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.”

The post Weekly Listening: February 2026 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

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.

The post Lamplight – House Rules / Call Your Mom appeared first on Various Small Flames.

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.

The post Furhoof Halloween Split Series: 2011​-​2021 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

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.

The post Riddy Arman – Too Late To Write A Love Song appeared first on Various Small Flames.

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.

The post Blush Face – Had To appeared first on Various Small Flames.

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

The post Levi Douthit – Lucky Pennies appeared first on Various Small Flames.

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

The post Yasmin Williams – Urban Driftwood appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Nancy was kind enough to answer some of our questions on the album, as well as their other musical projects, the work of Grimalkin Records, and wider questions on the state of the music scene.

Your latest release, Live, while not a live album in the usual sense, is very much influenced by how you perform these songs live. How is this different to your recorded releases?

What you are hearing outside of all the transition pieces is what my live sets sound like for the most part. I play stripped down versions of my songs and tried to keep the main parts of the songs much like I sound live. I also recorded the songs with my electric guitar which I rarely use these days when recording. I typically use my classical guitar in recordings but I play my live sets using my electric. I imagined that the transition pieces could be played during my sets between songs and the video that Rafa (Rafael de Toledo Pedroso da Silveira) and I created to go with the songs could be used as a backdrop when playing out.

Is playing live something you have learned to enjoy, or is it still nerve-wracking?

I started playing out in January of 2019 and was playing out quite often up until the beginning of March 2020 when everything shut down due to the pandemic. Playing out was scary to me and I never really thought I would do or enjoy it but I pushed myself to get out of my comfort zone. I figured the first step would be just being comfortable playing stripped down versions of just guitar and vocals and imagined once I mastered that, I would start adding things in. The last show I played before the pandemic was probably my best one yet and I was just starting to feel a lot more comfortable. It was still nerve-wracking, and probably always will be, but I was getting more comfortable with it. I felt like people responded to it positively, and I actually enjoyed it. I felt like I got a lot out of it personally and musically.

Playing out is different because I was practicing every day since I started doing it and I was really sitting with songs for much longer lengths of time than I was used to previously, and so as I played them out, I would start settling into the songs and they would slightly change over time. I was writing new songs and would introduce them into sets and that was a different way to develop a song. I would rework older songs and add them or rotate them into my sets so it was just a very different way about working on my music. Once the pandemic hit and I could no longer play out, I decided to make an album of what I imagined a future set might sound like if I had kept playing out.

You have begun to go back and remaster your old releases, an experience that has been both nostalgic and bittersweet. Has this period of revisitation changed your approach to making new music?

The main thing that was really great about going back and remastering songs is remembering and rediscovering some of the songs I’ve written that still stood out to me. That inspired me to start rotating some of them into my sets and reworking them. I’ve been recording and writing for a long time now and so every once in a while I’ll find a bunch of songs I forgot about. I just recently found over 100 songs from 1997-2007 that I forgot about. Most of it was crap but I found a bunch that were decent and I just finished mastering and releasing those on my Bandcamp. I have a few albums of songs like that now (Thoughts, Olden, Backwards, and 13). Those albums are songs that I found later on and were never really meant to be albums.

This set is called 13 (my lucky number) because I narrowed them down to the best 13 songs in this recent set of found songs. When I go back and listen to old stuff, sometimes it brings back the memories of those feelings when I wrote them. That can be overwhelming. Writing and recording has always been therapeutic for me but sometimes that means the songs are just too personal or painful for me to share with others. I left the really heart wrenching ones off 13.

How do you feel your music has changed since those early releases?

Almost all of these songs were never released anywhere. I would just write and record for myself. I would make tapes and CDs for friends sometimes or upload songs to Myspace but for the most part, I wasn’t thinking of the listener. Now I do more so. I write music with the intention that I am going to release the ones I like or I am intentionally writing albums, but for most of my music-making life, that wasn’t even a consideration at all. The benefit of that is nothing is hidden, censored, or held back because the idea of releasing them wasn’t a consideration.

The downside is that many of the recordings are imperfect or unfinished ideas. I didn’t have the same care involved in the recording process as I do now. There are a lot of good ideas though in that older stuff and can evolve into better songs over time. I think that’s what I like the most about going back through all my old stuff. Relistening now is like going back and taking a piece of myself and seeing it through what I hope are wiser and clearer eyes. I can learn and take from that and mold things into the present.

Your label/collective Grimalkin Records continues to go from strength to strength, and it has been great to see artists like Backxwash getting coverage in large publications. What are you plans going forward?

I hope we keep growing and expanding in new ways. Mutual aid is at the focus of most of what we do. That has been growing and we are excited about that. We hope to be able to grow more as an international collective as well.  I was laid off the end of March and so Gr has become my sole focus and it’s my full time job now- it’s like more than one full time job really. We’ve picked up a lot since the pandemic in terms of support and also work and so I couldn’t even keep up with the level of work Gr has become doing the job I had before I was laid off. It was never intended to be my sole job, but here we are.

At first I was devastated when I was laid off. My job was really important to me, but now I see it was a blessing and I feel like a lot of the disability advocacy work I was doing with my job is something that we can bring into Grimalkin. Almost all of us in the collective have disabilities or are on the spectrum, and so really Gr has become all encompassing for me. I feel like it has all of my loves and passions, and after getting laid off and investing myself even more into this work, I feel like it’s everything I’m supposed to be doing.

The collective also really believes in what we are doing and so what I felt initially was a pipe dream really now seems like a possibility. It helps a lot to have people believing in you. We really are trying to create something different and special within the music community and show others that there is a different way. You can forge and create new ways. You don’t need to exploit and profit off the backs of artists. There are better and more sustainable ways built on mutual aid and support. We never profit from artists so the only way I will ever be able to do this as a job and also pay others for more than just freelance work is by patrons, Bandcamp subscriptions and grants, and it does seem like that may be possible one day. I guess time will tell.

What role do you believe music/art can play in these difficult times?

This is a difficult question to answer because I am dissatisfied with the main stories that have been told through art and music, with the people telling those stories and controlling those stories, with the people who own art and music and with the people who decide what is of value and what should be heard and seen and remembered. Grimalkin strives to create something outside of those constructs.

Of course I think art and music is incredibly important, but more than anything, we need to create spaces that are outside the structures that exist now. That may sound weird when we are becoming something like a LLC but that choice was mainly made to legitimize what we are doing so that we can’t be easily shut down by the government. I’m not a fan of working within these systems. I used to believe in that bullshit (working within the system to change it), but I no longer do at all, but still in order to survive you do have to work around the systems and structures that exist in order to survive.

White people control the music and art world and that needs to change. People need to relinquish their power and do more to support others. I believe white people with means and power in art and music need to make real amends. Reparations need to be paid with time, money and labor. I strongly believe in the value and reward of being in the service of others. Grimalkin’s role is forging a path for a better way and hopefully setting an example for others and inspiring others to do the same or in finding their own new ways for creating supportive spaces in their own communities.

Art and music can be many things to people, especially during difficult times. We all need to listen and learn from others, especially from marginalized people. From there you can begin to see the change you hope for, and from there you need to do the work within yourself. I want people, especially white and cis people, to stop talking the talk and performing bullshit and get serious about what it is going to take for us to have a better and more just world.

I always have hope though even when I feel like I don’t. It is okay, especially now, to feel like quitting somedays or like we will never have the change we need, and maybe the whole planet will be extinct before we get there, but all I can do is focus on the present and be mindful by envisioning and investing in the future I hope for. We can each work on ourselves and hopefully inspire others. If you’re digging deep enough inside yourself and doing the work and practicing it in your daily life and then taking that energy to meet and organize with others, even if it is small like what we are doing with Grimalkin, then that is something.

Grimalkin cannot take on the shitty music world all alone but we can carve out a space and make something real, and hopefully that will keep growing and inspire others, and then hopefully that will keep on growing and slowly affect change within the music world, and hopefully that will also grow and branch into other things since music isn’t all that we are doing in Grimalkin. Even if we can’t change the world today or even tomorrow, we can at least make the one we are in right now more livable and sustainable

Live by Spartan Jet-Plex is out now and available via Bandcamp, including on the cool VHS edition you can see below. Also head to the Grimalkin Records Bandcamp page to see other forthcoming releases, their website for more information and consider becoming a patron via Patreon.

The post Interview: Spartan Jet-Plex appeared first on Various Small Flames.