‘May To One’, the charged, simmering new single from Nashville based songwriter and musician Anna Grace Odom, might be an inherently personal track, but that doesn’t mean it’s themes are not more widely applicable. “This song is a confession and an offering,” Odom explains. “I wrote it on my little brother’s birthday, in the spot in my childhood bedroom where I wrote every song as a teenager. I’d just finished my first year of college and was feeling like I was letting everyone down at once (family, friends, God, myself).” As she started playing the track live, a curious thing happened. Members of the audience starting approaching with their own reads of the lyrics, and how it evoked their own personal guilt and shame. It’s a reminder of the universality of such concerns, as well as the power of music to transform confessions into acts of communal release.

‘May To One’ is out now and available from the usual places.

David James Allen – The Moonlight Waltz

Back in February we wrote about ‘By Your Side’, a single by David James Allen from forthcoming album Jubilation Potpurri. “An ode to the safe harbour of a significant other,” as we described the track, “where calm might be found no matter how stormy the outside world might prove.” Now the Prince Edward County, Ontario-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has returned with brand new single ‘The Moonlight Waltz’ to further whet appetites, and this time the focus is on an attempted escape of an altogether different kind. Full of equal parts heartbreak and romance, the track is a country song in the classic sense, celebrating the potential within a good old fashioned barroom while nodding to the all too familiar loneliness which haunts the edges of such a place.

‘The Moonlight Waltz’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Fishwife – All Good Wives

The fact that Fishwife’s Lenny Moynihan and Jos Cubie first met in an oyster shack during a storm might seem like the sort of throwaway factoid that often populates a band’s bio, but in this case the origin story seems to be central to the project’s DNA. Because this is a duo that makes music bathed in shadow and charged with energy, full of an almost Gothic atmosphere that’s at once enigmatic and enveloping. Take debut single ‘All Good Wives’, which transposes Ellen Hutter’s relationship with Nosferatu onto Moynihan’s own experiences living in Los Angeles, merging the corporeal and ghostly into something as alluring as it is ambiguous. With vocals recorded in an abandoned ghost train ride and organ in a Grade II listed church, you’ll do well to find a more evocative track. Watch the video directed by Ellen Moynihan below:

‘All Good Wives’ is out now and available from the usual places.

The Huntress and Holder of Hands – Beasts We Are

“A sound that holds space for anger, confusion, sadness and compassion, as well as an inherent sense of hope that’s built into the very fact of its existence.” So we wrote of MorganEve Swain’s  The Huntress and Holder of Hands project earlier in the month, with new album Babylon representing “the perfect example of this nuanced style, confronting the corrupt and violent present without forgetting ideas of redemption and sanctuary too.” Latest single ‘Beasts We Are’ displays Swain’s uncanny ability to convey such conflicting emotions within the same sound, the tender tones carrying both fondness and fury simultaneously. “‘Beasts We Are’ is about ghosts and the stories we tell ourselves,” she explains. “It’s about the planet, and the world, and our responsibility to the place we call home. It’s about ugly pasts and shared histories, and shared grief. It’s about where we find ourselves now as a species and an appeal to each other to care enough to do something about it.”

Babylon will be released on the 5th June and you can pre-order it now.

Lydia Luce – Baby Blues

“A track which originated in the depths of a period of suffering yet nevertheless asserted the potential of recovery, as though in some way instigating not only the rest of the record but also the path back to health Luce’s life would take.” So we wrote of ‘Belly’ from Lydia Luce‘s most recent full-length Mammoth back in 2025, summing up a record which charted a course through pain towards healing. Fast-forward a year and Luce is back with ‘Baby Blues’, a very different song, yet one still chronicling a difficult path through a life-changing period. “It’s about my experience postpartum,” Luce explains. “I also fully produced and recorded this at home which is something I’ve been wanting to do for so long. I wrote this during his naps and I posted a clip on Instagram and so many moms and parents found it and encouraged me to release it. I am so proud to share this one as it feels so raw to me in this stage of my life.”

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

Swapmeet – 2 C U

We’ve covered a couple of singles from Swapmeet‘s debut album Mount Zero in recent months, with ‘I Know‘ (“A sound able to encompass both sardonic slacker bite and cathartic alt rock release, rising from sly, taut beginnings into something with serious size and heft”) and ‘Sand‘ (“A more reflective and earnest track which mourns that which is lost within contemporary youth, where a thousand distractions rob some of the magic away from the experience”) highlighting different dimension of the Aussie band’s sound. With the record coming later this summer via Winspear, Swapmeet are now back with latest single ‘2 C U’, and this time they are at their most jubilant. The track opens almost hesitantly yet soon explodes into a bright and hazy rhythm in no time at all, playing like excitement bottled up and committed to sound.

Watch the video by Rhys Scarabosio below:

Mount Zero will be released via Winspear on the 17th July. Preorder it now from the Swapmeet Bandcamp.

Shaina Hayes – Timid

“Québec-based artist Shaina Hayes runs a vegetable farm in her hometown, a fact which is more than an interesting tidbit to add to a bio,” we wrote back in March when covering single ‘Flourish‘. “Because spend any time with Hayes’s music and you’ll come to appreciate a kinship between both of these pursuits: an attention to detail, a deep-rooted connection to the land and its life, not to mention an overarching patience that allows her to reflect upon the present with admirable clarity.” Hayes’s latest single ‘Timid’, out now via Bonsound, follows in this style, leaning into introversion and the ways in which we might nurture our own interior worlds. “I wanted to explore the idea that even at our most articulate, the way we express ourselves is just a tiny glimpse into what’s actually going on inside us,” she explains. “That we contain whole, unseen universes. Ultimately, Timid is a song about everything we feel but rarely manage to express.”

Trails and Ways – Next of Kin

“A reminder that life is richer in company, and that social isolation can be overcome, written and performed by a trio who worked through that very process themselves to bring the track to life.” So we wrote of ‘Patiently’, the triumphant return of Trails and Ways after going on a decade away. Eager to capitalise on the fresh momentum, the Oakland group have returned with brand new single ‘Next of Kin’. Somehow simultaneously expansive and intimate, the track is Trails and Ways doing what they are best at, evoking a tangible sense of emotion without losing any of the brightness and movement. Lyrically, it meditates on the strange moment of the present, where small personal hopes are impinged upon by an increasingly precarious global situation wracked by war, climate breakdown and extractive industry.

Vesuvian – Hecate in the Highlands

Back in February we introduced Vesuvian, the Philadelphia-based band consisting of Garret Bollin (guitar, vocals), Joey DeGrado (vocals, guitar), Bill Magerr (bass) and Gavin Caffrey Perez-Canto (drums and percussion), with single ‘Fortunate Death’. The first taste of their new self-titled album, the track was “certainly not your usual scrappy punk number,” we described, “drawing upon the work of Julio Cortázar and accounts of Mesoamerican history to create something cathartic and boisterous.” With the full-length coming soon via Worry Bead Records, Vesuvian have returned with new track ‘Hecate in the Highlands’. Opening with an impromptu choral opening that was initially meant as a joke, there’s a distinctively playful vibe to the song, embracing retro rock sensibilities alongside droll near-spoken vocals in a way which might at first seem almost ironic. But it soon becomes clear Vesuvian are committed to the sound with full sincerity, and as such the track becomes the perfect calling card for the entire release. “At times we thought we’d have to shelve the whole thing,” DeGrado says, “but it turned out as the song I’m most proud of.”

I hadn’t seen a soul in a hundred years
So I let him sit beside me and I let him bend my ear
But when his night came mine stayed bright
The way it always does every single lonely night

The post Weekly Listening: May 2026 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Michael Fox has been working in music in various guises over the past decade, and though Take Care, Stay Warm might be the first release under the Big Bluestem moniker, its assured quality carries all of this experience with it. Take the title track, a stripped-back folk song built around nothing but Fox’s vocals and careful acoustic guitar. Something which feels like the product of a byegone age, folk in its traditional sense, where a person sits down and records the feelings and stories of a life without ostentation. The result is earnest, tender, hushed though not without a certain intensity of feeling. A mood which seems to gather energy from the arrangement’s negative space. As though emotions voiced to the stillness of an empty room carry their own peculiar weight.

So I won’t pull you off the floor, brush the dust off of your coat
get back what’s been missing, or find the perfect quote
that could sum up all the feelings that are lodged inside our throats
but hey: Take Care, Stay Warm

Blue Bayou – New Wind, New Rain

Blue Bayou, who describe themselves as “a new wave, chamber pop band with horns and strings,” have just released their new EP, The Carousel, a five-song release which sees the Oxford-born, London-based project bring the energy of their live sound to tape. Think of a centre of a Venn diagram between the avant-folk of Black Country, New Road, the country rock twang of Brown Horse and the emotional clarity of Big Thief. Single ‘New Wind, New Rain’ is the perfect place to start. A song which feels far larger than its relatively convention three-and-a-half-minute runtime, heralded by mournful horns and driven forward by a bright and peppy percussion, all while the vocals swell together in heart and curiosity.

Charlie Vaughan – Don’t Wanna Drive

Fresh off touring with the likes of The Backseat Lovers and Hamilton Leithauser in 2025, London’s Charlie Vaughan is back with brand new single ‘Don’t Wanna Drive’ to further cement his place among the city’s most eclectic songwriters. The embodiment of his style, the track melds undeniable richness with the magic of happenstance, showing that careful craft and happy accident can exist side by side. “I wanted to write something dreamy and simple—no crazy structures” Vaughan explains of the track. “When we started to play the song on the road it changed a lot, we started playing it fast and with really driving drums. The bit at the end came from a beautiful fluke at a rehearsal and me and the band knew this was the perfect end.” Watch the video directed by La De La Studios below:

‘Don’t Wanna Drive is out now and available from the usual places.

The Dead Century – Hey Chicago

“Minneapolis has a rich heritage in energetic indie rock, so its great to see bands like The Dead Century carrying the flame onwards,” we wrote back in March, the band’s single ‘Been Better wearing its influences proudly, “taking the raucousness of The Replacements and some of The Hold Steady‘s buoyant positivity and applying them to the less than positive present.” Now the band have shared next single ‘Hey Chicago’ and the result is no less momentous or affirming. The track picks its way through the difficult terrain between staying put and moving on, but allows a sheer sense of energy to burn away any hesitation. The song “explores the hope and uncertainty that come from the end of a relationship,” say the band, “the delicate work of discerning what to carry with you and what to leave behind.”

Deer Tick – Everything Born

Folk rock stalwarts Deer Tick are returning with brand new full-length Coin-O-Matic this summer, an album which promises to delve into their homestate of Rhode Island and all of its peculiar histories (not least the collison betweenthe  ordinary working class American Dream and its shadow twin within the world of the mafia and organised crime). With the album set for release in June via ATO Records, the band have shared new single ‘Everything Born’ to give a flavour of this style, pitching the audience straight into the milieu of Providence and the personal dramas therein. “‘Everything Born’ was written quickly about the tenuousness of life and the precious time we have to spend with the people that come into our lives,” explains vocalist and guitarist Ian O’Neil “It’s about family, friends, neighbors, strangers and how these thoughts burrow a little deeper the older we get. I was thinking about my son and the people of Providence, RI while writing it.” Watch the video below, recorded at the Big Nice Studio and directed by Bradford Krieger and Rich Ferri:

Coin-O-Matic will be released on the 5th June via ATO and you can pre-order it now.

Hockitay – buttons

Guatemalan-born, Montreal-based artist Hockitay made a splash earlier in the year with single ‘over/over’, a song “where loneliness and restlessness overlap,” as we wrote. “That curiously digital phenomenon where even an empty room can now be overwhelming.” Follow-up single ‘buttons’ continues this exploration of the technological encroachment on our lives, asking how we might hope to maintain a sense of authentic self in a world automated by things like AI. The video, directed by Buvard and David S. Blouin, employs a full-spectrum modified camera (i.e. one which captures UV, visible and IR light simultaneously) to add a further haunting atmosphere to the track, portraying the digital experience in all of its eerie surreality.

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

Jordan Whitlock & Memory Spells – You Tell Me / A Flower Blooming For No One

“This project began as an exchange of demos and became a deeply personal dialogue,” explained Jordan Whitlock of the collaboration with Matt Bauer’s Memory Spells, with the duo having now released their debut full-length This Is What It Feels Like. “Remarkably, Bauer and Whitlock only met in person when the record was already half completed, though far from hampering the intimacy and emotional connection of the music, this distance ultimately helped deepen it,” we wrote in a preview of the record, “the pair dialling into the themes of isolation, bonding and longing.” What the duo call “a quiet meditation on beauty without witness,” final single ‘A Flower Blooming For No One’ heralds the release of the album, offering a glimpse at the wonder which exists every day in the secrecy of isolation.

A hummingbird
Its ruby throat
Catching the light
And letting it go
A shadow cast
A cold white sun
A flower blooming for no one

King Ropes – Baby Bird

“If Dave Hollier and co. are taking on The Spirit of The West, you’d best expect a collection of songs attuned to the contradictions of the experience on the ground, where well-worn myths and old stereotypes rub up against everyday hardships and the outright oddness of twenty-first century living.” So we wrote of King Ropes‘ most recent album Idaho back in 2024, praising how the Bozeman, Montana outfit managed to evoke the landscape of the American West in all of its beauty and harshness. Now King Ropes are back with brand new single ‘Baby Bird’, and while the track might appear altogether more tender on the surface, there’s still room for a brooding dimension to the sound. A reimagining of a classic sixties/seventies love song that swaps out some of the honeyed glow of the period for a stranger, ambiguous contemporary folk style.

It may sound absurd
I’m a man she’s a bird
These things take time to understand

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

Luke Francis – Anywhere

Though recorded in LA this past winter with Derek Ted, Luke Francis‘s new single ‘Anywhere’ has roots in a period a year prior, with the Seattle-based songwriter noting a variety of key locations and experiences. “The Bamboo Village parking lot on a snowy Seattle night,” he lists, “the Historic Grand Canyon Hotel, and the front steps of my childhood home in California while a plumber rescued me from what had occurred inside the house.” As you might expect from such a specific set of influences, the resulting track is highly personal, Francis taking the moods and imagery of his own memories and applying a coat of classic country wistfulness to create a modern love song that nevertheless harks back to an old romantic style. “Honey ride with me tonight
I’ve got a bottle of wine and the moonlight on my mind,” as he sings in the opening lines. “We could left and right, through the night
don’t you wanna climb in and let the road unwind?”

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

Paycheque – Generic Actress

Consisting of Alison Goldfarb and Jackson MacIntosh (TOPS, Drugdealer), Paycheque represent something of a collision between the retro and the contemporary. Though practising a decidedly eighties-flavoured style of indie pop, the duo aim for more than pure nostalgia, repurposing the sound to conjure the modern Los Angeles in all of its glitz, violence and precarity. Their self-titled debut full-length, coming this summer via Mansions and Millions, draws upon the sounds of the Reagan-Thatcher era to explore the present calamities seeded in that period, be they human-induced natural disasters, roving gangs of militarised immigration officers or the general superficiality of the great quest for stardom. Opener ‘Generic Actress’ offers a first glimpse. “In LA, when you go out, you end up spending a lot of time standing outside of whatever event or party you’ve decided to attend,” the band explain of the single. “You’re on the sidewalk, you’re in a strip mall parking lot, you’re on a patio. You smoke, you bump into friends, and you eventually realize you missed half the set you came to see, you never actually made it inside the gallery, the party is winding down. This song is an ode to never quite making it inside.”

Watch the video by Paycheque with additional footage shot by Jessica Dean Harrison below:

Paycheque will be released on the 12th June via Mansions and Millions and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Snake Orange Cake – Lucid

Åland-born, Berlin-based artist Julia Carlsson has released a number of singles under the moniker Snake Orange Cake in recent times, most recently ‘Vision’ back in January. A self-described “hypnotic ritual in sound” which “functions something like an incantation or mantra,” we wrote in a preview, “the vocals repeating a series of mystical images as though hoping to conjure some mystical effect. The pulsing beat only furthers the mesmeric vibe, leading the listener into a space somehow adjacent from every day reality.” Now Carlsson has unveiled Lucid, the project’s debut EP which collects these songs alongside the new title track, and the fresh offering just so happens to serve as the ideal calling card for the project. With an ambiguous tone that embraces playfulness, sensuality and a certain mystical charm, ‘Lucid’ capture the balance between intimacy and openness that marks the Snake Orange Cake sound, as well as the sense of otherworldly potential which emerges from its dreamlike flow.

Vesuvian – Fortunate Death

Vesuvian is a Philly-based outfit consisting of Garret Bollin (guitar, vocals), Joey DeGrado (vocals, guitar), Bill Magerr (bass) and Gavin Caffrey Perez-Canto (drums and percussion). Back in 2023 they released More Treble, a punk rock record concerned with everything from horror movies and actresses to the ancient Mediterranean, and now they’re back with a brand new self-titled album which looks push the sound even further. Take latest single ‘Fortunate Death’, which is certainly not your usual scrappy punk number, drawing upon the work of Julio Cortázar and accounts of Mesoamerican history to create something cathartic and boisterous. “Years ago, I read that Aztec sacrifices were honored to die that way,” De Grado explains. “Does this have historic validity? Who knows! But the idea stayed with me, waiting to come out in a song. I took this idea of being overjoyed at death and combined it with some of the images from ‘The Night, Face Up’.”

Waxahatchee – Where’s Your Love Now? (This Is Lorelei cover)

This Is Lorelei is about to release the super deluxe edition of their celebrated 2024 album Box for Buddy, Box for Star via Double Double Whammy, with the ten original album tracks joined by ten covers from an impressive range of artists. Momma, SASAMI, Snail Mail, Tim Heidecker and MJ Lenderman are just some of the acts offering versions of the songs, and Waxahatchee‘s take on ‘Where’s Your Love Now?’ is the latest to be revealed. “I think Nate is one of the best songwriters of this moment, making music that feels current and timeless and also somehow ahead of a curve,” Katie Crutchfield told Stereogum. “When I heard ‘Where’s Your Love Now?’ I thought it was one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.”

Box for Buddy, Box for Star (Super Deluxe) is out on the 17th April via Double Double Whammy and you can pre-order it now.

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