Portland, Oregon songwriter Anna Tivel returns later this summer with brand new album Outsiders on Mama Bird Recording Co. Ahead of the release, Tivel has unveiled the lead single and title track to set the tone. A slow-moving, mysterious track nevertheless grounded in the human experience, looking to connect what seems faraway to our immediate situation. “I wrote ‘Outsiders’ sitting on the floor in front of the TV between fragments of the Apollo 11 documentary,” Tivel explains. “The news was feeling especially dark, full of pain and distorted truths, and watching all that beautiful footage from the ‘69 moon landing hit me right in the gut.”

Outsiders, look up
It turns out we are not so different

Check out the video by Eric J. Loeffler and Vincent Bancheri below:

Outsiders is out via Mama Bird Recording Co. on the 19th August and you can pre-order it now.

Badvril – Tall Sam

Badvril is the recording project of Becket Schroeder, a songwriter who draws inspiration from his time spent between rural Washington and San Francisco. New single ‘Tall Sam’ plays on this juxtaposition, balancing quiet lo-fi textures with heavier guitars, Schroeder’s reflective vocals wrapping the whole thing in a warm nostalgic charm.

‘Tall Sam’ is out now and available from all the usual places.

Kathryn Joseph – A Way From Rage

Fresh from her fantastic new record for you who are the wronged, Kathryn Joseph has returned with a version of Heir of the Cursed‘s ‘A Way From Rage’, dedicated to the memory of Beldina Odenyo Onassis and in support of the Mental Health Foundation. We first covered Joseph’s work back in 2015 with the album Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled, describing it as a record about people “lonely and loved, corporeal and divine, mortal and terrified yet enduring with a resilient hope that never quite goes out.” The description could extend to this cover and the new record too, as both display Joseph’s understated and devastating style at the height of its power.

‘A Way From Rage’ is out now and available on the Kathryn Joseph Bandcamp page, where you can also find her new record, for you who are the wronged.

Lonely Uncles – 20 Million People

With album Mad Ashes on the horizon, Lonely Uncles have unveiled brand new single ’20 Million People’ to build anticipation. Following on from 2020 punk/electro-pop hybrid release Ex-Kidz, the track furthers the project’s creative art rock aesthetic, its sound a rich and fluid tapestry across which various styles of vocals move. From the zealous, preacher-style monologue of the middle section to the laidback lilt of the closing minute. Perhaps not quite twenty million people, but the track does capture a sense of multiplicity and movement to evoke the diversity of a population.

You can find Lonely Uncles on Instagram.

Martha – Please Don’t Take Me Back

Durham pop-punk four-piece Martha return next month with a new 7″ single, Please Don’t Take Me Back’. Released on the ever-reliable Specialist Subject Records, the song sees Martha continue to perfect their anarchic, fun and politically-conscious brand of pop punk. Rather fittingly for a week in which large swathes of the UK will be garlanded in red, white and blue in celebration of the imagined glory of a difficult history, the song is about rejecting the comfy allure of rose-tinted spectacles. “The past was absolutely terrible,” the band say. “Don’t get us wrong, the present is also absolutely terrible, but that almost instantly becomes the past anyway.”

Take me back to the old days
Take me back to the glory days we had
Take me back to the old days
No wait, don’t do that
I was really fucking sad
The old days were bad

Please Don’t Take Me Back is out via Specialist Subject on the 24th June and you can pre-order it now from the Martha Bandcamp page.

Midding – Figurehead

Having changed their name from Clwb Fuzz, Cardiff’s Midding have unveiled a brand new single as a kind of re-introduction. Titled ‘Figurehead’, it’s a slice of foreboding psych rock in which a languid dreamlike drift is interspersed by anxious acceleration, its shadowy western sensibilities offering an almost Lynchian vibe. “We’ve all matured (a bit) since and just wanted a fresh start,” as guitarist/vocalist Joe Woodward explains of the new moniker. “We will still be the same band, just in a different body. It’s like Clwb Fuzz was a caterpillar and now Midding is us transforming into some weird fucked up butterfly.” Check out the video for ‘Figurehead’ by Pypi Slysh below:

‘Figurehead’ is out now and available on streaming services. You can also follow Midding on Instagram.

M. Lockwood Porter – While We’re Here

We last wrote of Oklahoma-born, Oakland-based songwriter M. Lockwood Porter way back in 2014 with the album 27, though he has since continued to develop his country rock style. New single ‘While We’re Here’ sees John Moreland on bass, Jeremy Lyon on guitar and Ian Taylor Sutton on pedal steel, resulting in a warm and emotionally-charged exploration of grief in the wake of the death of Lockwood’s father. An attempt to communicate the new understanding gleaned from the process of losing such a fundamental part of one’s life, recontextualising everything and promising to continue with the hard-won wisdom only grief can bring.

While we’re here
Our little lives are everything we’ve got
We pretend they’re never ending, though they’re not
So chalk that up as one more thing you taught me
It’ll come in handy

‘While We’re Here’ is out now via Black Mesa Records and you can get it from the M. Lockwood Porter Bandcamp page.

quand il pleut – Altar

Seattle super duo quand il pleut have unveiled their new EP, Refuge, as part of Dance Cry Dance Records’ newsletter subscription package, Dance Cry Dance Break. Consisting of Natalie Bayne (Sound of the Hunter) and Matt Badger (Ravenna Woods), the pair layer discordant guitars and atmospheric synths to create a sound at once stark and triumphant. The EP comes packaged as a single 25-minute track, split into six distinct songs. Lead single ‘Altar’ is a reflective slice of this whole, its mournful vocals following the ascendant guitars into a cathartic close.

Refuge is out now for subscribers to Dance Cry Dance Break, and will be available publicly a year later.

Workhorse – Chain

Workshorse is the project of Adelaide songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Harriet Fraser-Barbour, who arrived on the scene back in 2017 with debut EP No Sun. The record introduced a distinctive style, combining the dusty nostalgia of American country music with slinky, shadowy dream pop that wouldn’t be out of place on a David Lynch soundtrack. In August, Workhorse will release their debut LP No Photographs on Dinosaur City Records, a record created during the initial 2020 lockdown when Fraser-Barbour set out to “experiment with creating band music as a solo musician.” The result is something tender, wistful and strange, influenced by queer. Check out lead single ‘Chain’ in the player below for an idea of what to expect.

The post Weekly Listening: May 2022 #5 appeared first on Various Small Flames.