Kevin Bronson on January 15th, 2023

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Touching base with some singles released this past week — hear the latest from King Tuff, Death Valley Girls, Hoogenboom and Sunny War …

KING TUFF, “Tell Me”

The third single from King Tuff’s new album, “Smalltown Stardust” (out Jan. 27), features background vocals from the record’s co-writer and co-producer, Sasami Ashworth (aka SASAMI). The follow-up to “Portrait of God” and the title track, it’s a tender, ’70s-styled easy listener, another passage in an album that serves as a love letter to the songwriter’s hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont. “Almost every song in the world is about love, yet somehow there’s still not enough love songs,” says Tuffy, born Kyle Thomas. “And if you took all the love songs in the world and added them to all the love songs that haven’t been written yet, well, there still wouldn’t be enough. There’s always room for more love and there’s always room for more love songs. Love is an endless well, you can do love songs about people, nature, passion, frustration, animals, joy, madness. … So here’s ‘Tell Me,’ a love song.” Catch King Tuff on March 3 at the Lodge Room and April 7 at Pappy & Harriet’s.

DEATH VALLEY GIRLS, “Sunday”

Sounding like something out of a cosmic church service, “Sunday” is the second single from Death Valley Girls’ fifth full-length, “Islands in the Sky” (out Feb. 24). Arturo Baston directs the “Alice in Wonderland”-inspired video for the song, the follow-up to “What Are the Odds.” “Recently I realized I have been numbing, medicating, intellectualizing and avoiding my pain and feelings for most of my life,” DVG bandleader Bonnie Bloomgraden says. “Over the past few years, I learned you have to feel and move through your feelings or they get stuck, and then you become a vessel or container for all the feelings you are trying to avoid! If you acknowledge, feel and process them, you get to release and move them out of you. This song is to honor that process. Feel your feelings, be so sad you wanna cry forever and then move on …” Feel your feelings with Death Valley Girls on Feb. 4 at Gold-Diggers.

HOOGENBOOM, “Damn Good”

“Knowledge is one thing / wisdom’s another,” Brandon Hoogenboom sings on “Damn Good,” the latest release from his album, “Good For Nothing (A Spiraling Blackout Montage),” out Feb. 10. Synths, strings and soaring harmonies — it’s an uplifting moment on the Stefan Mac-produced album of intense introspection. “After spending most of my life feeling incredibly insecure, I finally found confidence in myself,” Hoogenboom says. “I let go of the pressure to conform to what I felt like the world was telling me to be and found the joy in embracing who I am.” Check out previous singles “The Violinist (Paralyzed & Penalized)” and “Skipping Town,” and see Hoogenboom live on Feb. 10 at Landers in San Clemente.

SUNNY WAR, “New Day”

Sunny War, who departed L.A. and stationed herself in the city of her birth, Nashville, to make her new album “Anarchist Gospel” (out Feb. 3), confesses to getting all emo on her new single, “New Day.” “‘New Day’ is probably the most sensitive song on the album,” she says. “It is very emo. For me, it is about how whimsical love can feel. When we fall out of love, we realize we were almost under a spell. To me, believing in love is much like believing in magic. And I believe in both.” The song is the follow-up to “No Reason” and “Higher,” the latter featuring Dave Rawlings, who along with the likes of Jim James, Allison Russell and Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs) guests on the album.