Max Wood’s applied communications made a splash back in the noughties, with albums like africa baby, yeah yeah yeah and uhhh sort of winning attention with their singular personality and often chaotic arrangements, though subsequently turned away from music for the next two decades. Only, in a turn of events the 2005-era Wood couldn’t have ever imagined, a TikTok-user-cum-internet-archaeologist unearthed the old releases and revived interest, essentially resuscitating applied communications twenty years after its apparent death. After a pair of EPs in recent times, Wood is now preparing a full-length, and latest single ‘cowboy bebop & eric’s trip’ gives a glimpse at this strange phoenix as it rises from the flames. A characteristically off-the-wall and hyperactive slice of electronic (anti-)pop that comes with all the playfulness and intensity of its predecessors. “I sometimes find myself trying to fit into groups or scenes that seem cool to me, even if (especially if??) I’m going to flail and be weird and feel rejected and get depressed,” Wood explains of the track. “I didn’t mean to write a song about that dynamic, but I think that’s what happened here. I also just wanted to try making a jangly guitar-centered indie rock song because I’ve never been able to pull that off before. I still didn’t pull it off, but I’m proud of the glitchy mess that resulted from the attempt.”

atmos bloom – Everything

London-based duo atmos bloom are set to return this summer with Everythingness, a brand new album on Spirit Goth Records which looks to build upon the dreamy, shoegaze-inflected bedroom pop aesthetic of their previous release Flora. There’s an inherently nostalgic sensibility to this style of music, but Tilda Gratton and Curtis Paterson craft something caught between reflection and forward motion, charting the sometimes difficult space between youth and adulthood, looking to push life in new directions while pining for the old days too. Lead single and not quite title track ‘Everything’ embodies this mood, capturing the sense of flux which marks the entire release. ‘Everything’ explores “the impossible task of trying to be everything all at once, balancing all that life throws at you whilst trying to find yourself and your place amidst it all,” the band explain. “The song explores young adulthood and figuring out the transition between adolescence and womanhood, working through a mountain of contradictory advice and solutions. ‘Everything’ feels like walking a tightrope, wanting to do one thing for one reason and something else for another, knowing each decision pulls you further in a different direction.”

Everythingness will be released on the 24th July via Spirit Goth Records and you can pre-order it now.

Atta Boy – Full Cloud

Back in May we introduced Silt, the forthcoming full-length from LA indie rock outfit Atta Boy with ‘Oh, Mama’, “a song,” as we put it, “which holds up the unique force that is motherly love as something as organic and ever-present as the natural world itself.” With the album’s release now less than a month away, Atta Boy have returned with ‘Full Cloud’ to further establish its mood and themes. With a characteristically upbeat pop-inflected rock style, the single navigates a difficult relationship and all its hidden currents. The tension between the slow suffocation of dependency and the fear of drifting apart (“Leave me alone / Don’t make me your lifeboat,” as one telling verse goes). There might not be a solution within the frame of the track, but it is cathartic to voice such frustrations all the same.

I live here with a full cloud
That never learned to let go of the rain
So it held onto every memory
I am not a cloud
So I will never understand
The very burden of the skies
And all your enemies

Silt will be released on the 26th June and you can pre-order it now.

Grace Cummings – My God

This summer celebrated Australian songwriter Grace Cummings will release Bloodhorse!, the much anticipated follow-up to her acclaimed third album Ramona. “A bloodhorse is a horse expected to be a winner,” Cummings explains of the title, “but they can often also be temperamental, fearful, fragile and easily broken. Sometimes I feel like I’m a trapped animal. And, when I go to sleep, sometimes it’s like I’m in the gate, twitching. And as soon as I open my eyes, I’m fucking running.” Such fight-or-flight energy drives the record, Cummings leaving no stone unturned in her exploration of her own dreams and dreads, no matter how hideous or provocative the result might be. Yet such honesty is less cheap provocation and more an attempt to regain agency within an otherwise restrictive existence, as though to describe the suffocating sensation of living in the plainest of terms is in some way lessen its hold. Listen to single ‘My God’ now, a song “about hatred, jealousy, rage,” as Cumming continues. “The God here is the dark forces that are wrapping around us, that we scroll through, the toxic energy that binds us together in this modern world, and the fear we feed it every day.”

Watch the video filmed and directed by Ben Ulitzka Portnoy below:

Bloodhorse! will be released on the 14th August on ATO Records and you can pre-order it now.

koleżanka – Lessons in Textiles

Aside from her work as part of Foyer Red, Kristina Moore also records solo under the moniker koleżanka, most recently with 2023 full-length Alone with the Sound the Mind Makes on Bar/None Records which emerged from the COVID era to offer “a delicate line between peace and unease,” as we described in our review. “A sensation which fades against the wider tragedy of the pandemic yet resonates deeply all the same,” we continued, “for life’s relentless motion eased for some, and new ways of living began to suggest themselves.” Now koleżanka is back with ‘Lessons in Textiles’, a new single which draws on Moore’s interest in knitting to weave a metaphor for the personal transformations which so often accompany grief. Namely the technique of unravelling (or ‘frogging’) a knit in order to rework the stitches, the song describing a person not only undone by loss but slowly fashioned into something new.

Leilani Patao – kiddy scissors

Last year Hawaiian-American songwriter, broadcaster and engineer Leilani Patao put out daisy, an EP on Audio Antihero which shunned social media and streaming services and thus came to possess, as we wrote in our review, “that emotional authenticity which marked the earlier generations of bedroom pop which relied on little beyond word of mouth” (making the list of our favourite releases of 2025 as a result). Capitalising on the success of the release, Patao is now sharing a brand new deluxe edition of the EP, with the original album tracks joined by three new songs as well as remixes from the likes of Benjamin Shaw and Magana. One of the new cuts, ‘kiddy scissors’, has been unveiled now to whip up excitement, and the song is every bit as tender and genuine as fans will have come to expect. A celebration of “queer joy and trans love,” the single is in many ways the embodiment of Leilani Patao more generally. A song able to evoke the grandest of emotions without resorting to melodrama or spectacle, instead opting to elevate the ordinary, intimate moments of the everyday.

Nathan El – Jubilee // Her Bright Smile Still Haunts Me

Recording under the moniker Nathan El, Pittsburgh-based agriculturalist and musician Nathan Blake creates folk music which looks backwards while moving forward, taking the traditional forms of the genre and reshaping them to conjure something new. Latest release Jubilee // Her Bright Smile Still Haunts Me demonstrates just how Nathan El achieves this, Blake adding ambient tones to deepen and distort classic arrangements, with Claire Sweeney adding supporting vocals as well as fiddle and harmonium. An American traditonal, ‘Jubilee’ opens as something slow and reflective, though kicks into a toe-tapping alt-country number before returning back to its spacious textures, evoking both the romance and melancholy of humble living as time ticks away. ‘Her Bright Smile Still Haunts Me’ reimagines an old English song to similar effect, though this time favours a richer palette despite the aching longing at its heart. Both songs, much like the Nathan El project itself, aim to reconjure the past within the present, unable or unwilling to relinquish that which used to be, and in the process blur the distinction between love and loss.

Jubilee // Her Bright Smile Still Haunts Me is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Richard Tripps – Stone Eating Animals

“Channel[s] the lo-fi aesthetic of The Range of Light, The Velvet Underground, White Fence and early Oh Sees in order to better evoke the environment where the songs were conceived,” we wrote of Richard Tripps‘s 2024 release Between the Morning, Tripps recording a batch of material in his tent cabin in Big Sur and allowing the sense of place to bleed into the songs themselves. This July, Tripps will share a brand new EP which collects the last of the tracks from that period, and single ‘Stone Eating Animals’ shows the result is every bit as evocative and atmospheric as we’ve come to expect. A playful, swaggering slice of slacker rock from the coastal mountains of California, delivered with something between carefree buoyancy and a more ambigious sense of reflection.

‘Stone Eating Animals’ is out now and available from the usual places. The EP will be released on the 12th July.

Taifa Nia – Spellz

You might know Bay Area artist Taifa Nia as the frontman of Same Girls, guitar player in Ricky Lake, founder of Portion Club or collaborator with artists like Brontez Purnell, though he has now decided to record solo under his own name as a newly personal creative outlet. Debut EP Avaratia shows the kind of honesty which marks his dream pop-inflected style of indie rock. “Avaratia is the latin term for greed,” Nia explains. “I look back on this time of my life and I feel ashamed for the level of greed I had. I didn’t realize I had so much, I had creative people around me, I had effortless love that transmuted into effortless art, and everyday I was surrounded by a place that felt the same way. Yet for some reason I was always looking for more, a new home, a bigger stage, bigger achievements, more money than I needed.” The album follows this mindset towards its alienating end, finding Nia slowly being humbled by his surroundings, and coming to realise he’s moved away from himself in pursuit of material luxuries and acclaim. Listen to single ‘Spellz’ now:

Van Chamberlain – The Right Line

Van Chamberlain are continuing to release singles from their forthcoming full-length As Far As the Eye Can See, following tracks like ‘Miracle Drug‘, ‘‘Solutions‘ and ‘Running Through the World‘ with latest cut, ‘The Right Line’. The record has possessed a decidedly bittersweet tone to date and the new single is certainly no exception, showing that life’s big questions can be confronted with richness and groove. “There was a point where it seemed like everyone around me was going through it at the same time,” Van Chamberlain explains. “I didn’t have any of the answers, but I wanted to be a positive force. This is a song about wanting to give the people around you a reason to smile. It’s easy to write a song about what you’re going through. This time I wanted to write a song for everyone else.”

Wild Pink – Round Of Applause At The End Of The World

Following on from their critically acclaimed 2024 album Dulling the Horns, Wild Pink are returning this summer with brand new full-length Still Coming Down. Much water has passed beneath the bridge from when we first covered the band over a decade ago, with lead John Ross overcoming serious illness and later becoming a father, not to mention a changing musical style which has veered from raucous indie rock to more cinematic, electronic-based arrangements and back again. Yet throughout this time, there’s always been a consistent spirit to the Wild Pink project which is rooted in Ross’s distinctive lyricism. Still Coming Down retains this spirit while pushing the writing further than ever, capturing contemporary America in all of its chaos, confusion and mundanity. Like DeLillo, Ellroy and Mailer before him, lead single ‘Round Of Applause At The End Of The World’ sees Ross succumb to the masculine urge to write about JFK, Oswald and Jack Ruby, painting a swirling picture of conspiracy that undermines even the most trusted facets of society.

Still Coming Down will be released on the 21st August via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it now.

Wolfschmidt – whaler

“An epic alt rock number which faces up to feelings of stasis with a combination of hope and fatalism, looking to break free even while the same cycles seem to repeat.” So we wrote of Wolfschmidt‘s recent single ‘file’, the Gothenburg outfit utilising a propulsive quiet-loud dynamic to achieve cathartic heights. With album INSUFFICIENT FAILURE coming soon, the band have returned with follow-up ‘whaler’ to further introduce themselves. Again it’s the drama and energy which first grabs the attention, but, revolving around ideas of self-sacrifice for the greater good, there’s a meaty thematic side to the track too. A collision of chaos and ordered flow not unlike the marine environment suggested by the title, with the listener invited to take a deep breath and submerge themselves too.

Dive in
Meet me where I end
And you start
Whale fall
Dive in
I descend
Where you are

‘whaler’ is out now and available from the usual places. INSUFFICIENT FAILURE is coming soon.

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

New Jersey punk rock outfit best dressed ghost are preparing to release their latest EP Let’s Go Home in the next few weeks, looking to build upon the raucous, mischievous beginnings set out on predecessor Dead Rock. If lead single ‘Funhouse’ is anything to go by, the new EP more than lives up to these ambitions. With equal parts brooding shadow and chaotic energy, the song carries a reckless sense of fun, something accentuated by dashes of surf and skate rock sensibilities, not to mention the anarchic vocal delivery. What emerges is something at once fun and slightly dangerous, a spark which might not last long but is determined to burn as hot and bright as possible in the meantime.

Watch the video created by nino + stef dressed ghost below:

Let’s Go Home will be released on the 12th March, so keep an eye on the best dressed ghost Bandcamp page.

Celestine Manno – If You Were Around

Connecticut-born songwriter Celestine Manno won attention back in 2023 with Once You’ve Seen It All, a distinctively sincere album which sat somewhere between indie folk and Sylvan Esso-esque pop. Now Manno has returned with brand new single ‘If You Were Around’ and the emotional resonance has only grown. A song which not only serves as a remembrance to Manno’s mother but an exploration of how loss might impact our lives moving forward. “My mom felt like California personified. Through stories and photographs, I’ve concocted my own memory of her that’s bright, witty, and effortless,” Manno explains. “Written on the 20th anniversary of her death, ‘If You Were Around’ reflects on the absence of her guidance through womanhood, and acceptance of the passage of time. Who would I have become with her influence? How differently would I have been shaped?”

‘If You Were Around’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Eric Angelo Bessel – Double Helix

“[An] enveloping slice of avant garde ambient, soaring with a weightless grace beyond the suffocating confines of our terrestrial life.” So we wrote of ‘Non-Diegetic Sound’, taken from Eric Angelo Bessel‘s Mirror at Night last year. A sound indicative of the album as a whole. “Nothing is quite what it seems within this space, true to Mirror At Night‘s promise to evade simple description,” we continued. “The futuristic vibe is balanced by the nostalgic tones of the Mellotron, and the synths blur the line between the organic and digital. A record that isn’t one thing or the other but everything all at once, offering different reflections depending on your perspective.” Now Bessel is back with a new 7″ EP Mirror At Night B-Sides to push ever further into this mysterious territory, and lead track ‘Double Helix’ lives up to expectations. Dreamlike and drifting, emerging full of ambiguous meaning as though dug from deep in the distant past or else visiting from some time or space we are yet to encounter.

Garet Camella – Gnats (feat. Mukiss)

Midwest-born, LA-based Garet Camella is preparing to release new EP Just Passing Through, a collection of songs with roots in his early twenties, now revised and recorded to revive something which might otherwise have been forgotten. First taste ‘Gnats’ is a suitably nostalgic slice of folk rock to introduce the project, rising from humble beginnings into a full band duet. Camella is joined by Caeleigh Featherstone, AKA Mukiss (who you might know as part of Saintseneca), and the chemistry between the vocals forms a major part of the track’s development. Camella’s searching, uncertain delivery in the opening minute grows in conviction as Mukiss joins and the instrumentation blooms, the song playing like connection made in real time.

Just Passing Through will be released soon.

Party of the Sun – Abandon’s Grip

We’ve followed the work of New Hampshire-based  folk trio Party of the Sun (Ethan McBrien, Rory Hurley and Garrett Cameron) across a number of years, most recently back in 2024 with the release of double single Giver // River. “Songs rich in invention and always tied to the environment,” we wrote of the project, “concerned with searching for new ways to evoke life in its complicated beauty.” Out via Trailing Twelve Records, Party of the Sun’s new release The Twin EP represents a continuation of this style, dating back as far as 2019 and “shaped,” per the label, “as a single, continuous emotional arc.” With a main body of bodhrán, slide guitar and finger-picked steel string but with a real attention to negative space too, the result is every bit as thoughtful and organic as anything the trio have released to date. Listen to single ‘Abandon’s Grip’ now:

The Twin EP is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

The Pretty Flowers – To Be So Cool

“Written within a city (and wider country) shaken by turmoil, be it the unprecedented wildfires or equally tinderbox political moment, [The Pretty Flowers] found themselves driven by the surrounding atmosphere, the anxiety and chaos of their surroundings seeping into the tracks themselves.” So we wrote of the LA indie rock outfit’s forthcoming album Never Felt Bitter back in January, single ‘Came Back Kicking’ highlighting how they turned to barrelling energy as though in defiance. Latest track ‘To Be So Cool’ is no different, a song bound by an irrepressible sense of forward motion which again carries a rebellious air. “’To Be So Cool” is one of my favorite songs on the album, and it’s a blast to play live,” Green explains. “The lyrics just seemed to kind of flow and I didn’t try and overthink writing them at the time. Some months later when I was watching the film Withnail & I for the umpteenth time, I noticed that the lyrics seemed to connect to the film, in how the “I” character sees Withnail going through life. Maybe a student in a community college English class will tease that idea out in an essay at some point.”

Watch the video directed and produced by Tambi Haron with director of Photography Nate Klein below:

Never Felt Bitter will be released on 27th March. Order it now from The Pretty Flowers Bandcamp.

Swapmeet – I Know!

South Australia four-piece Swapmeet formed in 2021, though really burst on the scene in 2024 with their debut EP, Oxalis. The release shapeshifted between each of its five songs, the quartet managing to capture the spirit of being a young person in the twenty-first century, constantly moving between love, fear, hopelessness and grief and often embracing several simultaneously. Having now signed with Winspear, Swapmeet are now back with new single ‘I Know!’ to introduce the next stage of their career. Again pairing jangle and fuzz with a buoyant energy, the track represents the very best of the project. 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.

If you wanna hurt me
If you wanna try
If I had your heart in my hand
Would you want mine

‘I Know!’ is out now via Winspear and available from Bandcamp.

Taroug – Najet

Back in January we introduced Taroug, the recording project of German–Tunisian drummer and electronic music producer Tarek Zarroug, and the new album Chott, forthcoming via Denovali Records. Single ‘1995’ highlighted how Taroug “blends digital and organic sounds to create conceptual soundscapes able to evoke the full richness of personal history,” as we put it. “blending a nostalgic, melancholic minimalism with moments of bright intensity.” With the album’s release on the horizon, latest track ‘Najet’ leads the audience further into this style. The bass-centric, layered sound is adorned with Tunisian instrumentation, melding the traditional and the contemporary and charging the record with a depth that stems in equal parts from culture, history and geology.

Thin Lear – Witness

Back in February we introduced Many Disappeared, the new album from Matt Longo’s Thin Lear with Mothman-themed single ‘Silver Bridge’. The story is just one of a whole file of supernatural stores which came to inspire [the record],” we wrote, “which uses all things weird and unexplained as a way to explore themes altogether more human and personal.” With the release on the horizon via First City Artists, Thin Lear has shared latest track ‘Witness’, a song which delves into an experience far more personal but no less confronting. “My friend and I came across a dying cat on the road,” Longo shares. “My friend was nonchalant. But I was utterly horrified. The incident is still a touchpoint for me, every time I come upon the same powerless feeling, whether it be through the loss of a loved one or the general anxiety that the veil between this world and the next is quite thin.”

Watch the video by Ali Aschman below:

Many Disappeared will be released on the 24th April via First City Artists and you can pre-order it now from the Thin Lear Bandcamp page.

villagerrr – Locket

Following on from 2024 full-length Tear Your Heart Out and subsequent deluxe edition which came out last year, Ohio-based indie project villagerrr will release their fifth album Carousel this May via Winspear. The previous record saw Mark Scott explore his close connection with hometown Chillicothe, and the new record chooses another relationship to put under the microscope. Though this time it is not related to place but the act of making art itself, namely the attempt to communicate in earnest with another person within a world which often seems designed to hinder such a thing. In the spirit of this theme, Scott dropped his guard and opened villagerrr up to outside influence more than ever before, with an enviable list of friends and collaborators joining to elevate Carousel into the project’s richest sound to date. Listen to lead single ‘Locket’ now, a suitably sincere number which risks vulnerability in order to communicate more faithfully.

Watch the video directed by Trevor Hock below:

Carousel will be released on the 29th May via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

Wolfschmidt – file

Born within the industrial wastelands of Gothenburg, which has lately become the artistic hotbed of the Swedish city, Wolfschmidt is a ‘nu-gaze’ quintet following the lineage of contemporaries like OVLOV, DIIV and Nothing. Having developed this style across a number of releases since their inception in 2021, Wolfschmidt are back with new single ‘file’ and the track suggests the band are really finding their groove. It’s an epic alt rock number which faces up to feelings of stasis with a combination of hope and fatalism, looking to break free even while the same cycles seem to repeat. But with a quiet-loud dynamic and a propulsive momentum, the result is ultimately cathartic, Wolfschmidt burning through their frustration through sheer energy.

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

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