Back in 2021, Brooklyn-based bassist, composer and singer Carmen Quill released Don’t Get Comfy / Nowhere, a debut album which emerged more from personal need than any sense of creative practice. The songs consisted of nothing beyond vocals, upright bass and background noise but were able to tackle the most intimate of subjects, from romantic relationships to the loss of a parent. Quill’s latest full-length Harmless, to be released this November via Ruination Record Co., builds upon this framework, their compositions slowly yet surely blooming from minimalism towards something richer and deeper. As the title track suggests, this is often achieved by way of the mantra or incantation. The song rises out of a simple, repeated set of questions (“Why do I feel so helpless? / Why do I feel so aimless? / Nothing I do is harmless”) towards a considered engagement with themes of agency and complicity in the age of televised genocide and rampant inequality. As Quill explains: “I wrote ‘Harmless’ in a moment when I was feeling acutely the everyday sensation of not knowing what to do with myself when I look around and see so much big shit going wrong.”

Charlotte Greve – Lighter Blue

After ‘Membranes‘ (“considers the multitudes which exist within any one person, and how this array of dimensions is shaped and grown by our immediate surroundings”) and ‘Own Lap‘ (“an eleven-minute epic brought to life with full orchestral grandeur which nevertheless never loses sight of the personal amid the sweeping majesty”), Charlotte Greve continues to introduce her forthcoming album WATERBODIES with the release of latest single, ‘Lighter Blue’. Centering on geological imagery and underlined by a beguilingly rhythmic pull, the track considers the curative potential of art, as though the will to create can illuminate the otherwise shadowy avenues of our lives and allow us to live with newfound meaning. “The silent crater/volcano represents a period of disconnection from making art and feeling out of touch with it,” Greve explains. “Tiptoeing around, feeling lost and ungrounded because something essential is missing. In that state, doubt about all things arises, making space for insecurity to flourish. The moment music arrives again, suddenly everything makes sense, the path is lit and you can just walk on it. The forever torch, showing you the way to live your life, gifting you melodies that carry you through the day with purpose.”

Watch the video, shot, edited, and produced by Annika Nagel, below:

WATERBODIES will be released on the 2nd October via New Amsterdam and you can pre-order it now.

Chloë Ester – Bitter End

Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, Chloë Ester is a songwriter who announced herself back in 2020 with debut EP Dying All The Time, establishing a narrative-led brand of indie rock which was happy to blur genre lines in order to capture a sense of simultaneous vulnerability and empowerment. Now Ester is preparing to return with follow-up EP I Could Be The One to further this style, widening the palette and scope of her sound without sacrificing any of the rawness and heart which makes it so engaging. Single ‘Bitter End’ is an ideal entry point, a reflection on a break-up which pairs personal uncertainty with upbeat brightness to explore the tension between regretful introspection and the desire to let go.

Cloudbelly – Poppa

Described by the band as a “meditation on intimacy, belonging, and the things that complicate them,” Cloudbelly‘s third full-length Throwing The Game promises to take the indie folk formula of its predecessor i know i know i know and push it to the edges of the genre, creating something sprawling and shape-shifting in order to explore the full contours of an emotional landscape which stretches both back into the past and out in the future. After lead single ‘Oh, Antarctica!‘ saw Corey Laitman and co. face down what we called “the dispiriting experience of mourning the future in a present world which seems to be tilting in a bad direction,” follow-up ‘Poppa’ turns its attention in the opposite direction to explore the memories of a loved one, and how dignity can persevere through the trials of later life. Namely Laitman’s grandfather, a man who lived for the wilderness yet ultimately found himself in a high-rise caring for his ailing wife. As the press release puts it: “If there is a contradiction in the coexistence of tenderness and grief, this song doesn’t seek to resolve it. The contradiction itself is the emotional event.”

The Fourth Wall – Future Memory

“Combs through the contradictions of the immigrant experience in order to voice feelings otherwise impossible to convey […] a mixture of hope, denial and genuine love which not only subverts expectations but confounds any attempt to properly reassess.” So we wrote of The Fourth Wall‘s Return Forever back in 2024, Stephen Agustin’s ambitious and confronting writing earning the record a place among of favourite albums on the year. Now the Portland-by-way-of-Hawaii project is back with brand new album Memories of the Future, and the release might somehow top its predecessor in terms of depth and scope. Using Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism and Frederic Jameson’s work on sci-fi and postmodernism as starting points, Agustin explores the collective failure of the imagination when it comes to dreaming of the future, and the personal and political stasis which results. What emerges is the apocalyptic vision our present time deserves, where the hyperactive stimulation of the digital age masks a fundamental emptiness. “How long will it take / To see the future as a memory,” asks closer ‘Future Memory’, a fitting conclusion to a fatalistic yet clear-eyed album about a world in crisis.

Watch the video by Agustin below:

Memories of the Future is out now via DevilDuck Records and available from The Fourth Wall Bandcamp page.

Hour – Pearls

Last month we introduced Ghost Bridge, the new album from Hour coming soon via Dear Life Records, with the title track. “A song, clocking in at near ten minutes which must rank among [Michael] Cormier-O’Leary’s most ambitious and thematically loaded to date,” as we wrote. “The level of detail is striking but there is no ounce of ostentation. Lesser acts might be overwhelmed if tasked with exploring concepts of loss and mortality, prone to slipping into maudlin excess, but with a unique blend of compassion and abstraction, it seems Hour are up to the task.” The achievement is made possible by a rich ensemble cast, and William H. Travis’s video for new single ‘Pearls’ manages the unenviable task of catching them all gathered in one place (with the notable exception of flute player Adelyn Strei), offering a rare chance to see Hour in its (almost) complete form. “I think his footage succeeds in demonstrating the love we all share for one another in our large, many-tentacled band,” as Cormier-O’Leary says. “It’s a perfect moment in time, a pearl if you will.”

Ghost Bridge will be released on the 9th October via Dear Life Records and you can pre-order it from the Hour Bandcamp page.

How Strange It Is – Tough Luck

This autumn, Portland, Oregon outfit How Strange It Is will release their new album THERE IS NO EVIL with Disposable America and Pleasure Tapes. Consisting of Jordan Krinsky (vocals, guitar, synth), Caleb Ballard (additional vocals, guitar, clarinet, synth), Annie Miranda (bass), Annie Fifer (additional vocals, guitar) and Kyle Gordon (drums), the band have developed a fuzzy brand of indie rock across a pair of past releases, and the new record only furthers this style. Take latest single ‘Tough Luck’, an atmospheric, almost ethereal track which cycles through the whole gamut of emotions to capture the strange experience of life. “This song leans into the comedy of circumstance,” the band explain. “When you’re going through it and the world keeps throwing cosmic jokes at you. When you meet up to have a post-mortem with your ex and love songs start playing on the radio. It could be a cinematic moment where you realize you’re still in love but its actually over and that’s ok. The rollercoaster of those feelings.”

Watch the video below, directed by Jess Poe and edited by Poe & Jamison Winternintz:

THERE IS NO EVIL will be released on 20th October via Disposable America and Pleasure Tapes and you can pre-order it now.

John Van Deusen – There Is A Way Home

John Van Deusen made a name fronting celebrated Seattle outfit The Lonely Forest for the best part of a decade, releasing two EPs and four full-lengths in the 2000s/2010s. But his solo work is undoubtedly his most ambitious undertaking to date. Released across two years, forty track double album As Long As I Am In The Tent of This Body I Will Make A Joyful Noise confronts Van Deusen’s personal struggles with faith, depression and suicidal ideation, drawing on influences as disparate as The Beach Boys, Deftones, Smashing Pumpkins and Death Cab For Cutie in the process. After the first part was released back in 2025, John Van Deusen is now sharing Pt. 2 to finally complete the project. “What does it mean to be depressed while worshipping God?” he asks in the album notes. “What does it say about being human?” As the title might suggest, As Long As I Am In The Tent of This Body I Will Make A Joyful Noise is able to sit with suffering without reducing the entirety of existence to its confines, and wise enough to contemplate the mystery of God even as the immediacy of pain threatens to obscure our connection to the metaphysical. Listen to single ‘There Is A Way Home’ now:

Kin Hana – Howling World

You might know Hudson Valley songwriter and guitarist Aaron Hodges from his work under the moniker Longshoreman, or as part of the psych-folk band Nighttime, but more recently he has adopted the name Kin Hana to usher in a new era of drone/doom-adjacent folk. Next month, Kin Hana will release Howling World, a new full-length which feels like an embodiment of Hodges’s vision, where personal intimacy is matched by an elemental, almost otherworldly atmosphere (Jason Molina and Béla Tarr are cited as touchstones). The result, as highlighted by the lead single title track, manages to communicate both immediate, instinctive emotion (be that wonder, longing or dread) and genuine thematic depth. “This song came out of René Magritte’s painting Young Girl Eating a Bird,” Hana explains. “I was drawn to the contradiction in the image—she seems to be turning away from the world while at the same time literally devouring a piece of it. There’s something wild and irrational about the act that I felt I understood without being able to fully explain. The ‘howling world’ became both the senseless world she’s turning away from and the one she’s suddenly part of. I realized that feeling ran through much of the record, and the song eventually gave the album its name.”

Kyla Marlena – 21

“To me, this record feels alive. Like it has a pulse,” explains Toronto-based cellist and songwriter Kyla Marlena of her debut album Hold Time. “It’s dynamic within and between songs, it can be unpredictable.” Forthcoming this November via idée fixe, the record is something of a pivot for an artist who started out writing instrumental compositions in relative solitude, offering a rich folk rock sound forged through serious collaboration. Ben Whiteley (The Weather Station), Julian Psihoigos (Georgia Harmer, Katie Tupper), Felix Fox (BADBADNOTGOOD, Jonah Yano), Jasper Smith (Benjamin Dakota Rogers), Karen Ng (The Weather Station) and Noah Williamson (Sonder) all lend their talents, Marlena not so much instructing these musicians as corralling their energies, leading to a sound that’s authentic and organic. Lead single and album opener ’21’ gives an indication of what to expect, showing how Marlena explores themes of memory and time in a manner which subverts expectations, forgoing the hazy dreaminess which so often accompanies such ideas in favour of something more immediate, scrappy and raw.

The post Weekly Listening: September 2026 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Next month the Canadian songwriter Cat Clyde will release Blood Bone Bone, a new full-length album on Concord Records. An effort to reposition or reimagine her relationship with love, the record sees Clyde turn her indigenous Métis heritage for inspiration, as well as the wide natural world, and serves as a expression of everything from exasperation and fury to personal growth and joy. New single ‘Man’s World’ falls at the former end of that spectrum, though repurposes its anger into something cathartic. “This is an expression of the frustration I feel existing as a woman in a patriarchal world,” Clyde explains. “It sometimes feels difficult to be on a 24 hour clock rather than a 28 day cycle, and a 12 month year instead of a 13 month year. I love and crave masculine energy when it’s strong, protective, and emotionally aware. It has been difficult and deeply disappointing to have had experiences dealing with masculine energy that is childish, cowardly, and encroaching on the feminine space. ‘Man’s World’ touches on my own ideas of what being a woman means in this society and how dangerous and violent it can be for a woman’s heart.”

Watch the video directed and shot by Lukas Hyrman below:

Mud Blood Bone will be released on the 13th March via Concord Records and you can pre-order it now.

Dayydream – Proximity

Back in 2025 we introduced Dayydream, the Glasgow-based indie rock project led by visual artist and musician Chloe Trappes. “Straddles shoegaze, slowcore and indie rock to create a sound both hazy and deep,” we wrote of single ‘Fucked Up’, “its title perhaps belying the song’s inviting warmth but describing its confessional tone to a tee, the sound suspended with a light mist yet not without its own internal force.” Now Dayydream are about to release Trace, and EP which builds upon these foundations to delve into the strange, melancholic way the past persists into the present. True to this mood, the sound is often restrained and reflective, the tracks playing as though in the aftermath of something, Trappes and co. left alone but for the footprints on the ground, the fading fog of breath on glass. Single ‘Proximity’ is a good place to dive in, the upbeat rhythm of its opening belying the weight at its heart, a burden which slowly twists the sound into something altogether more hefty and dense.

‘Proximity’ is out now and available from Bandcamp. Trace will be released soon.

jack k – Welcome To The New World

A cross-gen collaboration between composer Jack Kilburn and his father, British poet Mark Kilburn, the forthcoming jack k album 8 Tracks sits at the intersection of music, narrative and memory. Using primarily guitar and piano, Jack creates soundscapes which gesture towards ambient and alt-jazz, and coupled with Mark’s distinctively Brummie spoken-word delivery, the songs come to represent not only reflection on personal experience and family history but something stranger and more abstract. A hauntological sense of imagined pasts and aborted futures which works to evoke the off-kilter, often melancholic sensation of the contemporary British moment. True to its title, ‘Welcome To The New World’ is the ideal entry point into this style. A track spacious and stark, as barren as the society evoked by Kilburn’s plainspoken lyricism, where the new world is not much of a world at all, but rather just the fading echoes of what we imagined as it falls away from us.

8 Tracks will be released soon.

Lamplight – Year 2083

“An exploration of how one’s sense of identity shifts and changes according to any number of present conditions, not least the place we call home at any given time.” That’s how we described the self-titled album by Lamplight back in 2024, the Western Vinyl release seeing Virginia songwriter Ian Hatcher-Williams grapple with a life which led out of a cult in his home state to a job in tech in NYC before eventually circling back around to returning to Virginia to marry a childhood friend. Glimpse at the title of the latest Lamplight single ‘Year 2083’ and you might think Hatcher-Williams has switched focus from the past towards the distant future, though in reality the song is very much embedded in the present. With hemlock adding supporting vocals, the track possesses all of the warmth of the previous album, not to mention the same emotional openness. As though written from within the fluidity of the current moment, with Hatcher-Williams working to establish what is important in real time. Grab it from Bandcamp now, with all proceeds going to MPLS mutual aid.

Lemoncello – Meet Me Halfway

There’s a very contemporary tension within Lemoncello‘s latest single ‘Meet Me Halfway’. A complicated relationship between intimacy and distance. A sense of push and pull. Out now via Claddagh Records, the song sees Irish duo Laura Quirke (guitar/vocals) and Claire Kinsella (cello/vocals) create a soundscape that’s spare yet loaded with latent feeling, as though the true weight of the track lies just outside of the frame. An atmosphere fitting for a song which explores how even though we’re now able to communicate more freely than ever before, we’re somehow as far apart as we’ve ever been. “To be so connected / And yet so disconnected,” as a pertinent line states. “What’s the point in speaking / With so much left understood.” But rather than settle for a dismayed commentary on such conditions, ‘Meet Me Halfway’ pushes further, reaching for the kind of concerted effort required on both sides of a relationship in order to sustain connection. Watch the video below, wih creative direction by Sophie O’Donovan, editing by AK Heisterkamp and title design by Stina Sandstrom:

‘Meet Me Halfway’ is out now via Claddagh Records and available from the usual places.

new body electric – every day

“It all started with a trumpet,” explain Portland, Oregon-based band new body electric (Aaron Peterson, Evan Smoker and Leah Vautar), but their music has come a long way since then. Following on from a self-titled album in 2024 which drew on everything from funk, electro and jazz to enliven its indie pop sound, the band have returned with new single ‘every day’ to continue to explore new ground. Full of easygoing groove, the result is assured in style if not in substance, the track’s lyrics delving into various personas we adopt to get through day to day existence. But no matter how blurry a sense of self might be thanks to the demands of living, new body electric are here to show this need not necessarily defeat us. Better to commit to the rhythm and groove your way on through.

‘every day; is out now and available from the usual places.

Paul Bergmann – West Rock

“A pleading dirge; a manic rumination on the human condition at the foot of a geological anomaly in New Haven, CT.” That’s how musician Paul Bergmann described his latest single ‘West Rock’, a song released in anticipation of forthcoming full-length Connecticut Cowboy. Across a total of sixteen releases, Bergmann’s work has shapeshifted from one album to another, moving from scrappy folk punk to sleek piano-led croons, not to mention psychedelic excursions too. But it has always been bound by an overarching thematic concern with existential ideas of life, death and all the dreams therein. As the above description might suggest, ‘West Rock’ sees Bergman return to the most immediate, raw form, pitching the audience into a shadowy world and barking confessions at us through the gloom. Think of the nocturnal volatility of acts like Bambara crossed with the Jason Molina’s bitter poetry and you’re getting close to the result.

Run Remedy – Jessie’s Girl

The alter ego of US-born, UK-based songwriter Robin Koob, Run Remedy embraces both the serious and silly sides of life in its folk rock sound, something embodied by latest single, a reimagining of Rick Springfield’s 1981 hit ‘Jessie’s Girl’. This version not only plays with the sound, swapping out the guitar solo for banjo, but also flips the gender to transform the track into a queer anthem. “I swear if I’m back home driving around South Jersey, ‘Jessie’s Girl’ will come on within the hour (shout out 95.1WAYV),” Koob explains. “It’s been stuck in my head my whole life. That level of cringey yearning is timeless, so obviously I had to make my own sapphic spinoff.” The single comes complete with a video to further cement the changes. “The original video is pure camp, so I basically Weird Al’d it with rainbow kids,” Koob continues. “We recreated almost every shot in one day, gorilla-shooting around Manchester, spared my bathroom mirror, and ended the day passing around the wig. Everyone looked better in it than I did, which feels correct.”

‘Jessie’s Girl’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Spirited Followers – Returning

Back in September we wrote about Cardiff-based experimental folk rock outfit Spirited Followers, describing how the project reaches across a huge range of influences to inform its singular sound. “With members hailing from Cyprus, India and Wales, Ireland, and England, the diversity of inspiration is perhaps unsurprising,” we explained, “though the work of Spirited Followers pushes beyond those backgrounds too. You’ll hear elements of Appalachian mountain music in the stark guitar, as well as a Greek flavour among several others.” Released via Libertino‘s new sister label BWGIBWGAN, latest single ‘Returning’ is no less ambitious, mining ancient songwriting traditons for their devotional power while still positioning their sound on the cutting edge of the contemporary movement too. It a glimpse at the band’s reflective side, “reframing themes of death,” as the label put it, “through warmth, acceptance and spiritual calm.”

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Consisting of Brooklyn‘s Michael Matsakis and a rotating roster friends, Collectors Item sits at the intersection of indie rock, ambient and slowcore and offers something at once intimate and ambitious. New album Peaceful in the Absence encapsulates the project’s spirit, a release full of searching questions which gradually builds towards a personal reckoning. Single ‘am i enough for me?’ comes at the crunch end of this arc, “the point in the album when the shit hits the fan and I start thinking about the things I’ve been avoiding thinking about,” as Matsakis explains, “as well as asking the questions I’ve been avoiding asking myself.” Collector’s Item evoke such an experience with a sound full of hazy density and latent weight, clouds of confusion masking the ultimate resolution, be it destructive or healing.

Evan Uhlmann – Sweet December

“An outlet in which he might grapple with doubts, concerns and hopes as they arose.” That’s how we described Evan Uhlmann‘s latest single ‘Chasing Daises’ back in August, with vocals from Jessica Larrabee (AKA She Keeps Bees) and production by Greg Uhlmann elevating the sound’s immediacy and sincere simplicity. Again released via Future Gods, latest track ‘Sweet December’ is more reflective, looking back on a young life within a city, complete with all the inevitable mistakes which come with living fast within the moment. The result is sleekly assured in its contemplation, and carries the kind of unguarded emotion which Uhlmann has fast made a signature of his sound.

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

Korda Korder – What Have You Done?

‘What Have You Done?’, the new single from UK outfit Korda Korder, feels something of a throwback. The kind of act which went stratospheric in the golden age of music blogs, powered by nothing more than word of mouth. There’s very little information on the band, no bio, no press shots, no flashy social media campaigns. The single is only available to stream via Soundcloud, or alternatively you can email the band themselves to grab the MP3. The result is not only a refreshing rejection of the contemporary modes of publicising music, but also a clever way to put all the focus on the song itself. A dreamy croon which would make Mazzy Star proud.

Leah Nawy – I Was a Flower

New York-based producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Leah Nawy has just released new single, ‘I Was A Flower’. Their first track to be entirely self-produced, the song serves as the ideal entrance point for those unfamiliar with Nawy’s sound, drawing inspiration from the likes of Big Thief, SASAMI and Indigo De Souza to create something simultaneously delicate and empowered. Opening with a spare restraint, the sound lives up to the title, blossoming gradually across its three and a half minute runtime, the sense of warm fondness escalating towards its indie rock conclusion.

‘I Was a Flower’ is out now and available from the usual places.

LEYA – Corners

Consisting of harpist Marilu Donovan and vocalist/violinist Adam Markiewicz, LEYA is a project which exists across boundaries. Sonically their work reaches for everything from medieval folk to contemporary pop, and has found a home beyond the underground scene in New York to grace fashion runways, adult films and more. Their first solo work since 2020 album Flood Dream, LEYA return next month with I Forget Everything, a brand new full-length on NNA Tapes which continues to evolve their sound while returning to the fundamental elements at the heart of it. Single ‘Corners’ shows how soundscapes built around the key elements of harp, strings and vocals can be so evocative and ambiguous, offering a glimpse into a record which promises to explore the avenues open to us in the face of catastrophe.

Little Oso – Metaphorical Ohio

Back in August we featured Portland, Maine indie rock band Little Oso, previewing their forthcoming record How Lucky To Be Somebody which comes out on Repeating Cloud and Safe Suburban Home in January. Writing of lead single, ‘Other People’s Lives’, we described how “nostalgic dream pop tones and [vocalist & guitarist Jeannette] Berman’s fond vocal style possess a real sense of sincerity, as though attempting to celebrate the tenuous present as it gets squeezed smaller and smaller by a variety of looming threats.” As the album’s release approaches, Little Oso have unveiled a second single, ‘Metaphorical Ohio’, another song that doubles down on a sense of summertime nostalgia with sweet melodies, sparkly vocals and an enveloping sense of fondness. Check out the video, which the band describe as “anti-capitalist baseball game where the rules are just vibes,” below.

How Lucky To Be Somebody will be released via Safe Suburban Homes and Repeating Cloud on 17th January. Pre-order it now from the Little Oso Bandcamp page.

Made of Shape – Flashlight

Made of Shape is the project of Olympia multi-instrumentalist Jona Mor who, after contracting Covid and then developing Long Covid, found himself isolated on an island, living in a cabin with just his dog for company. But Mor managed to use the period productively, writing a collection of songs that will be released in the coming months. Lead single ‘Flashlight’ is our first glimpse, revealing a crystalline and reflective brand of dream pop. Mor says the song was “born from a night of excessive reflection and isolation,” and although the focus is on missed opportunities and pining for the past, there is a sense of direction too. “There is definitely an element of desire,” he explains, “but more than that, it’s a song about a missed connection and the need for reconciliation. The intention was to create a sense of looking back while moving forward.”

MAN LEE – Best One

MAN LEE is the art rock project of Brooklyn-based duo Sam Reichman and Tim Lee. “We had always been writing our own music,” Reichman explains, “but it wasn’t until we got together that we found our footing.” New single ‘Best One’ shows off the confidence and invention of such a close relationship, with post-punk sensibilities elevated by production from Lora-Faye Åshuvud (AKA Arthur Moon). The sense of connection extends to the track’s themes too, evoking the sense of solidarity between close friends after a challenging break-up with something between open compassion, droll humour and languid cool.

Watch the video below, using archive footage to create what Reichman has described as “a mixed-media take on girlhood.”

‘Best One’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Sam Moss – Swimming

Early next year, Virginia-based songwriter (and spoon carver) Sam Moss returns with a new record, Swimming. The album was recorded in North Carolina alongside a stellar cast of collaborators, including Isa Burke, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Sinclair Palmer, Molly Sarlé and Joe Westerlund, and promises to continue Moss’s signature style of probing folk music. As Nathan Salsburg so nicely puts it in his liner notes, the album is a collection of “reckonings and wrestlings with awe and wonder, dread and despair, fragility and endurance—that manage to expand well beyond the frame of Sam Moss without losing him to the landscape.” To whet collective appetites, Sam Moss has released the title track, a typically rich and affecting folk song that feels as bright and fleeting as a sunbeam.

To be out of my depth,
but somehow swimming

The post Weekly Listening: October 2024 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Growing up in a New Age community in Virginia, Hatcher-Williams spent his youth making and studying art, though eventually moved to New York for a job in tech and left music fall by the wayside. But after a few years, increasingly exhausted by the deadening demands of work, Hatcher-Williams and his wife decided to return to Virginia in search of a more modest, meaningful life. Lamplight was written in the period between this most recent transition being an idea and reality, and thus feels like both a return home and something new. An opportunity to take stock of life as it has been lived up to that moment, with the promise of a fresh start staving off the despair of regret.

Written after a moment of late-night clarity in a Brooklyn bathroom, second single ‘Call Your Mom’ addresses these issues from a different angle, delving into the struggle to maintain connection and communicate fondness across time and distance. “Make a note in my phone / to call everyone I’ve ever known / why’d I wait until now? when this list is long / and I’m to drunk to talk // how long has it been since you called?” With the trademark Lamplight compassion, the song probes into why it is so difficult to cultivate the relationships which mean the most to us, as though each day without action only makes the situation worse. But as with the decision to return to his home state, Hatcher-Williams eventually listens to the voice in the back of his mind, following an instinct as to what is right.

what we do with now
matters more than how
many days it’s been
just know your voice is missed

Lamplight is out on the 8th March via Western Vinyl and you can pre-order it now.

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In celebration of the project’s ten year anniversary, Furious Hooves are releasing Furhoof Halloween Split Series: 2011​-​2021, a limited edition package which collects all eleven Halloween Split Series releases in a double cassette set. Some entries (Iike the songs by mumbledust and the impressively named Spooky Booty & The Tombstone Goofs) capture the kitschy, spooky fun of costumes and free candy brittle, while others turn altogether darker. That something just not-quite-right that walks the streets once the trick-or-treaters are warm and safe in their beds. Check out the likes of Temazcal or Man Eating Sloth if that’s more your thing.

The set also includes this year’s release, which pairs Richmond, VA‘s Jeff Haley and fellow Virginian Kevin Knight. Haley’s song, the ambiguously titled ‘Three Sisters,’ is a jangly if slightly sedate indie pop song on the surface, but there’s something uncanny about the whole thing. Something shifting just out of view, as though there is more to the scene than you can know.

Knight’s ‘Decompose’ is darker still, an ominous late-night descent into streets abandoned to spoil and decay, what Furious Hooves evocatively describe as “a dark journey through a post-apocalyptic forest thick with spore clouds, where the trees have been replaced by the fruiting bodies of a gigantic sentient mycelium.”

Furhoof Halloween Split Series: 2011​-​2021 releases this Halloween, in a double cassette (with “Radioactive Pumpkin” and “Purple Potion” tapes) and zine package. Preorder it now from the Furious Hooves Bandcamp page.

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The music of old man of the woods […] is a forest of its own. One often still and quiet, mournful in the way woods can be, but quietly powerful too. Because the systems of life and consumption within the natural world are different to those of our own, and within the lonely forest and its constant regrowth lies a humble secret. A comfort, a humble triumph over death.

Fast forward a year and Old Man of the Woods is preparing to release its debut full-length album, Votives. Out via Totally Real Records, the album develops the style introduced on dissolve, pushing beyond the natural world and into that of dreams, thereby inviting us further into Elliott’s distinctive imagination.

To introduce the release, Old Man of the Woods has unveiled the title track. It proves a fitting choice, as the album took root in the image at the song’s heart. “I wrote ‘Votives’ after seeing friends that had coincidentally ordered love candles from the same witchy shop,” Elliott explains. “I imagined lighting one and watching my last relationship reignite. I’d regret ending it for too long, but envisioning it play out again, I realized I’d end it again. There was so much relief in that realization. I held that flame in my mind and blew it out.”

With a sparse synth line suspended upon an ethereal depth beyond, the track throws us into the deep end of this newfound dreaminess. Elliott’s vocals swing between soft and plainspoken, invoking the bittersweet confrontation mentioned above, as the song gradually builds into a languid electro pop hit.

This development mimics the intuitive logic of dreams, where the subconscious strips away layers of complication and instead presents feelings as images abstract and strange. “That night, I dreamt that peoples’ minds were little churches filled with votives burning for everyone they’d ever loved,” Elliott continues. “That image really stuck with me and played a large role in bringing the rest of the album together.”

The post Old Man Of The Woods – Votives appeared first on Various Small Flames.

But the funny thing is, Riddy Arman ends up the inverse of the pretenders. A cowboy proving there is more to country music. The seclusion and landscape might have triggered the turn to folk, but the work itself is almost incidental. For songwriting and performing exist beyond the archetypes and myths of America, serve purposes more fundamentally personal. “Singing is my meditation, and I learned that in the imagery of Virginia,” Arman explains. “It sets the stage for healing.”

Take ‘Spirits, Angels, or Lies’, the first taste of her forthcoming self-titled debut on La Honda Records and Thirty Tigers. The song tells the story of her father’s final days, when Johnny Cash visited aboard a freight train to convince him to join his journey. Mr Arman politely declined and told his wife of the strange incident. “Mom turned on the TV and to her surprise,” Arman sings, “breaking news this morning, Johnny Cash has died / he passed away in Nashville, sometime in the night.”

Something in the song’s details puncture the romantic individualism of the cowboy image, not only dragging it into a world of modern medicine and celebrity visitations, but a sense of lineage and family too.

The nurses told my mom
don’t be surprised
funny things happen before someone dies
You can call it spirits, angels or lies
but we’ll never know what someone
sees with their own eyes

As the album draws nearer to its release on the 10th September, Riddy Arman has unveiled the first official single, ‘Too Late to Write a Love Song’. Though rooted in the heartsick country tradition, the track rejects the gratifying wallow of lost love, instead choosing to use the circumstances to fire a newfound sense of purpose. “I’m not one to dwell on what didn’t happen,” Arman says. “Been there and done that. Recording this song I knew I wasn’t alone or sad, and that’s where the choir comes in with triumph. Heartbreak can be freeing. It’s an energy, a powerup.”

Riddy Arman is out on the 10th September via La Honda Records/Thirty Tigers and you can pre-order it now.

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Ahead of a forthcoming EP, Blush Face are releasing brand new single, ‘Had To’. The track builds on the previous record, holding onto its spirit while pushing the sound into an increasingly maximalist direction. As such, the single welcomes an array of guest contributors to realise its potential, with Linnea Morgan (violin) Ali Morgan (cello), Reyna Pannell (violin),
Erin Roukous (harp), Stephen Moser (trumpet), Kevin Sabik (trumpet) and Joshua Smith (saxophone) all lending their talents.

“I wanted the song to grab people’s attention and stand out from the rest since so many people are listening to playlists these days and songs can bleed into one another,” Smith explains. “We kinda joked ‘what if we just start it off with the harp glissando?’ and ending up loving it.'”

Thematically, the song confronts the gap between expectation and reality, and looks to find solace in the action. “‘Had To’ is a song about acceptance of your current place in the world,” Smith concludes, “despite the fact that perhaps in another dimension things could have gone the way you hoped.” Maybe there is a reason behind such disappointments, Blush Face suggest. Perhaps there are opportunities for personal growth within set backs and failure. Maybe things had to happen like this, and couldn’t be any other way.

‘Had To’ is out now and available from the Blush Face Bandcamp page.

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As is evident on the subtly upbeat ‘Beneath the Pines’ or the bittersweet sway of ‘Face in the Stars’, Lucky Pennies is a collection of songs that use a classic folk blueprint to build something personal and singular. The title track is a standout, which like all good folk songs is equal parts sunshine and rainclouds, folding hope and sadness into three and a half minutes of bright acoustic guitar and soft vocals.

That said, Levi Douthit is not your average folk musician. He also plays with Richmond synth punks Teenage Cenobite and has recorded music for post punk band Black Buttons, and this behind the scenes experience of the local DIY scene is a big influence too. With the help of Tanner White, Will Fennessey and Kevin McCormick, Douthit turns what could be simple guitar and vocals songs into something heavier and more complex. Songs like ‘Losing Time’ lean towards shadowy indie rock and even the sweet strum of ‘Dog Song’ has peaks of wailing atmospherics.

But it’s lead single ‘Water the Plants’ that’s the perfect illustration, a gently turbulent lo-fi folk rock song which uses the metaphor of caring for a houseplant to explore intimate themes of recovery and self-care. “At the time, I was having some past traumas blow up in my face,” Douthit explains, “I thought I had finished dealing with them but I was reminded that you don’t ever finish dealing with them, you manage and tend to them, just like watering a plant.”

This theme of dealing with past trauma is a recurring one on Lucky Pennies and adds another dimension of depth and darkness. “There’s death all around me and more to come” Douthit sings in a moment of vulnerability on ‘Move On,’ a track that combines reflective folky moments of acoustic guitar and fragile vocals with moments of noisy and stormy anxiety. But, as on much of the album, the enduring emotion is one of strength and resilience, as captured in the final lines.

so keep on moving on
just keep on moving on

Lucky Pennies is out now and you can get it from the Levi Douthit Bandcamp page, or on cassette via Citrus City Records. Proceeds will be donated to Richmond Mutual Aid.

Photo and album art by Kevin McCormick

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Yasmin Williams has been playing guitar ever since, releasing her first EP when still in tenth grade, as well as a debut full-length in 2018. Urban Driftwood, released via SPINSTER, confirms the promise of these earlier releases, a dazzlingly skillful collection that weaves a web of melody and percussion using guitars, other stringed instruments and a mic’d wooden board that Williams plays with tap shoes. The compositions are intricate and spacious, evoking nature in the way a thousand small details coalesce to form a cohesive whole.

But Williams doesn’t create these intricate songs unnecessarily. Her technical ability and dexterous flare are backed up with a dedication to storytelling, confronting not just the difficult year in which it was recorded but the centuries of inequality and white supremacy that are present both in music and the world at large. Following legendary black female guitarists like Elizabeth Cotten, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Algia Mae Hinton, Williams carves a space for herself in a genre that is typically unwelcoming to anyone who isn’t a white man.

In doing so, she casts a light on the fact that fingerstyle guitar has deep roots in Black cultural history, something which is true for many genres of American music. A fact that Yasmin Williams is quick to point out, “Most music in the U.S. derives from Black music anyway,” she says. “Since white male musicians were much more marketable back in the early and mid 1900s, they were held in the highest regard for basically stealing music that was much older than them.”

Urban Driftwood also has a strong African influence. Williams plays the kora, an instrument favoured by the bard-like musician/historian griots of West Africa, and the title track also features hand drumming on a djembe by Amadou Kouyate. These references trace Black cultural history back even further, celebrating the African origins of what would go on to become American. “I’m proud to be able to musically join my experiences as a Black American playing this style of music with West African musical traditions,” Williams explains, “since the former was definitely inspired by the latter.”

For a record that sets out to challenge long-held falsehoods and address contemporary injustices, Urban Driftwood is a remarkably peaceful listen. There’s a tranquility across the ten tracks, a meditative quality that again goes back to patterns and rhythms of the natural world. The result is the feeling that the songs are not a challenge at all, rather the continuation of something old and meaningful, something that has itself been challenged, but refused to give in.

Nowhere is this clearer than on the final song, ‘After the Storm’, which Williams finished in the Spring of 2020 and socio-political tragedies it brought with it. But rather than expressing those feeling with anger or frustration, Williams instead turned to hope. The song, which she describes as “a collective exhale and sigh of relief, one that the country desperately needed but wasn’t sure it would ever get,” focuses on a the potential for brighter days ahead. “I was hoping that the country would figure out how we got to this moment,” Williams says. “And, after surviving 2020, how we can make sure that we promote a better future for everyone for the centuries to come.”

Urban Driftwood is out now on SPINSTER and you can get it from the Yasmin Williams Bandcamp page.

Album art by Louis Munroe, photo by Kim Atkins Photography

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