Take latest track ‘Just Double Checking’. A song about anxiety and intimacy Kumar co-wrote with his partner which draws as much from Brazilian popular music artists like Triste Janero and Milton Nascimento as it does from Elliot Smith. But the fact that such experimentation feels like the song’s natural state is not only a testament to the Sun Kin project, but moreover the sincerity with which the song was written.

“My partner Nicole and I have both been anxious to the point of dissociating since we were kids,” Kumar explains. “We wrote this song together about how our constant worrying and worrying about worrying doesn’t usually help.” The track’s laidback richness feels like such a sentiment committed to music, with the dual vocals’ chemistry adding real tenderness and allowing the track to take on the gentle self-deprecation so unique to close relationships. “We’re never more present than when we’re performing to each other,” as Kumar continues. “Thinking about how the other person feels, being in the moment.”

Like when I’m singing to you
I know what’s in my hands
I’ve got a cat in my lap
The sun is streaming down
Like when I’m singing to you
The center of gravity in my room
I’m giving in like the tide to the moon

The post Sun Kin – Just Double Checking appeared first on Various Small Flames.

It’s fitting then that the latest of these partnerships sees Sun Kin team up with Pacing for a pair of singles, each supporting the other in a mutual lead/support type deal. McTigue takes the lead for ‘Annoying Email’, the third single from Pacing’s forthcoming full-length Real Poetry, which serves as a textbook example of the project’s style. Ironic yet also somehow entirely sincere, the song holds up the everyday in all of its surreal and often torturous truth. There’s a reason, after all, why sending emails is so simple in practice yet feels like pulling teeth. McTigue walks us into the heart of this sensation, constantly feeling on the verge of screaming or breaking into hysterics, yet always just managing to keep that polite, upbeat tone.

The post Pacing x Sun Kin – Annoying Email / Dreams Die appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tender, the debut solo album by Colorado’s Allison Lorenzen on Whited Sepulchre Records was marked by “a transience which feels deeply compassionate,” as we described in our review. “Hope manifest as an understanding of the potential for change.” Follow-up single ‘The Fourth Cycle‘ continued this examination of change, detailing the gamut of emotional states involved with any upheaval, and latest track ‘MTO’ feels like the next step along the process. Described as sounding like a “final climax of a Mark Fisher-influenced hauntological prom scene,” the song looks to recognise the repeating patterns of the past so that Lorenzen might heal and move forward.

Bad Tiger – Enough

Last year, we described how Bad Tiger’s 2020 album The Goat and the Bad Tiger was “far from being the full realisation of [Yasi] Lowy’s goals,” but instead “merely opened the doors to new possibilities.” The San Francisco outfit are back with ‘Enough’, a new single which focuses on the precariousness of the present moment. With Lowy’s tender and confessional vocals, the track paints a vulnerable, open-hearted mood which longs for certainty within the painful fervour of love.

City Dress – Empires of Honey

“Music is for everyone who spent their childhoods obsessively reading the lyrics to their favorite songs.” That’s how Brooklyn‘s Christina Skramstad describes her folk pop project City Dress. Together with guitarist Johnny Simon Jr. (Wilsen), she writes lush and literary folk songs, which we last featured back in 2020. Fast forward a few years and City Dress is back with a new single, ‘Empires of Honey’, a rhythmic and resolute exploration of the self-deception involved in ego and boundless ambition. “The song is about standing at a crossroads and making decisions you imagine will bring you joy and contentment,” Skramstad describes, “but realizing that sometimes your wants and needs are misaligned.”

‘Empire of Honey is out now via streaming services.

clay pigeon – Come Down

Having released an EP and album under his own name, Montreal-based songwriter James Clayton has now adopted the moniker clay pigeon for his new material. Clayton recently recorded the project’s debut album at Hotel2Tango with Howard Bilerman and Shae Brossard, and debut single ‘Come Down’ gives a glimpse into what to expect. A simmering blend of shadow and rhythm, where the understated mood grows taut as it progresses, threatening to snap into an all-out crescendo but never quite breaking its controlled progress.

Lael Neale – White T-Shirt

Following the release of her sophomore record Star Eaters Delight back in the spring, LA’s Lael Neale has released standalone single ‘White T-Shirt’, a take on one of her older songs that didn’t quite fit on the album. As producer Guy Blakeslee describes, “White T-Shirt’ dates back a number of years to when I used to follow Lael around LA to all of her barely publicized performances. The song never ceased to silence the chatter in the room…it’s a raw gem that stands alone and cuts through the noise” Blakeslee is not wrong. Clocking in at under two minutes, ‘White T-Shirt’ has an almost uncanny timeless quality, stripped back to guitar and Neale’s distinctive vocals

‘White T-Shirt’ is out now via Sub Pop and available via the Lael Neale Bandcamp page.

Left Tracks – Strawberry Moon

LA‘s Kabir Kumar (AKA Sun Kin) and Oakland‘s Phil Di Leo (DI LEO) first met in 2016, though it is only now they’ve decided to combine their skills. Enter Left Tracks, a brand new project that sees Kumar and Di Leo use all of their skills as composers, vocalists and multi-instrumentalists to imagine a new future in the wake of COVID and the adjacent catastrophes. What emerged was End Times Hauling, an EP which sits on the precipice of disaster but makes a decision to envisage a different world, working on the logic that no significant change can occur without first rekindling a sense of imagination. Opening track and single ‘Strawberry Moon’ introduces the left-field folk-inflected pop sound, as well as the compassion and collaboration which marks the release.

Nina Keith – Blow Up Yr Life (U Need To)

LA-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Nina Keith first caught attention in 2019 with MARANASATI 19111, an LP which decorated piano arrangements with a whole host of flourishes from flute to field recordings to better explore ideas of memory and death. With a tour opening for Youth Lagoon fast approaching, Keith has returned with ‘Blow Up Yr Life’, a single featuring Barrie and Qur’an Shaheed which again combines classical and contemporary styles to urge its audience to break from from their circumstances and live on their own terms. “Lately the more I wear the turmoil of my life on my sleeve the more often I find myself in conversations with strangers and loved ones that reach a similar end,” as Keith explains. “I can never be the one to tell someone to burn it down and start over. They see the ash stains on my shirt and ask to borrow a match so they can play with it, save it for later, but sometimes it’s like ‘girl, the house is already on fire, you can’t stay in there’.” Check out the visualizer by Nik Arthur below:

‘Blow Up Yr Life (U Need To)’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Ratboys – The Window

Later this summer, Chicago indie rockers Ratboys return with The Window, a brand new record via Topshelf Records. Having already released two singles – the epic ‘Black Earth, WI’ and expressive ‘It’s Alive’ – they have now unveiled the title track, an uber-personal song that forms the record’s emotional centre point. “I wrote that song a few days after the death of my grandma” explains lead Julia Steiner. “She didn’t have Covid, but because of the pandemic my grandpa wasn’t able to visit her in person at the nursing home to say goodbye. He ended up standing outside her room and saying goodbye through an open window.” It starts quiet and sober, but this is not your standard sad song. It soon kicks up a gear, becoming a country-tinged rock song that displays the Ratboys knack for combining tenderness with raucous noisy energy. Watch the John TerEick-directed widescreen video below:

The Window will be released on 25th August. Pre-order a copy from the Ratboys Bandcamp page.

Upper Narrows – Tinker’s Darn

Based in Portland, Maine, Upper Narrows is the recording project of songwriter and producer Tyler Jackson. Jackson’s process is an unusual one, swapping out drums and guitars for programmed beats and an array of synths. In October he will release While We’re Warm, the debut Upper Narrows full-length via Repeating Cloud, and debut single ‘Tinker’s Darn’ is our first taste of what to expect. A deep and spacey sound that balances its digital soundscape with a very human emotion, resulting in something as immersive as it is affirming, even if the lyrics hold a more conflicted view.

hungover when I cry
my bucket of bolts on fire
preach forgiveness around the clock
pretend I’m not a liar

fathoms of forgiveness
from the magazine to the gun
the apples inside her are turning to cider
the terror of not having fun

The post Weekly Listening: July 2023 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Arena Rock Appetizer, the new EP from LA‘s Bridey (coming this summer on Anxiety Blanket Records), is a release which explores the sensation of “coming out of a fog.” “Sometimes it’s tough for me to see the light from whatever tunnel I’m in at the time,” she explains. But the EP fuses heartfelt emotion and upbeat energy, not only acting as a reminder of the promising glow somewhere down the line, but moreover having fun while doing so. Lead single ‘Her’ channels such a spirit, written after travelling to stay with her sister and newborn niece after a downer spell, finding some healing magic within the act of caring for other people. “It was intense and tiring and so cool,” Bridey explains. “I even bought a book about becoming a doula, but I never finished it. Maybe one day.”

dani mack – Nothing Better

We first wrote about Texas-born songwriter dani mack back in 2022 with the release of ‘someday‘, a track we described as displaying “a careful balance between strength and vulnerability,” where the “bright and disarmingly straightforward sound star[ed] the past straight in the eye and refus[ed] to blink.” Mack is now preparing to release her debut EP on Future Gods, and latest track ‘Nothing Better’ offers another assured and introspective glimpse into the personal. Though this time the slow-burning build carries with it a certain wry humour too, facing up to the chronic habit of overthinking. “What a lovely idea / letting go of things / that we have absolutely no control of,” she sings with a calm remove, “but I think I’m going to pass / and just drive myself mad / completely fucking mad.”

‘Nothing Better’ is out now and available via streaming services.

Juan Wauters – Modus Operandi

This summer, Uruguayan songwriter Juan Wauters is releasing his new album Wandering Rebel on Captured Tracks. Whether he be in Latin America, travelling north to collaborate with the likes of Mac DeMarco and Homeshake, or on the endless road of the tour, Wauters leads a nomadic existence—the titular wandering rebel manifest. Latest single ‘Modus Operandi’ captures some of the restless energy that marks his career. Wauters invites Frankie Cosmos into the fray for an earnest back-and-forth on place and movement, and reasons why people might leave and stay put in any one location.

See, it might be just my opinion
But it’s happened time and time again
That when it gets rough out here
People that have options go back to their suburbs
To them it was just like some kind of Disney World
Some kind of commodity
Dust them off a little bit
And see their real M.O.
Their modus operandi
Modus operandi

Watch Fatos Marishta’s video below as Wauters and Cosmos try to locate one another between NYC and Montevideo:

Wandering Rebel is out on the 2nd June via Captured Tracks and you can pre-order it now.

paper bee – I Don’t Talk To You

paper bee, the indie rock project led by Nick Berger, haven’t released a proper record since their 2015 debut Now I Know You and See How Wide You Are to the World, a split release with Loone. When the pandemic hit, Berger and a new lineup of bandmembers (including Maryn Jones of All Dogs/Yowler and Radiator Hospital‘s Sam Cook-Parrott) quarantined together in a cabin in rural Pennsylvania and recorded a brand new album, Thaw, Freeze, Thaw, which will be released by Get Better Records later this spring. Berger, who took his first shot of testosterone two days after wrapping up recording, describes the record as ” the last documentation of my old singing voice which I loved a lot […] a story about love and harm between traumatized trans people.”

Ryan Bourne – 100 Years

With new LP Plant City coming later this spring, Calgary‘s Ryan Bourne has unveiled latest single ‘100 Years’ to introduce another dimension of the album’s diverse sound. Because though the record spans glam rock, garage pop and baroque styles, the single highlights the psych folk spirit central to its sound. An idiosyncratic mood achieved via a woozy amalgamation of synths as well as samples of warped bird calls and the crackle of dried plants, resulting in a sound submerged in reflection. “The lyric came from a golden hour walk overlooking a neighborhood I’d lived and loved (and lost) in,” Bourne explains, “the kind of birds eye view of the landscape lending a beautiful sense of futility to the memory as it rose.” Watch the video by Rebecca Reid and Bourne himself below:

Plant City is out on the 5th May and you can pre-order it now.

Selah Broderick – I Am

Having been born into a strict Catholic family only to be freed by the countercultural turn of the sixties and seventies, Selah Broderick followed a love of music and art around the country, though ultimately put her own aspirations on hold when falling pregnant with her children. Fast forward a number of decades and Pegdoll Records are releasing Moon In The Monastery, a collection of songs by Selah Broderick ranging from the late seventies to the contemporary moment, as collected by her son Peter Broderick and featuring music from him and his sister Heather Woods Broderick. Single ‘I Am’ hints at the richness and depth of the work, with Peter’s neo-classical backdrop supporting Selah’s poetic spoken word inspired by her deep interest in non-Western spirituality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6AdLPVJAYc&ab_channel=PegdollRecords

Moon In The Monastery is out on the 9th June via Pegdoll and you can pre-order it now.

Speedy Ortiz – Scabs

Their first new music in five years, ‘Scabs’ is the latest single from indie rock cult heroes Speedy Ortiz, released via Wax Nine, the Carpark Records imprint record label and poetry journal run by lead Sadie Dupuis. What Dupuis describes as a song “about self-designated ethicists who don’t quibble about crossing a picket line for individual benefit,” ‘Scabs’ is a both wryly humorous and downright furious attack on those whose activism starts and ends with empty words and public gestures. “Born-to-scab solipsists are boogying for big commission,” as the opening goes. “Yes in your backyard you take handshake squeezes to extremes. Nihilistic greeting to a flytrap hungry for a fist. Don’t talk to me. Don’t talk.”

‘Scabs’ is out now via Wax Nine Records and is available from the Speedy Ortiz Bandcamp page.

Sun Kin x Guppy – I’m in the Band

Described as a “cross-collaboration” between Kabir Kumar’s LA post-pop project Sun Kin and punk band GUPPY (with whom Kumar plays lead guitar), ‘I’m in the Band’ is something of a meta-single. A song about writing songs, and all the ickiness which comes with such a revealing experience. The music was written in collaboration with Miguel Gallego (aka Miserable chillers) and Guppy frontperson J Lebow helped with the lyrics, which they says are about “how expressing yourself through music can be a vulnerable and embarrassing affair, but worth it for the self-esteem it can give, and the relief of pressure it provides for the people who love us.”

Your Heart Breaks – Snow Dusted Ponies

Led by musician, artist and filmmaker Clyde Petersen, Your Heart Breaks is a project based in a Bellingham “townie dream house” which gave artists the space to experiment outside of pressures and expectations. Released via Kill Rock Stars, new album The Wrack Line feels like the culmination of years of friendships and memories, as typified by the line-up which brought it to life. With a band consisting of Eli Moore and Ashley Eriksson (of LAKE) and Katherine Paul (Black Belt Eagle Scout), as well as a stellar line-up of guest stars including the likes of Kimya Dawson, Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, R.Ring and Nana Grizol‘s Theo Hilton, the album is a sonic manifestation of something larger. Single ‘Snow Dusted Ponies’ gives an indication of the tone, with Fellows and Samson backing Petersen’s vocals in their affirming sincerity.

The Wrack Line is out via Kill Rock Stars on the 7th July and you can pre-order it now.

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Describing themselves as “a quixotic mix of American post-punk and ’80s post-hardcore,” East Vancouver Aversions combine heavyweight riffs, pounded percussion and acerbic vocals to comment on our contemporary moment. Loosely based on the visual essay About Face by graphic novelist Nate Powell, Aversions say ‘New Whip’ is a song about “how the impact of generational thinking shapes the people we become, and the beliefs and opinions we’ll go to any lengths to enforce…shin[ing] a light on how toxic masculinity is passed down like a gene.”

‘New Whip’ is out now via the Aversions Bandcamp page.

bedbugz – if i cried, we’d both drown

Back in June we wrote about Canterbury outfit bedbugz and their self-titled single on Tonetic Records. “With its upbeat rhythm and searching vocals, the title track is a bittersweet tale of young love,” we described, “while the b-side sets out further into shoegaze territory.” The debut bedbugz full-length all hail the goblin king! is out later this week, and lead single, ‘if i cried, we’d both drown’, shows how the band have knitted these styles into something of their own. A sound which owes a debt to both bedroom pop and indie rock without quite belonging to either, and offers a delightful blend of sincere emotion and noisy charm. Check out the video by Elliott Sirota-Gott and Tom Postgate below:

‘if i cried, we’d both drown’ is out now via Tonetic Records.

bmq – Spontaneity

Tokyo‘s bmq have been at work for fifteen years, though it is only now they are releasing their debut full-length album, Order, Spontaneity and the Body. Drawing inspiration from fields as diverse as post-punk, krautrock, ambient and US indie rock, the record feels like it utilises every month of this gestation period, weaving a finely honed style which constantly tests the line between control and volatility. Take single ‘Spontaneity’, which explores the tension between repetition and change with a simmering energy, unpredictable but always harnessed by an understated confidence. The sound of a band who have spent a long time working out what they want to say and how they want to say it.

Burs – Nearly

Back in September, Toronto‘s Burs released their latest album Holding Patterns, a record which blended various shades of indie, folk and dream pop to allow the quartet to explore a myriad of different moods and settings. What resulted was a rich and often ethereal collection of songs able to change with fluid ease, from the vast, spacious opener ‘The Year Now’ to the urgent ‘Lily’. But it is perhaps latest single ‘Nearly’ which best encapsulates the Burs style. The restrained acoustic intro heralding the considerable chemistry of their dual vocal style, the track slowly deepening with subtle layers of textures and warmth.

Once again I find myself awake inside a dream
Two of us and me, myself and I
Four on the floor, one in the door, a light
Out of purgatory darkly shines

Cat Clyde – Mystic Light

Next February sees the release of Down Rounder, the latest album from Ontario‘s Cat Clyde. Writing back in 2019 we described Clyde’s sound as encompassing “everything from folk and rock to blues and jazz, leading to a sound that swaggers with attitude and smoulders with smoky emotion, and lead single ‘Mystic Light’ suggests the new record builds upon these foundations to offer a fresh vision of the country style. One crafted from personal emotion but imbued with something more ancient and mysterious too. Watch the video directed by Laura-Lynn Petrick below:

Down Rounder is out on the 17th February and you can pre-order it now.

Caroline Strickland – Invoice

New York’s Caroline Strickland unveiled her debut single, ‘Invoice’, this month. A confessional track which pits deceptions and truths against one another, exploring the ways in which honesty can hurt the hardest, and lies hold small victories of their own. All set within a swirling moment of love persisting beyond a relationship, and a job with zero fulfilment or worth, Strickland’s vocals burning with a smoky intensity as she navigates both. “It makes you feel devastated, feel like letting go,” as Strickland’s own perceptive take puts it, “feel like California, feel like rock and roll.” Coming clean might be cathartic, but creating fictions might just be the best escape route.

Maybe with the extra cash
I’ll take a trip Ireland
Pretend my name is Marianne
play some music I can drown in
Remind myself it’s over
Standing on the streets of Sligo

Dignan Porch – Electric Threads

Led by South London’s Joe Walsh, Dignan Porch made a name across the 2010s with a distinctive blend of psych rock and fuzz pop, working with labels such as Captured Tracks and Art Is Hard along the way. With Walsh having now moved to Manchester, next February sees the release of a brand new album Electric Threads, this time a joint release by the stellar trio of Hidden Bay, Repeating Cloud and Safe Suburban Home Records. The title track gives a glimpse into the newest iteration of the project. A combination of earnest emotion and off-kilter playfulness which refuses to recognise any distinction between fun and melancholy.

Electric Threads is out on the 23rd February via Repeating Cloud, Hidden Bay and Safe Suburban Home Records and you can pre-order it now.

Lina K.O. – Two-Player Mode

Brooklyn-based artist Lina K.O. is gearing up to release new EP Earth Apple next month, and the latest single serves as a great introduction to her sound. Falling on the rockier side of what she herself describes as “digitally-infused melancholic indie,” the song combines Bridgers-esque indie folk with a grungy weight to achieve its delightfully ambiguous tone. Where doubt and assurance act as perfect counterbalances against one another, Lina K.O. singing with reflective wisdom even within the confusing immediacy of the moment. Check out the video by Mike White and Lina K.O herself below:

Earth Apple is out on the 13th January and you can pre-order it now.

Luke De-Sciscio – The Tourist

There are prolific songwriters and then there is Luke De-Sciscio. Reaching double figures of full-length albums at only thirty, De-Sciscio has consistently honed his work and challenged prior expectations, forever circling around that elusively perfect way in which to communicate what needs saying. Through a series of highs (e.g. being booked to support the likes of Cat Stevens and Jose Feliciano) and lows (the COVID-induced cancellation of said shows), he has not stopped in this search, and new album if one thing were different, nothing would be the same feels like the closest he’s yet come to reaching that mythical ideal. Take closer ‘The Tourist’, seven minutes plus of stark passion and poignance. The culmination of everything which has been before.

Niall Summerton – Human, Dying

You would be forgiven for taking a quick listen to the work of Leeds-based songwriter Niall Summerton and concluding his work to be that of warm, easy-going assurance. But as the name of new single ‘Human, Dying’ gives away, his work uses this welcoming richness as way into the weightier, darker themes of the human experience. With new album What Am I Made Of? coming soon via Tiny Library Records, the new song offers the perfect example of this style. Confronting the heaviest question of them all, Summerton threads anxieties around mortality into the textures of the everyday, and in doing so not only captures a compassionate view of the subject but also something of its pervasive, ever-present weight.

What Am I Made Of? will be release in April 2023 via Tiny Library Records.

Stella Rose – Angel

Following on from the success of debut single ‘Muddled Man’ a few weeks ago, New York-based singer, poet, and musician Stella Rose has shared brand new track, ‘Angel’, via Kro Records. After the insistent energy of the first single, ‘Angel’ offers an altogether more reflective tone, swapping out the electrified intensity for something slower and richer. What results is a strange ode to melancholy, exploring how sadness can serve as the shadow to highlight the brighter parts of life. The song comes with a video directed by Primordialfreaks, who explains how the film aimed to capture the light and dark of the song. “It’s a sad but also triumphant song, like a celebration of loss and loneliness and how the most difficult things can make life more pure in a strange sort of way.”

‘Angel’ is out now via Kro Records.

Sun Kin – I Know This One

We’ve written a fair bit about Kabir Kumar’s Sun Kin this year, from the upbeat pop of single ‘I Wanna Believe‘ to the deep, thematically rich ambient styles of painting whales part 1  and 2. Somewhere in the mix Kumar found the time to release another single, ‘I Know This One’, ironically a song about the creative frustrations which emerge when you set the bar too high and push every new piece to be a genre-bending prototype. Luckily, there’s an antidote to such a malady—dropping any notions of genius and appreciating the simple joys of life. Namely hanging out with your cat.

i’m always saying
how i can’t behave
right in front of you
there sits a bowl of your food
i poured in the morning
of this blessed day

The post Weekly Listening: December 2022 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

A sadness in part derived from a newfound fragility within such systems for which humanity bears sole responsibility. From the general catastrophe of the dawning climate disaster to the more species-specific dangers of man-made sound interfering with cetacean communication, the relaxed songs of Painting Whales, Part 1 are haunted by a lingering sense of sorrow. The sensation of things deteriorating, however slowly that might be.

Now Sun Kin has returned with painting whales, part 2, a brand new EP Kumar continue to explore the Ziphiidae family of whales, shifting the focus to take the themes in a new direction. Because if the first part homed in on the detached nature of this poorly understood group of animals, part 2 instead addresses the ways in which they are connected to humans. Be that the rare, brief encounters as they come up for air (‘surfacing’), to some of the shared traits which date back along the phylogenetic tree to our common ancestors. Characteristics we often wrongly label human—from familial bonds and community to feelings of empathy, acts of altruism and experiences of mourning and grief.

The new angle shapes the sound, losing none of the spaciousness of part 1 but repurposing its icy drone into something warmer and more humane. Here Sun Kin capture the agility of these animals with almost playful confidence, the bass guitar rising and falling with the inquisitive nimbleness of aquatic mammals, and all manner of synths, samples, electric piano and sax add to the brightness. Consequently, the expansive tones of ‘nursery talk’ feel more applied to time than space, a sense of patience emerging where isolation might have flourished on the previous release. So to on ‘Time to Move’, a track of migration, perhaps even outside pressures, marked by the sadness of moving but benevolence too. As though leaving is not a solitary experience, but the cooperative act of a close-knit group.

We took the opportunity to speak with Kumar to get more of an insight into the project.

Hi Kabir, thanks so much for taking the time to speak to us, and congratulations on painting whales, part 2. Did you always intend for the project to have multiple parts?

Thank you so much for listening! My fullest vision for this series is a full length album that combines the two released parts and adds new material. painting whales should be released next year by the LA-based cassette label never content. But while putting it together, I felt a natural division between the two “halves” of the record and thought it would be interesting to see how the experience changed in listening to each separately.

Could you give us a little on the background of the project? I understand it started with a picture of an Arnoux’s beaked whale?

Yes—it was a photograph of an Arnoux’s beaked whale in mid-breach, taken in Alaska by Ted Cheeseman and tweeted out by my friend Daniel Bromfield, who also co-wrote “surfacing” on part 2. The breaching whale doesn’t look like a majestic humpback, its thin, not-quite-dolphin body silhouetted blankly against an ice shelf. It feels mysterious and alien-like, and even moreso after learning how little is still known about these whales, which are rarely even sighted, much less studied in close detail. We joked about making an icy, distant ambient album using the photograph as its cover, and painting whales was born.

Drawing on cetacean imagery to conjure feelings of isolation and melancholy, part 1 for the most part painted the whales as cold, disconnected creatures, but would you say there’s a different mood to part 2? A warmer, more compassionate sound which allows a certain empathy to flourish?

By the time I was finishing up this batch, the pandemic was thawing a bit. With less time spent still and by myself, I knitted together voice memo samples, my own improvised performances and various instruments played by talented friends (Bromf, Jamin Reyes, Miserable chillers, DI LEO, Mitch Rocket) so that songs would unfold themselves rather than my deliberately composing them. It reflected my own mood, having just moved to Los Angeles and joined an immense community of other artists, as well as my renewed desire to work within the imperfections of live instrumentation.

Is the natural world something you’ve always wanted to explore in your work?

Yes! Sun Kin means “family of the Sun.” I would say that all forms of nature imagery have found their way into my lyrical work, especially those related to water. I’m actually kind of scared of the ocean (even though I’ve always lived by one!), which probably contributed to my interest in this project. As a kid I had a lot of dreams about tidal waves destroying cities…

Speaking more generally, the painting whales series is something of a stylistic departure for Sun Kin. Could you talk a little about how you came to branch out in this ambient direction, and perhaps how you balance it with the alt-pop/art rock side of things? Do the two inform one another in any manner? Did you consider using a different moniker?

It feels funny to say this because I wouldn’t say either part feels particularly “playful”, but painting whales has been an attempt for me to express myself in a more playful way musically, to unravel structures and patterns I had built around my pop compositions and give myself something I could just breathe to. At the outset of the project, I had just started working with subtractive synths, and I used it as an excuse to explore sequencing MIDI, manipulating voice memos, and performing instrumental pop melodies at implausibly slow tempos.

I think my ambient work informs my pop work by appealing to simplicity and patience. My work before and after working on this album feels different, perhaps because the glacial pace of these songs meant zooming way out to find and emphasize the elements that implied movement. It translates into brevity in my other work— a desire to find the most emotionally appealing part of a song and help it move forward narratively.

I often consider changing my moniker. I’ve released music as Sun Kin since 2012, so it’s pretty familiar to me by now. But in the end, this is a solo project with no accountability to anyone but myself, so keeping my name the same across genres feels like an attempt to help catalog my multitudes and make sure any type of music I release is made with the same amount of care and love.

On that note, could we talk about influences? The press release cites artists like Laurel Halo, Laurie Anderson and Kara-Lis Coverdale as key figures. How did their work come to shape your own? Are there any other key sources you’d point towards?

I love the way experimental music feels like play, how it reminds us that life is mostly accidental and can be most beautiful when seen oddly. Laurie Anderson in particular always feels like an artist in flux. You can’t always pin down how she feels about what she’s showing you, but it always gives you the sense of a life-changing voyage guided by your favorite art teacher. Laurel Halo and Kara-Lis Coverdale both play with musical expectations as well, mixing jazz and classical-inspired melodies with textures that feel abstractly expressive (something I tried to channel into “seafloor banquet”). Laurel Halo’s work is a bit more grounded and sinister, while Kara-Lis feels more ethereal and otherworldly. I tend to think that beaked whales sound in the space between those moods. But we can’t know for sure.

painting whales, part 2 is out now and available from the Sun Kin Bandcamp page. Keep an eye on the never content page for more on the cassette release.

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LA-born, Nashville-based songwriter Alicia Blue has just released her most recent EP Inner Child Work via Magnetic Moon, and opening track ‘DTMTS (Don’t Tell Me To Smile)’ serves as the perfect introduction to her work. A song which seizes upon the pressure to present yourself a certain way, even when the world is overwhelming and smiling is the last thing on your mind. “I’m a real thing,” Blue sings, “If you want to be with me / know that sometimes the sun’s not going to shine.”

Inner Child Work is out now via Magnetic Moon and available at the usual places.

Angel Saint Queen – Diablo Lake

The product of a months-long road trip, Angel Saint Queen’s ‘Diablo Lake’ takes in the range of the American landscape, be it wide-sky deserts of Utah to the rainy mountains of the Pacific Northwest. A track which highlights the duo’s bittersweet tone, capturing a sadness for leaving and excitement for what comes next. A little wistful, a little upbeat, ready to roll the windows down and ride on through to whatever place should pop up next.

‘Diablo Lake’ is out now and available via streaming services.

First Rodeo – Didn’t It Rain Last Night

There’s a certain old-time charm to Portland‘s First Rodeo. A collaborative project between Nathan Tucker and Tim Howe, their sound has more than one foot in classic country rock. But there’s a contemporary freshness to the sound too, meaning wherever their boots are planted, there’s no question they are facing out over fresh ground. Lead single ‘Didn’t It Rain Last Night’ is the perfect introduction, a song contemplative and sometimes melancholic, its Americana roots accentuated by Sam Wenc‘s bowed banjo, though infused with a confident rhythm which rubs off on everything.

Goon – Emily Says

Fresh from releasing album Paint By Numbers, Volume 1 back in February, LA’s Goon are already back with brand new record, Hour of Green Evening. Described as the band’s “most complete statement,” the album sees Goon combine everything which came before to realise their most polished and detailed sound yet. Single ‘Emily Says’ shows off just how evocative this can be. A love song dedicated to frontman Kenny Becker’s wife Emily Elkin which celebrates the transformational power of forming a bond while acknowledging it cannot alleviate all external ills.

it hinges here in the air
a garden in wait
blanket of sunshine
and i’m like “i wanna be there”
and emily says “hope still appears”
and though i know in my heart it’s right
feeling like hurting myself tonight
nobody’s candle is burning bright
the wind inside the blades of grass will unbind it

Hour of Green Evening is out now and you get it from the Goon Bandcamp page.

Indigo Sparke – Pressure in My Chest

This October sees Australian songwriter Indigo Sparke return with their second full-length album, Hysteria, on Sacred Bones. With focus on themes of love, loss, history and reconciliation, the record is a raw yet far-reaching collection of songs, pushing beyond the relative minimalism of debut echo yet retaining the intimacy at its core. Lead single ‘Pressure in My Chest’ pitches the listener straight into the deep and honest sound, building with the slow intensity suggested by the title until its cathartic conclusion.

Jack Keyes – The Moon is Too High

Louisville songwriter Jack Keyes released his second record Dissolving in Dusk this month, an album we’ve described previously as “wrapped in an easy-going sincerity that holds both melancholy and fondness.” After ‘Grey Balloons‘ offered a conflicted picture of a relationship slipping away, final single ‘The Moon is Too High’ searches for a way in which to appreciate the present moment, however difficult and fleeting it might seem, with an endearingly lo-fi and intimate sound.

Kramies – Hotel in LA

With a brand of folk-inflected dream pop willing to combine history with folklore and myth, Kramies has made a name across several acclaimed EPs, but this September sees the release of a self-titled debut full-length on Hidden Shoal. Featuring Todd Tobias (Guided By Voices), Patrick Carney (The Black Keys), Jason Lytle (Grandaddy) and Tyler Ramsey (Band of Horses), the record offers a layered, ethereal sound which challenges the distinction between real and dreams when contemplating the past. Which is something single ‘Hotel in LA’ captures perfectly. “It kind of follows that timeline of my life where there was a beautiful blur between the lines of what was real and what was nostalgia in the making,” he explains. A space in which experiences are processed into memories, and all the emotional significance attached. Check out the video by Derek Lee LaJoie below:

Kramies is out on the 9th September via Hidden Shoal.

Lee Baggett – Fruit Dog

Born in the Philippines, Lee Baggett moved to Sanger, California as a kid, going on to form a band in high school and becoming part of the San Luis Obispo music scene through the eighties and nineties in bands like Unknown Origin and Fever Tree. Work with Kyle Field’s Little Wings and the Be Gulls followed, as well as a solo career which stretches right through to the present with Anyway, a new record coming soon on Perpetual Doom. Single ‘Fruit Dog’ taps into this history, like a long-lost seventies summer jam complete with a surreal slacker spirit which captures that easy-going West Coast swagger.

 Nwando Ebizie – Myrrha

Nwando Ebizie is a multidisciplinary Afrofuturist artist gearing up to release debut album The Swan this month on Accidental Records. A lesson in speculative world building, the release conjures an fictional matriarchal society which feels both timeless and utopian, Ebizie’s use of found sound and footage bending the lines between the historical past and imagined futures. An enthography of what was and what could be. Described as “a lament,” single ‘Myrrha’ confronts the intricate relationship between pain and change, finding space to mourn and celebrate those who have suffered through a process of transformation.

The Pleasure Majenta – Gardens

Hailing from New Zealand and now based in Berlin, The Pleasure Majenta craft a deliciously dark sound which draws upon goth and noise influences with a cowboy twang too. Their latest record Looming, the Spindle came out recently on Dedstrange, and final single ‘Gardens’ serves as a great introduction for the uninitiated. Opening with a palpable foreboding, the track coalesces around itself with shadowy grace, the mood decidedly Lynchian as it unfurls, beckoning the listener further into its slowly sashaying heart. Check out the video filmed, directed and edited by Anna Winslow below:

Looming, the Spindle is out now via Dedstrange and you can grab it from The Pleasure Majenta Bandcamp page.

Sun Kin – I Wanna Believe

Following on from ambient EP Painting Whales, Part 1 earlier this year, Kabir Kumar has turned Sun Kin back toward a more indie pop direction with new single, ‘I Wanna Believe’. A bright, smooth track packed with upbeat energy and heartfelt emotion, its tone never quite erring on the side of irony or sincerity but instead embracing a duality within its retro glitz. On the one hand there’s a playful side (“I wanna believe in love / I’m eating a chocolate bar named for loneliness”) but there’s a more earnest thread to the track too. What Kumar describes as about “gaining love by treating it as a spiritual foundation.”

vireo – Coyote

Following on from 2019’s leaf heap, an album we described as “slow and patient and peaceful as the late autumn dusk,” Pittsburgh‘s vireo are set to return with brand new record, Moss Longing. Lead single ‘Coyote’ introduces a collection of songs centring around “climate anxiety, folklore, wanderlust and children’s books,” its careful folk pop sound blossoming gradually into something bright and affirming, the vocals of lead Chris Beaulieu shaded by a sense of sadness but not beholden to it.

Moss Longing is due to be released on 18th August. Pre-save on Spotify, or keep on eye on the vireo Bandcamp page for pre-order info.

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The concept originated with an image of a beaked whale breaching in icy water posted to Twitter, a photograph which captured Kumar’s attention and would go on to be the basis of the album’s painted artwork. “Since an early age, I’ve loved watching Discovery & National Geographic shows,” Kumar explains, “especially those that focused on whales in the open ocean. As someone terrified of the ocean, and who was uprooted and moved across the world more than once as a child, it felt very empowering to imagine myself as one of these large creatures flying around without need for tickets or passports. Whales make the largest migrations of any mammals.”

The challenge became evoking these cetacean ideas in music, forcing a move away from Sun Kin’s typical pop tones and into sonic textures large and spacious enough for their inspiration. “With the scale of these animals, and of the ocean itself, it felt like every element should have a sense of its own massiveness,” as Kumar puts it. “How its movement would be felt elsewhere in the track.” This means moving beyond the immediate imagery of the ocean and reaching for a more comprehensive picture of the environment. “It’s amazing to me that whales and other aquatic animals and birds are not only connected to the Earth and the ocean,” Kumar continues, “but also to the moon, which moves these elements steadily across the globe. The way the bass moves in these songs was intended to represent these cosmically influenced, shifting tides.”

Which is not to say Sun Kin’s usual focus on human themes is entirely absent. Opener ‘Here We Go Down’ is indicative of the patient, subtle nuance of the release. It is steeped in the calm melancholy of the natural world. A sadness in part derived from a newfound fragility within such systems for which humanity bears sole responsibility. From the general catastrophe of the dawning climate disaster to the more species-specific dangers of man-made sound interfering with cetacean communication, the relaxed songs of Painting Whales, Part 1 are haunted by a lingering sense of sorrow. The sensation of things deteriorating, however slowly that might be.

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Now, Sun Kin is back with a brand new single, ‘Doom Scroll’, and the track continues this distinctive aesthetic. “[The song] was inspired by IG infographic culture,” Kumar explains, “by the recent idea being pushed on us that we can find community just by correctly diagnosing our friends and buying their goods and services.” There’s a gentleness to the sound, acoustic detail and subtle beats supporting the almost Sufjan-esque delivery, though one rendered wry by the cutting vocals. “The infographic / said don’t be sad / you will be handled,” Kumar sings. “Buy from your friends / the ones who aren’t dead yet / care for yourself and save the economy.”

What emerges is strangely haunting representation of the forces beamed at us every day by a pseudo-compassionate corporate internet. Kumar performs the warm, polished voice of this beast, the wafer-thin mask of humanity which fronts a cold system of digital numbers. A system, Kumar concludes, which is “meddling in our friendships and separating us even further from each other via dissection of every minute interaction.”

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Tracklisting:

Mike Pace and the Child Actors – Everyone Out of the Car
Miranda Winters – The Futuristic District
Exam Season – Strawberry Milk
Saccharine – Pumpkin Guts
Tuvaband – Wolfpack
Devon Welsh – Dreams Have Pushed You Around
Mending – Alan after the Fire
Reddening West – Even If
Valley Maker – Light on the Ground
The Washboard Abs – Return to You
Manatree – Brushfire
Miserable Chillers – Horse Opera
Saint Charles – She Don’t Wanna Know
new casino – going for a walk*
Frankie Valet – Why Blue
Goodbye Max – Old Photos
Adeline Hotel – Habits
Joe Kaplow – I Said I Was Going and I Went
Pecas – Tuesdays
Sun Kin – Neglect
Baby Cages – flowers
Crooked Spine – Skinned Knees
Lauren O’Connell – Out of Focus
Mount Goldie – Summer
Harvey Trisdale – Baby
american poetry club – the sum of your parts
Babehoven – Out of the Country
Adam Arcuragi – Low Parade Rain
Jason Bemis Lawrence – Southern Midwest
Campdogzz – Sorceress
Barfoot – A Thin Place Between Worlds

* not on Playmoss

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