s Lizzie No is releasing their latest full-length album, Halfsies, via Thirty Tigers / Miss Freedomland. The record follows on from the likes of Hard Won, as No braids the personal and the political into something unique. Latest single ‘Annie Oakley’ is a perfect example. A road song which embraces the affirming experience of moving through a landscape while refusing to succumb to the romantic side of the genre. ““Most of the great songwriters in the Americana genre have darkly determined road songs featuring dirty motels, gas station coffee, the exhilaration of seeing America’s plains rushing toward them from behind a car windshield as if on a roller coaster designed by Willa Cather,” No explains. “Behind the scenery are some difficult questions, like ‘why have I chosen to do this with my life?’ and ‘will I ever be one of the greats?’”

Watch the video directed by Cole Nielsen and Mary Glen Fredrick below:

Halfsies will be released on 19th January. Order it now from the Lizzie No Bandcamp page.

Meiwei – Stare at the Sun

The project of singer-songwriter Michelle Mouw, Meiwei specialises in fingerpicked guitar, stirring arrangements and emotive lyrics. Mouw was born and raised in Beijing, moving to the US aged eighteen, and her music is an effort to explore the disparate parts of her life, identity and the wider world. It contrasts the USA and China, the past and the present, and the bustle of the city and the calm of nature. The new Meiwei record, On This Trail Till I’m Home, is the culmination of all this exploration, full of themes both deeply personal and welcomingly universal. Single ‘Stare at the Sun’ is a case in point, what Mouw calls an “indie-folk queer anthem” which builds from earnest guitar strums into a rich arrangement that marbles wistfulness and hope, strength and vulnerability.

Other Vessels – Empty Afternoon

Other Vessels is an Austin indie folk outfit led by singer-songwriter Miranda Haney. Back in the Spring, the band got together to record the debut Other Vessels EP, Empty Afternoon, a collection of songs Haney describes as “intimate portraits of the partnerships – romantic, platonic, and familial – that shape (and save) our lives.” The title track is our first glimpse of how this might sound, a warm and serene folk pop song that Haney says is about “letting someone love you even though you feel like absolute dog shit.” “You’re coming over in 25 minutes, don’t trust my judgment when I’m so deep in it,” she sings, “Pulling a razor over my knees shaving my armpits to prove that I’m happy and clean.”

Pari Eskandari – Chador

‘Chador’ is a new single from Iranian-German artist Pari Eskandari, offered in memory of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian killed in custody in Tehran in 2022. It is a statement of defiance sent to those who would use violence in the name of so-called morality. Released via Tricky’s False Idols label, the song is dark and dramatic and full of ominous power. It comes complete with a video directed by Nikolas Meyberg which depicts a female ritual designed, as Eskandari explains, “to elevate the women from the ordinary to the sublime.” An expression of solidarity conducted through music and dance “for the women in Iran who risk their lives every day.”

‘Chador’ is out now via False Idols and available from Bandcamp.

Shady Baby – All Too Late

Life has been a bit of a rollercoaster for Brighton‘s Shady Baby since we last featured them. Bursting onto the scene after a single gig, they signed with tastemaker label Nice Swan Records and were played on BBC Radio 1. But a series of interruptions, including the departure of their lead guitarist and the cost of living crisis, slowed this momentum and things have been quiet since. That is, until now, as Shady Baby are back with a brand new single, ‘All Too Late’, a fittingly rousing and cathartic ode to fresh starts. “‘All Too Late’ is a song about looking to the future and wanting to feel in control of your own life,” describes lead Sam Leaver. “It was written as a piece of advice to myself to not be stuck in the past, to take charge of my own life and to know I have the power to change it.”

‘All Too Late’ is out now via streaming services.

Symbol Soup – Husky Dawgs

Sad Club Records label-mates Symbol Soup and Kitty Fitz have teamed up to write a Christmas song, ‘Husky Dawgs’. A warm and cosy slice of charming indie pop, it’s a song about seeing old friends when returning home for Christmas, complete with two fictional huskies named after Duster and Shuggie Otis. It’s jingly, jangly and perfect for a warm room on a cold festive evening. And you never know, could catapult the band to Christmas royalties stardom. As Symbol Soup’s Michael Rae puts it: “every family friend or person you meet at a wedding will tell you that the way to make money is to have one Christmas hit.”

‘Husky Dawgs’ is streaming everywhere now.

The post Weekly Listening: December 2023 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Swiss post-punks Batbait are preparing to release their debut album this September, and latest single ‘Talk’ certainly whets the appetite. With a deadpan vocal style delivered over rhythmic drums and a tense bass line, the track threatens to spark into furious life for most of its runtime, though despite the discordant guitars passing over haphazardly, it isn’t until the closing section that the real bite reveals itself. A lesson in passive aggression which can’t help but eventually show its claws. Check out the claymation video by Nadia Leonhard below:

‘Talk’ is out now via Irascible Distribution and available from the Batbait Bandcamp page.

Foyer Red – Flipper

Described as “fuck-you crayon rock”, the music of Foyer Red combines colour and bite to great effect, blurring the line between fun, fury and fantastical charm. New single ‘Flipper’ embraces this style wholeheartedly, swinging wildly between sugary sweet and strikingly strange to weave its way between the real and imaginary. As the track barrels its way toward the chaotic climax, any distinction between the two seems to dissolve, leaving a trip to the bodega as desperate and dangerous as scavenging a post-apocalyptic world.

i’m a ravenous creature left to roam the earth
set against a scorching sphere
no one here, my own frontier
rusted into this warzone
i’m all alone, i have no bones (no bones)
not yet full grown, i’d eat your bones
bones, bones

‘Flipper’ is out now and available from the Foyer Red Bandcamp page.

Healees – In Your Cave

Based in Paris, Healees are a four-piece band who make noisy but sweet pop music that harks back to the C86 era. Formed back in 2015 after a chance meeting between Bryan Quinn and Renaud Chauré, the band soon added Hillevi Robertsson (bass) and Arthur Chen (drums) and set to work on writing songs, culminating in 2019 with the release of the demo tape Heal’s Beals. Now Healees have teamed up with Hidden Bay Records to release their first proper debut, a self-titled EP that contains polished versions of some of the demos as well as brand new tracks. One such new song is lead single ‘In Your Cave’, which on the surface sparkles like the summer sun but is undercut by a sober wistfulness.

Jacob Faurholt – Madness on the Rise

Back in March we wrote about, ‘Comforting Sounds’, the first single from Jacob Faurholt‘s new album, When the Spiders Crawl. A nostalgic track “downbeat but coloured by an overriding fondness.” Latest single ‘Madness on the Rise’ picks up this melancholic tone, exploring mental struggles with Faurholt’s characteristically empathetic and understanding style. But it carries a certain starkness too as the electric guitar rumbles with palpable weight, a formidable force bubbling up around fragile vulnerability.

When the Spiders Crawl is out on the 15th July via Raw Onion Records and you can pre-order it now.

JayWood – God is a Reptile

JayWood is the alias of Winnipeg songwriter and producer Jeremy Haywood-Smith, who has recently announced a brand new record coming this summer on Captured Tracks. Haywood-Smith began work on the album as an escape from what can only be described as mourning, both from the various social crises of 2020 and the death of his mother in 2019. He began by reconnecting with his roots, pulling back into the past in order to fire himself forward into a better future, hence the title Slingshot. For an album that explore such deep territory, it is surprisingly fun and playful, presenting a near-real version of his life that combines fact and imaginative fiction to explore themes of childhood, religion and identity. First released standalone back in March, lead single ‘God is a Reptile’ is the perfect introduction, a kaleidoscopic blend of groovy pop and bummed-out angst, complete with refracted layered vocals and surreal tempo changes. Check it out below:

Rob Dickson – Aaron and Rae

Based in Whitehorse, Yukon, Rob Dickson is a songwriter gearing up to release brand new record, Portraits, later this year. With guests including Ansley Simpson, Bry Webb, Mika Posen, Nic Hyatt, Micah Smith, Drew Jurecka and Michael Feuerstack, the album assembles some of Canada’s best to realise its rich and emotive sound, as demonstrated by lead single, ‘Aaron and Rae’. An ode to the past which drops the rose-tinted fondness in favour of something more real and raw.

Shady Baby – Come To Life

The project of Brighton‘s Sam Leaver, Shady Baby is the latest emerging act to be featured in the ‘Nice Swan Introduces…’ series of UK label Nice Swan Records (which has also included the likes of Sprints, English Teacher and Saloon Dion). Leaver is joined by Laurie Debnam (guitar), Nick Varnava (bass) and Tom Jackson (drums), who together make contemporary indie rock that draws heavily from the Britpop and Madchester scenes that dominated British music in the 90s. Shady Baby have introduced this style with ‘Come to Life’, their debut single for Nice Swan. It’s a track that belies its angsty subject matter with pure heart-quickening energy. “‘Come To Life’ is an angry response to feeling like people treated you like shit but you let them get away with it,” Leaver describes. “Feeling both angry at them but also at yourself for letting it happen.”

‘Come to Life’ is out now and available via streaming services.

Weird Nightmare – Searching For You

Best known as the guitarist and vocalist from METZ, Alex Edkins has turned to new project Weird Nightmare as an outlet for another dimension of his creativity. The self-titled debut album, out now via Sub Pop, leavens the foreboding weight of Edkins’ usual material with a mischievous fun, as captured in the hectic single ‘Searching for You’. A track which is no less pedal-to-the-metal than anything in the METZ catalogue, but engages this energy in an entirely different direction. Check out the great video directed by Ryan Thompson with animation from Jordan “Dr. Cool” Minkoff:

Weird Nightmare is out now via Sub Pop and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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