Retracing the footsteps of beloved Scottish nature writer Nan Shepherd, Alice Boyd and eight other women set out into the Cairngorm mountains in 2023, spending four days immersed in nature with Shepherd’s writing and spirit as a guide. Boyd’s new EP Cloud Walking is a journal of this experience, combing folk harmonies and chamber pop instrumentation with field recordings gathered in situ to reflect upon the challenges and joys of facing the elements. A response to the song ‘Heart’ by Jacob Norris’, who Boyd collaborated with for previous release The Favourite, single ‘Heart ii’ embodies the the EP’s philosophy—championing the benefits of slowing down and connecting to your surroundings amid a busy, panicked world.

Stay calm in the torrent
Stay slow in the chase
And hasten to help out
And hurry to make

Brent Amaker and the Rodeo – You’re No Good

“A Southerner in Seattle who channels the classic country spirit while at the same time subverting its tropes, owing as much to the persona-led art rock of Bowie and co. as the macho (so-called) authenticity of the genre’s heavy hitters.” That’s how we described Brent Amaker and the Rodeo earlier this year, won over both by their single ‘Take Me By The Horns‘ and cover of Devo’s ‘Gut Punch‘. Having travelled to Mexico City with Mariachis, Amaker is now teasing new album Vaquero, pencilled for release sometime in 2025, and single ‘You’re No Good’ introduces what to expect from the record. The buoyant spirit of the Salón Tenampa at Plaza Garibaldi committed to song, with Amaker’s distinctive, almost Cash-esque cowboy vocals hinting at the dark underside of such a good time. Watch the video directed and edited by Jasmina Hirschl below:

‘You’re No Good’ is out now. Vaquero will be released some time in 2025.

Celeste Madden – Fever Dream

“A lesson in unguarded feelings which isn’t afraid to risk overstatement in trying to explain the sensation of the moment.” So we wrote back in the summer of Celeste Madden‘s ‘Joan of Arc’, a single released via Sad Club Records which represented the first release from the UK songwriter in two years. This sincere style continues through into latest track ‘Fever Dream’ too. Pairing acute longing with an ethereal air, the song charts those heady days of romance where pleasure and frustration accentuate one another and everything feels so close yet so far away. A state almost unreal in its experience. “Life with someone becomes a distorted daydream,” as Madden explains. “Thrilling but unnatural.”

‘Fever Dream’ is out now on streaming services.

Denison Witmer – Focus Ring (feat. Sufjan Stevens)

Next February, Philadelphia singer-songwriter Denison Witmer will release new full-length, Anything At All, an album made in collaboration with Sufjan Stevens, who produced, recorded and performed on the songs. With a balance found between Witmer’s characteristically straightforward, earnest folk and Stevens’s ornate arrangements, the album probes into great existential themes with a careful hand, delving into ordinary domestic scenes to locate the joy to be found there. “Anything At All is about doubling down on family life and doing everything I can to slow the pace of my life as things around me feel busier than ever before,” Witmer explains. “It’s about putting systems in place and committing to the changes needed to make it work.” New single and opener ‘Focus Ring’ introduces the style perfectly, its warm sound full of heart and fondness. Watch the video directed and animated by Stephen Halker below:

Anything At All is out on the 14th February via Asthmatic Kitty Records.

Frog – Did Santa Come

Having returned from hiatus in 2023 with the excellent full-length Grog, New York cult heroes Frog are already preparing to drop another album on us. And though we have to wait until March for the intriguingly titled 1000 Variations on the Same Song, the duo have been kind enough to share an appropriately seasonal taster to tide us over into the new year. ‘Did Santa Come’ “is about my son when he was two years old at Christmas time,” Daniel Bateman explains. “Every morning for 2-3 weeks after, he would wake up and ask, “Did Santa Come?” Seeing the world through the eyes of your children makes it all very beautiful.” In true Frog style, this is delivered with full sincerity yet with no trace of the Hallmark sweetness the description might suggest, committing instead to the idiosyncratic energy which has won the project so many fans.

‘Did Santa Come’ is available now from the Frog Bandcamp page. 1000 Variations on the Same Song will be released in March.

Golden Tiles – Doesn’t Take Long to Find

Last month Portland, Oregon outfit Golden Tiles released The First EP, their appropriately titled debut via Antiquated Future Records. Consisting of Oliver Stafford (vocals, guitar), Justin Hocking (drums) and Joshua James Amberson (bass), the band create a bright, laidback brand of basement rock which combines playful melodies, fuzzy textures and reflective vocals. Fans of Guided By Voices will find much to admire in tracks like ‘Tale We Told’ and ‘100%’ , while latest single ‘Doesn’t Take Long to Find’ edges towards Yo La Tengo territory with its assured, nostalgic tones. A trio to watch for sure.

Kramies – That’s A Midwest Christmas

Following on from single ‘Social Light‘, which enlisted the help of Allison Lorenzen to bring to life “another dreamy, melancholic fairy tale which blurs the line between eeriness and empathy to form something ultimately affirming,” songwriter Kramies is capping off 2024 with a Christmas song of his own. ‘That’s A Midwest Christmas’ is everything you’d expect from a festive tune. Warm fondness and nostalgic reflection edged with something more melancholic, the acoustic arrangement creating an intimate, authentic sound able to chart the bittersweet quality of the season. Another year has past, the weight of days gone grows heavier, but everyone is home once again.

‘That’s A Midwest Christmas’ is out now.

The Men – Pony

With their fifteenth album Buyer Beware coming next February via Fuzz Club, prolific New York punks The Men have unveiled new single ‘Pony’ to defiantly evidence their refusal to slow down. In someone else’s hands, a song which asks “when you gonna stop running?” in the opening line might opt for a slower, more reflective sound, but The Men answer the questioning with a blistering momentum, teeing up another record which examines the turbulent present with all the snarl and bite it deserves. Recording engineer Travis Harrison (Guided by Voices, Built to Spill) helps the band achieve their live performance on tape, and the raw immediacy is apparent from the first second to the last.

The world is ending
grab a seat
enjoy the ride

Watch the video by Preston Spurlock below:

Buyer Beware will be released on the 28th February 28th via Fuzz Club.

Will Stratton – I Found You

“When the forest burns, what ghosts rise as steam from the boiling soil?” So asks Points of Origin, the new full-length from Will Stratton, forthcoming via Bella Union and Ruination Record Co. next March. Described as a novelistic album “as dense as a Pynchon picaresque,” by Ben Seretan in the album notes, the collection sees Stratton grapple with the grim realities of the Anthropocene across an almost geologic span of time, centring on California as a kind of a ground zero for both the causes and effects of humanity’s connection to nature. Lead single and opener ‘I Found You’ pitches the listener straight in with a rich, character-led narrative, Stratton’s vocals prominent within the careful, tender arrangement. “I met a mechanic up near the state line / he knew I knew motors and paid me just fine,” as one verse sets out. “I couriered engines all over the state / and settles by Shasta surrounded by lakes / the beds have gone dry but I do what I can / to keep away fire from my plot of land.”

it rips through the Coulter and Tamarack pines
and it thickens the air ’til you’d think you’d gone blind
saying, oh where are you, oh where are you, when it has reddened the sky
oh where are you, oh where are you, when heaven abandoned the sky

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

When we spoke with Ben Seretan about his album Youth Pastoral back in 2020, he brought up the impact friend and collaborator Devra Freelander had on the record. “Dev understood how special it was to get together,” Seretan explained. “She was always, always happy to see other people, and really went out of her way to make you feel like you were having the best day of your life.” Made in Italy with Nico Hedley (bass) and Dan Knishkowy (drums) mere weeks after Freelander untimely death in 2019, Seretan’s latest album Allora in many ways represents an attempt to harness such sentiments, however conscious this might have been. There’s so much more to say about the record, which will be released via Tiny Engines later this summer, but for now we’ll leave you with opener and lead single ‘New Air’—a song as thunderous, chaotic and big-hearted as anything Seretan has released to date.

Islands – Drown A Fish

Eighteen years since debut Return to the Sea, Islands return early this summer with What Occurs, the tenth album in their storied and always idiosyncratic history. Replacing the band’s signature style of meticulously layered indie pop with something more raw and natural, the record promises to emphasise the spontaneous energy of a band still finding fresh and quirky angles from which to explore pop music. This new approach is apparent on lead single ‘Drown A Fish’. Recorded live in a single take in a studio on Vancouver Island, it’s a power pop jam with an unconventional narrator. “I was looking to throw my hat in the ring of Pop Songs About Lovelorn Losers Who Couldn’t Buy a Clue to Save Their Life,” lead Nick Thorburn says of the track. “I set out to write a song that laid bare a series of ‘ironic situations narrated by a delusional idiot’, because I think that’s more interesting than listening to an uplifting anthem about a flawless, self-empowered smartypants.”

What Occurs comes out on 21st June and is available to pre-order from the Islands Bandcamp page.

Jahnah Camille – flesh

Based in Birmingham, Alabama, songwriter and musician Jahnah Camille is set to release her debut EP i tried to freeze light, but only remember a girl next month via Winspear. The songs offer a picture of late adolescence in all of its bittersweet nuance, its introspective contemplation matched only by its bold confessional attitude. Single ‘flesh’ offers a glimpse of the style, channelling a 90s alt rock aesthetic to evoke a mood at once tender and simmering with bite. “Limit my flesh / And tell me my place,” Camille sings, tone set somewhere between desire and wistful regret. “We shared so many kisses / But we weren’t awake.”

Check out the video directed by Sapir Blain with text by Disney Bagwell below:

i tried to freeze light, but only remember a girl is out in the 21st June via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

Kramies – Social Light

“A combination of folk, rock and dream pop which conjures its own fantastical worlds. Places both haunting and romantic, separate from reality but on some level echoing its deeper truths.” That’s how we described the self-titled album by Kramies back in 2022. With a new EP coming this autumn on VanGerrett Records, the Dutch-American songwriter has returned with new single ‘Social Light’. With contributions from members of Band of Horses, The Black Keys and Grandaddy, not to mention backing vocals from Allison Lorenzen, the song represents another dreamy, melancholic fairy tale which blurs the line between eeriness and empathy to form something ultimately affirming.

Las Nubes – Would Be

Las Nubes, that’s Miami duo Ale Campos and Emile Milgrim, have made their name with a raucous blend of punk rock and dream pop, earning them shows with the likes of  Shannon and the Clams and The Coathangers, not to mention backing Iggy Pop as the first all-female version of The Stooges in 2020. Following on from 2019 debut SMVT, Las Nubes return this summer with a brand new album to build upon these successes. Titled Tormentas Malsanas (which translates to ‘unhealthy storms’), the album channels the unpredictability and fury of its meteorological title to produce an electrically charged sound, as introduced by single ‘Would Be’. Because while the track opens with a reflective haze as Campos and Milgrim consider life’s inhospitable nature and the too quick passing of time, they soon burn away any negativity with sheer force.

M. Vaughan – Tire Swing

New York-born, Lisbon-based artist M. Vaughan cut his teeth in the indie rock scene before devoting his creative energies to electronic music, putting out releases on labels like Freerange and Monologues as well as his own Super Tuff imprint. New EP Keep In Touch feels like that of musician looking to embrace all the disparate influences which came to shape his sound, be it the genres he has moved between or the places in which he has worked on them. “This record is about these past few years of transition,” Vaughan explains, “trying to reckon with my own musical roots while making sense of life abroad, and eventually landing in a new place and making it home.” Single ‘Tire Swing’ presents the result of such a motivation, breaking the mould to offer something looking towards rock while keeping one foot firmly inside the club.

Russian Baths – Bind

In June, New York indie rock band Russian Baths will release their sophomore album Mirror, via Good Eye Records. The album’s second single, ‘Bind’ is a dark and ominous track that fuses goth rock, post-punk and a shimmer of shoegaze into something at once propulsive and eerie. Lyrically stark with a sense of gloomy poetry, it’s a song the band say explores past injustices “all connected by misguided vengeance desperate to escape the past but doomed to repeat it.” The result lands somewhere between a sweaty basement club and the desolate landscape from a folk horror tale. Nervous clockwork percussion chugs beneath stabs of sharp and surreal guitar that gives the whole thing a sense of sickly madness and doom. As the press release puts it, “it’s all a sinking ship that keeps pressing onward.”

 Sleeepy Anderson – Gamblin’ Shoes

Louisville-based musician, songwriter and visual artist Scott T. “Sleeepy” Anderson, AKA Sleeepy Anderson, is releasing his debut album Truck Songs later this year. New single ‘Gamblin’ Shoes’ offers a view into a record which promises to hark back to the heavyweights of classic country. It was formed while Andersen was travelling the breadth of the US in an old red pick-up truck, tapping into the freedom and lonesome heartache of the transient life to offer a contemporary vision of which Hank Williams and Townes van Zandt would be proud. Anderson’s vocals sit above plucked guitar, unadorned and raw, at the crossroads between forlorn and easygoing. Watch the video shot by Cullen Monasterio and Nick Netherton below:

Truck Songs will be released later this year. You can download ‘Gamblin’ Shoes’ from the Sleeepy Anderson Bandcamp page.

Yoshika Colwell – Adelaide

Following the release of her debut single ‘It’s Getting Late’ last month, Kent-based singer-songwriter Yoshika Colwell has announced her debut EP, There’s a Time. It comprises of five tracks of timeless and emotionally wrought folk music, recorded live with a band that bring a rich and easy grace to Colwell’s explorations of time, relationships and the notion of selfhood. To further whet appetites for the EP, Yoshika Colwell has unveiled a second single, ‘Adelaide’, an intense song which reaches for all of these themes in its three and a half minute runtime. “Adelaide is a song about tension and release,” Colwell describes. “About repetition of unhealthy patterns, hurting yourself and others because of a fear of being radically honest.” But it’s not all turbulence and gloom, there’s a freedom too, that sense of relief experienced when letting go to those unhealthy patterns. As Colwell puts it: “It also is a song about catharsis and the phenomenal lightness that comes when you listen to your intuition.”

There’s a Time is out on the 26th May and you can pre-order it now.

The post Weekly Listening: April 2024 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.