The first time we featured Lefty Parker in the Ugly Hug, it was for his visual art. He shared a few posters in a show flyer feature of our Newsletter, done in his medium of choice – Etch a Sketch. Its a creative tool that certainly garners novelty points, and anyone who has dabbled in one of those red boxes in their lifetime can attest to the fact that creating anything legible on there is an impressive feat in itself. But what Lefty is able to do on Etch A Sketch, and his ability to hone so much life through mere two dimensional scratches, is breathtaking. In a world pulverized by stimulation, it can often feel the price tag to attention is a never-ending slew of hollow maximalism. It’s exhausting, which is why I think today more than ever, we crave art that subverts excess. Art that is grounded in imperfection and art that takes a step back. I think that is what makes the “Etches” Lefty does so moving; the depth of sensitivity found in a portrait or animal or shower head juxtaposed against the perceived limits and simplicity of the medium. I would urge you to check them out if you have not yet.
This post is about Lefty’s music, but I choose to lead with that context because I like the parallels between his crafts. Today, Lefty announced his forthcoming record, Ark, sharing lead single, “Illusions”. It’s a story of staggering heartache through a deeply human lens; of asking the sky for answers, of the achey impacts of a memory saturated town, of the inescapable wear and tear that comes with being alive. Featuring Buck Meek, “Illusions” leaves a stubborn mark in the same way that Lefty’s Etch A Sketch pictures do – as tender vignettes unravel on a familiar folk canvas, the track is profound and touching without any sort of gimmicks. It rewards intentionality; with each listen the soft woodwinds and warm twangy melodies grow in beauty while the harmonized somber vignettes cut deeper. By rooting itself in an earnest simplicity, “Illusions” captures yearning in its most honest and delicate form. It’s refreshing and complex, and a lovely sliver of the kind of calloused storytelling we can expect from Ark.
Ark will be out October 24th. You can listen to “Illusions” now.
Sometimes the most harrowing heart break tracks are not necessarily the most immediate. Rather, they draw from a wound that is neither fresh nor healed, loitering in a state of emotional limerence and nourished more by romanticized illusion than reality. Think Yo La Tengo’s “My Heart’s Not In It” or “Antenna” by Sonic Youth. What makes these narratives so brutal lies in their inward nature – when dust settles and time dulls at the ration behind a relationship’s dissolution, there is space from a “what if” shaped hole begging to be filled with one’s own yearning. Or, in the case of bloodsports, patched up with a surge of jagged percussion. Out today, “Rosary” nods to the wistful sensitivity that lies beneath an enamel of exasperated song structures and tough sounding band name, as bloodsports paves a robust buildup sure to knock out even the worst case of self-inflicted longing.
“Rosary” comes as the lead single for bloodsports’ debut record, Anything Can Be A Hammer, announced today as well. The track builds on feats found in bloodsports’ existing discography – the melodic tensions that grip their self titled EP, the pensive lyricism bottled in 2024 single “canary”, the potency of their live sets. It also veers into new textures, leaning into a sharper sound and hinting to the dynamism we can anticipate on their debut.
I noted the nature of their sets, but for those who have yet to experience bloodsports live, I will emphasize that the four piece is well versed on the impact of oscillation. They have a knack for suspense through contoured structures, assertive drumming, and compelling buildups. The latter serves as the foundation for “Rosary”, which leads with tender vocal harmonies over bare chord progressions and ends on a blazing riff. The track’s gentle onset is armed with unease, inciting tension as you wait for an impending sonic inflation.
About the single, Sam shares, “This song was written about a relationship that I ended, and reminiscing about the feelings months after the fact. Lyrically, it’s a very bittersweet song. It looks back positively on the time that was spent but there’s also a layer of regret about the things that never quite came to fruition. It’s strange to sing live now because the relationship that it’s referencing has since been rekindled but I can still connect to those feelings from back then.”
Anything Can Be A Hammer is set to come out October 17th via Good English Records. It marks the first release for Good English, a New York and Nashville based label dedicated to creative freedom and a DIY ethos.
You can pre-order Anything Can Be A Hammer on Bandcamp.
Montana’s latest addition to the summer heat comes from the newly formed group Les Duck, who are sharing their debut single “Head Fell Off” with us all today. Coming from the pop-driven minds of Lukas Phelan (Fantasy Suite) and Sanders Smith (Soft Maybe, Wrinkles), this track is the first bit of taste-testing from Les Duck’s debut album “Love Is The Dirt” set to be released August 29th via Anything Bagel, bringing in a collection of players who embody the likings of “fast cars, loud guitars, family and friendship.”
From the daydreams that take the reins in a moment of stillness, “Head Fell Off” finds sincerity in the off-kiltered melodic fixings that Les Duck take for a joy ride with both pure excitement and full commitment. It’s a riveting collection of thoughts, unhindered by any expectations of structure or rules, where Phelan lays the dots and the sprightly instrumental voices connect em. “When my head falls off, what will they say about me? “what a fool” they will say, “though he was nice,” Phelan sings, while the track begins to unravel with charm-filled possibilities, instinctive foot tapping and a reminder that there is a bit of Timothee Chalamet in all of us.
About the single, Phelan shared, “this is a song I wrote on a walk by the river while my kids were being real wacky and getting into trouble. I guess it’s a song about feeling like a different person than the person I was before I was a parent, or at least a dumber and more scattered person. Also pondering what legacy and artistic expression means for me now that I’m like that. Not complaining though, I love it!”
Listen to “Head Fell Off” here!
You can pre-order “Love Is The Dirt” now as well as on vinyl and/or one of the Bagel’s specialty screen printed tape.
The discography of People I Love boasts potential for an excellent horror movie score. Not so necessarily a grotesque blockbuster (though I would love to hear “Holyness” in Smile 2), perhaps more of an emotionally abstract, artsy thriller. The kind of film where the real “horror” is not derived from cheesy SFX or supernatural antagonists that cease to exist when the credits roll, and instead through the realistic, human characters it features. His latest single might present like the latter (though I suppose that hinges on whether you believe in witchcraft), though underneath halloween emblems and mildly sinister cover art is a track that fits perfectly into his raw and sensible discography. Out today, “The Witch” toes between warmth and melancholy as it begs the question of what is more terrifying; the fact that someone hurt you, or the fact that you let them.
Brooklyn based Dan Poppa has been releasing music under People I Love since 2019. He usually keeps his canvases minimal, eliciting tension through wilting chord progressions and airy layers of organic and eerie synthetic sound. There is a heaviness amidst his sparsest arrangements, armed with sneakily contagious melodies and introspections that scrape deeper upon each listen.
At first, “The Witch” appears less fragile than People I Love’s 2024 releases. There is a volatile feel to Poppa’s vocals, which often assume a more tender and withering shape. It also builds up fairly quickly, as the early reserved guitar and thin percussion bleed into a fuller sonic atmosphere just after the one minute mark. The motifs from the beginning of the song return, offering an unsettling intermission between charged pleas of “are you a friend or you just a witch” and chipping away at a facade paved by animated melodies and moments of upbeat tempo. Though the tone of “The Witch” is murky, bending between skepticism and clarity, the track’s catchy nature is irrefutable. You can listen below.
Today, the Chicago-based duo Hell Trash is sharing with the world their ecstatic new single “Violence”. Hell Trash members, Rowan and Noah Roth have been formative members of the Chicago DIY scene, occupying countless bills, participating in other projects, and continuously finding new ways to share their unique creative voices through different avenues. But with little music released thus far, “Violence” becomes a culmination of time, exposure and spirit as the duo marks a new beginning for Hell Trash at large.
From the get-go, “Violence” is attuned to its unfamiliarity – switching from the often guitar-forward landscapes that they have covered in the past, to amalgamations of electric pianos, horns and an infinitive grove, as the track explodes into horizontal momentum built out from uncharted territory. But as the project becomes more solidified in its ambitions and practices, there is an already well affirmed structure of trust in the directions that Hell Trash choose to follow. Soon the song pushes on; “I make you violent, cause it feels good in your mind”, is a searing line, sung in harmony as the duo almost eggs on the explosive instrumentation that takes the reigns. As “Violence” begins to prove itself, its buoyant complexion becomes entrenched within the distorted grit and darker undertones of the track, embracing a pluralistic approach to making the music that Hell Trash ultimately wants to make.
About the song, Rowan shares, “I wrote “Violence” at the end of 2021. It was included in the first batch of songs that I brought to Noah when I hired them to engineer and produce a record for me around the same time. Over the course of the next four years, we recorded “Violence” four different times. The first version was an acoustic demo, the second one was based around a Can sample and a vocoder, the third one was basically a straight-ahead alternative rock song, and the fourth version is what we’re putting out into the world. It didn’t end up working until we decided to eschew the guitar as the primary driving force of the song. Instead, we leaned into other sounds that excite us—electric piano, horns, drum machines, etc. Ultimately, making this recording revealed to us that perhaps the most important part of this project’s ethos is the search for a kind of music that sounds new to us.”
Through a type of personal introspection, one which flows with such grace and intuition, Carolina Chauffe of hemlock and Alexandre Duccini of Floating Clouds have always brought words to motion, recentering what matters most in the world with such simple fixations, open hearts and really good tunes. Now partnering up, along with Nick Meigs and Jakob (Dr. Sweetheart) Parsons, today the two share Campfire Singles, a pair of songs written and recorded on tour in Washington in the fall of 2024. As the tale goes, Carolina flew to Seattle to tour with no car and no guitar, “pushing the envelope of human generosity”; and there was plenty of it. Recorded around a campfire on an iPhone, “No One in Portland Says Howdy Anymore” and “Red Breasted Nuthatch” find hemlock and Floating Clouds in their most sincere habitat, as these two songs are a restful gesture that “music is play”.
Photo by Alex Martinez
Upon contagious laughter blending into the crackle of a campfire, the uplifting spirit of a slide whistle brings in “No One in Portland Says Howdy Anymore”, as Alexandre’s rich voice establishes the tune amidst the open air. With a steady demeanor, the two songwriters share tails of drifting heartbreak and lamenting woes as “Howdy’ becomes a space where familiarity blends with presence and courtesy with understanding. The second track “Red Breasted Nuthatch” pushes curiosity into the smallest bits of beauty that surrounds our day-to-days, ushering in a call and response pattern, a dialogue of imagination, hoping to get some answers from a tiny-winged friend they made earlier that day.
These two tracks are less of a practical method and more of a practice in trust and intention. They are sweet and silly and a little rough around the edges, but that’s okay. What else could be more perfect when capturing genuine creativity? It’s a simple, yet powerful reminder of what makes creating such a special part of being human.
You can listen to the campfire singles out everywhere today, as well as check out Floating Clouds latest album With A Shared Memoryas well as 444 by hemlock.
If you have been following this site for a while now, you may have heard the name Wesley Wolffe tossed around at some point. Following the release of his sophomore album Good Kind back at the beginning of 2024, Wolffe’s sweaty and deliberate style of punk music has held a grip on those that have come across it, and those that have been even luckier to have caught the Wesley Wolffe band live in action. Today Wolffe returns with his new single “Words”, the first release he’s offering since his move from New Orleans to Brooklyn as he showcases his new band and marking the first taste of what is going to be a two song EP that he is releasing in full next month.
With a slick pronunciation of the drums, Wolffe’s roughly tempered wail comes through, unfretted and unguarded, as “Words” breaks apart instrumental fixations – shifting from an impenetrable wall to coordinated expositions of harsh post-punk melodies and commanding vocals. Playing with his longtime guitar maestro Jeremy Mock (Face of Ancient Gallery), Wolffe now introduces his latest bandmates Nick Pedroza and Sebi Duzian from Bedridden fame to bust open Wolffe’s dynamic and intuitive sound. “Words” is presented as a bad dream, a contusion of reality and what may lie beyond what we deem the subconscious. But after being diagnosed with OCD, Wolffe finds himself lingering in the paranoia that his brain plays with him, a white knuckled grip, a deck of cards slapped down beyond his command as he runs away, looking for a justification, a plea or an answer to anything that would ease the obsessions.
We recently got to catch up with Wesley Wolffe to talk about playing live with his new band, changing his writing process and how “Words” came to be.
Listen to “Words” premiering here on the ugly hug.
Shea Roney: You have two new songs coming out soon. The first two songs from Wesley Wolffe after you moved to New York. How are you feeling about it all?
WW: I feel pretty excited about it. I kind of have zero expectations for how it’ll do on the Internet just cause I think I had pretty lofty expectations for the last release. So this time, I’m just like, you know, whatever happens, happens.
SR: I know that balancing expectations was a challenge for you the past two album releases you had.
WW: Yeah, whenever I go back and listen, I mean, it’s cool and I really like the songs, but I think after some time passes you can approach your former releases with a clear mind.
SR: Looking back, I mean personally as a fan, I’m putting those records on quite often. But I can imagine them being part of you for so long, obviously anyone looks back and sees them differently. Is there a new light that has been shed on these previous releases?
WW: All the Good Kind songs I don’t really love the recorded version of them that much, but we’re playing a ton of those songs live. And recently, with this band, our live show has gotten really, really tight and much, much more aggressive. It was already pretty aggressive, but now it’s like we’re fully a punk band and we play these songs like a punk band does. And to me, that’s really exciting. So when I watch videos of us performing live in New York, I’m like, ‘oh, this is so fucking cool.’ But then I listen to the recordings, and I’m like, ‘damn it, just doesn’t hit the same’ [laughs]. But that’s also a really cool place to be, because I feel like it’s pretty rare for bands these days to sound better than their recordings, you know?
SR: Your music has always been aggressive, but saying it’s more aggressive live and having that need, that want and that pleasure you get from playing more aggressively, where do you think that comes from?
WW: I think for me, if I go to a show, and I’m watching a band, and they’re kind of just like statues and just sort of standing there, then I’m bored. So if I were to watch a band, I would want them to perform like the way that we perform, because we all move around a ton and scream and get in your face. And it’s also just exciting, like these songs are songs, like we’re not improvising, but the way that we play them now, there is a lot more room for just weird shit to happen. There’s just a new element that’s unpredictable. The way these guys will play it, too, because they’re all professionals, they truly make it their own. So, what happens is we end up playing them just really fucking hard and really fast, just because it’s fun as hell for us. To answer your question, I think it’s just fucking fun.
SR: So your new song “Words”, a lot of our conversations in the past have been about how your writing style has been this sort of detached lens, about these characters, but still aimed at you personally. Is this something that you have continued on as you start writing more songs?
WW: Recently, no. With every new song that I’ve been writing in the past year, I have kind of stepped away from that. Now, “Words” is just about a year and a half old, so the song is about a whole host of things. I’m the main character of the song, but it’s not necessarily about anything that’s ever happened to me before.
I wrote the song first and then wrote the lyrics later. The chords have a flat 5th, or a tritone, for every single chord in it, like an evil interval. The church, back in the day, that interval was banned because they thought it would summon the devil or something. It’s used to evoke a sense of unease, and it’s always one that I gravitate towards when I’m writing songs, because, you know, I feel uneasy a lot. The song is about paranoia and focusing on facial features and trying to read people. It’s like making up all these weird stories in your brain about what people might be thinking of you. The end of the song is about me getting pushed off of a cliff by this group of people because of something that I did, but I don’t know what it was.
SR: Did you allow yourself to follow this paranoia in ways that you didn’t see coming? Or was this story crafted with something you had in your mind previously?
WW: It just all sort of came to me. At that point in my life I was in New Orleans and I just recently got diagnosed with OCD. I was talking to my therapist about it, and just talking about all of the different ways that OCD can manifest itself, and one thing I was worried about was false memory OCD. The paranoia aspect, getting pushed off a cliff and murdered for something that I was unaware of doing was like, maybe I did do something, but I can’t remember it, or like, am I having false memory OCD? What’s the deal here?
SR: You mentioned that you wrote these songs a while ago while you still lived in New Orleans. Now living in New York, do these two songs represent a transitional period for you at all? Are there parts of you and New Orleans still in them, or are you looking to have them be a way to move forward?
WW: I wrote them in the midst of some OCD delusional spells. I think it’s understandable that I’d like to leave that in the past [laughs]. However, as you know, these are issues I’ll most likely continue to battle with for the most of my life. So they remain relevant to me. I see them less as a transition or more of a chapter closing. So I guess a way to move forward is a good way to describe how I feel towards em. These are the last songs I wrote in New Orleans that I plan to release. So I’ll be moving on pretty soon
You can listen to “Words” and Wolffe’s past releases everywhere now. The second single from the EP is set to be released next month.
From the hills of Butte, Montana comes the pond, the latest project from longtime songwriter Jon Cardiello and his band: Noelle Huser (vocals/synth), Sandy Smith (bass/guitar), and Kale Huseby (drums/vocals). You might know Cardiello from his earlier work as Bombshell Nightlight or through his and Sandy Smith’s tape label, Anything Bagel. A Year as a Cloud invites listeners into a space where memory and sound intertwine, reshaping the past with each note. Shaped by a lifelong connection to creativity, Cardiello’s music doesn’t follow a path so much as carve one out for itself.
This new batch of songs is built from the small stuff—blurry snapshots, a walk around the neighborhood, a record playing while tea steeps. The writing lives in that quiet middle space—where grief lingers, wandering is allowed, and sadness can sit next to softness without contradiction. There’s room here for stillness and for slowly making sense of things that may never make sense.
If you’ve spent time with Bombshell Nightlight, you’ll hear the same patient pacing—songs that breathe and take their time. But with the pond, there’s more grit in the softness, more weight beneath the quiet. Listeners of Friendship, Hello Shark, Horse Jumper of Love, Mount Eerie, Greg Mendez will appreciate the transparent nature of songs with equal parts lightness and gloom. With each song a compelling story surfaces within the instrumentals; Grief cuts through the lo-fi vocals and raw guitar in “Brittle”; “Into the Room” embraces distortion without sacrificing its quiet depth.
Cardiello’s evolving sound reflects a subtle progression shaped by the nuances of life’s ever-shifting emotional landscape. It’s shaped by the subtle turns of feeling that come with just being alive. It raises the question, “Where does a song go when it dies?” and forces you to think about the songs that have stayed with you long after you stopped playing them, or the ones that suddenly pop back into your head at the strangest, most unexpected times. Songs seem to live their own lives—they become companions, change shape, fade into the background, then return when we least expect it. But do they ever really disappear? Maybe they just shift, taking on new meaning as we move through different moments in our lives.
And in these tracks, there’s something undeniably alive. They carry a quiet, emotional weight, filled with questions that don’t have clear answers. “Cup of Lilacs” and “Hungry” take small, everyday moments and turn them into something worth pausing for making those tiny, fleeting feelings, like the sound of a song or a cup of tea—become significant. “Burnt Plant” is a banger for the anxious and ashamed; it’s restless and raw, with jagged guitars and a relentless beat that mimics the feeling of being trapped in your own mind.
The brilliance of this album comes from the band’s unified front, each member perfectly in sync with the spirit of each song. There’s a quiet trust in one another, never stepping on each other’s toes.
This album is meant for the liminal spaces—the haze before the coffee hits, the hush of 2 a.m. when your thoughts sit a little too close. It’s for sitting in a feeling, watching dust catch light, for witnessing, and to be witnessed.
Listen to A Year As A Cloud premiering here on the ugly hug!
Today, Birmingham-based artist Cash Langdon has shared with us his new track “Lilac Whiskey Nose” along with an accompanying music video. This single is the latest sneak peek into Langdon’s upcoming album titled Dogs out May 2nd via Seasick Records and Well Kept Secret.
First the drums, creating an environment oddly defined by the effects of both temptation and patience, “Lilac Whiskey Nose” soon breaks for immediacy as Langdon’s vocals and an array of gritty textures enter the scene. Written after witnessing an active shooter event at work in 2016, Langdon leads with a steady pacing, singing “I like going inside/Doing it right/Swallowing my pride” — the smooth drop in his voice alleviating tension, like a lump in your throat finally residing. Rather than writing with blame, Langdon approaches this memory with a level of understanding as someone who is also just trying to make it through the same overbearing and damaging systems that reside over our heads and enable this kind of act, saying, “[this] song is mostly about still having humanity for these types of people, even when it directly affects you. With emphasis on unweathered rhythmic movements and memorable melodies that make “Lilac Whiskey Nose” stand out, Langdon continues to lay the groundwork for a highly anticipated album to come.
Watch the music video for “Lilac Whiskey Nose” premiering here on the ugly hug!
Dogs is set to be released May 2nd and you can pre-order it now as well as a vinyl copy. You can listen to “Lilac Whiskey Nose” and the previous single “Magic Again” everywhere now.
Dan Parr, the ever-expansive stamina behind the UK-based project The Last Whole Earth Catalog, has recently shared with us his second single of the year called “33”. Following the previous track “The Fruit Expert” released back in January, a more freeform and jazz-fueled character in his repertoire, “33” finds Parr deep within his most internal and conflicting moments, rearing both tough reflection and enduring gratitude as he grapples with his journey of being to hell and back.
Beginning amongst an array of rhythmic fixations, layering guitars that ring out with a familiar whimsy, Parr invites us into a deeply textured plane built out of his recording intuitions that have rarely led him astray. Enticed by the pacing in his lyrical phrasings, “33” focuses on the ideas of love and loss within the play of mental health, where it’s hard to show someone you love them if you don’t love yourself. And as phases of internal unrest rattle amongst persistent drum clicks and sharp-edged vocals, bringing out this journey in both fulfilling and very human avenues of grace and love, Parr sings, “Since I’ve been better, we’ve lived more than ever, this would not have happened if it wasn’t for you, I’m so proud of being a couple with meaning, a couple of ducks who just know what to do” — a song of rejoice more than anything in its final moments.
Listen to “33” out everywhere now.
Explore The Last Whole Earth Catalog’s expansive collection on his bandcamp!
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