Based in Humboldt County, California, songwriter and producer Gabriel Izak makes contemplative, emotionally earnest songs which fall in the centre of a venn diagram between folk, pop and rock. Latest single ‘Sin Eater’ is the ideal entry point for the uninitiated, embodying the spirit of the project and the mood which results. It traces how personal pain so often has familial roots, and how one might go about absolving themselves of this weight. “[I] wrote this three years ago, after I had a conversation where someone told me I should visualize sending family guilt ‘up to the cosmic compost heap’,” Izak explained in an Instagram post. “Couldn’t manage to fit that line in a song but wanted to write about intergenerational stuff. And how it can feel like you don’t deserve to move through it and let go, but you totally do.” Supporting vocals from Marley Jarvis only deepen the emotion of the track, and fans of acts like Big Thief and Hovvdy are sure to find plenty of admire.

Cut the cord, but still we’re tied
To the shame of legacy
Prehistoric, hollow eyed
No man is my enemy
And all I ever wanted was to set you free

JJJJJerome Ellis – Evensong, Part 1 (for and after June Kramer)

“A space carved out of the hectic every day into which the listener is invited, Ellis using the album as a kind of intermission within ordinary time where we might consider histories both personal and communal, as well as those of the natural world, and thus come to honour and understand ourselves more faithfully.” So we wrote of Vesper Shadow, the new album by JJJJJerome Ellis coming next month via Shelter Press. In the preview, published back in September, we described how the title track “breath[es] new life into the Gospel mainstay ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow’ in a way only Ellis could” to introduce “the dynamic between detail and space which marks Vesper Sparrow, but also the sense of reverence and possibility inherent within the style.” With the record’s release steadily approaching, Ellis has unveiled album opener ‘Evensong, Part 1 (for and after June Kramer)’ to allow audiences another glimpse inside. “The stutter can be a musical instrument,” they say in the opening line, before proceeding the prove the statement with such invention and grace.

Jordan Whitlock & Memory Spells – False Lights (Reprise)

“Suffused with the lush, shadowy grandeur of Lynch at his most romantic.” That’s how we’ve described collaboration between Jordan Whitlock and Matt Bauer‘s Memory Spells, tracks like ‘Take My Hand‘ and ‘Heaven and Here‘ demonstrating an orchestral, cinematic brand of folk rock fit to support the poetic songwriting of the duo. New song ‘False Lights (Reprise)’ reimagines a track from Bauer’s 2015 album Dream’s End, evoking the old maritime legend of wreckers luring vessels onto rocks in order to plunder their goods to explore more personal ideas of loss and ruin. As you might expect from such a description, the track sits at the darker, more melancholic end of the project’s spectrum, though within its tales of deception and devastation flickers something more hopeful or defiant too. A true light to match the malicious mimic, however black the night.

Oh how many wrecks like
Run aground chasing all false lights
Broken apart with want
For what‘s not there’s to have?
From the shore, strangers rifle their pockets
Rip the lockets from around their necks
Gentle waves lap the decks
And still the stars shine ever brighter

‘False Lights (Reprise)’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Joyer – At the Movies

We’ve featured a couple of tracks from Joyer‘s new album On the Other End of the Line… in recent weeks, with ‘Cure‘ showing how the pair have “sand[ed] down the shoegaze scale of the previous record while maintaining its pop melodies […] pushing the Joyer arrangements into newly ambitious territory.” While ‘Glare of the Beer Can‘ “sit[s] in [the] half space between reality and daydream,” as we wrote, “breathing a sense of romance into the ordinary, even if the longing at its heart seems destined to go unsatisfied for a good period yet.” With the album coming soon via Julia’s War Recordings, the duo have returned with ‘At the Movies’, a song which paints another method of retreating from life’s pressures. Where its predecessor used romance as a way to overcome the everyday, the new song champions the safe harbour of the pictures. A space away from the world, even existence itself, if only for a few hours.

Watch the video animated by Sabrina Nichols below:

On the Other End of the Line… is out on the 24th October via Julia’s War Recordings and you can pre-order it now from the Joyer Bandcamp page.

Lisa SQ – Make It Up to You

Recording under the moniker Lisa SQ, Montreal-born, Hamilton-based multidisciplinary artist Lisa Savard-Quong creates indie rock with an avant garde edge, bending the conventions of the genre with a playful, curious and slightly surreal personality. With debut album Reel Me In coming next month, Lisa SQ has released new single ‘Make It Up to You’ to introduce the style. A delightfully bittersweet ode to self-destructive tendencies brought to life with a team of friends and collaborators, including Tyler Kyte, Adam Hindle and Michael Brushy (all of Dwayne Gretzky fame), Simeon Abbott and producer Ian Docherty (July Talk). “Tyler Kyte (Dwayne Gretzky) and I were talking about people who always invite drama into their lives, and I kept picturing these classic tragic heroes, doomed but relatable,” as Savard-Quong explains. “The song grew out of that and my own pacing, daydreaming, and writing in the attic.”

‘Make It Up to You’ is out now and available from Bandcamp. Reel Me In is coming soon.

Rivulets – Came

Under the moniker Rivulets, Portland, Oregon-based songwriter Nathan Amundson has created stark, emotionally charged music which sits at the intersection of folk, slowcore and electrified rock for several decades. Latest single ‘Came’ sits at the dark, downbeat end of this spectrum, a lonely song stripped back to its essential features, the guitar and murmured vocals enveloped by a shadowy emptiness, as though the real weight of the sound lies in its negative space. Amundson’s voice plays within this atmosphere as something hushed and half-defeated, his questions rhetorical and addressed to nothing but the night itself. Like the words of a man clinging on through the dark hours in the hope of glimpsing some streak of light on the horizon.

roman around – Moves pt.2

We last wrote about roman around (AKA Fresno, CA’s Roman Rivera) a year ago upon the release of full-length The Toll of Unconditional Love on Trailing Twelve Records, describing how the album drew on intensely personal experiences to explore how love can persist and flourish within the most difficult circumstances. Now Rivera is back with brand new release Wish (Tapes EP) which looks to both continue the style and evolve the project to chart new sonic territory. Fittingly, single ‘Moves pt. 2’ serves as a extension of the track ‘Moves’ from the previous album. A meditation on the passage of time which explores not only that which changes but also those things which remain. Not least those features of US policy, be it the long years of military occupation or the contemporary rise of mass deportation.

Wish (Tapes EP) is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

Silver Liz – Dream More Vivid

Early next year, Brooklyn-based dream pop duo Silver Liz will release III, a brand new full-length album put out on their own Extremely Pure label. Carrie and Matt Wagner have made a name with an imaginative, idiosyncratic style of shoegaze and dream pop, previous albums I Can Feel the Weight and It Is Lighter Than You Think owing as much to the contemporary cutting edge as the nineties classics, expanding the possibilities of a genre often prone to imitation. The new record promises to be their most ambitious to date, embracing a maximalist approach to create something colourful and shifting, each track its own kaleidoscope packed with texture and detail. Listen to lead single ‘Dream More Vivid’ now:

Sulka – Halloween

The recording project of Glasgow-based songwriter Lukas Clasen, Sulka originated as a DIY effort, Clasen not only playing all the instruments on the early releases but producing and engineering them too. That era of the project peaked in 2021 with the release of Take Care via Lost Map Records, and by the time 2023 full-length Distractions came around, Sulka was recording in a studio with a full-band for the first time. The first release since that album, latest single ‘Halloween’ finds Clasen still evolving his sound, pairing subdued vocals with an eerie backdrop of distorted guitars and synths to evoke the season of its title. The track which emerges captures the duality of Halloween, where nostalgic comfort meets the shadowy unease of the unknown.

It’s Halloween, we’re out tonight
But your mask can’t hide your eye
I’ve been down, but I’m alright
The world can end, but you’ll survive

The post Weekly Listening: October 2025 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. prairie creek redwoods state park, ca – bedbug
2. See the World – Kidsmoke
3. Motion | Sickness – Good Good Blood
4. Downtown – Gabriella Cohen
5. Automatic – Kyle Morton
6. Throwing Roses – Eva Foote
7. vildt+sødt – Eugenia
8. Dicktations Forever – Dicktations
9. Fallen Robin – Wild Leaves
10. Palms – Native Other
11. Not Your Prey – Squirrel Flower
12. Luna – Akira Kosemura
13. Made of Gold – Albert af Ekenstam
14. She Floats – Van-Anh Nguyen
15. Dead Radiance – Ego Death
16. Sponge State – Sløtface
17. Black Mass – Wooden Maria
18. Float – Silver Liz
19. glass machines discovering water – Corvus B.
20. Longshot – The Furious Season
21. The Same Chords – Tiger in My Tank
22. Let’s Go to the Beach – Sophie Longshaw
23. Blue Moon – Many Voices Speak
24. One Footed – MAH KEE OH
25. Country Room – Static Animal
26. The Ground Before Him – Drowning By Numbers
27. Refugee – Cameron James Henderson
28. down (kenny) – ever
29. Strange Tones – Youceff Kabal
30. Don’t Let Love Go By – Golden Suits
31. Sit and Stare – Tiny Dinosaurs
32. Settle Down – Dark Mean
33. telegraph ave. – Betty Becky
34. WEN – glider
35. Nicholas – Holiday Oscar
36. Lyse Striber – True Strength
37. Careless – Stationary Suns
38. Vulnerable – Mark Timmins
39. On & On – Reuben Hollebon
40. Recoiled – William Ryan Fritch
41. Lonely Girl – Praything
42. Drinking the Same Water – Katie Spencer
43. Get It Right – Magana
44. Cheer Up Free Your Mind – Jenny O.

That was October 2016, and if you like what you see/hear, why not check out the other months too?

The post October 2016 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Reuben Hollebon – On & On

We first wrote about the music of Reuben Hollebon back in 2012, though his latest single is a departure from the folk tunes he was releasing back then. Complete with a strange, evocative video, ‘On & On’ is an experimental sounds that’s at once tender and ominous, channelling the likes of Siskiyou to push into emotional areas with understated intensity.

Jenny O. – Cheer Up, Free Your Mind

Taken from her latest EP, Work, ‘Cheer Up, Free Your Mind’ is the perfect introduction for those unfamiliar with the Californian songwriter. Blending folk and jangle pop, Jenny O. creates rich songs which belong to a sepia tone world of summer evenings and wide open spaces. Released earlier this month, you can grab the EP now via Bandcamp.

Holiday Oscar – Nicholas

Holiday Oscar couples a warm folk sound with smart lyrics, kind of like You Won’t crossed with The Head and The Heart. Take ‘Nicholas’ as an example, the song’s basic premise (learning to play guitar!) used to conjure a funny, interesting and almost poignant story about wanting to be an artist. If you’re a fan, his latest EP, Spilt Milk and Teething Powder, is available now.

True Strength – Lyse Striber

True Strength is the collaboration between Copenhagen’s Ida Duelund-Hansen and Melbourne’s Alexander Garsden. The duo’s debut self-titled album is out in December on Eastmint, and to whet your appetite we have the beautiful ‘Lyse Striber’. The track is darkly elegant and somehow timeless, Duelund-Hansen’s vocals soaring over gentle instrumentation like a heartbroken crooner from a byegone age.

The song comes complete with a video by award-winning filmmaker Hanna Chetwin, which you can check out below.

Golden Suits – Don’t Let Love Go By

Back in 2013, as “autumn suddenly descended [with] summer finally on its knees” we turned to the self-titled album by Daniel Rossen’s Golden Suits. Well, fast forward a few years and we’re back in the same position, wondering whether we need the heating on with new music from Golden Suits in our ears. The third single from his latest album, Kubla Khan, ‘Don’t Let Love Go By’ hits the sweet spot between reflective and raging, like some of The Walkmen’s more rattled moments. Grab the album now via Hit City U.S.A.

Drowning by Numbers – The Ground Before Him

Featuring on the Netflix sports documentary Last Chance U, ‘The Ground Before Him’ by Adelaide’s Drowning By Numbers is a down-tempo ambient track shrouded in melancholy and loneliness, sounding like the world as half-heard from within the head of someone occupied by their own business.

Many Voices Speak – Blue Moon

Many Voices Speak is Matilda Mård from Stockholm. An outtake from the recording sessions for her new EP, this cover of ‘Blue Moon’ is the perfect way into her music, classic US folk with a Twin Peaks-y plink. The EP, Away for All Time is out on the 28th October via Hit City U.S.A. and Strangers Candy and you can pre-order it here.

Silver Liz – Float

Silver Liz is the new bedroom pop project of Carrie Wagner and Matt Wagner from Chicago. Combining harsh, 90s-esque noise with velvety vocals, their new track ‘Float’ packs a double punch of goodness, shaking things up like Sonic Youth fronted by Bethany Cosentino. Grab the two-song EP from their Bandcamp page.

Ego Death – The Total End

Canada’s Ego Death began as the solo project of Noah York but has since evolved into a duo with Maya Gulin. Their latest release, The Total End, is made up of four soundscapes which pull together neoclassical, ambient and guitar-based experimental to form something vaguely geological, bursts of noise emerging from the constant swirl of primordial drone. The EP is out now via Deep Sea Mining Syndicate and you can snag a cassette from Bandcamp.

Akira Kosemura – Luna

One Day is a new album of improvisational piano pieces by Japanese artist Akira Kosemura. The entire thing is breathtakingly pretty, though single ‘Luna’, complete with a beautiful video directed by Kimihiko Nitta, is a great place to start. Once convinced, you can grab the record from Schole Inc.

Wild Leaves – Fallen Robin

‘Fallen Robbin’ is a single taken from the new full-length by Brooklyn-based folk-rock outfit, Wild Leaves. With its smooth vocals and easy, near-hypnotic flow, the track exudes a gentle autumnal peace, a serenity disrupted only by a distant nostalgia. Despite the creeping sense of loss, the whole thing is wrapped in a certain kindness, as though the narrator and you both are in this thing together.

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