After ‘‘cowboy bebop & eric’s trip’ (what we labelled “a characteristically off-the-wall and hyperactive slice of electronic (anti-)pop”) and ‘return of jafar‘ (“sits in the sweet spot between unapologetic nostalgia and contemporary neurosis, its tone unafraid of self-deprecation yet so bright and bouncy that it seems to simultaneously conquer it”), applied communications is back with new single ‘tarot sans tinseltown’ ahead of new full-length applied communications bites the big one, coming via Rare Noodles and Bar/None Records. We described the album as sitting in the centre of “a Venn diagram consisting of early Casiotone For the Painfully Alone, Emperor X and Dan Deacon,” and while the latest track could be said to conforms to this label, it also shows the limitations of comparisons when dealing with an act so singular. But however idiosyncratic the track might seem, it is only bringing to life the bizarre details of the time and place which inspired it. The song is about “an impromptu trip to LA during a depressive spiral,” Max Wood describes:

during the trip, pope benedict came out of the conclave and i saw beck at the scientology celebrity center while taking advantage of their free brunch. (i’m not a scientologist, don’t worry!) the song leans on LA’s weird history (eatonville, dw griffith, amy mcpherson) as a well of metaphors for the mental health precipice i was on at the time.”

applied communications bites the big one will be released on the 25th September via Rare Noodles and Bar/None Records and you can pre-order it via the applied communications Bandcamp page.

Black Duck – Funeral in my Brain

Over recent months, we’ve covered a couple of singles from the upcoming album between Chicago‘s Black Duck (that’s Douglas McCombs on bass/guitar, Bill MacKay on guitar and Charles Rumback on drums) and Basque musician Elena Setién, with both ‘Land of Many Eyes‘ and ‘Connects By Water‘ proving how stimulating collaboration can be. “[Meeting Setién], the trio felt they had discovered someone else clearly attuned to the Black Duck spirit,” as we wrote, “and have taken this forward to not only invigorate the project, but to reimagine its very boundaries [becoming] a quartet in order to bottle the lightning of this live performance.” With the release fast approaching via Thrill Jockey, the outfit have now unveiled new track ‘Funeral in my Brain’. The song is inspired by the Emily Dickinson poem for which it is named, elevating the emotional landscape of the work into something larger and more forceful, an almost cinematic vista which performs a kind of transubstantiation, the fear of death morphed into its own form of transcendence. “This one is a funeral, but a surrealistic one in some way,” as Setién explains. “In a sense, as a performer, and as a listener, I lose fear of death and just embrace it.”

Black Duck with Elena Setién will be released on the 28th August via Thrill Jockey Records and you can pre-order it now from the Black Duck Bandcamp page.

Burley – Change

Following on from a self-titled EP released last year, Brooklyn folk project Burley are teasing their upcoming full-length with a brand new single ‘Change’. Consisting of Antony Jeffares, Austin Chappell, John Dockery and Sam Lopane, the band make what they call ‘gas station core’ A style of folk rock which pairs the rawness and twang of alt-country with an extra dose of wistfulness, certain to appeal to fans of Fust, Friendship and Sluice. ‘Change’ finds the quartet at their most confident yet, able to confront thorny personal themes with a tone that’s as assured as it is bright. As the title might suggests, these themes involve change in its strange complications, namely how a relationship can reconfigure a person, and how the end of a relationship can be equally seismic, not to mention the ways in which we stay the same no matter how strong the external forces might be. “Light up, sun down / find a big block to walk around / where all the concrete knows your pain,” as one verse goes. “Old friends, same talk / breaking down off of Eastern Park / where all the benches know my name / when all the brightest colours seem to fade // It ain’t too late to change again / no, it ain’t to late to change.”

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

Hockitay – half smile

“”I’m not sure what I want / Except not wanting at all.” So sings Hockitay on latest single ‘half smile’, a deceptively downbeat line on what might be the Montreal artist’s warmest track to date. Hockitay’s 2026 releases have hinted towards this sound, with the almost eerie ‘buttons‘ striving for humanity in the algorithmic present, and ‘two crows‘ looking for hopeful omens to point towards a better future, both songs disillusioned with the world yet struggling for reprieve. A casual listen to ‘half smile’ suggests this struggle might have come good, the sound full of apparent heart and fondness. Though dig a little deeper and it seems the dismay might have just found a new focus. Because, as the above line shows, there’s an existential confusion to at play, the intimacy not so much straight romance as a kind of confession.

Aw baby, don’t cry
I say this with love
I’m not sure what I want
Except not wanting at all

Watch the video directed by David S. Blouin & Buvard and featuring Sékou and Myriam Doumbia, & René Bazinet:

‘half smile’ is out now via Future Gods and available from Bandcamp.

Jordan Sand – Baby with the Sail

Known for her talents with the bowed double bass, string player and singer Jordan Sand has long supported the vision of others, collaborating on everything from film scores to SNL appearances. But it was only after an extended hiatus in making music that her own solo vision started to take shape. Upon her return, Sand found her process and sensibilities had shifted, with the desire to plan and prepare falling away in favour of a more intuitive, impressionistic approach. Sand’s debut solo full-length Baby Ghost feels like the culmination of this new era. A release recorded in single takes and eschewing overdubs and edits, it is what has been described as a “spectral song cycle set within the transition space between life and death.” Lead track ‘Baby in the Sails’ hints at the power of such a style, the song exploring the tension between silence and intensity as it progresses from spacious beginning towards a bold, dissonant conclusion. The video, made in collaboration Berlin-based photographer and videographer Juliane Schütz, offers a visual representation of this mood, presenting a series of images which play like memories as experienced in the liminal space between this life and whatever comes next.

Baby Ghost is set for release on the 2nd October via Hallow Ground and you can pre-order it now.

June McDoom – Without You

June McDoom first came to our attention with her self-titled EP in 2022. We were taken with how the New York-based artist took “relatively simple folk blueprints and weave[d] whole worlds of sound around them,” describing her style as “a constantly shifting collage of her influences, warm and rich and strangely dream-like.” Following another EP and a double EP compilation release, McDoom has now signed with Jagjaguwar and is preparing to release her debut full-length. Titled Follow the Light, and recorded with partner and long-time collaborator Evan Wright, the album promises to double down on the otherworldly atmosphere, which the press notes liken to that liminal space you slip into just before sleep. Lead single ‘Without You’ offers an initial peek at what to expect, a dreamily romantic track that pokes the tender spot that is the realisation of how important a loved one is. “The ending celebrates the awareness and commitment to never take that person for granted,” McDoom explains, “because it’s never too late to change how you’ve been.”

Thavoron – Blurry tattoos

The work of Seattle-based Cambodian-American artist Thavoron has always possessed a cinematic edge, painting vivid if at times challenging pictures of a person search for their true identity with a rich, R&B-inflected pop sound. But latest single ‘Blurry tattoos’ takes things a step further, drawing inspiration from acts like FKA twigs and Kelela to offers sound that’s unapologetic in its widescreen drama and longing. The accompanying video, directed by Thavoron and Maddie Ludgate, even begins with a TMZ-style celeb report before moving through dance numbers and surreal nocturnal landscape, furthering the themes through filmic shots and choreography.

‘Blurry tattoos’s is out now via Trailing Twelve and available from the usual places.

Tough Old Bird – I Was a Giant

“Continuing to display the newly electrified version of the project, the track sees the Corrigans and co. straddle the traditional and the contemporary, maintaining the narrative and emotional heft of classic folk while always striding forwards.” So we wrote of ‘Shape of Our Love’, the second single (after ‘Wednesday’s Child‘) from Tough Old Bird that saw the Buffalo outfit push its traditionally folk-centric sound towards more rock-adjacent territory. However, do not be fooled, Tough Old Bird is still a folk project at heart, something new single ‘I Was a Giant’ certainly attests. After realising the track was resisting attempts to arrange it as a full-band piece, they decided to strip the sound right back to their folk roots, leaving only Nathan Corrigan on vocals and acoustic guitar, with usual drummer Ricky Bechard (usually the band’s drummer) lending a second acoustic guitar. The result proves that sometimes less is more, the relatively sparse arrangement carrying an intimacy that might be overpowered in a busier style, and displays the confidence of the project as a whole. Tough Old Bird have not pivoted to a new sound so much as expanded their armoury, and are now equipped to tackle whatever emotional palette any given song demands.

V.V. Lightbody – Practice Smiling

V.V. Lightbody, the project of Chicago songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and collaborator per excellence Vivian McConnell, returns this October with Period Piece, her third full-length, via Egghunt Records. The record sees McConnell take full control of production, crafting inventive indie folk songs that morph and shift with a chameleonic playfulness. There are also contributions from an impressive list of friends, including Sam Cantor (aka Minor Moon), Emma Hospelhorn (Em Spel), Macie Stewart and Cassandra Jenkins. We got a first taste late last year with lead single ‘Best Problem’, and now V.V. Lightbody has officially announced the album with another track, ‘Practice Smiling’. Light and danceable but with an edge of anxiety, the song was written in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, when everyone (and especially professional musicians) stepped out excited but blinking and unsure of themselves after a period of forced isolation. “In that moment,” McConnell describes, “I so clearly felt the passage of time and a surprising nervousness that had built up in my mind and body, forcing me to reassess my social confidence which I feel like I am still gaining back.”

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With a new full-length in the works, V.V. Lightbody has returned with single ‘Best Problem’ to continue this process of evolution away from the project’s beginnings. With McConnell joined by Sam Cantor (bass), Emma Hospelhorn (harmonies, keys), Jack Henry Lickerman (drums) and Macie Stewart (strings, harmonies), the track is vivid, assured and sleek, its upbeat tones and forthright lyricism far too alert and attentive to fall into any definition of nap rock. Which isn’t to say there’s no seam of dreaminess, from the manner in which McConnell’s tender vocals skate over the sound in the opening half to the psych-tinged peak towards the close, rather there’s now far more going on. Likewise within the lyrics themselves, where the narrator describes a magnetic and ubiquitously popular counterpart who nevertheless seems determined to keep their own company. The subtle tone ranges from shrewd observation and unabashed honesty to something more like naked desperation, as though to encounter such a person is amusing, enlivening and maddening in equal measure.

Is it not the best problem to have?
everyone wants to be with you
360 around the room
everyone wants to be with you

Watch the video below, filmed by Tim Nagle and edited by V.V. Lightbody, with creative direction & wardrobe by Shannon Marks:

‘Best Problem’ is out now and available from the V.V. Lightbody Bandcamp page.

Photo by Tim Nagle

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With a new full-length on the horizon, Minor Moon has this month returned with a new single ‘Miriam Underwater’ on Ruination Records, and the song is a further development of this intention. A song fleet-footed and fluid, living up to its title in the manner in which its liquid rhythm ripples and flows. Jason Ashworth (bass, percussion), Max Subar (pedal steel), Chet Zenor (guitar), Sam Subar (drum kit, percussion),  V.V. Lightbody (vocals), Dustin Laurenzi (tenor saxophone) and Hunter Diamond (clarinet) help bring the sound to life, landing on an infectious psych-inflected style which seems informed by the halfway fantastical lyrics it holds. The tale of a narrator cut off from his shapeshifting lover by the alluring depths of the sea.

Miriam, Miriam
Miriam underwater
Rippling, shimmering
Miriam underwater
I know you love me and you know I cannot follow
There’s something nothing but the water can give
Missing you, Miriam
Miriam underwater

Miriam Underwater b​/​w Ice Fishing is out now and available from the Minor Moon Bandcamp page.

Original cover artwork by Jordan Martins

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Described as an “avant-folk story,” latest single ‘My Oldest Friend’ builds upon the foundations The Carillion Towers. Out via Carillonia Records, the song was recorded with Brian Deck and sees Jesse Langen (acoustic guitar), V.V. Lightbody (electric guitar), Mabel Kwan (synths) and Eric Ridder (drums) lend their talents to form a sound full of subtle richness. “Come to a tunnel / Hello, tunnel / Hello,” Hospelhorn sings in the opening lines, guiding the audience toward the mysterious heart of the track. “Walk off the road / And climb, and climb, and fall into a hole.” From there the sound simmers with patient rhythms, its cryptic tone vacillating between welcoming and strange, never quite settling into either.

The song took a while to reach this version, evolving slowly towards the vision Hospelhorn had in mind. “I recorded the song last winter, but something about the way I had orchestrated it didn’t sit right with me on repeated listens,” she explains. “There was a quality of strangeness that I feel when I perform that was somehow missing from the recording: I was imagining something green and living growing through the song the way moss grows in a tunnel.” Hospelhorn continued working at it, passing flutes through pedals to create novel drone textures and testing different layers of digital synths. It was only when Brian Deck remixed these results into their final form that the song matched the feel Hospelhorn had been searching for: “moody, expansive, ever shifting.”

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After something of a whirlwind 2022 which included touring with Cassandra Jenkins at Newport Folk Festival and joining Harry Styles’s band for BBC’s Big Weekend, V.V. Lightbody has returned with brand new single ‘Itinerary’ which pushes her sound further than ever. A style which leans further into the ethereal tones of previous releases yet grounds them with an almost sludgy dimension, a perfect counterbalance of shimmer and heft which speaks to the contradictions at the track’s heart. “I think it’s kinda scary baby / you always have a plan,” she sings, evoking an uneasy equilibrium between chaos and control. “Maybe a little early baby / for me to understand.”

The single word refrain echoes across the back half, stuttered as though for stress or in hesitation. But either way, there is the sense of giving in to the soaring instrumentation in its strangely physical fuzz. The V.V. Lightbody sound might not quite be nap rock any longer, but it’s up to interpretation whether it has woken from its slumber or pushed through into some dream-filled otherside.

Itinerary is out now and available from Bandcamp. V.V. Lightbody is currently on tour supporting Fruit Bats, and you can find the dates below:

4/12 – Indianapolis @ Hi-Fi
4/13 – Chicago @ Thalia Hall
4/14 – Minneapolis @ First Avenue
4/15- Maquoketa @ Codfish Hollow
4/16 – Madison @ Majestic Theater
4/17 – Windsor, ON @ Meteor
4/18 – Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Theatre
4/19 – Hamilton, ON @ Mill’s Hardware
4/20 – Ypsilanti, MI @ Ziggy’s
4/21 – Kalamazoo, MI @ Up & Under
4/22 – Goshen, IN @ Ignition Music Garage

Photo by Ash Dye

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As well as being a part of Friendship and 2nd Grade, JR Samuels has a made a name with his experimental, improvised releases, as captured by 2019’s In Brend on Dear Life Records. “An eight-song album of improvised guitar that exists for no purpose beyond enjoyment and intuition,” as we put it. “Ambitions are dropped, artistic ideals and intent left behind, the songs allowed to flow.” Out next month on Lily Tapes & Discs, Spasm sees Samuels push further into this intuitive space, delving deep within himself and presenting whatever he finds, unfiltered and in real-time. What emerges is an at times dense, undeniably strange record, though one somehow more human for its refusal to shape itself for mass consumption. Listen to the short single, ‘Wearing a Groove’, below.

KT Laine – Again

Drawing inspiration from contemporaries like Big Thief and classics such as Judee Sill, KT Laine is a songwriter from Victoria, BC who is soon to release her debut full-length Knock Knee on Victory Pool. New single ‘Again’ is the perfect introduction to the nuance of her work, its warm fondness complicated by uncertainty, lending the track an inscrutable air which never quite reveals its hand. ‘Again’ centres on a relationship in some kind of turmoil, its pieces pushing apart, though it is never quite clear if the longing at the track’s heart wants to reconnect these parts or sever the ties for good.

‘Again’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Langkamer – Total Motion

We last featured Bristol‘s Langkamer back in May, when we wrote about their single ‘Soul Bucket’, what we described as “a bit of folk, a bit of indie rock, a ton of playful personality.” Now Langkamer have announced a brand new EP on Breakfast Records. Titled Red Thread Route, the record promises to expand on the band’s signature combination of slacker era indie rock and easy country-influenced melodies, albeit with a few surprises up its sleeve. Lead single ‘Total Motion’ is a great introduction, its twisty, loud-quiet dynamic giving way to an anthemic singalong chorus. Willie J Healey provides guest vocals, one of several guests of the EP seemingly cherrypicked from Bristol’s music scene. Check out the video by JJ Jarman and Jimmy Taylor below:

Red Thread Route comes out on 30th November via Breakfast Records. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Leggy – Lipstick on the Mic

We first covered Cincinnati‘s Leggy back in 2019, describing how the innate tension of single ‘Taffy‘ offered “a tautness that always appears on the verge of snapping.” While the rambunctious punk rock style of that track has been swapped out in favour of something more languid on new single, ‘Lipstick on the Mic’, the sense of building pressure remains. This time a sensuous combination of desire and frustration, the song sitting on the knife edge of pleasure and pain yet wrapped within a hazy shawl. A sense of remove which allows a view into the paradox of the situation even as it plays out. “I love to be alone,” as the chorus puts it, “why do I live to be in love?” Check out the suitably sultry and surreal video by Twenty Twenty Productions below:

‘Lipstick on the Mic’ is out now and available from the Leggy Bandcamp page.

Levi Thomas – Shasta

The title track of the third album from Oakland‘s Levi Thomas, ‘Shasta’ is a song seized by the sublime scale of the American West. “The neons fade / To the pink cascade / And right now I can’t feel a thing,” Thomas sings. “The sun don’t rise / Under wild skies / All the shit just starts to shine.” The revelatory experience is captured with a decidedly seventies style, equal parts classic country and cosmic psych which invites the listener into the moment, never losing control of its relaxed rhythms despite everything.

My mind left my body north on the five
And I feel like the last man alive

Macie Stewart – Defeat

Released on Orindal back in 2021, Macie Stewart‘s Mouth Full of Glass was a journey in solo creation after a career of collaboration. The sound of “an artist surveying their own inner workings through considered and open-ended exploration,” as we put it. “Leaning into solitude as a medium of discovery and learning from all that has occurred before without ever becoming beholden to the past.” The album is getting a new release next month via Full Time Hobby, and has been expanded to include two new singles. One of the tracks, ‘Defeat’, is a direct confrontation of the stresses of working with others, warning of the dangers of overcommitting and how it can end up withering the very creativity is should foster. Stewart takes on all the instrumentation on the song, with the exception of flutes from V.V. Lightbody, and sings with the calm of a lesson learnt. “Composing a word to take back the meaning,” she sings, “I promised my best and that’s not what I’m giving.” Watch the video directed and edited by Sid Branca below:

‘Defeat’ is out now and available from Bandcamp., and the expanded edition of Mouth Full of Glass is available from Full Time Hobby.

Michael Cormier O’Leary – Heard From The Next Room

To describe the work of Michael Cormier O’Leary takes some time. From the playful warmth of last year’s solo album More Light!! to the almost fragile intricacy of Hour, not to mention his work in Friendship, Cormier O’Leary spans the full spectrum between free and controlled. Out next month of Lily Tapes & Discs, new solo release Heard From The Next Room moves completely toward the former, an exploratory, spontaneous collection of improvised piano compositions recorded on a single day earlier this year. The resulting two pieces live up to the release’s title in their unguarded charm, following the haphazard rhythms of the moment without any sense of outside audience, and thereby capturing an easy comfort only possible at home. Hear an excerpt from the first below:

Volunteer Department – Swell

Back in September we wrote about ‘Make It Easy‘ by Nashville‘s Volunteer Department, the first track from a forthcoming release on Like You Mean It Records. A scathing track with vocals “barely more than a whisper,” we wrote, “almost unpalatably bitter in [its] acerbic tone.” Latest single ‘Swell’ might possess a brighter rhythm, but thanks to the wry and fatalistic songwriting, the sour tone remains. “I’ll cut my fingers off and mail them to France,” sings Oliver Hopkins, “at least then some small part of me won’t be stuck here arguing the ins and outs of something which has no shape.”

Wayne Graham – How Was Your Night?

With new album ISH on the horizon via K&F Records, Wayne Graham have shared one last single as a final taster of what to expect before release. Primarily the project of brothers Kenny and Hayden Miles, the Whitesburg, Kentucky outfit wrote a new album in the years since previous record 1% Fruit, though decided to change course for what would eventually become ISH. What emerged was something more intimate and ambitious, drawing on science, fiction and scripture to search for meaning in this strange world. ‘How Was Your Night?’ not only opens the album but poses the question which hangs over everything which follows.

Don’t you know I’m not alright?
Can’t you taste my mind?
Just trying to make it through the night,
no reason and no rhyme

ISH is out on the 11th November via K&F Records.

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This playful and exploratory intention was clear on 2018’s Zion, a record they described as “the first chapter in a musical novel” that aimed to provide a multi-faceted portrait of life in Brooklyn. The band, namely Birnbaum, Nick Jost and Sean Mullins, plus long-time collaborator Katie Von Schleicher, captured a patchwork of emotions with stylistic diversity, throwing influences into a big bubbling pot and serving it steaming hot.

A lot has happened since then, including a further double single, a Birnbaum solo album, and something of a creative existential crisis (something Gabriel talks about at length in The Rumpus piece), not to mention the general global chaos of the last few years. But despite all that, Wilder Maker have returned with a brand new record, Male Models, on Western Vinyl. An album that can be viewed as the second chapter of that musical novel and a very clear sign that Birnbaum is still committed to reinventing indie rock through a plural, diverse sound.

If Zion achieved this via a diversity of styles, Male Models pushes further. Because although the ostensible lead, Birnbaum in fact provides lead vocals on barely half of the songs. The rest are lead by guest vocalists, with Katie von Schleicher returning on several tracks along with appearances from Felicia Douglass (of Dirty Projectors and Ava Luna), Alex Schaaf (aka Yellow Ostrich), V.V. Lightbody, Mutual Benefit and even Adam Duritz of Counting Crows fame. If the two main aims of Wilder Maker are to stretch music beyond the conventions of the traditional rock band and evoke the multiplicity of urban life, then this feels like the logical progression. Open up the band to outside influences. Conjure a chorus of voices by becoming the chorus itself.

This range of voices and genre-bending style means Male Models sometimes feels like the work of more than one band, a comment on the shuffled musical diet of the masses in the age of $potify and giant Youtube playlists. It’s something Birnbaum was conscious of, even encouraged, and which plays into the overarching atmosphere. That shifting, slightly wild vibe of a party where dancing and good times denature into drunken fights and vomit and the inevitable gnaw of dawn-time melancholy. “We all listen to playlists a lot, even us album diehards,” explains Birnbaum, “I’ve been keeping an ever-expanding playlist of songs that I never want to skip, with all of these different voices back to back. I wanted to make a record that sounded like a playlist in this way; it became a kind of songwriting challenge for me.”

Album opener ‘Letter of Apology’ (a song that has been part of the Wilder Maker live set for a while) conjures just such a party in four and a half minutes, written in the shame-soaked aftermath of a particularly bad night. “I’m sorry I was late to your party where everyone was so effortless,” it begins, “I was starting at a wall for no discernible reason counting all the thumbtack holes.” From there our narrator goes on to become the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons—bumming cigarettes, throwing up on the bathmat, making a scene in front of the other guests.

I’m sorry that I told your sister’s boyfriend he was history’s greatest monster
And got up on a chair and announced to the party that we were all living in a fiction

The song plays as the introduction to the album. A recognisable face in the crowd which signals what to expect from the evening, before melting back into the pack as the focus shifts and other protagonists emerge. But even as we move onto the following tracks, voiced by Felicia Douglass and Mutual Benefit in turn, there’s little doubt whose party we’re at. Because the real triumph is how Birnbaum incorporates the various personalities while preserving whatever it is which makes the Wilder Maker sound his own. The collaborators not just guesting on the record but buying into it completely, ensuring the soul of the project remains intact. The songs’ sardonic humour and existential angst, the population of broken characters and unreliable narrators who call them home.

Take ‘Oh Anna’, where Duritz’s familiar vocals simmer with barely concealed venom, taut and terse despite the warm simplicity of the chorus. “I had the immense and surreal privilege of going to record Adam Duritz on lead vocals at his apartment,” Birnbaum explains. “He understood the song completely and delivered it with the serrated edge the lyrics demand.” This commitment to the vision births a character complete with their own situation and history, introducing them so vividly you sense they’ve always lived in Birnbaum’s doom-laden world, regardless of whether we’ve happened upon them previously.

With this established, the question is then just one of where Birnbaum decides to take us, and the answer, it seems, is just wherever he fancies. Smooth pop jams (‘A Professional)’ and electrified indie rock (‘All Power Must Remain Hidden’, ‘5 Train’) sit alongside melancholy piano ballads (‘Jason’) and elegantly lyrical indie pop (‘New Anxiety’). A standout is the Katie von Schleicher-led ‘Silver Car’, a country-tinged swayer which plays wishful desires against lurking instability, a heady mix doomed to crash upon the rocks of physical reality. “Another year of economy cars / Corpse crumpled on the side of the iron divide,” she sings. “There’s not enough coffee in the county to keep me safe from my own mind.” The song captures the record’s mood as well as any other. Dreaming that motion might prove the key to escape, even if that motion is nothing but the ceaseless orbit of the same old world.

Male Models is out now via Western Vinyl. Get it from the Wilder Maker Bandcamp page.

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This month saw V.V. Lightbody return with brand new single, ‘Really Do Care’. A B-side from the Make a Shrine, the song continues the record’s personal tone, approaching anxieties around commitment with a distinctively idiosyncratic style. “This song acted as a self-soothing mantra for when I knew I couldn’t be with someone while also wanting to keep them in my back pocket,” McConnell explains. “I realize that ‘saving someone for later’ can be selfish and a little absurd, but this thought process was a sincere way to help make breaking things off less painful.”

Because for all of its worry and doubt, the song unfurls with warm patience, cyclic swirls of guitar and flute accompanied by the evocative slide guitar of Nashville’s Juan Solorzano. The result is a contemplative atmosphere in which concerns lose their sharp edges, can be held and studied in the palm of a hand. A way of bridging the gap between the past and the present in order to move forwards in the healthiest, kindest way possible. As McConnell concludes: “Sometimes you care too much, and sometimes you have to convince yourself to care.”

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Cold Beat – Mother

Out via DFA Records, the latest Cold Beat album, Mother, came into existence when front person Hannah Lew was expecting a child. “I found myself trying to describe our earth to a new human who had never been here,” they explain, submerged in what is undoubtedly a pessimistic age. “It was a bleak year to be pregnant, but I was simultaneously filled with so much love and hope at the same time.”

Mother is Lew’s attempt to communicate these conflicting sensations. Shot through with a binding sense of energy, the record channels the like of Au Revoir Simone in its otherworldly beauty, synths and guitars offering sparkling yet melancholic soundscapes that are constantly shifting. That said, the songs actively work against the sense of doom of our age, unearthing light amid the darkness, and finding a sense of hope and perseverance in the cycle of life.

MAITA – A Beast

Inspired by the songwriters of 2000s indie rock, from Conor Oberst to Lesley Feist, Maria Maita-Keppeler found her own artistic vision in the amalgamation of reality and poetry. The result is songs both honest and emotionally resonant, driven by the urge to communicate more deeply. “For me, songwriting comes from a place of wanting to find the truth in life,” Maita-Keppeler explains. “Sometimes that truth is so complex and nuanced that it requires a whole song to explain.”

Recording under the moniker MAITA, the Oregon-based musician works with such ideas in mind, crafting emotionally resonant tracks that look to convey what might otherwise be left unsaid. New single ‘A Beast’ is a superb example, drawing the listener in with the gentle lilt of the opening before plunging you headlong into the cold rush of the chorus. However, MAITA has a firm grip of your shoulders, and pulls you out for breath before immersing you once more.

Best Wishes will be released via Kill Rock Stars on the 3rd April and you can pre-order it now from the MAITA Bandcamp page.

Orpine – Sondern

Orpine is UK duo Eleanor Rudge and Oliver Catt, self-described migratory birds “singing in harmony 300 miles removed.” The pair had spent time together in the past, lending their talents to various bands and records, yet fell out of touch for several years before Rudge eventually reached out once more. A trip to Black Hill in the Scottish Borders entailed, and a four day writing period where the collaboration truly began.

The result was Grown Ungrown, a full-length album to be released this May on Heist or Hit. Forgoing the trappings of contemporary life, the album is a celebration of the natural and organic—tapping into the great rhythms of nature so as to create a space in which their own emotions can ebb and flow. Lead single ‘Sodern’ is a great example, a song ostensibly about loss and mourning that nevertheless finds the time to cycle through various moods and states. A seasonal song that finds not only comfort in the patterns of life, but something like awe.

Cold ice water covering my head
And a long, hard winter breaking whatever’s left
And black coal burning, warming my legs
And my old, lone island, sinking for itself

Grown Ungrown is out via Heist or Hit on the 15th May and you find Orpine on Bandcamp.

Alli Millstein – Smoke in Her Eyes

Combining folk and rock sensibilities and driven by an impressive vocal range, the music of Brooklyn songwriter Alli Millstein is an evocative trip through the emotions and vulnerabilities of modern life. New EP Psychic Distance represents an authentic and idiosyncratic experience, drawing as much on classic country rock as contemporaries such as Lucy Dacus, and capable of both urgency and dreamy patience.

Latest single ‘Smoke in Her Eyes’ is firmly in the latter camp. A slow ballad of lazy saxophone and unfurling lyrics, the song brings to mind the moving conversational power of Frederick Squire, Millstein possessing the confidence to lean into the expansive half-paced style.

There is a flame burning all day
too hot to touch it
There is a name on every page
too shy to say it

she’s on the tip of my tongue
and the skin of my hands
I sleep in her waves
and live on her land

Chase Weinacht – Leap Day

Best known as the singer of Austin band Marmalakes, Chase Weinacht records solo under his own name, and has teamed up with the ever-reliable Keeled Scales to release a brand new single, ‘Leap Day’. In contrast with the slick polish of the Marmalakes sound, Weinacht’s solo work is far more individual and textured, refusing the urge to iron out every kink or answer every question.

Such a sense of uncertainty marks ‘Leap Day’. The song is “about how big and small New York feels when you’re there with the people you’ve known for years,” Weinacht explains, “but how you can feel like an imposter in that very familiar person’s very unfamiliar-to-you world, like you can’t understand how they are so in their element in a place that feels so different from the space where you made the initial connection.” Chase Weinacht is not writing perfect answers to every ambiguity but mapping their shapes, making them known so that the common humanity there might be teased to the surface.

On a rooftop in Bushwick at 5am
I couldn’t look at you
Without almost leaning in
And if we’d been alone
I’d have had no control
but if we’d never met up
How would I have ever known

V.V. Lightbody – If It’s Not Me

Back in May last year, we wrote about ‘Babe, Honestly‘, a single by Chicago’s V.V. Lightbody on Acrophase Records. The song has a “surreal, constantly-shifting atmosphere that subverts and surpasses the genre conventions,” we wrote, noting the duality between the “delicate and hospitable sound masking a colder, more vicious tone.” Again working with Acrophase, Vivian McConnell and co. are back with a brand new full-length album, Make a Shrine or Burn It, to be released this May.

Lead single ‘If It’s Not Me’ serves as our introduction to the record. Although there might be an ambiguous space between the soft, warm sound and the lyrical themes, the bite of the previous single is replaced by something altogether more conciliatory. For rather than anger or jealousy, the song attempts to make peace with an ex and their new flame, viewing the ‘other woman’ not as some poisonous figure but a fellow human being. Treating this person “with respect and dignity,” McConnell explains, is “an important step for healing and one’s sanity.”

Make A Shrine Or Burn It will be released on the 1st May via Acrophase Records.

Grizzly Coast – Forever

Writing last year about the single ‘Half-Light Boy‘, we described the music of Alannah Kavanagh’s Grizzly Coast as “vivid […] heartbroken rock,” the song “operating within the liminal space between clinging to and moving on from someone who was once important […] a cathartic detailing of the profoundly wounding experience of another’s selfishness.”

A brand new Grizzly Coast single has just been released, and the song builds upon this style. Finding harmony between thoughtful lyricism and instrumental immediacy, ‘Forever’ is dream pop in its most potent form. The haziness of the genre is present but not overpowering, Kavanagh’s vocals cutting through the velvet tones in a forthright, confrontational manner. The result is something of a subversion of the usual conventions, a fight against the false romanticism of longing and loneliness.

Grizzly Coast is releasing her debut EP this spring, so be sure to follow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more news.

Foreign Fields – Rose Colored

Hailing from Wisconsin, Foreign Fields have been crafting some of the most evocative folk music of recent years, starting with their debut record in 2012. Indebted to both the natural world and the human experience, the songs of Eric Hillman and Brian Holl have always carried a quiet grandness, melancholy and wonder wound tight into soundscapes both lonely and affirming.

Brand new album The Beauty of Survival looks set to continue this style, holding up small pockets of human warmth against the cold. Latest single ‘Rose Colored’ displays this with its fittingly moving sound. A song “about contentment and the paths we take to reach it,” the song looks into the past for answers about the present. “It is probably the most autobiographical song on the record that closely follows our path and journey in making this record.”

Merpire – Heavy Feeling

Recording as Merpire, Melbourne’s Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt released her debut EP Endless Chatter back in 2018, a record that introduced her distinctive brand of urgent pop emotion. Leading up to an as of yet unannounced debut album, a series of singles followed that saw the sound evolve and grow. As our friends over at Swell Tone put it: “Building from acoustic beginnings, [Merpire] has developed a sound that maintains her songwriting’s signature punch of familiarity but ignites it with unexpected textures and tones to create her own mystical sonic world.”

Based around experiences of anxiety and discomfort, latest single ‘Heavy Feeling’ is a good view into the world Merpire is creating. Rich, affirming and confident, a steely-eyed glare into the face of one’s demons in the hope that they might just blink. “I write music to get those thoughts out of my head so that they seem like less of a reality I’ve created and more just thoughts that will pass,” Atkinson-Howatt explains. “This song is more straight-up lyrically, melodically, production-wise than previous releases. Straight to the point of ‘anxiety is shit so I’m going to write a loud, strummy song to get it out’.”

The debut Merpire album is on the horizon, so be sure to follow on Facebook and Instagram for further updates.

Minor Powers – Wound Like Me

Minor Powers is duo Megan Lightell and Derek Greene, partners from the Appalachian foothills who combine mountain music with indie rock to produce a bittersweet sound perfectly positioned to explore the age old themes of love and loss. Album Stones We Keep is a collection of such tracks, staying true to folk influences while adding newly emotive edges. As the Minor Powers website explains, the songs are “haunted by the past while grasping at the ephemeral nature of the present […] search[ing] for the meaning of memories and second chances.”

Single ‘Wound Like Me’ is the perfect example. The song “explores what life is without the one that chose another,” the band explain, as well as “the regret that follows.” But rather than the self-pity and melodrama of many a break-up record, Minor Powers offer something far more poignant. Embedded in the organic world, loss and longing are presented as another of nature’s cycles, persistent features of being alive.

Jordana – Crunch

The recording moniker of Wichita’s Jordana Nye, Jordana put out the record Classical Notions Of Happiness last year to some pretty impressive acclaim. Teaming up with Grand Jury Music, this March sees the re-release of that record, giving those who missed it the first time around the perfect opportunity to right the mistake and fall for Jordana’s distinctive brand of indie pop.

Despite being the closing track, latest single ‘Crunch’ is as good a place to start as any. Introducing Jordana’s knack for taking relatable vignettes and twisting them into evocative, layered weirdness, the track highlights how Nye masks her clever and often cutting writing within deceptively simple scenarios. “Crunch is a feeling of an overbearing want for validation from someone and getting the cold shoulder from them,” Nye explains. “The song starts out with the confidence in knowing this person could possibly notice you, and ends in anger and frustration seeing that they ignored you, established by a distorted guitar solo.“

Laveda – Ghost

Regular readers of VSF will recognise Laveda, the Albany duo of Jake Brooks and Ali Genevich, after we covered several releases in the past, including single ‘If Only (You Said No)’ back in November. Unbeknown to us, the song was actually part of the band’s forthcoming debut record, What Happens After, set for release this spring on Color Station.

Laveda used new single ‘Ghost’ to make the announcement. “It was the song that invented our sound,” Genevich explains. “If we had never written it I don’t think the rest of the record would sound the way that it does. It felt obvious and just right to make it the first track on the LP because it laid the foundation for all our other songs.” As we’ve come to expect, the song packs a real punch, setting up What Happens After to be one of the most anticipated dream rock albums of 2020.

Thanks for stopping on by for Vol. 33! Be sure to check out the Reviews and Previews sections for more in-depth writing, and do let us know what you’ve been listening to on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

The post Bright Sparks: Vol. 33 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Real Life Buildings – Racing the Sun
Nice Apple – Are You Still There?
V.V. Lightbody – Babe, Honestly
Nico Hedley – Late Bloomer
Gracie Gray – Morphine
Spencer Radcliffe & Everyone Else – Bloodletting
Pleasure Systems – Heirloom
Ana Roxanne – Slowness
Kin Hana – Fog
Rainwater – Pink Flowers
Christelle Bofale – U Ouchea
Prudence – Smile & Nod
Operators – Faithless
Belaver – Driver
Mr Husband – Friends
Rose Hotel – Running Behind
Jeremy Squires – Somersault
Bad Books – Lake House
Yammerer – Poisonous Reptilian Colleague’s & Co
Britt – Trial Period
Wild Yawp – Femme Girl
Forest Management – Blue Leaves
Robert Stillman – Ritual
Everyone is Dirty – Hit-Girl
Merin – Coral Island
Lavender Bones – Over Again
Luke De-Sciscio – R.O.B.Y.N.
Anna Wiebe – Fortune
Young Elk – Gossip Magazines
Emma Frank – I Thought
Eamon McGrath – GUTS
Jacob Faurholt – The Dark Isn’t Right

Like what you hear? Catch up with the rest of our Monthly Mixes.

The post May 2019 Roundup Mix appeared first on Various Small Flames.