‘Been a Long Year’, the lead single from Alex Nicol’s forthcoming EP Been a Long Year Vol. 1, offers a picture of grief as a kind of matryoshka doll. Where a wider context of loss and decay couches the personal, and sadness moves ever-inward with increasing weight. The track’s landscape is a town decimated by both the pandemic and chronic neglect (“And all the shops are empty,” as Nicol sings, “and the diners too / The miller, baker, and seamstress / Gotta find something new to do), within which personal tragedies including the loss of a job and the death of friends and family unfold. But with a compassionate, airy tone and guest vocals from Angel Deradoorian, ‘Been a Long Year’ doesn’t try to make sense of such experiences so much as admit the full implication of their difficulty. “I wanted to express my frustration at running from my feelings for so long,” Nicol explains. “It felt like the world was crumbling at the same time as I was pretending everything was fine, but I really wasn’t, and I finally expressed it. It feels like one long exhale for me.”

Been a Long Year Vol. 1 is out on the 30th June and you can pre-save it now.

Alex Gardner – Upside Down Crown

Inspired by everything from the Anthology of American folk music, rockabilly and bluegrass to fairy tales and experimental poetry, LA‘s Alex Gardner combines classic and contemporary styles in his distinctive music. A kind of outsider folk for the twenty-first century, where Gardner teases out the through line from acts like Michael Hurley to the modern indie style. With album Highly Attainable Dreams coming later this week, single ‘Upside Down Crown’ gives an example of what to expect. A tender folk number propelled by a nineties-style indie rock energy, coupled with a suitably nostalgic video by Lauren Slusser:

Highly Attainable Dreams is out on the 12th May and you can find Alex Gardner on Bandcamp.

Brittany Ann Tranbaugh – Pennsylvania

As much a snapshot of a damaged country as it is a personal narrative, Brittany Ann Tranbaugh’s latest single follows a queer couple as they move from a liberal urban setting to their home in rural Pennsylvania. “It was wonderful to live out west,” go the opening lines, “fun to kid ourselves I guess,” the drive punctuated by second thoughts, uneasy vibes and a “radio blaring about divided times,” but also an undeniable fondness for the familiar landscape too. Tranbaugh’s country style captures this mood in all of its nuance, where fear, fury and bone-weary disappointment coalesce into one dense weight, and wry humour is perhaps the only way to lighten the load.

Pennsylvania, it was never easy to explain ya
Sometimes home’s not just an easy chair
Lately home feels like a cross to bear

Greta Ruth – Holy Omen

Writing of her debut album The Fawn back in 2021, we described the music of Minneapolis artist Greta Ruth as “hum[ming] with a quiet dream-like energy,” where “each track is a composition of poetry and tone which slowly unfurls to reveal layers of depth and meaning.” Last week, Ruth released a brand new single ‘Holy Omen’ which again follows this style. Built on gentle vocals, fingerpicked guitar and Zach Waldon’s subtle piano, it’s a song about the awe and calm that comes with real love, “a love that,” as Ruth puts it, “sweetens and strengthens you while the chaos, mystery, and dissonance of life rage on.” Stark and soft and dream-like, it’s a more than worthy addition to the Greta Ruth oeuvre.

headboy – Reservoir

Next month, London post-punk trio headboy will release their debut EP, Was It What You Thought. Comprising of Mars West (guitar, bass, vocals), Jess Collins (guitar, bass, vocals) and Oli Birbeck (drums), the band make a distinctive blend of raucous punk and lo-fi indie pop which tackles themes both personal and political. “We pretty much condensed every emotion we’ve felt in the past two years into fourteen minutes,” Collins describes. “There are moments of anger, fear, and sadness, but also moments of joy, or acceptance, at least.” Latest single ‘Reservoir’ has all the sweaty, smoky allure of a late-night dive bar dancefloor, a shadowy post-punk exploration of “infatuation and unaddressed sexual tension.” Watch the video, directed by West themselves below:

Was It What You Thought will be released on 9^th June via Blitzcat Records. Order it via the headboy Bandcamp page.

Julez and the Rollerz – Wildest Fantasy

Having originated as a solo project, Julez and the Rollerz really came to life when Jules Batterman moved to LA in 2020 and the Rollerz were enlisted. Soon Rachel David (bass/vocals), Shea Carothers (synth/vocals), Hannah Hughes (guitar/vocals) and Emi Borja (drums) were as important a part of the band as any, and the quintet began honing their psych-inflected punk rock sound. With EP Is This Where The Party Is? coming later this month, the outfit have unveiled latest single ‘Wildest Fantasy’ to rope listeners in. A track which confronts the honest difficulties of negotiating the music industry, fighting to maintain enthusiasm in a space so often appearing to drain dreams from artists. But armed with equal parts playful mischief and heart-on-sleeve passion, Julez and the Rollerz power on through regardless.

Nora Kelly Band – Lay Down Girl

Having made a name as part of grunge outfit DISHPIT, Montreal‘s Nora Kelly has until know been known for her unapologetic attitude and energy. And though a pandemic-induced rebirth pushed new project Nora Kelly Band in an alt-country direction, this defiant tone remains. Album Rodeo Clown is out this summer Mint Records, and lead single ‘Lay Down Girl’ goes some way to explaining the LP’s titular image. A figure made to smile no matter the mood. “The lyrics to this song were direct advice that I was giving to myself,” Kelly explains. “To stop staying put, acting sweet and putting everyone else first. Other people’s approval had been my priority for so long that overtime my connection to what I liked and what I wanted had become weak.” Watch the video directed by Gabie Che below:

Rodeo Clown is out on the 25th August via Mint Records. Find Nora Kelly Band on Bandcamp.

The Phone Booth – Wasted

‘Happier at Home’, the previous single from Santa Barbara outfit The Phone Booth, was a slow-burning ode to living against expectations, moving through a sludgy haze of boredom and anxiety. Something of the track must have served its therapeutic purpose, because new single ‘Wasted’ is altogether more upbeat, blending sunny indie rock with slacker sensibilities to signal something of a return to past album Roman, albeit with a new sheen of polish. The song is the lead single from a forthcoming self-titled album, and gives the impression that The Phone Booth are ready to reintroduce themselves in their most confident form yet.

Sarah Coolidge – Ice Pack

Following several singles and EPs over the last few years, Bay Area musician Sarah Coolidge is set to release her debut album, Call Me When You Get There, a collection of ten songs recorded in John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone Studios in Oakland. Coolidge has a knack for writing deceptively simple songs that are effortlessly catchy and full of tongue-in-cheek humour, and lead single ‘Ice Pack’ is the perfect introduction. Upbeat indie pop soaked in shoegaze shimmer, it’s a song about a litany of eye injuries suffered from 3^rd grade to present, from burnt eyebrows to invasive pepper flakes. Tennessee Mowrey joins on bass and Chris Olson on drums, and together the trio make something genuinely infectious, certainly the most buoyant examination of bodily harm you’ve heard this year.

Virgin of the Birds – Moon Chariot

Following a series of EPs, Seattle‘s Virgin of the Birds caught the attention of Edinburgh label Song, By Toad, with albums Winter Seeds and Secret Kids seeing them join a roster including the likes of Meursault and Adam Stafford. The company felt fitting for a project straddling lo-fi folk and left-field art rock, where literate lyrics are met with experimental sounds, and inventiveness need not come at the expensive of emotion. The Scottish link continues with new EP Viper Summer, with members of Edinburgh folk outfit Storm the Palace joining to add a new dimension to the project, as captured by lead single ‘Moon Chariot’. A track bursting with bright energy and mythical strangeness, where any sense of opacity from the latter is rendered redundant by the conviction of the former. A song of serpents and winged horses in which you can only totally believe.

I rejoiced at seeing the giantess
And the world and its cruelties
And the serpent that sings:
“Now, for the moon, Noreen!”
“Now, for the moon, Noreen!”

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Back with their first music since the record, The Phone Booth have just put out a brand new single, ‘Happier at Home’. Very much following in the spirit of the previous record, the song is a morose creeper of tune, dragging itself reluctantly through the slow opening half with a mixture of disinterest and foreboding. “Embracing the stable life,” sings lead Michael Easbey, capturing the contemporary mood in a few simple lines. “I’m polishing shoes at night / The walk is an easy thought / But in practice it’s not.”

The temptation is read into the single as a COVID tune, and the timing is certainly notable in that respect, be it by design or coincidence. But the truth is that ‘Happier at Home’ is about something deeper than any one crisis, a more general malaise made all the more apparent by the pandemic. The tortured cocktail of emotions that is life under the conditions of late capitalism. Its cruel, paradoxical state. A deep boredom, a constant anxiety, the pressure to live a certain way met with the equal and opposite terror of betraying one’s self in order to see it through. The relief of acting against the expectations, the guilt that never leaves you alone.

Thought I was always missing something
Well I’m happier at home
Stealing the notes that all cascade from them
Without you when you’re gone
Sealing the notice from the table
Who says I’m better off?
Gather the one pure outcome I glean when I kill my thoughts

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Tracklist:

Field Medic – henna tattoo
Leggy – Taffy
Myshiuno – Turf War In Chinatown, SF
Press Club – Suburbia
Shady Bug – Make it Up
Calicoco – Anchor Park
LUNCH – Forget Everything
krissanthemum – Honesty Hour
Wy – Pavements
UV Rays – Flowerhead
Fanclub – Stranger
Jeffrey Silverstein – Easy Rider
Ryan Dugré – Tonight
Okay Embrace – Phantom Text
Samia – Lasting Friend
community college – karaoke
runnner – eggshell
Fields of Heaven – Song of Loss
Minor Moon – Hold Me Up (Liar)
Lampland – You Little Liar
Westkust – Swebeach
kate can wait – licantropía
Bleeder – Rusted and Raw
Laveda – Dream Sleep
Pass/Ages – As It Rises
Yuri Tománek – In the end, we all fade away
Tender Glue – Dear Peri
Red Wedding – Bones
Women Tied to Railroad Tracks – Endless Carpet
Eyesore & the Jinx – On An Island
Bellows – What Can I Tell You About the World?
Merival – Sinner
Vassals – Lil Anvil
The This – The Strangest Ritual
Breakup Films – You Said You Hate Not Seeing Me
The Phone Booth – Healthcare
Seamstress – Everything
Zelma Stone – Light Bulb Boy
Charlotte Cornfield – Andrew
Wicketkeeper – Night Night (Whatever)
a. harlana – faces
Lady Dan – What Sanity
Tesha – Funeral

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The record, which has now been released, is not a bona fide concept album, though is dedicated to the Easbey’s late best friend Steven Roman Gonzales, and is built around voicemail recordings of his words. With plain simplicity lended weight by hindsight, the samples anchor the thematic resonance of the songs and provide a counterpoint to their frustration and confusion. This is an album about loss, yes, but more than that, it is a testament to the quiet joy of friendship. As Max Burke describes in the press release: “The existence of Roman is a direct rebuttal to Gonzales’ skepticism from years before—a meticulous, candid and tender exultation.”

After the poignant opening sample of Gonzales in ‘Radio Silence’, ‘The Freshman’ breaks out with a wistful energy, Gonzales’ words haunting the lulls in instrumentation, and the growing ‘Boston + Santa Cruz’ applies a tender restraint. The tracks set the tone of the record, where loss is matched by an equal and opposite sense of luminosity, as though for all of the suffering, the shining truth of the relationship—that it was challenging and special—refuses to fade to black.

As we described in our preview, ‘Ballad of Indifference’ is a “slow burning slice of lo-fi rock, the smoulder eventually drawing flame which quickly transforms into a hectic blaze of emotional release,” and follow up ‘Swim in Oceans’ “bursts into life from the ashes” in a rattling frenzy that brings to mind No Age. Though employing different strategies, both tracks are a testament to the transcendent catharsis of movement and energy, as though to register pain as motion and noise is to make it more manageable, less opaque and enveloping.

Representing something of a centrepiece for the record, ‘Healthcare’ approaches this idea most directly. Opening with Gonzalez’s uncomfortably direct questioning of Easbey’s dedication to making music, the song develops into a slow-burning love song that’s shows a strange blend of critical and caring that only love can offer, putting to bed the prior accusations in a kind of tortured, elated retrospection.

The spacious beginnings of ‘Dust’ herald the most patient and understated track of the record, every promise of crescendo or breakdown never quite coming to fruition, and, despite its clear heft, follow-up ‘Ghost’ could be described in much the same way. Rising from ominous feedback and marching drums that bring to mind The Twilight Sad’s unsettling rhythms, the track has a magnetic pull that drags Easbey’s vocals toward what is surely a climactic breakdown, though again the song plateaus before this precipitates.

To crown the album, The Phone Booth offer ‘Comfortable’ as one final epic simmer, where conflicting emotions—confusion and certainty, fondness and loss—centre on the final moments of palliative care. If the simplicity and forthright nature of the lyrics bring into relief the reality of the situation, then the soaring sound shows reality in all of its human depth and fervour, a desperation that will never end, impermanence as the everlasting experience.

Roman is out now and you can get it from the Phone Booth Bandcamp page.

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Tracklisting:

Frog – American
The Phone Booth – Ballad of Indifference
Spielbergs – 4AM
Neurotic Fiction – Collateral
Neighborhood of Make Believe – Track Names
Pizzagirl – body part
Orchid Mantis – porch song
Gorgeous Bully – patience
Reighnbeau – Trading Heat
Troy Everett – Absent
Amparo – Hounds
REW<< – Victoire Impossible
Okay Embrace – Moving
Young Jesus – For Nana
Vender & The Cobras – Everything is Beautiful
The Lostines – Faith in Love
Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover – Little Wind
Rivulets – Everything Goes
Balto – Bullshit Dream
Meat Wave – That’s Alright
Docks – Kiosk
Satanic Ritual Abuse – Hurting (Adjective/Verb)
SATU – Growing Up
Anna Tivel – Fenceline
Madison Turner – Richmond, Virgina
Elly Swope – 6.8
Nathan Ball – All or Nothing
Monarch Mtn – canyon blues
Stripmall Ballads – You Were Good (I Was Good For a While)
Katie Mullins – Crocuses
Lisa/Liza – Tea Kettle
free cake for every creature – shake it out
Katy Kirby – Tap Twice
Lung Cycles – hottest day of the year so far (4pm version)

You can find all of our Monthly Roundup playlists here, and peruse a wider range of mixtapes that we’ve put together over the years.

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Spielbergs – 4AM

Spielbergs are Mads Baklien, Stian Brennskag and Christian Løvhaug, an Olso-based trio who push a frantic brand of indie rock. Coupling nostalgic emotion with carefree abandon, the outfit draw comparisons to the likes of Japandroids and Beach Slang, and their debut album This Is Not The End promises to live up to such billing. Lead single ‘4AM’ is good supporting evidence, a racing number that forgoes none of the emotional intensity, turning what could be a fun but superficial track into something far deeper and more rewarding.

This Is Not The End is set for release on the 1st February via By The Time It Gets Dark and you can pre-order it now.

Anna Tivel – Fenceline

Here at VSF we often find ourselves drawn to the folk music coming out of Wisconsin, with blog favourites Old Earth and Field Report having held our attention for a long while, not to mention Bon Iver, Aero Flynn, and on and on. So, while Anna Tivel herself is based in Portland, Oregon, the fact that she recorded her new album, The Question, with Shane Leonard and Brian Joseph in Eau Claire suggests the kind of folk pedigree to which she belongs.

‘Fenceline’ is our first taste of The Question, a follow-up to 2017’s Small Believer, and suggests that Tivel has picked up where she left off. Using her distinctively haunting writing, the song explores issues of gates and walls in their various guises. Such imagery is perhaps at its most pertinent since the end of the Cold War, and Tivel taps into the humanity that such partitions bisect, allowing more complex, human emotions to form. “This is a song about the divisions we create to keep each other out,” Tivel explains, “from fences and walls, to the gates of heaven. I guess I got to thinking a lot about what makes us different and what makes us the same, what breeds hatred and fear and what breeds understanding.”

You can find Anna Tivel’s music on her Bandcamp page.

Pizzagirl – body part

Pizzagirl is the recording project of Liverpool native Liam Brown, who has released a number of singles that exist within a distinct soundscape, with his bio describing how he marries “80s teen-film nostalgia, 90s dial-up internet culture and the modern meme age” to form his own style. Latest track ‘body part’ takes us a step further into the strange, bright world, opening in a lonely haze which soon morphs into a more traditional pop song. Brown’s baritone brings to mind Devon Welsh’s Dream Songs, and certainly add feeling, like watching your own nighttime hallucinations on VHS.

‘body part’ is out now and can be found on the pizzagirl Bandcamp page, along with all previous releases.

Satanic Ritual Abuse – Hurting (Adjective/Verb)

Satanic Ritual Abuse is the project of Josh Cohen, who you may know better as the person behind the label Memorials of Distinction. His debut album, Hurting, is due for release at the end of November, a collection of songs written between 2009 (when a 16 year old Cohen began making music) and 2014, which are only now seeing the light of day.

Cohen is currently drip-feeding singles to amp up anticipation, and the latest is the title track, a self-described “noisy, anti-doo-wop, anti-romance croon about feeling trapped in dysfunction, finding yourself snared in circles of emotional violence.” As all that suggests, this isn’t a bright and sunny pop song. Cohen’s vocals echo as if from a dark and clammy cavern, skittering drums crawling the walls in a kind of itchy and feverish paranoia. The whole thing lights up sporadically in the song’s second half with a blare of strangely joyous noise, just a glimpse of the unstable emotions that the album promises to provide.

Hurting will be released on the 30th November and you can pre-order it now from the Memorials of Distinction Bandcamp page.

Meat Wave – That’s Alright

Chicago punks Meat Wave have carved out a niche of intelligent noise, with records such as 2017’s The Incessant capable of raw emotion and release while also drawing from literary influences. Last month saw the release of a split 7″ single with fellow Chicagoites Lifestyle, and Meat Wave’s offering, ‘That’s Alright’, continues their careful balance between thoughtful and furious. However, the track does stand out from the rest of their discography for its (relatively) tender tone. A lullaby this is not, though the dark, dystopian atmosphere is at least used to highlight the brilliance of any beams of light.

The split is out now via No Trend Records and you can get it from the Meat Wave Bandcamp page.

The Phone Booth – Ballad of Indifference / Swim in Oceans

Santa Barbara band The Phone Booth are currently putting the finishing touches to their debut album, Roman. Though the record could not quite be said to be a concept album, it is structured around voicemail recordings from Steven Roman Gonzales, the best friend of the lead songwriter who passed away two years ago. Indeed, the album is something of a tribute to the lasting influence of Gonzales as a friend and artist, and marries cathartic indie rock with personal, intimate lyrics in a manner that feels at once angry, celebratory and nuanced.

In preparation, the band have put out two singles which introduce their sound. ‘Ballad of Indifference’ is a slow burning slice of lo-fi rock, the smoulder eventually drawing flame which quickly transforms into a hectic blaze of emotional release. ‘Swim in Oceans’ bursts into life from the ashes, switching the style to the breathless cool of No Age.

Katie Mullins – Crocuses

Katie Mullins didn’t think she was going to sing again, let alone record and release a new album. After haemorrhaging her left vocal chord for the third time, Mullins turned to meditation and experienced something of a miraculous healing, from which “digital triptych” Three Songs “flowed involuntarily […] during winter walks from one teaching gig to the next.” ‘Crocuses’ is one such example—joining contemporaries such as Mountain Man in crafting classic, hymn-like folk that draws its primary inspiration from the splendour and severity of the natural world.

Three Songs is out now and you can get it from the Katie Mullins Bandcamp page.

Troy Everett – Absent

Troy Everett is a songwriter and composer from Washington DC who is now based in Los Angeles. Serving as an introduction to his sound, ‘Absent’ is a swirling slice of ambient textures and frantic drums, pitching the track at the intersection of ambient, neo-classical and Burial-esque dubstep. Everett’s vocals emerge through this clamour with ethereal force, as though conjured by the motion of the instrumentation, leading to a style that is both compelling and haunting.

You can find Troy Everett on Soundcloud.

Nathan Ball -All Or Nothing

Splitting his time between Cornwall and London, Nathan Ball makes a charged brand of folk music that draws as much from War on Drugs as it does from songwriters such as Jose Gonzalez. His latest single ‘All or Nothing’ is proof, the confident, uplifting tempo balanced against a sensitive emotion. “It’s about trying to stay focused on something whilst feeling a weight of expectation on you,” Ball explains of the track. “And, instead of talking about it, becoming more introverted.”

You can hear more on Soundcloud, or find more information on the Nathan Ball website.

Balto – Bullshit Dream

The music of Balto has come in a variety of forms and styles, from the bluegrassy folk of October Road to the psych and pop inspired rock of Strangers, though never have Daniel Sheron and co. released what could be said to be an explicitly political song. However, with ‘Bullshit Dream’, this changes, the song coming to Sheron in one spontaneous moment and released as a stand alone single for election season.

The bullshit dream of the title is name-checked as socialism, though in reality the song re-positions the phrase to examine the wafer thin promise of American life, running through a frantic list of the banal and narcissistic trappings of contemporary existence, as well as the consequences of what Chekov might call such ‘moral illness’. The result is the bizarre and the ridiculous placed alongside the chronic afflictions of our time, all raced through with Dylan-esque abandon.

“Snapchat, pornhub, cyber sex
Electronic cigarettes
A spray tan on the president
He’s just working on a dream I guess
Slimfast, botox trophy wives
Pool boys, fuck toys, magic mikes
You’re so pretty, won’t you get in line
A face like that goes viral”

You can find Balto on Bandcamp.

Vender & The Cobras – Everything is Beautiful

Vender & The Cobras is a Chicago-based band led by Matt Beard (who also plays in Friends of the Bog). Last month saw the release of the outfit’s second album, The Lion’s Boy, and ‘Everything is Beautiful’ is a good introduction for the uninitiated. Because Vender & The Cobras is a personal and sincere album that’s nonetheless underscored by a certain wry wit—like two parts Bright Eyes to one part Sufjan. Within the wistful flow of ‘Everything is Beautiful’ lies cutting emotion and a hint of self-deprecation, though all warmed through by a persistent sense of hope.

The Lion’s Boy is out now and you can get it from the Vender & The Cobras Bandcamp page.

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