Michael Fox has been working in music in various guises over the past decade, and though Take Care, Stay Warm might be the first release under the Big Bluestem moniker, its assured quality carries all of this experience with it. Take the title track, a stripped-back folk song built around nothing but Fox’s vocals and careful acoustic guitar. Something which feels like the product of a byegone age, folk in its traditional sense, where a person sits down and records the feelings and stories of a life without ostentation. The result is earnest, tender, hushed though not without a certain intensity of feeling. A mood which seems to gather energy from the arrangement’s negative space. As though emotions voiced to the stillness of an empty room carry their own peculiar weight.

So I won’t pull you off the floor, brush the dust off of your coat
get back what’s been missing, or find the perfect quote
that could sum up all the feelings that are lodged inside our throats
but hey: Take Care, Stay Warm

Blue Bayou – New Wind, New Rain

Blue Bayou, who describe themselves as “a new wave, chamber pop band with horns and strings,” have just released their new EP, The Carousel, a five-song release which sees the Oxford-born, London-based project bring the energy of their live sound to tape. Think of a centre of a Venn diagram between the avant-folk of Black Country, New Road, the country rock twang of Brown Horse and the emotional clarity of Big Thief. Single ‘New Wind, New Rain’ is the perfect place to start. A song which feels far larger than its relatively convention three-and-a-half-minute runtime, heralded by mournful horns and driven forward by a bright and peppy percussion, all while the vocals swell together in heart and curiosity.

Charlie Vaughan – Don’t Wanna Drive

Fresh off touring with the likes of The Backseat Lovers and Hamilton Leithauser in 2025, London’s Charlie Vaughan is back with brand new single ‘Don’t Wanna Drive’ to further cement his place among the city’s most eclectic songwriters. The embodiment of his style, the track melds undeniable richness with the magic of happenstance, showing that careful craft and happy accident can exist side by side. “I wanted to write something dreamy and simple—no crazy structures” Vaughan explains of the track. “When we started to play the song on the road it changed a lot, we started playing it fast and with really driving drums. The bit at the end came from a beautiful fluke at a rehearsal and me and the band knew this was the perfect end.” Watch the video directed by La De La Studios below:

‘Don’t Wanna Drive is out now and available from the usual places.

The Dead Century – Hey Chicago

“Minneapolis has a rich heritage in energetic indie rock, so its great to see bands like The Dead Century carrying the flame onwards,” we wrote back in March, the band’s single ‘Been Better wearing its influences proudly, “taking the raucousness of The Replacements and some of The Hold Steady‘s buoyant positivity and applying them to the less than positive present.” Now the band have shared next single ‘Hey Chicago’ and the result is no less momentous or affirming. The track picks its way through the difficult terrain between staying put and moving on, but allows a sheer sense of energy to burn away any hesitation. The song “explores the hope and uncertainty that come from the end of a relationship,” say the band, “the delicate work of discerning what to carry with you and what to leave behind.”

Deer Tick – Everything Born

Folk rock stalwarts Deer Tick are returning with brand new full-length Coin-O-Matic this summer, an album which promises to delve into their homestate of Rhode Island and all of its peculiar histories (not least the collison betweenthe  ordinary working class American Dream and its shadow twin within the world of the mafia and organised crime). With the album set for release in June via ATO Records, the band have shared new single ‘Everything Born’ to give a flavour of this style, pitching the audience straight into the milieu of Providence and the personal dramas therein. “‘Everything Born’ was written quickly about the tenuousness of life and the precious time we have to spend with the people that come into our lives,” explains vocalist and guitarist Ian O’Neil “It’s about family, friends, neighbors, strangers and how these thoughts burrow a little deeper the older we get. I was thinking about my son and the people of Providence, RI while writing it.” Watch the video below, recorded at the Big Nice Studio and directed by Bradford Krieger and Rich Ferri:

Coin-O-Matic will be released on the 5th June via ATO and you can pre-order it now.

Hockitay – buttons

Guatemalan-born, Montreal-based artist Hockitay made a splash earlier in the year with single ‘over/over’, a song “where loneliness and restlessness overlap,” as we wrote. “That curiously digital phenomenon where even an empty room can now be overwhelming.” Follow-up single ‘buttons’ continues this exploration of the technological encroachment on our lives, asking how we might hope to maintain a sense of authentic self in a world automated by things like AI. The video, directed by Buvard and David S. Blouin, employs a full-spectrum modified camera (i.e. one which captures UV, visible and IR light simultaneously) to add a further haunting atmosphere to the track, portraying the digital experience in all of its eerie surreality.

‘buttons’ is out now via Future Gods and available from Bandcamp.

Jordan Whitlock & Memory Spells – You Tell Me / A Flower Blooming For No One

“This project began as an exchange of demos and became a deeply personal dialogue,” explained Jordan Whitlock of the collaboration with Matt Bauer’s Memory Spells, with the duo having now released their debut full-length This Is What It Feels Like. “Remarkably, Bauer and Whitlock only met in person when the record was already half completed, though far from hampering the intimacy and emotional connection of the music, this distance ultimately helped deepen it,” we wrote in a preview of the record, “the pair dialling into the themes of isolation, bonding and longing.” What the duo call “a quiet meditation on beauty without witness,” final single ‘A Flower Blooming For No One’ heralds the release of the album, offering a glimpse at the wonder which exists every day in the secrecy of isolation.

A hummingbird
Its ruby throat
Catching the light
And letting it go
A shadow cast
A cold white sun
A flower blooming for no one

King Ropes – Baby Bird

“If Dave Hollier and co. are taking on The Spirit of The West, you’d best expect a collection of songs attuned to the contradictions of the experience on the ground, where well-worn myths and old stereotypes rub up against everyday hardships and the outright oddness of twenty-first century living.” So we wrote of King Ropes‘ most recent album Idaho back in 2024, praising how the Bozeman, Montana outfit managed to evoke the landscape of the American West in all of its beauty and harshness. Now King Ropes are back with brand new single ‘Baby Bird’, and while the track might appear altogether more tender on the surface, there’s still room for a brooding dimension to the sound. A reimagining of a classic sixties/seventies love song that swaps out some of the honeyed glow of the period for a stranger, ambiguous contemporary folk style.

It may sound absurd
I’m a man she’s a bird
These things take time to understand

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

Luke Francis – Anywhere

Though recorded in LA this past winter with Derek Ted, Luke Francis‘s new single ‘Anywhere’ has roots in a period a year prior, with the Seattle-based songwriter noting a variety of key locations and experiences. “The Bamboo Village parking lot on a snowy Seattle night,” he lists, “the Historic Grand Canyon Hotel, and the front steps of my childhood home in California while a plumber rescued me from what had occurred inside the house.” As you might expect from such a specific set of influences, the resulting track is highly personal, Francis taking the moods and imagery of his own memories and applying a coat of classic country wistfulness to create a modern love song that nevertheless harks back to an old romantic style. “Honey ride with me tonight
I’ve got a bottle of wine and the moonlight on my mind,” as he sings in the opening lines. “We could left and right, through the night
don’t you wanna climb in and let the road unwind?”

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

Paycheque – Generic Actress

Consisting of Alison Goldfarb and Jackson MacIntosh (TOPS, Drugdealer), Paycheque represent something of a collision between the retro and the contemporary. Though practising a decidedly eighties-flavoured style of indie pop, the duo aim for more than pure nostalgia, repurposing the sound to conjure the modern Los Angeles in all of its glitz, violence and precarity. Their self-titled debut full-length, coming this summer via Mansions and Millions, draws upon the sounds of the Reagan-Thatcher era to explore the present calamities seeded in that period, be they human-induced natural disasters, roving gangs of militarised immigration officers or the general superficiality of the great quest for stardom. Opener ‘Generic Actress’ offers a first glimpse. “In LA, when you go out, you end up spending a lot of time standing outside of whatever event or party you’ve decided to attend,” the band explain of the single. “You’re on the sidewalk, you’re in a strip mall parking lot, you’re on a patio. You smoke, you bump into friends, and you eventually realize you missed half the set you came to see, you never actually made it inside the gallery, the party is winding down. This song is an ode to never quite making it inside.”

Watch the video by Paycheque with additional footage shot by Jessica Dean Harrison below:

Paycheque will be released on the 12th June via Mansions and Millions and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Snake Orange Cake – Lucid

Åland-born, Berlin-based artist Julia Carlsson has released a number of singles under the moniker Snake Orange Cake in recent times, most recently ‘Vision’ back in January. A self-described “hypnotic ritual in sound” which “functions something like an incantation or mantra,” we wrote in a preview, “the vocals repeating a series of mystical images as though hoping to conjure some mystical effect. The pulsing beat only furthers the mesmeric vibe, leading the listener into a space somehow adjacent from every day reality.” Now Carlsson has unveiled Lucid, the project’s debut EP which collects these songs alongside the new title track, and the fresh offering just so happens to serve as the ideal calling card for the project. With an ambiguous tone that embraces playfulness, sensuality and a certain mystical charm, ‘Lucid’ capture the balance between intimacy and openness that marks the Snake Orange Cake sound, as well as the sense of otherworldly potential which emerges from its dreamlike flow.

Vesuvian – Fortunate Death

Vesuvian is a Philly-based outfit consisting of Garret Bollin (guitar, vocals), Joey DeGrado (vocals, guitar), Bill Magerr (bass) and Gavin Caffrey Perez-Canto (drums and percussion). Back in 2023 they released More Treble, a punk rock record concerned with everything from horror movies and actresses to the ancient Mediterranean, and now they’re back with a brand new self-titled album which looks push the sound even further. Take latest single ‘Fortunate Death’, which is certainly not your usual scrappy punk number, drawing upon the work of Julio Cortázar and accounts of Mesoamerican history to create something cathartic and boisterous. “Years ago, I read that Aztec sacrifices were honored to die that way,” De Grado explains. “Does this have historic validity? Who knows! But the idea stayed with me, waiting to come out in a song. I took this idea of being overjoyed at death and combined it with some of the images from ‘The Night, Face Up’.”

Waxahatchee – Where’s Your Love Now? (This Is Lorelei cover)

This Is Lorelei is about to release the super deluxe edition of their celebrated 2024 album Box for Buddy, Box for Star via Double Double Whammy, with the ten original album tracks joined by ten covers from an impressive range of artists. Momma, SASAMI, Snail Mail, Tim Heidecker and MJ Lenderman are just some of the acts offering versions of the songs, and Waxahatchee‘s take on ‘Where’s Your Love Now?’ is the latest to be revealed. “I think Nate is one of the best songwriters of this moment, making music that feels current and timeless and also somehow ahead of a curve,” Katie Crutchfield told Stereogum. “When I heard ‘Where’s Your Love Now?’ I thought it was one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.”

Box for Buddy, Box for Star (Super Deluxe) is out on the 17th April via Double Double Whammy and you can pre-order it now.

The post Weekly Listening: April 2026 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Hot on the heels of acclaimed full-length Animal Poem, a record which earned its place among our favourites of 2025, Portland, Oregon-based songwriter Anna Tivel is returning with collection of b-sides from the same recording period to further expand the world and themes of the album. “The EP will not be released until next spring, though lead single ‘Swan Song’ shows the new tracks are just as evocative and finely crafted as their sisters on the main album,” we wrote in our preview. A song which “pairs a relaxed rhythm and poignant tone with something urgent beneath the surface, a loneliness hurried by the violent pressing of time.” Ahead of its release, Tivel has now ‘Memphis’, another track loaded with equal parts tender emotion and shining intensity, its characteristically nuanced narrative painting life as something so bright it hurts. “I started writing ‘Memphis’ on an airplane after meeting an electric-eyed ex-convict heading to an evangelical gathering in Tennessee,” Tivel explains. “He was magnetic, ecstatic, possibly manic, and so in love with life. He got me thinking about the things we reach for when reality is too painful to accept.”

This Lonesome Paradise – Changelings

“A meditation on the American Dream with all its brutality, broken promises and betrayals.” That’s how we described This Lonesome Paradise‘s 2024 album Luna Nocturna, an almost McCarthy-esque picture of the West in all of its stark and haunted weight. Now E. Ray Béchard and co. are back with Death Motels, a brand new record on Bad Vibes Good Friends which looks to further this aesthetic, positioning the project as one working slightly outside of time with a sound that conjures a mythic past while always facing forwards. Take single ‘Changelings’ and its accompanying video, a brooding, Lynchian number as dark as the night itself, playing like some black mass out in the desert, looking to communicate with some other place or time.

Death Motels will be released on the 12th March via Bad Vibes Good Friends and you can pre-order it now.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys – Damp

With the release of new album Pale Bloom fast approaching via Unique Records, Berlin-based outfit Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys have unveiled latest single ‘Damp’. “Like most of what I write, it’s about a desire for depth and connection,” Kruger writes of the track. “A kind of quiet mocking of the mundane and domestic. The first verse reflects that polite culture of not saying what you mean, of being too afraid to ask for what you need in case you seem too much, or expose the mess of falling apart. There’s a wanting, though—to give in, give up, or simply to give.” This sense of wanting is made palpable across the song, both in terms of the simmering, taut urgency of the sound and the longing loaded into Kruger’s vocals, and the result is equal parts uneasy and mournful. The sad discomfort of revealing a deep part of oneself without knowing if anyone is even looking.

Watch the video below, created by long-time collaborators DTAN (Berlin) and Gaussian Studios (Amsterdam):

Pale Bloom will be released on the 13th February via Unique Records and you can pre-order it now.

MacGregor Burns – The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Released to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the original, MacGregor Burns has unveiled his own reverent version of Gordon Lightfoot’s classic ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’. An impromptu endeavour recorded in a single take, the song sees Burns stick close to Lightfoot’s process, eschewing embellishment or ostentation to keep the focus on the voice. Not an exercise of reinterpretation but devotion. An attempt to channel the spirit of the original and bring it forward fifty years, something which extends right down to the artwork itself.

‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Otracami – Please

We last featured Otracami back in 2023 with the release of touching the stove coil, an album which saw Camila Ortiz confront the past in all of its minutiae with equal parts foreboding and longing. “A strange mixture of pain and pleasure,” marked the record, as we described. “Approaching something which will almost certainly hurt, yet glows alluringly all the same.” Such tension between conflicting states continues on Otracami’s new full-length Runoff , set for via Figure & Ground this spring, as highlighted by lead single ‘Please’. The track uses samples and field recordings to add layers of depth to a full band arrangement, a style which speaks to the album’s concerns with the dynamic between restraint and release. “I was trying out leaving for the first time—people and jobs and situations with family,” Ortiz describes of the period in which the album was written. “It was real trial and error—sometimes that really worked and felt liberating and other times I had to turn around and go back. It was a period of big experimentation.”

The Pretty Flowers – Came Back Kicking

This spring will see the release of Never Felt Bitter, a brand new full-length from The Pretty Flowers, and the LA indie rockers have never sounded so urgent. Written within a city (and wider country) shaken by turmoil, be it the unprecedented wildfires or equally tinderbox political moment, the quartet found themselves driven by the surrounding atmosphere, the anxiety and chaos of their surroundings seeping into the tracks themselves. “There’s a sense of urgency, fear, and confusion in these songs,” explains drummer Sean Johnson. “Like each one might be the last song we write, or this might be the last album. If anything, it’s the most present we’ve ever been.” Lead single ‘Came Back Kicking’ introduces the style, embracing an almost Japandroids-esque momentum to not only burn through the upheaval but offer enough affirming energy to suggest we might be able to stand up to the things which want to drag us down.

We went walking under black skies
We wore out the terrain
It may have taken billions of years
But it had to happen sometime

And you can take it apart or you can blow it up
Either way don’t let it eat you up
Sucked you in to get a better look
And you came back kicking

Richard Walters – Rafts

Created as part of an artist residency for the Solent Seascape Project and the Blue Marine Foundation, Songs From the Solent is a new album from songwriter Richard Walters. The eight-song release incorporates field recordings from the local area, voices from Solent communities (sea swimmers, artists, visitors and more) and contributions from a stellar list of collaborators including Isle of Wight native Jeremy Irons to flesh out its folk sound. The result is something fundamentally rooted in place. Indeed linocut artist Angela Harding has made a bespoke illustrated map of the Solent, highlighting the locations which inspired each track, which will appear on the Solent Seascape Project website. Exploring the decline of migratory birds and featuring samples from Hayling Island nature reserve, lead single ‘Rafts’ shows just how evocative and uplifting this style proves to be.

Watch the video filmed and edited by Matt Jarvis below:

Songs From the Solent is out now and available from the Richard Walters Bandcamp page.

Robber Robber – The Sound It Made

Back in November, we wrote about ‘Talkback’, the fist single from Robber Robber since they signed with Fire Talk. “A song which doubles down on the spontaneous, impulsive style of the previous record,” as we put it, “[Nina] Cates’s vocals spiralling over the wiry rhythm like the contents of a racing mind blown up and projected onto a wall.” Now the Burlington, Vermont outfit has unveiled new album Two Wheels Move the Soul, and have shared opener ‘The Sound It Made’ to further introduce the sound. The record has roots in turmoil, born in a period after a landlord called for the longtime home of Cates and drummer Zack James to be demolished, and sets out to map the experience of living in a world beholden to the whims of the cruel and greedy. As you might expect, the result is chaotic, foreboding and often abrasive, and ‘The Sound It Made’ throws the listener right in from the off. “All systems go again / Will it ever stop?” Cates asks at one point, her delivery carrying the deadpan cool of someone who knows the ways of the world all too well. “Don’t know / Don’t think so / Don’t know what we’ll do if not.”

Watch the video below, by director Wes Sterrs, producer Emilie Silvestri and director of photography Jeff Griecci:

Two Wheels Move the Soul will be released on the 3rd April via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it now.

Sister Wanzala – Don’t Be Good To Me

Following on from ‘Now You’re Mine‘ and ‘Winter Dominos‘, ‘Don’t Be Good to Me’ is the third and final part of a loose trilogy of singles from London’s Sister Wanzala. And it might just be the most surprising track from the project to date, the outfit having made a name with a wry, tongue-in-cheek humour now turning their attention to that most terrifying of things: earnestness. Which isn’t to say the self-deprecation of previous releases has evaporated. The song explores the mystifying sensation of another person extending their kindness towards you, despite all the evidence you have collected to prove you could never deserve such a thing. Yet despite the subject matter, the song proceeds with a sensual swagger, proving that no matter how many times love might make a fool of you, there’s no harm in trying to look cool.

Snake Orange Cake – Vision

Snake Orange Cake, the new project of Åland-born, Berlin-based artist Julia Carlsson builds upon the electronics of previous project leoblu with spoken-word poetry and a newfound narrative focus. After singles ‘Hair‘ and ‘Animals‘ (a track “embedded within a nocturnal, slightly unreal space,” we wrote of the latter, “[dissolving] any distinction between the organic and the digital, as well as the line between waking reality and dreams”), Carlsson has returned with new single ‘Vision’. A self-described “hypnotic ritual in sound” which functions something like an incantation or mantra, the vocals repeating a series of mystical images as though hoping to conjure some mystical effect. The pulsing beat only furthers the mesmeric vibe, leading the listener into a space somehow adjacent from every day reality.

Watch the video by Maren Frey below:

‘Vision’ is out now via the Snake Orange Cake Bandcamp page.

Special Friend – Breakfast

Consisting of Erica Ashleson (drums, vocals) and Guillaume Siracusa (guitar, vocals), Franco-American duo Special Friend, have been making minimalist, lo-fi indie pop since their formation in 2018, releasing an EP and two albums in the process. Now the Paris-based outfit is back with Clipping, a brand new full-length with Howlin’ Banana which finds the Special Friend sound as rich as it has ever been. Drawing on folk, slowcore and krautrock influences, it opts for a newfound layer of attention and polish to the mixing. Single ‘Breakfast’ gives a taste of what is to come, an infectious track on our eroding attention spans which stays true to the band’s lo-fi origins with a delightful camcorder video.

Clipping will be released via Howlin Banana Records on the 20th March and you can pre-order it now.

Sweetbreads – Punisher of Love

“The perfect antidote to the breakneck bluster of the world we call home,” was how we described Out of Range by Sweetbreads back in 2022, an EP which followed its protagonist on her “quest to resist the thankless treadmill of modern living, opting for an unproductive and entirely more positive way of life.” The latest Sweetbreads release sees lead Melody Stolpp continue their exploration of this contemporary rat race, delving into the weight of expectations and self-sabotage which results. Pushing these ideas of further, comedian Clare O’Kane directed a video to accompany the track, casting fellow comedian Nick Naney as a humanoid rat pursuing Stolpp and her partner through the streets of New York. “We wanted to externalize that feeling of being chased by your own worst impulses,” as Stolpp explains. “What better way to do that than with a literal rat man running through Brooklyn?” Watch below:

‘Punisher of Love’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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

Now Carlsson has returned with ‘Animals’, a new single to pull us further into the world of Snake Orange Cake. Embedded within a nocturnal, slightly unreal space, the track possesses an almost Suicide-esque atmosphere. One conjured through shimmering synths and layers of gauzy texture and featuring both spoken vocals and breathy yelps. The results dissolves any distinction between the organic and the digital, as well as the line between waking reality and dreams.

Because for all of the otherworldly strangeness of the soundscape and the transcendent mood it carries, you sense the effect is achieved not through pushing away from physical existence but rather towards it. Subverting the mundane experience of being alive by embracing the inherent strangeness within the natural world which surrounds us. A fitting impression to leave for a song inspired, as Carlsson reveals, by a “mystical connection with a wild iguana on a Costa Rican beach.”

Watch the video shot by Manuel Jesus in Berlin below:

‘Animals’ is out now and available from the Snake Orange Cake Bandcamp page.

The post Snake Orange Cake – Animals appeared first on Various Small Flames.

After first single ‘Stitch’, a song which “offers a glimpse of the invention and playfulness which underpins the new project,” as we put it in a preview, “weaving a detailed, rhythmic sound over which Carlsson’s spoken vocals play with disarming closeness,” Snake Orange Cake has returned with new track, ‘Hair’. A song about the small joys of life which is suitably subtle in style, its layers of percussion and electronics forming a warm bed over which Carlsson’s vocals play.

The sound might not fully lose the ambiguity which marked leoblu, but here feels not so much ominous and nocturnal as organic, as though the arrangement is its own small biome teeming with mysterious life. A tangle which Snake Orange Cake nurtures and embraces, the vocals stitching into the sound itself to embrace themes of growth and acceptance.

Watch the video, shot at Berlin’s only waterfall, by photographer Pablo Hassmann below:

‘Hair’ is out now and available to stream and download from the Snake Orange Cake Bandcamp page.

Portrait photo by joel ivan thomas

The post Snake Orange Cake – Hair appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Back in March we introduced the self-titled debut EP from beaming, the new project of Derek Ted and Braden Lawrence, sharing single ‘slow sinkin’. “With Field Medic adding guest vocals, the track possesses all of the earnestness fans of Ted and Lawrence’s solo work will know well,” we wrote, “the bright rhythm and heartfelt tone the sonic equivalent of shaking clarity into a clouded mind.” With the EP out now via Rose Garden, beaming have unveiled new single ‘4U’. “This song is about falling in love and needing to confess how you feel,” Ted explains. “We wanted it to live in a space between glitchy digital sounds and acoustic moments. The chorus is meant to feel like an avalanche of relief—like everything just opens up once you finally say what’s been on your mind.” Watch the video directed by Olivia Alonso Gough and edited along with Braden Lawrence below:

Beaming EP is out now via Rose Garden and you can buy it now.

Don’t Worry – This Time

We’ve been building up to the release of Don’t Worry‘s new album Idealism in recent months, sharing a number of singles which suggest the record will find the Essex punks exploring new sonic ground while furthering their signature blend of sincerity and playfulness. Taking inspiration of the 90s/00s alt golden age, latest single ‘This Time’ sees the outfit reach towards the likes of Smashing Pumpkins in its sense of scale and weight. The result is as cathartic as anything in the Don’t Worry catalogue to date. “‘This Time’ is a song about learning from bad experiences and making sure you don’t make the same mistakes again,” explains songwriter Ronan Van Kehoe. “It’s about growing as a person and coming out of a rough period into a better time.”

DUG – Livelong Day

Having signed to legendary Irish label Claddagh Records, folk duo DUG have shared a new single ‘Livelong Day’ in preparation for their much anticipated debut full-length. Comprised of Jonny Pickett and Lorkin O’Reilly, the project has quickly risen to prominence in the contemporary folk scene, seeing them earn two Grammy nominations and support slots for the likes of Willie Carlisle and Iron & Wine. Though the new track offers a glimpse at a so far unseen darker dimension of DUG, it is easy to see why they have earned such acclaim. A reimagining of the old folk tale ‘The Legend of Knockgrafton’, the song finds its protagonist sobering up amid a drunken dance in a faerie ring. And while the tone might be slightly heavier than previous tracks, it is one nevertheless leavened by its playful spirit.

‘Livelong Day’ is out now via Claddagh Records.

Kaycie Satterfield – ford falcon

Following on from 2024 album Rosie, a release with Earth Libraries we described as “a record which sets out to explore large themes through a personal lens,” Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Kaycie Satterfield is back with brand new single, ‘ford falcon’. A song full of attitude and honest truths which faces down the expectations placed upon women with a mix of sardonic humour and steely defiance. “I’m not your fucking mother,” as Satterfield says in the opening lines. “I can’t come tuck you in.” She’s not your daughter either, nor your lover, just a woman in the same room. And she’s here to make sure you realise the fact, even if it is the last thing you do.

kissing other ppl – Ashes of American Flags

Last month we introduced the self-titled covers record from kissing other ppl, the new project that brings together folk duo Viv & Riley and singer songwriter Rachel Baiman. The lead single was a take on Dr Dog’s ‘Where’d all The Time Go’, adding a timeless folk style to the original, and now the trio are back with their version of Wilco classic ‘Ashes of American Flags’. It’s illustrative of the outfit’s experimental sense of collaboration, as Viv jumps behind the drum kit to play a “no holds barred snare smash,” while Riley adds distorted fiddle and Baiman gives her all with the vocals. Altogether, it’s a worthy homage to the original, which is no mean feat. “Growing up in Chicago, Wilco were royalty,” Baiman describes of the source material. “The line at the end about fallen leaves in shopping bags brings up such strong childhood imagery for me.”

kissing other ppl is available now from Bandcamp.

Old Man of the Woods – Meditation

“With a languorous, enveloping sound, again the mood is undeniably ghostly, though its eeriness carries not so much fright or unease as a sense of possibility,” we wrote of ‘Amber‘ from the new Old Man of the Woods full-length Tendrils last month. “As though in connecting the long-dawned past with a gesture towards the future, [Miranda] Elliott invites us to consider just how interconnected the stages of so-called linear time might be.” With the album now out, Elliott has shared latest single ‘Meditation’, a self-described  “breathy, minimal ritual” which performs its own form of transubstantiation, taking a desire which might otherwise appear absurd and changing it into something charged and devotional. Built on strangely hypnotic percussion that wobbles and clatters throughout, it’s almost a dance track, but Elliott’s vocals remain ethereal as ever, drifting in and out like curtains of mist.

Rebecca Schiffman – Bubble of Love

“The record sees the LA-based songwriter grapple with what it means to live a moral life within a society that can appear hellbent on compromising our personal values.” So we wrote of Before the Future, the new album from Rebecca Schiffman coming later this summer with Lost Sound Tapes. No stone is left unturned across the songs, with everything from motherhood, grief, family vacations and the ethics of the pet-owner relationship explored. Latest single ‘Bubble of Love’ employs a peppy rhythm and sweet vocals to turn its attention to the familiar arc of romantic love. The song “traces a relationship from the honeymoon phase when you could spend all your time with someone and anything is possible,” as Schiffman explains, “to a time when it feels claustrophobic and you want to pop the bubble.”

Watch the video by Renata Zeiguer below:

Before the Future will be released on the 25th July, including a cassette via Lost Sound Tapes, and you can pre-order it now.

Snake Orange Cake – Stitch

When covering the work of Berlin-based artist Julia Carlsson in the past, it has been for leoblu, a project we’ve described as making “ambiguous and atmospheric music which situates intimate emotion against the more mysterious forces at work around us.” But now Carlsson has branched out towards a new sound, and has thus adopted a brand new moniker. Snake Orange Cake sees Carlsson elevate her experimental electronic style with spoken-word poetry and extra narrative thrust. The first tase of a forthcoming EP, new single ‘Stitch’ offers a glimpse of the invention and playfulness which underpins the new project, weaving a detailed, rhythmic sound over which Carlsson’s spoken vocals play with disarming closeness.

Star Moles – Fate

“The oeuvre is a lesson in the potential of bedroom pop, refusing to settle for genre conventions to push the style in new directions.” So we wrote of the work of Emily Moales’s Star Moles back in May, describing how single ‘Key Change’ embodied Moales’s “growing boredom with idealised romance of polished pop, choosing to instead get its hands dirty and dig into the messy guts of what love really means.” Now Star Moles has announced full-length album Snack Monster, coming later this summer on Earth Libraries, and opener and latest single ‘Fate’ serves as a mission statement for the release. A song which looks to address contemporary neuroses via traditional styles, looking to break free from the strictures of established narratives and reclaim agency from the impression of predetermination.

Xol Meissner – Hunt [97]

The recording alias of Swiss-born, NYC-based composer Mauro Hertig, Xol Meissner pairs baritone vocals with a singular hammered lap-steel style to create soundscapes as evocative as they are otherworldly. New album Excess of Loss might be Hertig’s debut under this moniker but arrives fully formed, each track functioning with the eerie, unnerving logic of a dream. Take single ‘Hunt [97]’, a song sedate in rhythm, drifting within its own textured arrangement, yet shot through with imagery both violent and strange. “Open field vision / we access the graveyards / ancestors aim / at the holes in our hearts,” he sings in one such typically striking verse. Or elsewhere: “The bodies pile up / to a sculpture of justice / fathers are holding / the hands of their sons.” The result is mythic. Oddly timeless yet sonically unique. Weighted with a meaning slightly beyond our understanding. Something which lingers at the edges of our reality. Alluring, terrifying and sublime.

Watch the video by Camille Henrot (director), Ben Scofield (director of photography and colourist), Mauro Hertig, Camille Henrot (editors), Marie-Christine Statz and Gauchère (costume) below:

Excess of Loss is out now and available from Bandcamp.

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