Such a style is intrinsic to the Tamra aesthetic. Consisting of Kenton Freemuth (vocals, guitar), Andrew Freemuth (guitar), Ethan Bjornsen (bass) and Chris Clayton (drums), the outfit offer a vision of the US that’s both lonely and glaring. A world of commercials and fluorescent signs, garbage dumps and chemical waste, an environment tamed but no less expansive within which masses of people waste time and attempt to square what they want with what they have. A world ugly and often incoherent yet charged with a shimmering energy.

Latest track ‘Flood’ draws the listener further into this milieu. A song in which poison and tonic flow through the same vessels, and heaviness and lightness marble into something which far exceeds the barely two minute runtime. Distortion peels at the edges, kept at bay only by the intensity of the impassioned vocals.

Medicine in the waterway
Infection in that same vein
Drainage out in the halls
Fades in to clouds and aerosols

Light Reading will be released later this year.

The post Tamra – Flood appeared first on Various Small Flames.

We’ve covered  Bergen-based songwriter Bo Milli several times in recent months. Most recently with ‘Making Friends’, which we described as “a track which charts the rollercoaster ride of young life through the prism of a hectic night out, capturing a sense of both the carefree abandon and creeping loneliness of late nights, new faces and a sense of endless possibility.” Latest track ‘I’m In’ is equally varied in its peaks and troughs, starting out as a wistful pop number but soon morphing into something bigger, charging things with an indie rock momentum reminiscent of The Beths.

C.O.F.F.I.N – Factory Man

When the drummer is the lead vocalist you know things are going to get hectic. Enter Sydney’s C.O.F.F.I.N, a four-piece rock band who’re here to burn through their frustrations with new full-length Australia Stops. A joint release between Damaged Record Co (Australia), Bad Vibrations (Europe) and Goner Records (North America), the album positions C.O.F.F.I.N as another key member of the furious, glorious generation of rockers emerging from Down Under, joining country mates Last Quokka in their twin motivations of castigating the political landscape and driving social change through sheer momentum. Take single ‘Factory Man’, a rock song in the classic sense, looking shake off the shackles and smash some skulls with its heft and energy.

But when the lights went out
With no rest to give us warning
Machinery ran red
I ain’t living
I ain’t loving
Or hearing your humming song oh no
It’s the stabbed silent of the wish you pled

Watch the video edited by Ben Portnoy below, with Gasometer footage filmed by Zoe Mulcahy, Lansdowne footage by Schooner:

Australia Stops is out now and available from the C.O.F.F.I.N Bandcamp page.

Duffy x Uhlmann – Etch

Duffy x Ulhmann, the new project of Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Gregory Uhlmann, have recently released their debut album Doubles on Orindal Records. An exercise in improvisation built entirely on trust, the record sees the duo lay down patient yet detailed guitar-based duets, and the result is something organic in the way only true intimacy could manage. Single ‘Etch’ is the perfect example, a track shorn of any ostentation to sound entirely natural, as though its gentle rhythms existed long before Duffy x Uhlmann set them down with their guitars. The result invites the audience not so much into the same room as the musicians as the very relationship between them, offering small glimpses of a mutual exchange perpetually ongoing.

Doubles is out now via Orindal Records and available from Bandcamp.

Gabriel Birnbaum – Above A Forest With A House That’s On Fire

Songwriter, producer and composer Gabriel Birnbaum (of Wilder Maker) is preparing to unveil the latest installation of his solo Nightwater project, All the Dead Do is Dream, on Western Vinyl. Nightwater started as a self-applied antidote to election anxiety, with Birnbaum using a Tascam 4-track as a vehicle of escape from the growing dread of the twenty-four hour news cycle. And just as these long nocturnal hours offered relief from terror to the artist, the resulting art came to take on a similar form too. Ambient soundscapes intended to serve a functional purpose, a space into which the listener can submerge themselves away from the surrounding world. All the Dead Do is Dream continues this practice, a sleep aid which looks to tap into pacifying patterns of breathing, and single ‘Above A Forest With A House That’s On Fire’ typifies the mindful, hypnagogic mood.

Watch the visualiser by Jules Evens below which furthers the therapeutic value of the track by reinforcing the breathing rhythms:

Nightwater | All the Dead Do is Dream is out via Western Vinyl on the 3rd November and you pre-order it now.

Montañera – Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista

Earlier this month we featured ‘Un Día Voy a Ser Mariposa‘, the first single from Montañera‘s new album, A Flor De Piel, coming this November (alaso on Western Vinyl). “A track of layered details and searching emotion which seems to be always reaching for some higher plane,” as we put it, taken from a record “of quasi-dreamscapes which push at the borders of reality, drawing the listener into surreal new worlds.” The London-based Colombian artist has now shared second single ‘Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista’, a song which again pushes into ethereal tones while always remaining anchored in the intimacy of María Mónica Gutiérrez’s vocals.

A Flor De Piel is out on the 17th November and you can pre-order it now from the Montañera Bandcamp page.

Otracami – Fold

The first glimpse her debut full-length touching the stove coil, Otracami‘s new single ‘Fold’ is an examination of the contortions people sometimes put themselves through to try to fit into a relationship. The project of New York-based Camila Ortiz, Otracami is an outlet for personal exploration, its songs delving back into the past and untying its knots, attempting to make peace with the present. ‘Fold’ is the perfect example, an almost time-travel style journey back to a very specific moment (Ortiz leaves a party, rides the bus, climbs the stairs to her partner’s apartment) and the swirling thoughts and anxieties that it held.

Watch the video by Sai Tripathi below:

‘Fold’ is out now and available via the Otracami Bandcamp page.

Pony Girl – Highways

Just over a month out from the release of their new record, Laff It Off, Canadian art pop duo Pony Girl have unveiled new single ‘Highways’. The song uses roads as a metaphor for the sense of endless possibility and interconnection experienced when you fall for someone new, what the band describe as “expanding roads of connection that stretch out through time.” Musically it’s lush and dreamy like a night-time drive at the heart of summer, the smooth and sparkly chorus emphasising the themes of heartsick romanticism.

Check out Stephanie Kuse‘s animated video below:

Laff It Off comes out via Paper Bag Records on 27th October. Pre-order it now from the Pony Girl Bandcamp page.

vireo – Big Elsewhere

How many great works of art have been created in the impatient lull of waiting for a pizza? That’s the origin story of ‘Big Elsewhere’, the latest single from Vireo, which was written as a game during a delayed delivery while lead Chris Beaulieu and Suzanne Gomes were cooped up in quarantine. “We each chose a single note or a small melodic phrase to layer on top of each other,” Beaulieu describes. “Then we added a chord progression on top and took turns writing vocal melodies.” Homemade percussion came next (think wooden spoons and mason jars), followed by lyrics, and finally the whole thing was run through a salvaged reel-to-reel tape recorder for just that little extra DIY character. The result is beautiful, despite (or perhaps because of) its humble beginnings.

‘Big Elsewhere’ is out now via streaming services.

Wurld Series – Lord of Shelves

Later this autumn, Aotearoa/New Zealand indie rockers Wurld Series will release The Giant’s Lawn, a brand new record on Meritorio Records and Melted Ice Cream. The record promises to see the band explore new avenues, adding mystical nods to oddball psych and left-field folk, what the press release calls “earthen psychedelia, off-grid community folk, and highly bookish, antipodean snock.” Opening track ‘The Giant’s Lawn Part I’ embraces this weirdness from the off, a rambling, jazzy folk song that feels like meeting a mysterious stranger on a woodland path. But lead single ‘Lord of the Shelves’ is very much the Wurld Series we’ve come to expect, a Flying Nun-style indie rock song that shows the band haven’t abandoned their core foundations.

The post Weekly Listening: September 2023 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The Cherries are Speaking, last year’s album by Dan Knishkowy’s Adeline Hotel, represented “another step in Knishkowy’s exploratory path,” as we described. “One with no set end or direction, but one pressing on with larger goals in mind. A part of a greater body of work which comes into view one record at a time, edging closer to whatever the full picture might be.” This October will provide the next stage of this journey as Adeline Hotel is releasing new full-length, Hot Fruit, again via Ruination Record Co. A record, as per Andy Cush’s album notes, “characterized by that push-pull interplay between composition and improvisation,” with Winston Cook-Wilson and Scree’s Ryan El-Solh, Carmen Rothwell and Jason Burger all lending their talents. The title track captures the blend of craft and spontaneity perfectly.

Beti Masenqo – much of anything

Beti Masenqo is a songwriter out of California who has recently unveiled debut single, ‘much of anything’. A track which introduces her style of delicate, often reflective folk which ties together melancholy and joy with a wistful thread. Here specifically on the subject of love, where tenderness doubles as a kind of tenuousness. A spell to submit to or break. “Fell asleep in Mexico, fever in the night / I know this must be obvious but your were on my mind,” Masenqo sings in the opening lines. “Felt compelled to tell you that, just to prove I tried / your fingerprints were on my chest, my soul was left behind. I know you will be gone / can’t think this will be much of anything.”

Cereus Bright – Chasing the Feeling

Cereus Bright, the recording project of Knoxville freak-folk songwriter Tyler Anthony, has been operating for the best part of a decade, though the sound has undergone a constant evolution in the interim. Having recently signed with Nettwerk, Anthony has been sharing a run of singles to show off the latest face of Cereus Bright. A style which follows the reflective tone of 2021’s Give Me Time with a newfound focus on the future, looking forwards and confronting all the mystery, uncertainty and potential therein. Latest track ‘Chasing the Feeling’ errs towards the optimistic side of things, or at least finds itself unable to shake the lingering possibility there might exist a better way to live. “’Chasing the Feeling’ charts the kinds of longings we all have,” as Anthony explains. “It’s nostalgic… it felt important to make it more subtle and melancholy. For me, that’s what the core of this feeling really is—a quiet desire to return to something better than today.” Watch the video shot by Ross Bustin and edited by Corey Campbell below:

‘Chasing the Feeling’ is out now via Nettwerk and available from Bandcamp.

KMRU – Along A Wall

The first release from KMRU‘s own label OFNOT, new album Dissolution Grip emerged from a period of study at Berlin’s Universität der Künste, where, under the tutelage of Jasmine Guffond, he used field recordings in a novel manner. Rather than including these recordings directly, he used their waveforms as a guide for his own compositions, essentially tracing over the real-world sounds and recreating them as digital soundscapes. Take single ‘Along A Wall’, a bonus track on the digital release, where the wind of Nairobi is recreated in all of its fickle movement with nothing but electronic tones.

Kramies – Days Of (acoustic version)

Back in 2022 we wrote about the self-titled album by Kramies, describing it as “what feels like the culmination of a career to date. Where everything is consolidated and offered in its most fully realised form. Life in all its surreal wonder and visceral reality. Kramies, told as truthfully as possible, whatever form that truth takes.” Having teamed up with VanGerrett Records and with a new album coming next year, Kramies has unveiled the functionally titled EP, The Original Undecorated Takes from the Kramies LP. Four songs from the album as they appeared when acoustic demos. Lead single and opener ‘Days Of’ highlights the difference from the original, the stark depth swapped for a more intimate sound, though one retaining all of the emotional power.

Pretty Bitter – What I Want!

Self-described “psychedelic synth pop gumball machine” Pretty Bitter is Emelia Bleker and Miri Tyler, along with multi-instrumentalist Zack Be, drummer Jason Hayes and guitarist Chris Smit. Together the outfit craft a sound which lives up to their label, where inventive pop sensibilities are blended with driving indie rock energy and some of the sardonic lyricism and delivery familiar to riot grrrl and post-punk. Latest single ‘What I Want!’ utilises this sound to take on eating disorders and the process of recovery. A combination of gallows humour and rising catharsis which eviscerates those responsible for the outside pressures behind such an experience.

If you’re lonely
Try being someone else

If you’re shrinking
At least they love you while you hate yourself

Could you tell I was not well?

Sinai Vessel – Tangled

Aside from some outtakes and demos, ‘Tangled’ is the first release from Caleb Cordes’s Sinai Vessel since 2020’s stellar full-length Ground Aswim, and introduces the next step in the project’s evolution. The Asheville-based songwriter has long won acclaim for his distinctively emotive and searching style, though Cordes truly stands out for the way in which he layers in other emotions too. This is on full display on ‘Tangled’, where a gentle warmth belies the thread of paranoia running beneath the surface. “We are at the mercy of a tangled web of wires / Snaring one another / strung up by our words,” Cordes sings, voice barely breaking a murmur. “Intent is one among a set of signs / if misaligned, you’ll misinterpret.” Once this dimension of the track clicks, you’ll never quite hear it in the same manner, the hushed style no longer sounding intimate so much as lonely, walled off from others and no longer trusting words as a reliable means to bridge the divide.

There’s no poison like
Believing an enemy’s in sight
When there’s no threat at all

Soft Covers – The Real Housewives of Porpoise Spit

In October, Naarm/Melbourne-based indie pop band Soft Covers will release their debut album Soft Serve on Little Lunch Records and Hidden Bay Records. Previous EP Permanent Part Time set out a jangly DIY aesthetic, and the new record sees the trio go bigger in every regard—instrumentally, thematically, and in terms of ambition—without sacrificing the authenticity that made the original songs so great. Lead single ‘The Real Housewives of Porpoise Spit’ is a great introduction for those unfamiliar, taking the nostalgic fondness of retro jangle pop and injecting a certain momentum, not to mention a playful lyricism that blurs the line between wistful and witty.

Tamra – Omens, Silos

Based between Boise and Los Angeles, Tamra is a band, as per the press release, “animated by the idea that, though there’s nothing to do, there’s still something to say.” Their debut EP Light Reading emerges from the dead expanses of the American landscape and lead single ‘Omens, Silos’ introduces this aesthetic with a staccato, opaque poetry. It melds early 00s college favourites with Astral Weeks-era Van Morrison and a turbulent undercurrent of Midwest emo. The result, with its distorted guitar and vocals that rise and fall on sonic updrafts, is oddly captivating, both gloomy and not, full of inelegant beauty like a deserted stripmall under a bruised and stormy sky.

Light Reading will be released later this year.

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