Described as “an interdisciplinary artist and practitioner of earth-reverent skills and philosophies,” Fletcher Tucker is an artist looking to further his connection to the natural world, and new album Kin takes this as far as ever. Tucker’s distinctive animistic verse is supported by an array of breathing instruments (Swedish bagpipes, pump organ, elder and bamboo flutes, Mellotron saxophone and flute tapes), as well as guests including Chuck Johnson (Western Vinyl), Mariam Wallentin (Fire! Orchestra), Spencer Owen and Sean Smith (LFZ). Together they conjure soundscapes able to summon the spirit of the natural world and rekindle its latent magic. Following the lineage of Hildegard von Bingen and inspired by the experience of a white-out blizzard in the Northern Sierra mountains, latest single ‘To Light a Fire’ is the perfect example. The one and only Phil Elverum adds percussion to a song which embodies the stratified layers of time and place which constitute the record.

Watch the video shot by Fletcher Tucker on Esselen land in Big Sur, California below:

Kin will be released on the 15th August via Gnome Life Records and you can pre-order it now.

Fortitude Valley – Oceans Apart

“A track which finds [Laura] Kovac addressing her younger self, delving into the person she was before and during her move from Brisbane to the UK, and how the competing desires for home and escape never really go away.” So we wrote of ‘Sunshine State‘, the lead single from Fortitude Valley‘s forthcoming album Part Of The Problem, Baby later this summer on Specialist Subject Records. Following subsequent single ‘Video (Right There With You)‘, Fortitude Valley are back with ‘Oceans Apart’. Taking its title from Brisbane rock royalty The Go-Betweens, the song again confronts the move from Australia and the conflicted emotions which accompanied it. “Crossing my heart / Oceans apart,” as Kovac sings in the refrain. “Trying to make it on my own,”

Laughter Lines – The Right Way To Pray

Laughter Lines, the recording moniker of South California musician David Giali, has just released a new split with neighbour and collaborator Jimmy Brown, AKA JIMMERS. Appropriately titled Shared Spaces, the EP not only introduces the two projects but the underlying friendship which bolsters their sounds, and single ‘The Right Way To Pray’ shows the kind of earnest, impassioned music which results. A song which confronts the interplay between doubt and conviction which surrounds a person’s faith, and how this is liable to create unbridgeable gaps between people. “I worked for a church for about decade and now I don’t,” Giali explains. “This song is about a handful of conversations I had with the many church goers who had never questioned their faith and their reactions to my questioning of theology and faith-based logic.”

Mappe Of – A Scourge Laid Upon The Earth

The recording project of singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Tom Meikle, Mappe Of first appeared back in 2017 with debut album A Northern Star, A Perfect Stone on Paper Bag Records. The record introduced a decidedly ethereal sound which pushed folk with the spirit of the avant garde. Concept album The Isle of Ailynn followed in 2019, further cementing Meikle’s ability to break boundaries, and while a pandemic-enforced hiatus delayed the continuation of the project, forthcoming album Afterglades shows the break has had no detrimental effect on the ambition or execution of the Mappe Of style. With the album again set for release via Paper Bag in September, Meikle has unveiled new single ‘A Scourge Laid Upon The Earth’. “It felt like there needed to be a sense of weight to this chapter of the story, there needed to be some chaos as a payoff for all of this reflection,” he explains. “This is in many ways the extinction level event. It needed to be heavy and raucous, retribution for all of our mistakes. It’s a bit of my dormant heavy metal energy emerging from me.”

Minus The Bear – The Pig War (Demo)

Twenty years ago Seattle math rock royalty Minus The Bear released seminal album Menos el Oso, a record which not only saw them fully inhabit the spirit of the project for perhaps the first time but also claim a place among the notable acts of the late 90s/early 00s scene. Aside from a big US tour to celebrate the anniversary, Suicide Squeeze Records are releasing a special deluxe edition this August, featuring not only the original album but also five previously unreleased demo versions to give fans an indication of where their favourite tracks started out. “We came into our sound on this record, the band explain. “Excited people get to hear these demos for the first time! Revisiting demos and hearing the evolution of some of these tracks puts me right back in our early 2000s practice space. And now we’re literally back in that same practice space for rehearsals. It’s wild!” Listen to the demo for ‘The Pig War’ now:

Perish – Cool Guys

Originating as the solo project Florida-born songwriter Katie Callihan, Perish blossomed into a full band in Brooklyn when Callihan met Sam Lopane, Austin (Chappie) Chappell and John Dockery and welcomed them into the fold. The chemistry was apparent from the off, and the quartet headed up to Lincoln, Rhode Island, to record with Bradford Krieger at Big Nice Studio after only two practice sessions. The result, a self-titled debut EP, will be released this autumn on Rue Defense, and lead single ‘Cool Guys’ gives an initial taste. A vivid slice of folk-inflected rock which sounds at once wistful and affirming, a combination which looks to be a signature of the Perish sound. Because while Callihan’s delivery is thoughtful, her lyrics probing beneath the surface of things, the sound retains an upbeat, exultant air. As though there’s some energy to be found in the act of being open and honest to the point of vulnerability.

Tan Cologne – In Resin (Trentemøller Rework)

We’ve featured a number of singles from Tan Cologne‘s new LP Unknown Beyond in recent weeks, with songs like ‘Cool Star‘ and ‘In Resin‘ embodying the atmosphere of the record. The former possessed “a vibe again ambivalent in its meaning,” as we wrote, “sounding at once like an otherworldly escape from our terrestrial suffering and some mournful elegy delivered in its aftermath,” while the latter used “gauzy layers to present the various lives we live simultaneously, a series of selves superimposed.” To further the dreamy depths of this sound, Danish producer and multi-instrumentalist Trentemøller has reworked the track, taking the vocals further out into mysterious ethereality. “When I heard [Tan Cologne] had a new album coming, I immediately asked if I could work with one of their beautiful songs,” Trentemøller explains. “I chose the magical “In Resin”. For my rework, I only used their vocals, which I also had a lot of fun experimenting with.”

Unknown Beyond is out now via Labrador Records and you can get it now from the Tan Cologne Bandcamp page.

The Tines – Ozone

We first wrote about New Haven, Connecticut project The Tines a few years ago upon the release of their self-titled debut, describing single ‘Collarbone‘ as “a track which combines shimmering dream pop with a more pressing indie rock rhythm, the reverbed vocals drifting above it all to give the whole thing a sunny if enigmatic vibe, drawing the listener into its psych-inflected world.” Now the outfit are preparing to release a brand new album Barrows via Funnybone Records, and have unveiled single ‘Ozone’ as a preview. A rich slice of indie rock which combines heartfelt emotion with a certain understatement, building upon the previous record with a more assured, controlled sensibility, and sounding all the more evocative as a result.

‘Ozone’ is out now via Funnybone Records.

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Back in May we introduced Part Of The Problem, Baby, the new full-length from Fortitude Valley coming this August on Specialist Subject Records, with single ‘Sunshine State‘. “A track which finds [lead Laura] Kovac addressing her younger self,” we described, “delving into the person she was before and during her move from Brisbane to the UK, and how the competing desires for home and escape never really go away.” With the album’s release edging closer, Fortitude Valley are back with new track ‘Video (Right There With You)’. “The song is about trying to get inside the head of someone you love, and how hard it can be surviving together in what feels like an increasingly hostile and scary world,” Kovic explains. “It also plays into the central theme of the album, which is about feeling distant from people you care about, both literally and figuratively.”

Watch the video directed by Stuart Laws below, shot as the band performed at the Machynlleth Comedy Fest and starring comedian Celya AB.

Part Of The Problem, Baby is out 1st August on Specialist Subject Records and you can pre-order it now from the Fortitude Valley Bandcamp page.

 French for Rabbits – Gold and Blue

Ahead of the Matariki holiday and an upcoming winter tour around Aotearoa, Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington-based outfit French for Rabbits have returned with brand new standalone single, ‘Gold and Blue’. Written by lead Brooke Singer in a prolific period before the birth of her son, the track meditates on the future and the mysterious ways in which it realises itself, be it through chance, fate or an intuitive reaching forward. The song comes complete with a video by director Martin Sagadin and cinematographer Bill Bycroft. “For the video, we wanted to throw the listener through time and space,” Singer explains, “feel a gasp for breath as they tumble them through the present and past to moments of change, connection, and fluctuation.”

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

Glenn Echo – Give + Take

The project of Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist Matt Gaydar, Glenn Echo is an outlet for patient and introspective folk music. Gaydar has just released a new Glenn Echo EP, No Believer, a collection of five songs recorded with help from Will Stratton that showcase this style perfectly. Second track ‘Give + Take is perhaps the standout, opening with the warm country croon of guitar before settling into a slow, contemplative momentum. “Been driving away, over the county line,” Gaydar sings in the opening line which immediately captures the song’s sense of night-time hush, “past the firehouse, all through the night, blind driving, silent.”

Jess Kerber – Tropical Storm

We’ve written about a number of singles from Jess Kerber‘s debut album From Way Down Here in recent months, describing how the Nashville-based songwriter melds traditional folk and contemporary electronic sensibilities to bring her emotive style to life. ‘Next to You’ rose from a dreamy haze to clarity, while ‘Never Again’ introduced the themes of loss and belonging so central to the record. With the album now out via Felte Records, Kerber has released latest single ‘Tropical Storm’. Another poignant, wistful slice of nostalgic longing, rooted in the specific imagery of memories as imprinted on the young mind. Watch the video edited by Kerber herself below:

From Way Down Here is out now via Felte Records and available from the Jess Kerber Bandcamp page.

Jeffrey Martin – Edge of Lost

With albums like One Go Around and Thank God We Left The Garden, Portland, Oregon songwriter Jeffrey Martin has developed an evocative brand of folk concerned with both the personal and the societal, centring the classic Americana style within the unique circumstances of the present (“The climate is collapsing, diseases rising, robots striving to take over the globe, and still there’s not enough money for the people who actually need it,” as we wrote of the latter album, “still the future holds a distant promise, the past haunts with its glory and regret”). Out via Fluff and Gravy Records, new single ‘Edge of Lost’ is every bit as heartfelt and urgent. Inspired by Davey Schaupp’s No Place to Grow Old, a documentary interviewing people experiencing homelessness or the threat of it across Portland, the song explores the strange contradictions of such a life. Where existence is at once heavier than it should be yet also translucently thin, the eyes of society sliding past as you though barely exist at all. “I tried to capture the chasm between the housed and unhoused,” Martin explains, “and how the psychological burden of that divide is a very difficult thing to hold as people try to navigate their way out of homelessness.”

Jillian Lake – Tactile

“There’s a city in my head,” sings Jillian Lake on latest single ‘Tactile’, a line repeated across the track in what might be warning or explanation. Based in Vancouver, the singer-songwriter has made a name with intimate, personal folk songs, though has increasingly pushed her sound into richer, more urgent territory without sacrificing any of the heartfelt charm. The new single is a lesson in how effective such a combination can be. Indeed, the refrain can be held as a key to the song’s spirit, presenting an exploration of grief in all of its complexity, an emotional landscape as bustling, nuanced and contradictory as any urban space. ‘Tactile’ is about how grief is this invisible and intangible thing that is so hard to navigate,” Lake explains. “A scraped knee, a black eye, a broken arm—is so much easier to make sense of than something you can’t pinpoint. Something you can’t bandage or brace.”

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

Jouska – Flower Moon

Jouska is the recording project of  Norwegian songwriter and producer Marit Othilie Thorvik. Originally a duo, the project started out making pop-orientated electronic music, but now that it’s Thorvik alone, the atmosphere has evolved into something more intimate and introspective. New single ‘Flower Moon’, Jouska’s first since 2023 record Suddenly My Mind Is Blank, leans into dream pop dimension of the project to invoke a sense of detachment, the vocals drifting through a wash of ethereal tones as though untethered yet longing for solid ground. “I was anxious,” as Thorvik explains, “distracted by things at home. Physically in one place, emotionally somewhere else, missing out on both.”

múm – Mild At Heart

Icelandic experimental royalty múm have established themselves as one of the most interesting and atmospheric projects since their inception in the nineties, each of the six previous albums building upon the last while always exploring new territory. Their first full-length in over ten years, History of Silence finds the band as ambitious as ever. An album “recorded, deconstructed, put back together again, refined and finished over the course of two years,” the release blends electronic and analogue sounds to explore ideas of distance in our fast-changing world, the songs rejecting linear progress to instead embrace tangents and digressions. Take the way lead single ‘Mild at Heart’ shifts and drifts across its length, a controlled, ever-curious track that shows the power of understatement while also reaching towards new ground.

Watch the video filmed & edited by Sigurlaug Gísladóttir below:

History of Silence will be released via Morr Music on 15th September. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

The Noisy – Twos

Back in 2024 Philly dream pop outfit The Noisy released The Secret Ingredient is More Meat, an album written for and funded by the queer community which served as a celebration of their kinship, performance, joyous excesses and plurity. Now The Noisy are preparing to release a deluxe version of the record via Audio Antihero, appropriately titled The Secret Ingredient is Even More Meat, offering reimagined versions of the songs. Single ‘Twos’ and its gloriously cinematic video by Sam Cush indicates the new direction they take. “I wrote this song like a pop song but wanted the production to bend towards Mannequin Pussy with sludgy guitars and twinkly keys,” frontperson Sara Mae Henke explains. “The music video literalizes the too much-ness of the story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Grey Gardens meets two dates to the prom.”

‘Twos’ is out now via Audio Antihero and available from Bandcamp.

Tyler Bradley Walker – Because of the Many

We introduced The Sun The Moon The Earth and Me, the debut solo album from Tyler Bradley Walker, back in May, describing how the artist best known as one half of electronic rock duo Gone to Color was every bit as ambitious and adventurous in his solo work. ” Single ‘Moon Broke Quiet’ offered “a spacious, evocative soundscape which seems to sit at an angle to reality,” we wrote, “everything a little stark and surreal and strange […] occup[ying] that nocturnal liminal space between waking life and dreams.” With the album now out, TBW has shared opening track ‘Because of the Many’ as a new single, an experimental pop protest song that takes aim at modern day USA. The track’s idiosyncrasy and slow-burn intensity is intensified with a video every bit as odd.

Out gunned, not done
The fucking light is green
No one eats their eggs that way
Wise man funny man
Write your own story
Very large worlds untouched untouched

Watch the video directed by Andrew Petersson and produced By Carson Cox (Mod Visual) below:

The Sun The Moon The Earth and Me is out now and available to purchase from the Tyler Bradley Walker Bandcamp page.

Will Orchard – Something’s Gotta Go

If you’ve been reading VSF over the last few months, you may know that Nashville-via-New England songwriter Will Orchard has a new record, Behind the Shadow Glass, coming out later this year. The initial two singles ‘Down’ and ‘Nothing Fog’ gave a pretty good idea of what to expect, and now we have a third cut to further whet appetites. Titled ‘Something’s Gotta Go’, the song finds Orchard with his sleeves rolled up as he digs through the dirt. Crunchy Americana meets Neil Young folk rock which sees him picks through internal knots and tangles that have been tripping him up over the years. “[The song] is a cathartic release, and an acknowledgement of self-inflicted pain.” Orchard describes. “It’s about getting into the pattern of never being satisfied with yourself. Calling the song finished was somewhat of a challenge because of how raw and in some ways, non-poetic it felt. But that’s the spirit of the song, just putting it all out there and letting go of your will to try so hard.”

Wombo – Neon Bog

“Feeling every inch the product of a band nearing ten years together, [Danger in Fives] finds the Wombo sound realised in its purest form,” we wrote of the Louisville trio’s new album coming later this summer on Fire Talk Records, “combining the experimentation and risk-taking which marked their earlier releases with the growing confidence so evident on Fairy Rust. That is, the sound of project which has come to understand its spirit and ambitions and is now committing to them with total conviction.” Latest single ‘Neon Bog’ shows just how deep such conviction runs, the band embracing happenstance and happy accidents during the recording process to create something as atmospheric as it is idiosyncratic.

The song comes complete with a video directed by Cameron Lowe along with assistant director Scotty “Sleepy” Anderson. The film leans further into the haunting tones of the song, using practical effects a la Michel Gondry. “I’ve been watching a lot of the TV show Ghost Adventures and have been somewhat haunted by the implications of the paranormal,” as Lowe explains. “I thought the video was a good outlet for expressing that in an abstract way.”

Danger in Fives is out on the 8th August via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it now from the Wombo Bandcamp page.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2025 #4 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.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2025 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Lead single ‘Sunshine State’ hits the ground running. A track which finds Kovac addressing her younger self, delving into the person she was before and during her move from Brisbane to the UK, and how the competing desires for home and escape never really go away. “I found some old journals from when I was a teenager, and they made me reflect on how much I’d changed as a person,” Laura Kovic explains. “There were things about myself that I’d forgotten, but it was clear how much I’d always wanted to move to the UK. I was so keen to get away! From such a beautiful place! So the song is like: I’m going back to the Sunshine State to find my younger, more melodramatic self and catch-up with her.” The result is both confessional and compassionate, allowing past feelings the respect they deserve while acknowledging the ways we change over time, and ultimately coming to offer a nuanced picture of the ways we form relationships to a place.

Part Of The Problem, Baby is out 1st August on Specialist Subject Records and you can pre-order it now from the Fortitude Valley Bandcamp page.

Illustration & album design by Sophie MacKenzie

The post Fortitude Valley – Sunshine State appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Back in March we introduced Spellbreaker, the new full-length from LA pop duo Bouquet. Having not put out a record for a decade, the release sees interdisciplinary artist, writer and composer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs and songwriter and producer Max Foreman evolve the project while staying true to its spirit, with singles ‘Hold On‘ and ‘Moon Was Made‘ showing off “a rich and romantic style,” as we put it, “that championed restraint within a genre often prone to excesses.” With the album now out, Bouquet have shared the title track—a song which confronts suffocating societal expectations, both in terms of their subliminal pull on us and the agency to be found in rejecting their logic.

Coral Grief – Rockhounds

Seattle trio Coral Grief are set to release their debut album Air Between Us this summer, a joint relase between Suicide Squeeze Records (digital), Anxiety Blanket Records (vinyl) and Den Tapes (cassette) which promises to represent a notable addition to the current dream pop revival. Because though the krautrock and synth pop styles underpinning the project might be drawn from the past, Coral Grief do so much more than peddle nostalgia. Rather, they take familiar sounds and recombine them into something entirely new, as displayed by lead single ‘Rockhounds’. It’s a track of ethereal tones and intricate detail built around a spine of sleek drum loops. The lyrics hint at the core themes of a release all about travel and exploration, championing not the productive gains of such things but rather the inherent value of the process. “I love beachcombing and searching for small treasures,” frontperson Lena Farr Morrissey explains. “This song is an ode to that process, especially when you don’t find anything but it was still worth the journey.”

Watch the video directed and edited by Nick Shively below:

Air Between Us will be released on the 18th July via Suicide Squeeze Records, Anxiety Blanket Records and Den Tapes and you can pre-order it now.

Horsepower – Excalibur

Horsepower, the project of NYC songwriter Charlotte Weinman, is preparing to release a self-titled debut EP next month via Rose Garden, and Weinman has shared new single ‘Excalibur’ to introduce the release. Produced by brother Noah Weinman (of runnner fame), the song offers a glimpse at the heavier dimension of the Horsepower project, following the tender, dreamy tones of previous track ‘Are You Blushing?’ with something altogether more charged and raw. The result is both earnest in tone and inventive in execution, Weinman drawing on her background in theatre writing and performance to convey personal fury in an unapologetically heightened, dramatic register. “I grew up as a massive fan of Hole and Sleater-Kinney and Kim Gordon, and I’ve always generally had a huge attraction to women who are being serrated and disgusting with their language and presence,” Weinman explains, “and not aestheticizing their anger—“feminine rage” etc.—but expressing it with a critical mass of urgency and conviction to dress it up or perform it any other way.”

Watch the video directed by Jonas Bishop Hayes below:

Horsepower will be released on the 27th June via Rose Garden.

OK Cool – Waawooweewaa

Back in 2023 we wrote about Chicago-based project OK Cool, describing how album fawn saw duo Bridget Stiebris Haley Blomquist rise from “a rich lineage of forebears, from contemporary bedroom pop to Midwest emo and feedback-soaked shoegaze” while still “keeping things fresh and experimental.” Now OK Cool are preparing to release follow-up Chit Chat in August on Take A Hike Records, and lead single ‘Waawooweewaa’ suggests the album will build upon these foundations. It’s a track which combines emo confession with an infectious forward motion to create something genuinely cathartic despite its dark tone. “I wish I could say fuck it / and walk out into the lake,” as the final verse goes. “My entire life relies on being far away /  i’m sorry, it’s my own fault.”

Paola Bennet – Landmines

Drawing on a mix of folk, pop and rock sensibilities, Boston-born, New York-based songwriter Paola Bennet is an artist unafraid of the personal, her music delving into intimate themes of illness, desire and relationships with equal parts tenderness and weight. Described as “agony put to sound,” new single ‘Landmines’ shows the full range of this style within a single track. An examination of a friendship conducted in its aftermath, where residual bitterness and burgeoning regret are matched with more complicated emotions. The identity-shaking experience of losing a person from your life when you had always imagined them a part of it. The poignant croon of the opening conjures the vulnerability of such a situation, and the gradual introduction of rock energy drives the track towards its fiercely cathartic climax.

Soot Sprite – Wield Your Hope Like A Weapon

We’ve featured a number of tracks from Soot Sprite‘s new full-length Wield Your Hope Like A Weapon in recent months, what we’ve called “a call to arms to fight against the forces that make contemporary life so difficult, and a reminder of the radical potential within empathy and community” that focuses on both a societal (on tracks like ‘All My Friends Are Depressed‘ and ‘Days After Days‘) and personal (‘Vicious Cycles‘) level. With the album now out via Specialist Subject Records, the trio have unveiled the title track to celebrate. A mission statement for the record and an embodiment of its cathartic defiance and determination. “As long as there’s blood in my body / I’ll never stop raging against the dark that’s gonna crush me,” as lead Elise Cook sings. “And as long as there’s air to breathe / I’ll do everything just to show you my teeth.”

Star Moles – Key Change

Recording under the moniker Star Moles, multi-instrumentalist Emily Moales has put out a wide range of releases since 2017, with a myriad of singles and covers sitting alongside full-lengths like Camelot, released via Earth Libraries. The oeuvre is a lesson in the potential of bedroom pop, refusing to settle for genre conventions to push the style in new directions. Again out via Earth Libraries, latest single ‘Key Change’ is a worthy addition to the catalogue. A track representative of 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. The result is off-kilter and idiosyncratic and all the more believable for it, unfurling as a stream-of-consciousness with little filtered out.

Tyler Bradley Walker – Moon Broke Quiet

Perhaps best known as one half of electronic rock duo Gone to Color, Tyler Bradley Walker is now preparing to release his debut solo album, The Sun The Moon The Earth and Me, next month. Gone to Color have always broken new ground with their work, blurring the boundaries between pop, rock and concert music with traditional and electronic instrumentation, and lead single ‘Moon Broke Quiet’ suggest Walker’s solo work is no less ambitious. A spacious, evocative soundscape which seems to sit at an angle to reality, everything a little stark and surreal and strange. Tim Rutili of Califone fame adds his distinctive vocals, and the result occupies that nocturnal liminal space between waking life and dreams.

Watch the video by Chris Del Rio below:

‘Moon Broke Quiet’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Willi Carlisle – Beeswing

After the acclaim of 2024 album Critterland, Missouri songwriter Willi Carlisle is wasting no time getting back in the saddle with Winged Victory, a brand new full-length coming next month via Signature Sounds Recording Inc. The quick turnaround is perhaps at least in part explained by the urgency of the tracks therein. These are folk songs driven by (or in opposition to) the ever collapsing present, as though sensing that it is within moments of great change and suffering we might be allowed to imagine new ways of living. But far from pie-in-the-sky utopian dreaming, the album acknowledges the blood and sweat required to achieve such a thing, something made clear by Carlisle’s rendition of ‘Beeswing’. “I wanted the record to include a song about romantic love that had ideas about freedom and victory,” Carlisle explains. “For me, the song turns on the line ‘And they say her flower’s faded now / from hard weather and hard booze / but maybe that’s the price you pay for the chains you refuse.’ If you want to be untouchable by the regular world, maybe freedom is actually a really expensive thing, and maybe you have to try really hard to reach it.”

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A collaboration between multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Tessa Collins and drummer Andrew Wilkinson, Altai create music that lands somewhere between dream pop, post-punk and folk. Both members live on farms, and say their forthcoming debut EP was created “between dodgy Wi-Fi and driving tractors.” Lead single ‘Like You Need It’ is a good introduction. Released just as the southern hemisphere moves into autumn, the song is suffused with a romantic nostalgia and the gnawing melancholy of the changing seasons. “Wanting to be wanted, feeling woeful as the cheery summer days come to an end,” the band describe. “You turn to your partner for affectionate reassurance that might just ease the seasonal blues.”

‘Like You Need It’ is out now via Broken Palace.

Ava McCoy – More Than a Friend

Described by the artist as “a patchwork quilt of me post-college,” Ava McCoy‘s forthcoming album Dragonfly “run[s] the gamut between hushed folk and driving indie rock to offer a sonic palette wide enough to paint a diverse collection of scenes and feelings,” as we wrote in a preview. With the record set for release via Acrophase Records at the end of the month, McCoy is back with ‘More Than a Friend’, another square in this mosaic which focuses on a Christmas spent in the UK reflecting on past loves and the compromises which came with them. But with a propulsive energy and bright jangle, the track finds freedom in the situation, embracing the agency of being single.

Don’t Worry – Unbelieveable

“Balancing heart-on-the-sleeve emo confession with a distinctively British self-deprecation.” So we wrote of Don’t Worry‘s forthcoming album Idealism back in April, a full-length which sees the Essex outfit evolve their sound while staying true to the spirit that has won them fans with previous albums. With the record set for release this summer on Specialist Subject Records, Don’t Worry are back with ‘Unbelievable’, a song which evokes the dystopia of lockdown-era Britain with a disarmingly bright and sunny sound. The single therefore owes an equal debt to the romanticised past and soul-sapping present, the warm Beatles-esque tones belying the cold hard reality of the contemporary moment.

Frankie Cosmos – Bitch Heart

New York indie favourites Frankie Cosmos are returning this June with brand new full-length Different Talking on Sub Pop, with the ever present lead Greta Kline joined by Alex Bailey, Katie Von Schleicher and Hugo Stanley in the project’s current iteration to create what might be their most collaborative record to date. The album collects a myriad of memories and images into a cohesive whole, exploring growing older amid the unstoppable passage of time, and latest single ‘Bitch Heart’ centres on the competing allures of comfort and raw experience which push and pull a person over the course of their lives. The track comes complete with a video by Eliza Lu Doyle which further pushes into these ideas, all shot on infrared and thermal cameras to position it firmly within a surreal space. “To me the song is about being torn between the comforts of domesticated life and your innate wildness,” Doyle explains. “There’s a yearning for a more feral time—before you touched your fucking phone all day. So we made Greta into a dog-shepherd, someone who straddles those two realms.”

Different Talking is out on the 27th June via Sub Pop and you can pre-order it now.

Fuubutsushi – Loop Trail

This June sees the release of Columbia Deluxe, a live release by ambient jazz quartet Fuubutsushi, via American Dreams. Taken from a show at the Columbia Experimental Music Festival, the project’s only live performance to date, the collection finds the quartet working to adapt tracks recorded remotely for the live setting, drawing from the breadth of their work and allowing intuition, risk-taking and collaborative spirit to flourish in close proximity. Half the magic of the release is the way in which the tracks flow into one another across the performance, meaning it is best experienced as a whole. Though lead track ‘Loop Trail’ offers a suitable snapshot of what to expect. A number indebted to both the patience of ambient aesthetics and old-school punk ethos, drawing the audience into a soundscape at once poignant and meditative.

HLLLYH – Uru Buru

Last month we introduced HLLLYH, a project risen from the ashes of 00s favourites the Mae Shi which is preparing to release brand new album, URUBURU. What the band describe as “an end-of-the-world story written on a mobius strip” the record lacks none of the invention and personality which made the Mae Shi stand out so clearly from the crowd of indie buzz bands. Released as the latest single, the opener and title track shows such a spirit is present from the very start, the newly invigorated outfit wasting no time to establish their fist-pumping charm and offering a timely reminder that energy persists irrespective of everything. “We’ve been eating our own tail for as long as i remember / We’ve been doing it wrong right from the start,” as the opening verse states. “But one thing I know / one thing that’s sure / one light outshines.”

URUBURU is out on the 27th June via Team Shi and you can pre-order it from the HLLLYH Bandcamp page.

Hudson Freeman – Good Faith

Combining the atmospheric intensity of slowcore with the closeness of bedroom pop, the work of Hudson Freeman pushes boundaries in terms of genre conventions while maintaining a direct emotional resonance. Later this month the Springfield, Missouri songwriter will release Is A Folk Artist, a brand new album which employs this style to explore some of the largest themes possible. Because though the record is situated within a coming-of-age experience, it probes deeper than the usual uncertainty and angst of young life. Rather, Freeman follows the likes of David Bazan in using the period to reflect on the metaphysical as well as the personal, drawing on a religious upbringing to explore how meaning might be located within the digital present. Check out latest single ‘Good Faith’ now:

Is A Folk Artist is out on the 29th May via Mendel Records.

Jack Goldstein – MUD MICE

The music of Margate’s Jack Goldstein is nothing if not ambitious. He bends the pop spectrum into a perfect circle and makes himself comfortable at the point where both poles—earworm commercial and oddball avant garde—meet. Forthcoming album HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER COWPUNCHING JEWBOY is a case in point. Goldstein describes it as ​”a fever dream in a parallel dimension where Britney Spears makes a fully fledged country and western album around the time she shaves her head—the moment this cosmic heartache begins to envenom the world.” If that’s hared to envisage, then give lead single ‘MUD MICE’ a spin. A ludicrously infectious and imaginative song that displays both a  country twang and pop polish.

HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER COWPUNCHING JEWBOY is out on the 20th June via Fabulous Things.

Juan Wauters – Dime Amiga

Although now based in NYC, Juan Wauters was born in Montevideo and, for the first time in his career, returned to the Uruguayan capital to make album MVD LUV, coming via Captured Tracks. Created not just in his own studio, but also the city itself (on sidewalks, rooftops, in the homes of friends), the album has a sense of Montevideo in its very bones. Latest single ‘Dime Amiga’ is a good place to start. Sung in Spanish, it’s a gentle and heartwarming song about the importance of loved ones. “‘Dime Amiga’ is a song that sparked while seeing my daughter cry,” Wauters sings. “The chorus just came out as we were there. I wanted the song to highlight life’s difficulties and how important it is to have a friend on your side if it ever gets hard.” His daughter also has a starring role in the video (written and directed by Lucía Garibaldi, Fatos Marishta, Eric McLeland, Matthew Volz and Wauters himself), which sees her wander off into the bustle of New York as Wauters’s busks for donut money.

MVD LUV will be released via Captured Tracks on 27th June. Pre-order it now from the Juan Wauters Bandcamp page.

Mourning [A] Blkstar – Letter To A Nervous System

We’ve covered a couple of singles from Mourning [A] Blkstar‘s new full-length Flowers of the Living in recent months, first the patient and quietly radical ‘Stop Lion 2‘ and then the striking ‘Let ‘Em Eat‘. The latter “pivots from bright, affirming beginnings into something else entirely,” we wrote in our piece, the song staying “true to the visionary, boundary-pushing spirit of the project” by shifting the vibe entirely and welcoming rapper Fatboi Sharif for a closing verse. With the album out later this week on Don Giovanni Records, MAB has unveiled final single ‘Letter To A Nervous System’ and the track is no less inventive. Another lesson in the power of understatement, the languid rhythm and crooned vocals full of assured confidence and aching longing.

Flowers of the Living is out on the 16th May via Don Giovanni Records and you can pre-order it now.

Snake Lips – Thumbs Up

This summer sees the return of Portland, Maine indie punk outfit Snake Lips with Cat Beach, a brand new full-length on Repeating Cloud. Previous release Happy Anxious was an album “delivered with both volatility and wry humour,” as we wrote in a preview, “as though strung out between hope and despair and choosing to ride the instability,” and the new record looks to build upon these foundations, as introduced by lead single, ‘Thumbs Up’. It’s a surf-inflected slice of garage rock which again embraces the danger and thrill of sheer momentum, burning bright and quick no matter consequences and ultimately revealing the real threat comes from within. “Brake check / I’m driving in the wrong lane / Blacked out / Alcohol and cocaine,” as the song opens. “So cool / I’m calling you the wrong name / Too bad / I’m the only one in my way.”

Watch the video by Ninety-Five Films below:

Cat Beach will be released on the 25th July via Repeating Cloud and you can pre-order it now.

Will Orchard – Nothing Fog

“A dream-folk track which preaches the benefits submission within an overwhelming world, complicating the lines between playfulness, sadness and acquiescence.” So we wrote of Will Orchard‘s ‘Down‘ back in April, what has since been revealed to be the closing track of his forthcoming third album, Behind The Shadow Glass. To announce the record, Orchard has shared another single, ‘Nothing Fog’. Again presenting a nuanced atmosphere, the track uses a decidedly sincere style to explore a sense of uncertainty, its confessional tone unafraid of revealing its own vulnerabilities and loss of confidence. Yet it is the sound’s brightness which persists in spite of all of this, leading to something ultimately affirming. “‘Nothing Fog’ expresses something very central to my struggle as a human,” as Orchard puts it. “The feeling of pushing your own wants and needs aside, and always trying to consider every perspective, until you can no longer recognize your own.”

Yoshika Colwell – A Poem About Walking

In April we introduced On The Wing, the forthcoming release from Yoshika Colwell on Blue Flowers. An album, at its heart “about acceptance and release, and freedom from old binds,” as Colwell herself describes, collecting a series of key experiences and events from across the years in order to not only process the journey so far but to chart a more hopeful path forward. Latest single ‘A Poem About Walking’ embodies the compassion and self-acceptance of this endeavour, finding its subject at the rock bottom of a troubled relationship though still holding onto small embers of possibility. The hope, that is, to achieve a more fulfilling and healthy existence, even if it means passing through a period of solitude and reflection in order to map out its shape. Watch the video by Tilly Wace below:

On The Wing is out on the 25th July via Blue Flowers and you can pre-order it now.

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New single ‘Middle Finger’ gives a hint at the direction the trio are taking this time around. “The earliest iPhone demos of this song were way back in 2022,” as songwriter Ronan Van Kehoe explains. “It’s gone through the mill a few times since then. Alex [Reed] took the song in the synth-heavy 80s inspired direction that you hear on the final version, and we’re really happy he did that. We think this song showcases another different sound that’s present on our 3rd album Idealism, and there are several other new flavours to come.”

Fans of Don’t Worry will be pleased to hear the familiar spirit of the band persists through the stylistic changes, Van Kehoe’s lyrics again balancing heart-on-the-sleeve emo confession with a distinctively British self-deprecation. A fitting tone for a track all about the imperfections that can haunt a life, and even overwhelm it should the sufferer not be careful. “Despite its name, ‘Middle Finger’ isn’t about swearing or hand gestures,” as Ronan Van Kehoe continues. “It’s a song about acknowledging that even when life goes the way you want it to some of the time, it’ll never go the way you want it to all of time, and that’s ok.” So even if the minor curses of finger cysts, astigmatism, less-than-perfect hearts and chronic overthinking can come to colour one’s sense of identity and self-esteem, Don’t Worry regain a sense of agency within the arrangement with their signature blend of unapologetic intimacy and ironic distance.

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With 2023 album Cleaning Up With Big Mess, Copenhagen‘s Big Mess introduced a genre-spanning style which tapped into the unbridled joy of good old-fashioned punk rock, and new release Terry EP indicates they have no intention of slowing down. The record is out now via Specialist Subject Records, and opener and title track shows off the vibe of the collection. Repurposing Kirsty MacColl’s hit into a power pop gem, ‘Terry’ distils the wry humour and bite of the original into their purest states. The result races into life from the off and never lets up, harnessing MacColl’s cheeky defiance as its own form of momentum, and proving as cathartic as it is fun.

Ciao Malz – Clementine (Elliott Smith cover)

Back in December, Ciao Malz released their debut EP Safe Then Sorry, a four-song grab bag that veered between alt-country twang and woozy pop confidence. Now Malia DelaCruz is showing another dimension to the project with a cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘Clementine’, recapturing the hushed intimacy of the original in all of its sincerity and narrative depth. “‘Clementine’ is probably my favorite Elliott Smith song,” as DelaCruz explains. “The way he picks up on a bartender singing and turns it into something so eerie and beautiful is wild. The harmonies are something I’ve always wanted to nail, and I love experimenting with them when I’m recording. And yeah, sometimes it’s just fun to channel Elliott Smith for a while.”

You can find Ciao Malz on Bandcamp.

Committeemen – Therapy

Consisting of DJ Gilmore-Innis (vocals/guitar), Ken Dannelley (drums), Matt Kast (bass), and Graham Bell (guitar), Houston punk rockers Committeemen owe as much to post punk royalty like Gang of Four as they do contemporaries Osees and Parquet Courts. But, they’re no cheap copy, managing to recombine this range of influences into something wholly their own. With a new EP on the way via Rue Defense, single ‘Therapy’ highlights the searing intensity of their sound. Taking aim at the burgeoning ecosystem of quacks and narcissists which seems determined to tell us how to live, this is blistering punk complete with yell-along chorus, treating this vapid, insidious cohort of podcasters, Youtubers and televangelists with the contempt they deserve.

Daily Toll – Killincs

Described as “eleven songs traversing three years of forged friendships, collaborative experimentation and a shared love of growing through words and song,” new album A Profound Non-Event sees Sydney post-punks Daily Toll take the next step in their evolution, building upon what came before with a growing sense of confidence and conviction. With the release coming this June on Tough Love, the trio have shared lead single ‘Killincs’, and the track embodies the sound of a band striving towards their most truthful form while appreciating such a quest might prove unending. “The light reflects an upside-down image of a life I might never visit,” as lead Kata Szász-Komlós sings. “Too far to touch, not far enough to forget.” And as the song progresses, its verbosity belying the relatively understated, assured tone, it becomes clear the unresolved is something to be accepted, even embraced. As a later line states: “I have the key still, but I’ve buried the path.”

Watch the video directed and edited by Szász-Komlós below:

A Profound Non-Event is out on the 20th June via Tough Love and you can pre-order it now.

eggcorn – Observer Effect

Taking its name from the phenomenon where an observed system is disturbed by the very act of being observed, eggcorn‘s new album Observer Effect sees songwriter Lara Hoffman explore the ways in which reflecting on one’s life and surroundings can shape our experiences. Moving away from the synth pop sensibilities of debut Your Own True Love, the album adopts a pop-inflected brand of chamber folk which combines sincere compassion with unerring honesty, a sound able to probe deep into the heart of the matter and unafraid of getting dirty in the process. The lead single and title track is the ideal entry point, Hoffman using the impatient frustration of a slow-healing injury to delve into unpalatable truths about herself and the desires therein, baring vulnerabilities and reckoning with their implications without sacrificing a certain playfulness.

MF Tomlinson – Die To Wake Up From A Dream

Over a series of releases in recent times, Brisbane/Meanjin born, London based artist MF Tomlinson has challenged genre conventions, progressing beyond classic folk styles with the addition of psych, rock and other sensibilities. This summer will see him return with Die To Wake Up From A Dream, a brand new album via PRAH Recordings which continues this exploration of the possibilities of folk. Described by Tomlinson himself as a treatise on “resilience, hope and the frankly wildly psychedelic experience of being alive,” the lead single and title track shows one such possibility, drawing on everything from John Martyn to Talk Talk and My Bloody Valentine to create a sound which might originate in folk but ends up beyond any easy genre categorisation.

Watch the accompanying video—described as a “visual essay”—by Andrea Zvadova below:

Die To Wake Up From A Dream is out on the 11th July via PRAH Recordings.

sachi’s mirror – a new shape

The recording project of Oakland-based experimental violinist and composer Shaina Pan, sachi’s mirror offers rich, genre-bending soundscapes which use pedal effects to push the violin to new ground. Classically trained, Pan dipped a toe in experimental music as a vocalist and bassist for Bay Area art-punks Juicebumps during the pandemic, and is now reaching further across ambient, avant-garde and art pop sensibilities to weave her own compositions. Taken from debut release coral miracle church, single ‘a new shape’ embodies the style, a song full of space and intricate detail which grows with subtle grace. Spoken word samples further the mood, and the result feels like a doorway into some adjacent, ethereal world.

Serfing – no new friends

Consisting of Austin Weber and David Caploe (Singer of Hate Drugs, BEST DAD), LA‘s Serfing are preparing to release their debut EP to properly introduce themselves to the world. Lead single ‘no new friends’ is the first taste of what to expect. Painted in long, relaxed strokes, the track offers a dreamy meditation on making connections with other people, its languorous tempo able to draw out both the warmth and anguish inherent within such a process. “It’s hard to keep yourself from falling / falling in love,” as the opening lines go. “Spend enough time with somebody / falling in love.” But true to the ambiguous mood of a sound that could be taken as dawning fondness or anxious hesitancy, the lyrics soon offer conflicting thoughts.

Why even plant a tree to cut it down?
you know those roots are staying in the ground
better off just being no-one
than falling in love

The Taxpayers – Outline of Your Blood

We’ve covered a number of singles from Circle Breaker, the new full-length from  Portland, Oregon emo outfit The Taxpayers, in recent weeks, be it ‘At War With The Dogcatchers‘ with its search for love amid tragedy and cruelty or ‘I Am One Thousand‘, an ode to those afflicted by war and its adjacent sufferings. With the album now out via Ernest Jenning Record Co., The Taxpayers are releasing a new single, ‘Outline of Your Blood’, as a celebration. The closing track to the album which encapsulates everything which came before, stricken by discouragement and burgeoning doom yet unable to shake a sense of hope despite it all. As the title suggests, this is an album of cycles, the grandest of which being the circle of life itself, and no matter how dark the present, The Taxpayers want to remind you that new life is always being born too.

Circle Breaker is out now via Ernest Jenning Record Co. and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Wishy – Over and Over

“Everything fans of the band have come to love.” That’s how we described ‘Fly’ back in February, the lead single from Wishy‘s forthcoming EP Planet Popstar. “A song,” as we put it, “that looks to move beyond heartbreak with a mix of affirming energy and wistful longing.” With the EP coming next month on Winspear, the Indianapolis outfit are back with fresh track ‘Over and Over’. With vocal duties shifting back to Kevin Krauter, and Nina Pitchkites offering backing harmonies, the song sees fingerpicked guitar melded with breakbeat rhythms, offering a sound packed full of detail while maintaining a languid calm, and further marking Wishy as one of the most inventive acts working today.

The song comes complete with a video directed by Demi Fenicle, edited by Aaron Agler and with visual Effects by Stephen Orban, which you can watch below:

Planet Popstar is out on the 25th April via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

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[The album is] about facing the endless horrors of the world and remembering to pay attention to the good. People on the ground, activism, and remembering that we shouldn’t be hardened by everything we witness or we can lose empathy. And it feels like without empathy we’ll never be able to achieve class consciousness, and lose our sense of community.

Pulling no punches with its observations, lead single ‘All My Friends Are Depressed’ plays like a dispatch from the trenches of the present. An attempt to shake life into an exhausted population beaten down by work and expectations so that we might act to shape a better world. The song represents “my observation of the mental health crisis we’re in, how widespread it feels and how sociopolitical factors are playing such a huge part,” Cook explains. “It’s also a reminder to myself that I need to stop distracting myself from my issues and try and change something or face things or nothing will happen and I’ll never shake off the episode.”

Wield Your Hope Like A Weapon is out on the 16th May via Specialist Subject Records and you can pre-order it now from the Soot Sprite Bandcamp page.

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Montreal artist Cassandra Angheluta uses the moniker APACALDA to create an atmospheric blend of shadowy indie pop and emotive indie rock. Early next summer, she will release There’s a Shadow In My Room and It Isn’t Mine, a much-anticipated album that explores a person’s journey from unblemished purity to marked and bruised with life’s burdens. Displaying this dark mood in full effect, latest single ‘Dead Weight’ is a song about watching helplessly as a loved one spirals into addiction. “True love, whether romantic or platonic, can be imprisoning,” APACALDA explains of the song. “There are journeys—like addiction—that people ultimately have to face within themselves to find healing. Watching them go through this is incredibly hard because you’re constantly battling the fear of losing them.”

There’s a Shadow In My Room and It Isn’t Mine is due to be released in June next year.

Blood Lemon – Perfect Too

Uniting over a shared love of Kim Deal and 90s Riot Grrrl music, Boise three-piece Blood Lemon burst onto the scene in 2021 with their self-titled debut, combining musical expertise with political urgency to create a searing sound. Now the trio—Lisa Simpson (Finn Riggins, Treefort Music Fest), Melanie Radford (Built to Spill, Marshall Poole) and percussionist Lindsey Lloyd (Tambalka)—are preparing to release new EP Petite Deaths on Moon Ruins, and lead single ‘Perfect Too’ sees an escalation of this style. A seven-minute behemoth which sets its furious sights on the dead end of greed and endless treadmill in search of perfection.

Watch the video directed and edited by Grant Osman with animation by James W.A.R. Lloyd below:

Petite Deaths is out in the 17th January via Moon Ruins and you can pre-order it now.

Daneshevskaya – Scrooge

Daneshevskaya‘s Long Is The Tunnel was one of 2023’s most inventive and ambitious releases, using rich arrangements and distinctive vocals to present the individual experience as a patchwork of histories and hopes for the future. Again out via Winspear, new single ‘Scrooge’ is no less layered and finely crafted. Drawing loosely on the titular figure, the track brings to life a sense of growing alienation within a relationship, as though the significant other is slowing deforming into a stranger in real time. “Ebenezer, I wish you wouldn’t stay,” admits the opening line, and the rest of the track is equally frank. “When you talk like that I don’t recognize you,” as the chorus goes. “When you move like that I don’t recognize you / I don’t even think you notice.” Watch the video below, directed by Madeline Leshner and Zach Stone with cinematography by Stone and Isaac Berner:

‘Scrooge’ is out now via Winspear and available from the Daneshevskaya Bandcamp page.

David Allred – Oh Lauren

“Death, grief and loss are understandably key moods, but perhaps the most striking emotion is that of longing,” we wrote of David Allred‘s forthcoming album The Beautiful World on Erased Tapes. “Not only a desire to return to the past and that which is lost, but also for something better in the future.” After the title track weaved seemingly mundane details into a picture of a fulfilling life, new single ‘Oh Lauren’ continues this spirit with an even more direct focus. Dedicated to a childhood friend who took her own life at a young age, the song collects the tangle of competing emotions surrounding the event and aims to communicate them as honestly as possible. Mourning and confusion, a desire to understand, as well as the enduring sense of gratitude for having known her at all.

Don’t Worry – Ever So Clear

Released to coincide with the ten-year anniversary of the band and in preview of a third full-length album scheduled for sometime in 2025, ‘Ever So Clear’ sees Harlow, Essex indie rockers Don’t Worry continue the sense of heartfelt emotion and playful humour which made 2022 album Remorseless Swing so special. “All night I’m thinking for England / I can’t be with you at all,” sings songwriter Samuel Watson, casting an unflinching eye on a personal situation and reporting back every uncomfortable detail. The result might not be the most romantic of pictures, but the earnest delivery lends an affirming edge, and positions the singalong refrain as something between a promise and a plea.

I just need a little time
Stay with me
I just need a little time

 Free Lunch – rosebud

The recording project of Bournemouth brothers Henry and Ted Scanlan, Free Lunch rose from the ashes of two solo outfits—Sprog and Wilder respectively—and has come to welcome an array of friends and collaborators such as Michael Rea (Symbol Soup) and Dave ‘The Attic’ Mountain. New single ‘rosebud’ highlights the atmosphere and versatility of the resulting sound, building from warm, relaxed beginnings into something altogether deeper. A middle lull shimmers to near-silence as though to herald what is coming, and the closing third of the track makes good on the promise with a climax full of weight and soaring release.

Leif Vollebekk – Peace of Mind (Morning)

Leif Vollebekk‘s new album Revelation, out now on Secret City Records, is one keyed into mystery and ambiguity, drawing on Jung’s Dreams, Memories, Reflections to explore themes such as alchemy and the unknowable divine. The sort of release which appears to be inching closer to some truth with every listen. It is fitting then that Vollebekk has returned to some of the tracks again, recording different versions as though in search of that elusive perfection. ‘Peace of Mind (Morning)’ offers an acoustic take which looks to carve out its own space away from the album. A small pocket of calm to be maintained and returned to. Watch the visualiser by director, cinematographer and editor Andy Mann and colourist Beatrice Tremblay below:

Revelation is out now via Secret City Records.

leoblu – PEACHES

Following this summer’s EP Blu Lucid Nightmare and a recent collaboration with World Wide Web, leoblu (that’s Åland-born, Berlin-based producer and artist Julia Carlsson) returns with new single ‘PEACHES’. Making what we described previously as “ambiguous and atmospheric music which situates intimate emotion against the more mysterious forces at work around us,” leoblu specialises in the dark and haunting, and ‘PEACHES’ is no exception. An indie pop song filtered through a digital prism, it combines synths, beats and Carlsson’s signature vocals to create something at once emotional and oddly mesmerising.

‘PEACHES’ is out now via streaming services.

MacGregor Burns – Can’t Go Back

“Stretch[es] the gamut between despondent, desperate and something like tenuous hope as they strive towards a truer version of self, whatever that might look like.” So we wrote of MacGregor Burns‘s ‘Silent Answers’ back in September, introducing the artist’s idiosyncratic personality. Combining nostalgic nods to the likes of David Byrne while forging a new path forwards, latest single ‘Can’t Go Back’ looks for further clues in the fertile space between the familiar and the new. Going back might not be possible, but there’s no harm in looking to those who have walked before us for indications of what direction we might take next.

Pleasure Systems – Merry Christmas

Described by label Primordial Void as “not quite Christmas music,” ‘Merry Christmas’ is the new single from Clarke Sondermann’s Pleasure Systems. It’s our first glimpse of his new working relationship with producer Ivan Berko, and channels the signature Pleasure Systems ruminative indie pop towards the layers of bittersweet memory that the festive season can often break open and reveal to us. Grant Chapman provides drums and May Rio sings along as Sondermann reflects on Christmases past, pairing a warm nostalgic fondness and moments of small beauty with a sharp pang of loss. The 7″ single and digital download comes complete with a b-side ‘Signing in My Sleep (Demo)’, so be sure not to miss out on that too.

The storm took down the power lines
it ripped the needles off the pines
but I see you at the door
and I couldn’t ask for more
Merry Christmas

winded – wish on the mezzanine

Based in Miami, winded was originally the solo project of lead Thrin Vianale, but has since expanded into a four-piece featuring Nick Cody (guitar) James Sturges (bass) and Gunther Schenk (drums). Their latest release, a double single featuring the tracks ‘wish on the mezzanine’ and ‘mercy 27’ is therefore something of a reintroduction. The ramshackle lo-fi pop of 2022’s schwartz provides is levelled up into something with genuine mass, pairing thick noisy fuzz and shredding guitar with hooky melodies and bright harmonies. ‘wish on the mezzanine’ is the perfect introduction—power pop meets shoegaze meets crunchy lo-fi rock.

Yoshika Colwell & The Vernon Spring – This Weather

In early December, English songwriter Yoshika Colwell will release a collaborative EP with The Vernon Spring (London composer and producer Sam Beste). The record finds the pair’s creative spirits coming together in an effortless flow, The Vernon Spring taking Colwell’s classical folk songwriting and spinning it off into new, daring territory. The focus was very much on intuition and improvisation, from snippets of melodies that arrived as if from the ether, to the lyrics themselves. “I sang without letting my analytical mind get in the way,” Colwell explains. “The words came out like in a conversation or thought, complete with strangeness and non sequiturs and contradictions.” Take a listen to the title track for a taste of what this sounds like.

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