The resonance of this is deepened by the fact Thavoron officially came out as trans this summer, a landmark occasion which in many ways feels like the destination at the end of the journey the album represents. If songs like ‘My Man‘ were notable for their unguarded emotion, and ‘Forever Young‘ for the instinctive picture of longing and romance, then to announce the embrace of a truer identity in time with the release of the album feels like a continuation of the project. An example of art and life aligning in search of honesty and freedom.

Latest single ‘American Urge’ embodies this spirit as clearly as anywhere else on the album. A song inspired by an argument Thavoron had with her father, where the accumulated baggage of preconception and expectation precipitated into something real. “My father is someone who’s very hot-headed, yet strong willed, but also very unforgiving. My concept of self has always been altered and molded by him. I’ve grown akin to feeling like I’ll never be good enough to reach my father’s standards, in order for him to be proud of me,” Thavoron explains. “I really wanted to touch on the realization that this is all a facade, in order to keep you from recognizing the power you hold from being yourself. Nothing you ever do will be good enough for the wrong people, so you might as well live your life the way you want to and be unapologetic about it. It’s your life, and nobody else’s.”

Thavoron is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

Photo by Maddie Ludgate

The post Thavoron – S/T appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Now Thavoron is back with a new single, ‘Forever Young’. As the title suggests, the song is an ode to youth and the first green shoots of love and longing. Opening with subdued beats and stark guitar, it soon blooms into something as tender and dramatic as the emotions it sets out to capture. “’Forever Young’ came from a place in my heart that deeply wanted to immortalize the feeling of young, queer love,” Thavoron explains. “The feeling of realizing that imperfection comes with youth, and that we’re still young in this moment, so it’s fine that things aren’t perfect—as long as we’re together. I think this song was an opportunity to reveal my inner naiveté, a mindset revolving around the idea that ignorance is bliss.”

‘Forever Young’ is out now via streaming services.

Photo by Maddie Ludgate

The post Thavoron – Forever Young appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Over the past thirty years, Cursive have established themselves as one of the most consistent and inventive indie rock/emo bands, providing a series of albums which delve into dark, challenging themes with a searing energy. And they show no signs of letting up, with new album Devourer coming later this year on new label Run For Cover. Every bit as intense as anything in their back catalogue, the record explores ideas of consumption in its various guises and how this inevitably slides towards imperialistic exploitation of power. Lead single ‘Up and Away’ introduces the themes with a surprisingly poppy style, though one which squares melody and dissonance off against one another to better capture the tension at the album’s heart. “‘I had the ‘up, up, up, up, up, up and away’ section of lyrics in my head from its inception but hadn’t planned on using something so bright, cheery and arguably trite,” explains singer/guitarist Tim Kasher, “until it occurred to me that what I was really singing about was something floating away from me, something I was losing, not my personal elevation into some stratosphere.”

Watch the video by Brea Grant below, the first in a series of collaborations between Cursive and genre directors which draws on horror tropes to bring the themes of depression further into relief.

Devourer is out on the 13th September via Run For Cover Records and you can pre-order it now.

Evan Uhlmann – Lake Michigan

After penning his first song at the tender age of five and later studying under Ray Davies of The Kinks, it’s fair to say songwriting is in Evan Uhlmann‘s blood. The Chicago-based musician has now enlisted the help of brother Greg Uhlmann (who you might now from his collaboration with Hand Habits as Duffy x Uhlmann on Orindal Records) to record a new collection of songs to be released via Future Gods. First single ‘Lake Michigan’ is the perfect introduction to the kind of intimate, reflective tone of this phase of Uhlmann’s career, tapping into the quotidian rhythms of life to better explore a deep well of emotions. “I wrote this song while grappling with self-doubt in a new relationship, consumed by the fear of not being worthy and the anxiety of anticipating where things might lead before they even started,” he explains. “Lake Michigan became my reflective space; a place to process this unfolding experience.”

Watch the video below with art direction and animation by Sam Congdon:

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

Great Klons – Twilight Gardener

Starting out as the bassist for indie pop outfit Eureka Birds in the 2010s before moving to record solo as Great Klons, Scott Klon has been making music for over a decade now, exploring everything from dub-adjacent noise pop to Spaghetti Western-inspired psych folk. The latest Great Klons EP expands upon this with another inventive collision of genres, as indie rock, psych, folk and Krautrock influences all coalesce into a singular sound able to explore ideas of instability within the contemporary moment. With its dual vocals, woozy organ and underlying Motorik beat, single ‘Twilight Garden’ uses Klon’s current home of Finger Lakes, NY as an example of the friction and unease of our present. A time when wealth and poverty make uneasy bedfellows and once proud places crumble amid a wider gentrification. “Lakeside transitory towns / and in between a hundred more,” as Klon sings in the opening verse, “and in the middle the church is falling down / where there are more graves than people.”

‘Twilight Gardener’ is out now via streaming services and you can follow Great Klons on Instagram.

Herr God – jesus candle in the liquor store

The side project of songwriter Chloe Gallardo, San Francisco-based slowcore outfit Herr God is named for a line in a Sylvia Plath poem, a reference which goes some way to illustrate its bruised, introspective style. Herr God has recently released debut single ‘jesus candle in the liquor store’, a song which introduces this style perfectly with its lethargic, downbeat atmosphere. Distorted guitars grumble and smoulder behind shuffling percussion and Gallardo’s listless, mumbled vocals, all coming together to evoke something dark and gloomy but with a strange fatalistic energy.

Watch the video by Ella May Sahlman (director), Liz Charky (director of photography), Zoé Kraft (editor) and Natalia Minguez (PA/BTS) below:

‘jesus candle in the liquor store’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Holy Matter – Wishing Well

Last October we wrote about Leanna Kaiser’s Holy Matter, describing how single ‘Autumn’s Envy’ “occupies the liminal space between the real, emotional and spiritual, as though through loss and introspection, one can lead themselves towards uncanny places.” Again released via Royal Oakie Records, latest single ‘Wishing Well’ sees the LA-based musician and experimental filmmaker continue to mine the rich strangeness of such spaces, where desires are matched by the understanding of their own impossibility. Amid a dreamy, retro soundscape, Kaiser admires a crush from afar while knowing deep down any potential romance is doomed to fail, a weightless headspace where things are both decided and not. “This was a rare instance of knowing exactly how I wanted a song to sound as I was writing it, and it actually turning out identically to how I heard it in my head,” as she explains. “I kept thinking about this restaurant I went to as a kid called The Wishing Well, which had a faux stone well in the middle of its wood-panelled dining room. I imagined this song playing in that dingy room over some crappy 70s restaurant speakers.”

Watch the video directed by Kaiser herself below:

‘Wishing Well’ is out now via Royal Oakie Records and available from Bandcamp.

Luce Rushton – Slinky

Back in April we introduced Slinky, the debut EP from Luce Rushton. Then writing of single ‘How It Works’, we described how the EP is “follows the travails of a young artist attempting to negotiate their own tricky interior within an already overwhelming world,” delivered with a “seamless blend of wry humour and earnest emotion.” Now the record is out in full, Rushton has released a video for the title track which furthers the exploration of gender presented across the release. “The word originally referred to feeling forced into ‘slinky’ women’s clothing throughout my life,” Rushton explains. “In the song, I look back on those feelings and reflect on how much I’ve changed and learned about myself.’’

look how hard i try to
climb up to the ladies room
and what you made me do
sped all day and it costs a fortune
debtor
corner
but you wouldn’t catch me dead in it anymore though

Slinky is out now via Sad Club Records and available from Bandcamp.

No Beauty – JUNE

Led by Helena Alexandria alongside Jonathan Malstrom and Will Fachin, No Beauty is a Hamilton, Ontario-based project gearing up to release their new EP, No Beauty Will Remain, this summer. Single ‘June’ typifies the blend of lightness and weight which constitutes their brand of indie rock. Weighty guitars are propelled by a driving drum line, positioning No Beauty alongside the likes of Basement Revolver in their cathartic heft. But amid the density lies an altogether brighter dimension, with ‘JUNE’ offering a picture of summertime love radiant enough to transcend any encroaching darkness.

a cashmere glow from a small window
fell on the bed
we talked for all the hours on the bed
we found out we had perfect bodies on the bed

Watch the video by Alice Hirsch (director, DOP, editor) and Helena Zogogiannis (AD, creative director, props) below:

No Beauty Will Remain will be released later this summer. No Beauty can be found at the usual places.

Sam Weber – Oregon

Ahead of hitting the road with Anna Tivel this month, Vancouver Island-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Sam Weber has revealed the latest track from his forthcoming album, Clear + Plain. ‘Oregon’ typifies the fusion of traditional and contemporary sensibilities which marks Weber’s sound, with strong percussion and bass anchoring layered vocals and his signature guitar work to offer an ode to its titular state. “‘Oregon’ was written on a trip to Ashland,” as Weber expands. “We were renting a casita on this big property where all these hippies lived. It’s a bit of a sensory abstract poem that just sort of emerged. I think the imagery is my own from the I-5 corridor, seeing the lush green flora, very pagan-beautiful, natural imagery of the state, contrasted with the scraps of humanity strewn around. And the progressive culture of Portland.”

Clear + Plain will be released on the 23rd August and you can find Sam Weber at the usual places.

Secret Flowers – Malibu Burns

Los Angeles fourpiece Secret Flowers—that’s Michael Hentz (vocals, guitar), Jacquelyn Sky (vocals, drums), David Greening (guitar), and Abraham Rodriguez-Smith (bass)—fall somewhere at the intersection of dream pop, psych and shoegaze, offering a sound as confident with dark romance as with laidback jams. New release Balboa EP shows off the full potential of this blend, as shown by lead single ‘Malibu Burning’. Inspired by the wildfires in California over recent years, the song offers slow, lush duet which envelops the listener, evoking not only the stasis of our alarming moment, but the wish to retreat to the small comforts of our loved ones amid encroaching catastrophe.

Slice – Shopping

Consisting of Megan Magiera (guitar, vocals), Barbara Barrera (bass) and Alex Hattick (keys, vocals), Slice have developed a loyal fanbase in Long Beach with their impassioned indie rock sound. After almost a decade of playing together, new single ‘Shopping’, out via Selenite Records, signals a new era for the outfit. It’s the culmination of what has come before, drawing equal does of angst and catharsis to explore themes both personal and political. “When I was writing the lyrics, I was thinking about the different clear-outs of unhoused communities in Echo Park, in Santa Monica, even in Downtown Long Beach,” Hattick explains. “The irony of unhoused communities being cleared out while unaffordable high-rise loft apartments are being built is impossible to ignore. When you’re removing people from these spaces, where do they go? Where do you expect people to go when there’s nowhere to go?”

Thavoron – My Man

Seattle-based Cambodian-American artist Thavoron has made a name for emotive, searching songwriting through a series of singles with Trailing Twelve Records, exploring themes of grief, desire and cultural identity from within the queer experience. Latest track ‘My Man’ is every bit as evocative as we’ve come to expect. A slow-burn anthem which aches with longing, shot through with striking imagery and unguarded emotion. But the sound escalates as the song progresses, gathering a momentum as though Thavoron finds a newfound conviction within it’s build, coming to reach the conclusion that the other he so desires does not hold the key to his own identity. That feeling at home in one’s body is a process to be face on their own terms. Watch the video directed by Thavoron and Maddie Ludgate below:

‘My Man’ is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

The post Weekly Listening: June 2024 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

This week sees the release of The Land, The Water, The Sky, the new full-length record from Black Belt Eagle Scout. he album is both a celebration and mourning, born when Katherine Paul decided to leave leave Portland and head back toward her ancestral Swinomish home. To the Skagit River with its salmon and misted cedars, to the tide flats of the Salish Sea. A land marked by colonial violence, not only in terms of the historical theft of land and its lasting legacy but the climate disaster presently unfolding as a consequence of this very imperialist folly. But however difficult Paul’s journey, there’s an affirming power within every track of the album. A sense of connection which serves as a healing force. As though to stress that even within profound loss and loneliness, she is not alone. Final single ‘Spaces’ captures the spirit perfectly, as members of Paul’s close family join and making Black Belt Eagle Scout a communal thing. As she explains:

My parents lend their voices in the chorus melody, my dad with his strong pow wow voice and my mom with her wholesome tone that sounds so similar to mine you can barely notice the distinction between me and her. I want this song to be an offering for those who need to grasp onto something and feel because through feeling and being together, there is healing.

Check out the video filmed by Evan Benally Atwood and Morningstar Angeline below, which centres on the family trade of carving to further the sense of connection:

The Land, The Water, The Sky is out on the 10th February via Saddle Creek and you can pre-order it now.

Coldwave – Spurs for Business Cards

Combining acerbic vocals and dynamic momentum, Coldwave are a post-punk outfit based on Kaurna land (Adelaide). New EP Same Window, Different House shows off the style in all of its nuanced dimensions: the genre’s menace and weight stretched by taut rhythms and some surprisingly bright tones. Take single and closer ‘Spurs for Business Cards’, which plays something like Wild Pink covering Protomartyr or the other way around, but the wry delivery lends a personality all of its own. A surreal dreamscape born of personal myths and delusions.

Dreams of horse riding on the beach
Well I’m the real cowboy
Never really liked my own teeth
Swans in antique stores are all I see
Do you see I’ve changed my hair now
Well I still wear the same hat
But now I’m wearing pinstripes
I swapped my spurs for business cards

Lael Neale – I Am the River

In April 2020, Lael Neale left behind the bright lights of LA to move back to her family’s farm in rural Virginia. While there, she wrote and recorded new material, taking advantage of the slower rhythms of her surroundings and the shelter they gave from the chaos of the period. The result was a brand new album, Star Eaters Delight, which is due for release this coming April on Sub Pop. Perhaps counterintuitively, it promises to be a louder, more dynamic affair than Neale’s previous record. “Acquainted with Night (recorded in 2019, and released in 2021) was a focusing inward amidst the loud and bright Los Angeles surrounding me,” she describes. “It was an attempt to create spaciousness and quiet reverie within. When I moved back to the farm, I found that the unbroken silences compelled me to break them with sound.” This is immediately apparent on lead single ‘I Am the River’, a dynamic yet minimalist slice of lo-fi pop that draws influence from the likes of The Velvet Underground and Suicide.

Star Eaters will be released via Sub Pop on 21st April. Pre-order it now from the Lael Neale Bandcamp page.

Shana Cleveland – A Ghost

“I am a ghost and I’m trying / to show you what I do / can I come through?” So asks Shana Cleveland on ‘A Ghost’, the opening track new LP  Manzanita, coming next month on Hardly Art Records. The lines are the perfect introduction to the album. Not only drawing attention to a portal between our world and some other, but requesting we allow the door to open. Because the record is a self-described “supernatural love album set in the California wilderness,” and those willing to submit to its charms will be greeted with a lush experience where the otherworldly and organic commingle into a seamless whole. Watch the video directed, produced and editing by Vice Cooler with director of photography Dalton Blanco

Manzanita is out on the 10th March via Hardly Art Records.

Spencer Thomas Smith – Little Apartment

Back in 2021 we wrote about Spencer Thomas Smith, with EP Tennessee Mud offering a welcoming mix of emotional immediacy and nostalgic charm. Latest single ‘Little Apartment’ once again settles in such a sweet spot. A slow-burning meditation on leaving a place you have come to love which finds itself caught between melancholic reminiscence, a fear of the unknown and the persistent hope latent within every instance of change. But what really stands out is Spencer Thomas Smith’s patience amid such a swirl of emotions. A sense of compassion and fondness which outlives any present uncertainty.

‘Little Apartment’ is out now and available on streaming services.

Sunny War – No Reason

Last week, Nashville-based guitarist and singer-songwriter Sunny War released her fourth record Anarchist Gospel on New West Records. A bruised but unflinching exploration of personal trauma, the album employs a wide variety of styles—from dusty folk and bluesy country to energetic punk and ecstatic gospel—to form a powerful expression of resilience, capturing both the pain and joy of existence in a distinctively empathetic manner. “Everybody is a beast just trying their hardest to be good,” she describes. “That’s what it is to be human. You’re not really good or bad. You’re just trying to stay in the middle of those two things all the time, and you’re probably doing a shitty job of it. That’s okay.” A sentiment captured by lead single ‘No Reason’ and its striking chorus:

“Cos you’re an angel and you’re a demon
Ain’t got no rhyme ain’t got no reason”

Anarchist Gospel is out now via New West Records. Buy it now from the Sunny War Bandcamp page.

Thavoron – Struck

“A song concerning the often difficult process of coming to understand and accept yourself brought to life with all the stark solitude of such an experience.” That’s how we described ‘Twin Sized Bed’ by Thavoron back in November. The Seattle-based Cambodian-American artist moves between a variety of genres, from indie folk and emo to something closer to commercial pop, but this sense of the personal underpins all of their work. New single ‘Struck’ approaches new love with a sense of restraint, but as the ache of the vocals offers a gravity, the sound slowly unfurls into something quietly powerful. Watch the video directed by Maddie Ludgate and Thavoron themselves below:

‘Struck’ is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

Victoria Wijeratne – Above & Beyond (feat. niemba)

Having made a name scoring film and television, composer and multi-instrumentalist Victoria Wijeratne is no stranger to the cinematic side of music. But recent EP Graces & Muses highlights how such sounds need not stay exclusive to the screen. Released by Dragon’s Eye Recordings, the EP draws from the breadth of Wijeratne’s experience to create something transportive and ever-changing, from the careful piano and mournful strings of the title track to brooding drama of ‘A Strange Time’. Closer ‘Above & Beyond’ even introduces vocals to the mix, Wijeratne joined by singer-songwriter niemba to push her music further than ever towards a more conventional dream pop. Attempting to cover so many moods and styles within four songs might prove the downfall of less assured artists, but here the changeable tone only furthers the thematic resonance of a release crafted around ideas of inspiration and intuition.

Wau Wau Collectif – Thiaroye 1944

Back in November, Sahel Sounds released Mariage, the second album by Wau Wau Collectif, the long-distance collaboration between musicians in Senegal (led by Aurora Kane) and Swedish songwriter and producer Karl Jonas Winqvist. We missed it at the time, but discovered it recently and thought it too good not to share. A record which collides a multitude of styles, utilizing guitar, synths and hip-hop beats in addition to West African instruments like the kora and balafon. The standout is the indescribably formidable ‘Thiaroye 1944’, a song of simmering power that combines stark guitar, spoken vocals and singing children—recounting a massacre by French commanding officers of Black African soldiers towards the end of the Second World War.

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

Last month Indonesia-born, Toronto-based songwriter Dwi Riana released their new EP, Jambu Tree, a bilingual release which draws on everything from folk to hip hop to realise its distinctive exploration of the immigrant experience. Single ‘WTFAI’ is a perfect introduction, a love-hate ode to their new home which does for Toronto what The Weakerthans’ ‘One Great City!’ did for Winnipeg. “My first winter in Toronto, it got down to minus forty degrees,” Dwi Riana explains. “People told me that it was the worst winter they’ve had in twenty five years. The next winter, it was the worst in twenty six years, and so on… I thought to myself ‘Where the fuck am I?'”

Jambu Tree is out now and available from the usual places.

ghost orchard – Sweet Song

Last month we wrote about ghost orchard, the project of Sam Hall from Grand Rapids, Michigan, describing single ‘rest’ as “a picture of calm and patience amid loss, where the quiet stillness holds the latent warmth of things now gone.” The song was the opener from the debut ghost orchard LP, rainbow music, which came out last week via Winspear. The album is a meditation on themes of home and change and the tangible echoes that remain when people move on, preaching patience and acceptance in a world that seems determined to rush by. This atmosphere is captured nicely on penultimate track ‘Sweet Song’, a bittersweet bedroom pop song that holds much tenderness and feeling in its sub two minute runtime.

g. spinn – We Might

Based in Tucson, AZ, g. spinn is a recording project unafraid to push the boundaries of genre. Since its formation in 2018, he has released music across the spectrum, from meditative ambient album summer’s long gone to singles more at home in hip hop, pop and indie rock brackets. New EP Nostalgia Melancholy draws from various points of this oeuvre, with single ‘We Might’ showing off the hybrid ambient-folk style. Wistful field recordings and warm acoustic guitar paint a mood fitting for the EP’s title, and the track’s pivot to lush ambient tones in its middle section only further cements the sound’s reflective quality.

Joan Kelsey – Survivor

“In a time of tremendous difficulty I tried to make something life-affirming: grieving songs which look toward joy.” So explains Seattle songwriter Joan Kelsey of new album Standing Out On The Grass, out later this week on Dear Life Records. A collection of songs written in the aftermath of loss, the days and months when grief arrives fresh with each moment, a thing at once personal and universal and impossible to ever quite overcome. But as single ‘Survivor’ shows, Kelsey does not try to conquer this sadness but instead place it within a wider context. Layer death into a larger, interconnected picture where the cruel linearity of time and space is upended, and nothing is ever really gone. Watch the video by John Desousa below:

Standing Out On The Grass is out on the 11th November via Dear Life Records and you can pre-order it now.

Mui Zyu – Ghost with a Peach Skin

Next February sees the release of Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century, a brand new album from London‘s Mui Zyu (AKA Eva Liu of Dama Scout) on Father/Daughter Records, and lead single ‘Ghost with a Peach Skin’ gives a hint as to what to expect. “This song is about leaving your former self and entering your new peach skin,” as Mui Zyu explains. “Peaches are considered a symbol of longevity and even immortality in Chinese culture. The protagonist has overcome enemies and has bruises to prove the damage.” The track achieves the effect sonically, the sound itself bruised by distortion even as Zyu’s vocals progress with a calm confidence, the voice of a protagonist who is stepping out from the past and into something new. Check out the video directed and edited by CLUMP Collective below:

Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century is out via Father/Daughter Records on the 24th February and you can pre-order it now.

Philippa Zawe – Would You Lean

Ahead of upcoming EP Shudder Pt. I, Philippa Zawe has shared brand new single, ‘Would You Lean.’  Writing of previous release Road of Hope, we described Zawe’s work as a combination of “folk and soul… built around her versatile voice,” the delivery “switching from casual conversational comments to strikingly effecting croons to produce something that ebbs and flows with human warmth.” The new track is no less impressive in this regard, though builds on previous releases with an increasingly rich arrangement of instruments. A sound capable of exploring themes of loss, friendship and faith with a decidedly compassionate tone.

Sassyhiya – I had a thought

Rising from the ashes of cult LGBTQ punks Barry, Sassyhiya is the project of London-based partners Kathy Wright and Helen Skinner. Recorded during lockdown, their debut EP gum demos introduced the irreverent charm of their punky, poppy sound. But now with the addition of Pablo Paganotto of Punching Swans (drums) and Neiloy Mookherjee (guitar), Sissyhiya are now a full fledged live band. New EP Live at Paper Dress Vintage captures this newly charged form in all its idiosyncratic fun. Opener ‘I had a thought’ is as good an introduction as any, adding scrappy attitude to the original, taking the angles of post-punk and bending them into off-kilter shapes, leading to something somehow both laidback and volatile.

Thavoron – Twin Sized Bed

Back in April, Seattle-based songwriter Thavoron shared single ’18’ on Trailing Twelve Records, a tender and intimate track which explored the queer experience with dreamlike warmth. The song was relatively stripped back with its careful arrangement of flute, saxophone and guitar, but latest single ‘Twin Sized Bed’ leans more fully into the minimalist folk style. Built on stark guitar and gently emotive vocals, it’s a song concerning the often difficult process of coming to understand and accept yourself brought to life with all the stark solitude of such an experience.

‘Twin Sized Bed’ is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

The post Weekly Listening: November 2022 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.