(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 200: Exploding Flowers

Exploding Flowers (© Dean Yoshihara)

Exploding Flowers are a Los Angeles quartet who have crafted their own universe of guitar-based pop, with its flourishes of piano, organ, synthesizers, vibraphone and glockenspiel on top of a foundational rhythm section. This music continues a lineage of like-minded melody chasers, from both past and present. Led by Sharif Dumani who has worked with a variety of artists which include Alice Bag, Cody Chesnutt, Sex Stains, the Moon Upstairs, Classics Of Love, Nick Garrie, Jowe Head, Nikki Sudden, Silver Apples and many more, the quartet is comprised of members Josh Mancell (the Moon Upstairs, Cell\Borg), Happy Tsugawa-Banta (Lassie Foundation, Ray Barbee), and Mark Sogomian (the Moon Upstairs). With two previous albums and an ep released, they have been compared to everything from Big Star to the Soft Boys, and L.A.’s Paisley Underground to New Zealand’s 1980s-era Flying Nun Records guitar pop roster (such as the Chills, the Bats, etc.). Exploding Flowers explore some similar territory but expand to occupy their own space in that landscape. Watermelon/Peacock is Exploding Flowers third release packed with analog production, poetic lyricism, and the same strong melodies and hooks we’ve now come to expect from a band that prioritizes its songwriting with smart left turns. Both economic and expansive, they utilize all measures to craft something both beautiful, grand, and driving. Joined on this release by indie veterans Rachel Love of seminal pop legends Dolly Mixture, and Jowe Head of D.I.Y. legends Swell Maps and post-punk/mod/psychedelia legends Television Personalities, this is a release that has something for everyone to enjoy. The album artwork is by artist and musician Jill Emery (Hole, Mazzy Star).

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Logan Farmer – Butchers (single)

If you have been following TRISTE©, we’re sure you know Logan Farmer quite well (and you love him very much). He is a singer-songwriter and producer based in Fort Collins, Colorado. Combining elements of traditional folk, psychedelic, and ambient music, Farmer has released five full length albums since 2013, under the moniker Monarch Mtn., slowly earning him a devoted cult following. Still No Mother, out in 2020 on Western Vinyl, was the first record under his own name: eight magnificent songs, expression of his personal and evolved folk and the result of a deep sound research and refined arrangements. Farmer’s vision of folk is decidedly peculiar and modern. His second album, A Mold For The Bell was out in 2022, again on Western Vinyl with eight songs that beautifully lean on the vulnerability and turmoil of the human soul, the dignified failure, the kindness and generosity that sometimes almost goes as far as self-harm. Today Logan Farmer announced the release of his new EP, Butchers, where the songwriter’s understated folk is embellished with elements of dreamy Americana and trip hop textures, sharing its haunting and magnificent title track. The EP will be out, via Western Vinyl on May 23rd.

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(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 199: Songs of Green Pheasant

Songs of Green Pheasant

Duncan Sumpner, artist and teacher from Oughtibridge in Sheffield is Songs of Green Pheasant since 2005, when his self-titled debut album was released on FatCat. And since then, he has carved out a little space in the most hidden part of our hearts, with his fragile and ambitious songs that search for poetry in the noise and chaos of life. In the following couple of years, Songs Of Green Pheasant had two more records on FatCat: Aerial Days (2006) and Gyllyng Street (2007). Then, after a five year’s hiatus, Sumpner and his project returned with Soft Wounds, via Rusted Rail, “micro-Independent record label” based in Galway, Ireland. After self releasing two mini albums in 2015, he took another five year’s hiatus, until he released When The Weather Clears, out again via Rusted Rail on December 2020 (and reprinted a couple of times since). We had to wait four more years to have a new double A-sided digital single Have Patience/Street of Mirrors, two epic songs that paved the way for the 2025 release of the album Sings The Passing, another step forward in the musical evolution of Songs of Green Pheasant. The album sleeve features a sumptuous surrealist artwork by Sumpner himself.

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Lila Tristram – Overtake (single premiere)

Lila Tristram, musician, fiction writer, artist and teacher now based in Wiltshire is a friend of TRISTE©. We fell in love with Black and White Memories Ignited by the Scent of Springtime Explode in Colour released in December 2022 as a collaborative project with The Last Dinosaur’s Jamie Cameron,a nd followed her since. After the intimate home, recorded, produced and mixed by herself and released in 2023, Lila got hidden for two years in a remote countryside studio, put together a 5-piece band and emerged with an elegiac indie-rock record, emerge with an elegiac indie-rock album, the release of which is, at the moment, not yet announced. In the meantime, while the wait for the announcement of her new album becomes more and more feverish, Lila released some songs from the album: Sounds Like Easter, and Baby were both premiered here, and Closer was also presented on TRISTE©. In 2025 Promising and Matha May came out and now we have Overtake, a new, song from the yet untitled album, that will be available on all major streaming platforms from tomorrow, May 16th, but that we have the honour and opportunity to have here on TRISTE© as an exclusive premiere.

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(Make Me A) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 198: Sean Armstrong

Sean Armstrong (©Rachel Taylor)

Sean Armstrong is a singer/recorder/player who fits into the barking grooves in the floorboards; sits on the ground, surrounded by a web of cables, and dreams that it is swept away. Armstrong recorded his first song (the song was about squirrels) at 5 years old, and could never lose a fascination with the magic of music. Sean lives in Berlin with long term musical collaborator Rachel Taylor aka Rocky Lorelei. Together they started Rehberge Records, a small tape label named after their favourite park, and play as Slipper. Armstrong’s first solo record on Rehberge, The Technical Times, was out in 2022 and in April 2025 we had the oppotunity and honour to host the world premiere of the title track from his new album, Velvet Ever After which is out now on cassette/online. And it’s magnificent. The best thing you’re going to listen to in 2025. His high-pitched, thin and melodic voice is a caress and his guitar is a balm. Think about a (more) demure and psychedelic version of Nick Drake, living secluded in Laurel Canyon.

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