Further Listening:

5. Disaster Is Just Boring For Madeline Kenney

Born and raised in Seattle, Madeline Kenney has been playing music since she was five years old and sharing it with the world since her 2016 EP, Signals. Back in 2020, Madeline shared Sucker’s Lunch, a record of throwing yourself, “into the seemingly-assured destruction of new love”. As the pandemic ground everything to a halt, Madeline began work on what at the time seemed to her also aimless sonic sketches, created in her basement studio with her then-partner. Some of them made her 2021 EP Summer Quarter, and others lay dormant until last year when her partner left her unexpectedly and without warning. In the untangling of what happened, she revisited those songs and found that within them lurked the warning signs she hadn’t seen at the time. The result is her new album, A New Reality Mind, a reflection on the harshness of endings, and the possibilities that exists within a bright new day. With the album out next week via Carpark Records, this week Madeline shared her new single, Plain Boring Disaster.

Discussing the track, Madeline has spoken of the flaws in romanticising your missteps, “I realized that my mistakes did not, in fact, make me unique or genius or special. I, like everyone else, am muddling through my most ordinary disaster of a life“. Musically, the track finds Madeline at her most luxuriously dreamy, processed beats overlain with warm waves of synth reminiscent of Digital Ash-era Bright Eyes, that are gradually carved out by jarring slashes of St. Vincent-like guitar wailing. In the realisation that neither our highs nor our lows are unique or different, Madeline Kenney has conversely created something rather special, a reflection on how nothing is truly new, that sounds fresh, exciting and in its own way quite unlike anything that’s come before.

A New Reality Mind is out July 28th via Carpark Records. For more information on Madeline Kenney visit https://www.mkenneymusic.com/

4. Leo Robinson Is Slithering Towards Success

Although a new name to many, Leo Robinson is something of a hidden gem, an integral part of the music scene first in Manchester, and then more recently in his current home of Glasgow. It was in Manchester, a city he moved to as an art student as a teenager and built a life in that Leo found his musical inspiration, and it’s that part of his life that permeates his upcoming debut album, The Temple. A record described as, “a baroque epic set in the mundane settings of contemporary Northern England”. Ahead of that release, this week Leo shared his new single, The Serpent.

Discussing The Temple, Leo has spoken of the record possessing a contemporary, “hero’s journey” narrative, one that is introduced here on The Serpent, as he explains, “this song deals with carnal desire, chaos and conception – wild dogs and serpents – a mythologized origin or creation story”. The track reflects Leo’s personal experience, yet also seeks to find the universal, “an individual’s spiritual development and humanity’s archetypal stories“. Musically, The Serpent finds Leo exploring a string-tinged slice of flourishing folk, like the middle ground of Meilyr Jones and Midlake. Despite the rich variety of the musical backing, Leo somehow finds a way to create something intimate, drawing you in close to hang on every word of his mesmeric baritone. We might only just be getting our first glimpse of The Temple, yet there’s more than enough evidence here to feel like Leo Robinson might just have built something magical.

The Temple is out October 27th via PRAH Recordings. For more information on Leo Robinson visit https://leorobinson.info/.

3. Publicity Department While Away The Weekend

Publicity Department began as the solo project of Sean Brook, who featured on this site previously in his role as the frontman of the London indie band Brunch. Since releasing his debut album, Loom, back in 2018, he’s recruited a crack team of DIY stalwarts to bring his songs to life. The fruits of the new look Publicity Department will be shared with the world in the shape of their new album, The Big Understander, out this August, which they previewed this week with a new single, Weekend Away.

Weekend Away is a track that feels like a whistle-stop tour of the tourist spots of the United Kingdom, from the Derwent Pencil Museum to Gloucester Motorway Services. Starting with an intro of muted guitars and steady drums, that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Wilco record, the song swells and grows before finally breaking down via a clattering of slacker-influenced guitars and clattering cymbals, reminiscent in equal measures of early Weezer and recent indie-heroes Savage Mansion. Beneath the simplicity of wanting a break, there’s an unspoken sense of tension, a relationship on the edge, “if you won’t come with me, then I think I’ll need a weekend away. I’ve been trying to be something, but I’m so tired, so tired of thinking all the time”. While pencil museums, model trains or taking out the bins might not be the traditional locations of the rock’n’roll songwriter, somehow Publicity Department find the thrill in the mundane, the shimmer in the dull, and have made an extraordinarily good record from the most ordinary and relatable moments of every day living.

The Big Understander is out August 4th via Death To Everything That Is Not Guitar Music. For more information on Publicity Department visit https://linktr.ee/publicitydepartment.

2. MJ Lenderman Rein(deer)s Supreme

When he’s not busy being the guitarist in one of the world’s best bands, Wednesday, MJ Lenderman is increasingly making his own name as a solo artist of some acclaim. After his 2019 debut and 2021’s Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, MJ had something of a breakthrough when Dear Life released his 2022 record Boat Songs, which was raved about by everyone from Pitchfork to Rolling Stone. Along the way, he caught the ear of ANTI- Records, who this week announced he has signed with the label, as well as sharing his brand new single, Rudolph.

The first song MJ wrote after finishing Boat Songs, he recalls how, “I had been sitting on the guitar part for a long time and slowly worked out the song whenever I could…I finished the lyrics with my friend one late night after a Wednesday gig in Atlanta”. Musically the track is classic MJ Lenderman, the strutting lead-guitar sharing the limelight with sweeping slides and driving drum clatter, as his vocal, a sort of gritty near-falsetto lays out his front-stoop missive on lust, faith and self-deprecation. We’re greeted by an image that juxtaposes the sweetness of childhood with something jarringly extreme, as we find Rudolph struck down on the road, “dew dripping off his red nose, blue and black tire track torn through a beautiful doe”. That contrast remains throughout, a man searching for deeper meaning but falling back on his old flirtatious way, a priest-to-be, who’ll quit the seminary in a heartbeat for love. MJ Lenderman’s music exists in the greys and in doing so it seems to speak the truth, life isn’t all flying reindeer and blind faith, but like Rudolph on Christmas Eve, this might just be MJ Lenderman’s time to shine.

Rudolph is out now via ANTI- Records. For more information on MJ Lenderman visit https://www.mjlenderman.com/.

1. Squirrel Flower Is Just The Job

The project of Chicago-based songwriter Ella Williams, Squirrel Flower have been something of a fixture on this site since I first heard her fabulous music back in 2016, with both 2020’s I Was Born Swimming and 2021’s Planet (i) appearing high in my favourite records of their respective years. Since those albums, Ella turned producer on last year’s Planet EP, the first time she’d taken the reigns in a number of years. That confidence carries through into her upcoming album, Tomorrow’s Fire, the self-produced record made in Asheville with engineer Alex Farrar and a studio band including members of Wednesday, Angel Olsen and Bon Iver. With the album set to arrive this October, this week Ella shared a pair of new singles, Full Time Job and When A Plant Is Dying.

Although musically distinct, both singles seem to come from a similar mindset, the “universal desperation” of living as an artist. Full Time Job starts with Ella noting, “doing my best is a full time job, but it doesn’t pay the rent”, before ending in a repeated howl, “I try to be brave in the crowd, but I’m on my knees now, yeah I’m on my knees now”. When A Plant Is Dying comes from a similar place of frustration, Ella comparing herself to a plant throwing its seeds to the wind, struggling for a reason to keep on, “there must be more to life than being on time, these days it takes a sunrise to remember you’re alive”. Musically, Full Time Job is the more smouldering of the pair, a sort of amped-up version of the Squirrel Flower of I Was Born Swimming, despite its volume it has a certain intimacy like Ella is sharing the eye of a storm her vocal calm contrasted by the fizz and fury of the guitars. If Full Time Job picks up where Ella left off, When A Plant Is Dying feels more of an about-turn, it seems to slow the world down, as languid Neil Young-like guitar work plays out atop a lurching, lumbering low end, as Ella seems to find a whispered howl, the intensity of Sharon Van Etten meeting the poised flourishes of PJ Harvey. The return of a much-loved songwriter always comes with a certain nervous excitement, will it live up to the records that came before and meant so much, on this evidence there’s no need to worry, Squirrel Flower has never let us down before and she isn’t going to start now.

Tomorrow’s Fire is out October 13th via Full Time Hobby (UK) / Polyvinyl (US). For more information on Squirrel Flower visit https://www.squirrelflower.net/.

Header photo is Squirrel Flower by Alexa Viscius