Back in 2022, Texas-based songwriter and DIY stalwart Brody Price released Win A Trip To Palm Springs, what we described as “an authentic engagement with the difficult side of life” which nevertheless “refus[ed] to succumb to maudlin yearning or fatalistic cynicism, instead working with enough patience and curiosity to allow the full spectrum of emotions to coexist.” Now Price is set to return with brand new record Leaf Miner’s Daughter, to be released via Gar Hole Records this autumn, and single and album opener ‘Breathing Again’ suggests he is once more prepared to wrestle with hope and despair in his distinctive alt-country style. The subject matter could hardly be darker, dealing with the real-life instance when Price and his wife tried to help two victims of a shooting outside their home in Fort Worth (one of which died while they administered CPR), and again the song’s mission seems to be an attempt to fight off complete doom despite its constant assault. How does one go on living in a country (or indeed entire world) which seems to be collapsing? What hope can be scavenged within the ruins of this disaster? Brody Price might not have the answers, but he’s out there trying to help all the same.

Leaf Miner’s Daughter will be released on the 9th October via Gar Hole Records and you can pre-order it now.

Charlotte Greve – Own Lap

“Considers the multitudes which exist within any one person, and how this array of dimensions is shaped and grown by our immediate surroundings [with a] bright and curious sound, based around syncopated vocals and drum machine beats, [which] flickers like a disco ball in uneven light, as though with every twist and turn, Greve shows a slightly different face to herself, each just as vivid and shining as the last.” So we wrote of ‘Membranes’, the lead track from Charlotte Greve‘s new album WATERBODIES, forthcoming via New Amsterdam. The German-born, Brooklyn-based composer, singer and saxophonist has now shared latest track ‘Own Lap’, the clearest indication yet of both the record’s playful invention and the scale of the intentions which underpin it. Dedicated to her late grandmother and two friends who have moved through adversity, “strong people,” as Greve describes, “who had the ability and strength to keep their head up and keep going,” the song is an eleven-minute epic brought to life with full orchestral grandeur which nevertheless never loses sight of the personal amid the sweeping majesty. Or rather, it is a song which locates the majesty within the personal experience of the everyday.

Jason Calhoun – Enjoy Losing

Last month we introduced revelations of divine love, the new full-length album from Jason Calhoun coming soon via Dear Life Records. It’s the latest offering from “an artist on a mission, or else just asking questions,” as we put it, “someone in perpetual search for something elusive, be it mere solace or transcendence”. The release could be seen as a kind of metacommentary on this quest, coming to understand how the revelations of its title will not arrive as a grand epiphany but in the accumulated experience gleaned from day to day. Latest single ‘Enjoy Losing’ is an embodiment of this spirit, delving into the piecemeal nature of anything artistic or spiritual, as well as the patience required as a result. “[The] title comes from playing chess.com on my phone,” as Calhoun explains:

Going in I decided I wouldn’t learn how to win through theory, but instead through trial and error. I really had to learn to enjoy the game even when I was losing. You can call it poetics if you’re so inclined but that losing process feels tied to my musical and spiritual practice. I’ve learned to be patient with the way my music takes form just as I have tried to learn to welcome difficulty with open arms. The textural piece finds me with a contact mic and a rosary in hand, a representation of my ever-present search for divine love.”

Kate Prascher – They Will Fall Down

After singles ‘Jubilee‘ and ‘Thousand a Million‘, Tennessee-born, Hudson Valley-based songwriter Kate Prascher continues to prepare for the release her new album Sunday Afternoon with latest single ‘They Will Fall Down’. A “collision of the vintage and contemporary is typical of [her] work,” we wrote of her music previously, “Prascher finding fertile ground in the ambiguous space between things, be it mystery and clarity or the old and the new,” and the new song is no exception. A lush and wistful reflection on the end of the world, the track plays as something of a homespun waltz, managing to evoke both the gravity of impending conclusions while retaining a sense of sincerity and fondness too.

Sunday Afternoon will be released on the 28th August via First City Artists.

Matthew Squires & Sunk Coast – What’s Going On?

From ballads about Norm MacDonald to satirical covers of viral conservative country hits, the work of Ithaca, New York-based songwriter Matthew Squires is as surprising as it is inventive. His new project with Zach Totta of Sunk Coast is by no means an exception. Our first taste of new EP Easy Answers To Harder Questions, single ‘Wing Song’ showed how quirk is not mutually exclusive to emotion (“with vocals that rival Daniel Johnston in their ability to echo Kermit the Frog,” we wrote, “the song is classic Matthew Squires, proving that genuinely compassionate music need not leave playfulness or strangeness at the door”), something which latest number ‘What’s Going On?’ really hammers home. With a zany yet caustic personality which would make Thomas Pynchon proud, the song paints a picture of the contemporary US in all of its bizarre idiosyncrasies. But for all of its cartoonish colour and wit, the tone remains locked in a kind of reflective melancholy, as though beneath the dazzling surfaces lies a fundamental emptiness which the modern day has no way to fill.

Max Bien Kahn – Neighbours

San Francisco-born, New Orleans-based songwriter Max Bien Kahn is preparing to release his fifth solo album Baby Green this autumn, a record which looks to capture the full spectrum of life in all its bittersweet nuance. The large and the small sit side by side, bereavement next to dancing in bars, favourite shirts alongside fatherhood, as MBK collapses the line between the significant and insignificant to evoke the very fabric of existence and all its messy threads. The result is tender, often joyous and occasionally heartbreaking, songs which treat life as a privilege no matter what any one day might throw at you. Take latest single ‘Neighbours’, which manages to mine the ostensibly mundane experience of nodding hello to a familiar face in the neighbourhood for all of its uplifting delight, and all without a trace of irony, even if the repeated assertion “I’m not afraid of strangers” suggests something telling about the contemporary moment.

You see that guy down the street
He lives right around the corner
He’s such a friendly neighbor
We’re gonna say hello

He’s taking out the trash now
Rolling the cans to the curb
I’m not afraid to stop and say hello
To all my neighbors

Baby Green will be released on the 23rd October and you can pre-order it now.

Old Man of the Woods – Venus in Virgo

Earlier this year, Miranda Elliott’s Old Man of the Woods released album Cape Perpetua, an album of songs which “employ a certain minimalism, especially in their beginnings, though as a means rather than an end,” as we wrote in our review, “As though by stripping down the present into an ascetic simplicity, Old Man of the Woods is able to push through into another world entirely.” Now Elliott has returned with new single ‘Venus in Virgo’, what the Seattle-based artist describes as “a spell for self preservation” which bends towards post-punk with taut, angular tones and punchy rhythms. But above this newly propulsive groundwork remain the ethereal tones of the project, Elliott’s vocals swirling and slurring with what could be sensual suggestion or sardonic bite.

Protomartyr – Sounds We Cannot Hear

“Another eighty-one dead since dawn / Spiders crawling ‘cross the ceiling / Next door there’s voices moaning / Can’t tell if they’re coming or going.” So sings Joe Casey in the opening lines of Protomartyr’s new single ‘Sounds We Cannot Hear’, the first taste of the Detroit outfit’s seventh studio album, Hotel Usona. Charged with horror and laced with sly humour, the song introduces an album which promises to confront the contemporary American moment in all its pathetic neuroses and heinous excesses, Protomartyr evolving their sound with the addition of horns, tubular bells, xylophone and more, yet retaining the intensity which has long marked them as the real deal amid a crowd of post-punk pretenders. Just consider the needling dread of the opening segment, or indeed Casey’s repeated refrain at the close, a chorus which starts like something of a defeated elegy and rises in sheer desperation. Is there any agency left in a society which engineers gross inequality at home and mass slaughter abroad? If this track is anything to go by, we’re left with two meagre options. We can bury our heads in technological distraction and try to pretend it isn’t happening, or, like poet Hart Crane who is referenced in the second verse, choose to dive headfirst from the ship into the oblivion below.  Watch the video directed by Danny Scharar and Harris Mayersohn, and starring comedian/actor Nate Varrone, below:

Hotel Usona will be released on the 25th September via Domino and you can pre-order it now.

Shredded Sun – Cruel Streak

“Their sound pulls ingredients from all corners of the indie rock pantry, resulting in something that feels both reassuringly familiar and freshly unpredictable.” That’s how we described Chicago‘s Shredded Sun back in June, as jangly-yet-gritty single ‘Skyscrapper’ introduced new full-length Never Odd or Even, coming soon via Repeating Cloud. With the release of the album now just over a week away, Shredded Sun have returned with brand new track, ‘Cruel Streak’. As the title might suggest, this number shows a more raucous dimension to the Shredded Sun sound, though again the swagger and attitude are cut with a certain nostalgic tone too, as though within the boisterous momentum lies a wistful longing for something more.

waltzerr – ciggy b

Later this month, Seattle-based indie rock outfit waltzerr will release new full-length Tomorrow Will Be Better via nonprofit label Share It Music. Originating as the solo project of vocalist and songwriter Emily Waltzer, waltzerr has now grown into a trio with the addition of Anthony Coraggio (bass) and Schuyler Jensen (guitar), and has made a mark in the local music scene with a mix of high energy and unguarded emotion. This combination forms the heart of the new album, Waltzer and co. finding room for both confessional quiet and full-blown catharsis, as demonstrated by vivid lead single, ‘ciggy b’. For while the track might be reflective in tone, looking back on a past relationship and what might have been, the sound itself has its eyes firmly on the horizon, galloping forward with considerable momentum and heft. Who says nostalgia can’t pack a real punch?

The post Weekly Listening: August 2026 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Back in 2024, Richmond, Virginia’s canaries released a self-titled EP, six songs that announced their brand of noisy lo-fi fuzz pop. One home-recorded demo aside, they have been quiet since then, that is until returning last week with a double single, released to coincide with a short tour with fellow Richmond locals Star Sign. Both new songs are great, but opener ‘horsepower’ just about takes it. The opening minute is a wordless rush, raw guitar and building percussion gathering into something genuinely exhilarating. Highly recommended if you like your pop songs on the heavier side and slathered in shoegaze-ish fuzz.

Frontlawn – Jenny Says

New Oberlin-based project Frontlawn have unveiled their debut single ‘Jenny Says’ as a calling card for their tender style of folk. The recording project of songwriters Tyler Buckser-Schulz and Viv Tullis, as well as a variety of friends, Frontlawn is clearly a labour of love, and their lead single sets out their intentions from the off. Recorded live to further the emotional immediacy of the sound, ‘Jenny Says’ is subtle but undeniably rich, possessing the closeness of bedroom pop yet brought to life by a full band, including Meredith Grotevant’s lap steel which adds a wistful country twang. Lyrically, the track is thoughtful and earnest, able to conjure both specific moments and images as well as a more reflective assessment of life’s constant yearning. An act to keep an eye on for sure.

Great Klons – More Beauty in the Rain

“[An] inventive collision of genres, as indie rock, psych, folk and Krautrock influences all coalesce into a singular sound able to explore ideas of instability within the contemporary moment.” So we wrote of an EP by Great Klons back in 2024, songwriter Scott Klon drawing on a wide palette to meet a chaotic present. Though if the circumstances surrounding that release were tumultuous, then latest EP Recurring Common Dream only ups the ante. Devasting wildfires, parental illness, the encroachment of pernicious technology… and that’s just on lead single ‘More Beauty in the Rain’. The track has a decidedly mid-00s feel, carved out of a blend of organic and digital textures and lifted by male-female harmonies, simmering as though always on the verge of firing into something altogether more propulsive yet for the most part retaining its understated, tonally ambiguous rhythm.

‘More Beauty in the Rain’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Hadnot Creek – The End Of The Road

Back in May we introduced Hadnot Creek, the recording project of Charlottesville songwriter Robert Sawrey and his rotating band of supporting musicians (including former members of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Kendall Street Company, no less), in preparation for the release of new full-length The End Of The Road. After single ‘River of Love’ gave a flavour of what to expect (“fans of the likes of James McMurty are sure to find much to love,” as we wrote, “Hadnot Creek sketching a decidedly existential picture of life and death without losing a toe-tapping rhythm”), Sawrey and co. are back with the title track. “[The song] is loosely based on two things,” he explains. “An ill advised camping trip to Vermont I took in 1976 (yes I’m that old) and the suicide of an old friend who battled bouts of mental illness. He was a gifted poet and naturalist.” The result is every bit as evocative as you might expect from this description, with vivid imagery (“Black flies so thick / you could kill them with a rake”) combining with an overarching sense of reflection to paint a picture of a man at the dead of night. A person lost in the wilderness or else the dark twists of his own head and confessing as much as plainly as he knows how.

Hana Stretton – salt / stove

Hana Stretton returns later this summer with a brand new record, the much-anticipated follow-up to 2023 sleeper hit Soon. Titled tiarn, the collection of eleven songs was self-recorded in small-town coastal Australia, taking inspiration from the experience of watching whales pass on a nearby migration route to ruminate on feelings of anxiety and loss caused by living through ecological crisis. Stretton takes this heavy subject matter and spins it into something characteristically calm and evocative, as evidenced by lead singles ‘salt’ and ‘stove’. Fans of Soon will instantly recognise the spacious compositions and warm production, but the first two songs hint at a step toward the ambient, with diverse samples and careful electronics evoking a whole world, ambiguous and dreamlike. Check them out below:

Tiarn will be released on 7^th August via brierfield flood press. If you’re in Aus, be sure to snag a copy of the limited first edition LP, which comes with a beautiful blind embossed eel design. And for those in other locations, records are apparently coming soon.

Lesley Mok – williams landing

Based in New York City, Lesley Mok is a percussionist and interdisciplinary artist whose work spans sound, installation, film and theatre. Next month, Mok will release a new record, titled transient, which label American Dreams describe as “an assemblage of sonic vignettes suffused with introversion, poignancy, nostalgia, and contemplative observation.” Named after the street where Mok grew up, latest single ‘williams landing’ is a piece of opaque but strangely affecting ambient music that not only explores the uncanny nature of memory but attempts to evoke it in the listener. “Memories can feel both elusive and fuzzy in the way they sit in my body,” Mok explains. “But sometimes with a bit of attention and time, details come into focus, and a once-vague memory can suddenly become clear, like a photo negative. I hope that this track can be a space where listeners can resonate with the experience of remembering, no matter how fleeting or fragmentary a memory might be.”

transient will be released via American Dreams on 17th July. Pre-order it now via Bandcamp.

oh, hooray – STATISTICALLY ME / WASTELAND2

oh, hooray is a little more than your usual folk pop outfit. Describing themselves as “an art project that makes celebratory sad music,” the band practise a multimedia approach, supporting their sound with everything from film and stop motion to theatrical and dance-centred performance. In the wrong hands, such artistic diversity might prioritise style or substance, but as latest LP the city has teeth i think i saw them once attests, oh, hooray is rooted in an authentic and impassioned emotional core. Take recent single ‘WASTELAND2’, a slow burn slice of bedroom pop which paints the current moment with equal parts devotion and doom. Or sister track ‘STATISTICALLY ME’, which channels Bright Eyes in its fervent, almost desperate delivery. Both songs play like dispatches from the American present, a time we might label ‘late capitalism’ if only the late didn’t seem such an overly optimistic diagnosis. Fatalistic, furious and at least halfway triumphant, if only because they still have the energy to raise their voice to scream.

today i woke up wishing i didn’t
collecting the last cut of my unemployment
i tried to be right, right in the middle of it
but it’s an eye of storm that i stopped chasin’
so the day that i die i’ll be in blissful anonymity
just a percentage on a screen
statistically me

the city has teeth i think i saw them once is out now and available from the usual places.

Piu – Home

Piu might be the solo recording project of Vancouver Island-based songwriter and composer Priyanka Chakrabarti, but new album Milao is anything but the product of a single person. With a title which translates as “to come together,” the record turns to family history, drawing on the songs and melodies made familiar by the matriarchal line of Chakrabarti’s lineage, passed down the generations and ultimately from Chakrabarti’s mother to herself. The result is at once highly personal and inherently historical, rooted in specific details yet shaped by the partition and other national events. Latest single ‘Home’ is the ideal introduction, where layers of modular and analogy synths combine with striking vocals to create a sound expansive enough to do such grand themes justice. “‘Home’ explores the idea of finding belonging within yourself, wherever you are,” Chakrabarti explains. “Written from experiences of moving through unfamiliar spaces, the piece reflects the search for connection amid uncertainty and change. ‘Home’ is both a place of return and an ongoing process of becoming.”

Shredded Sun – Skyscraper

All three members of Chicago indie rock band Shredded Sun, that’s Nick Ammerman, Sarah Ammerman and Ben Bilow, previously played in trash-pop outfit Fake Fictions, which “tore through Chicago’s underground from 2004 to 2009.” Later, they reinvented themselves as Shredded Sun, which despite not fully hitting its groove until 2022, has been pretty prolific since then. Their sound pulls ingredients from all corners of the indie rock pantry, resulting in something that feels both reassuringly familiar and freshly unpredictable. Later this summer, Shredded Sun will release a new record, Never Odd or Even, via Repeating Cloud. Lead single ‘Skyscraper’ is our first glimpse, a song that combines jangly hooks with Replacements-style rock grit.

SIKADE – greedy heart

Oslo-based singer, songwriter, harpist and producer Linnea Vestre, aka SIKADE, has been releasing a steady stream of singles in recent times as she gears up for the release of her debut full-length. So far songs like ‘body of water‘ (“embodies the balance between intimacy and scale which marks the project”) and ‘eleven‘ (“the line between sensuality and symbolism dissolves […] pushing towards a lushness which is almost cinematic”) have raised the anticipation for the record, and latest single ‘greedy heart’ only furthers the excitement. An embodiment of both the yearning at the heart of the forthcoming album and the dreamy compassion with which Vestre brings it to life, and the ideal balm to the oppressive summer heat which has descended upon us.

‘greedy heart’ is out now via streaming services.

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