The latter felt fully focused on endings, the sense of finality before new directions, so it is fitting that forthcoming record Visitations, out this autumn on Z Tapes, sees new possibilities come to fruition. Even if the directions are not necessarily those Howard set out wander. “I wanted to make a really quiet, droning record without any electronics; something slower and moodier than what I’ve done before, which didn’t really end up happening,” Howard explains. Because amid work on the record, his personal circumstances underwent significant changes for the better, something mirrored in the compositions that emerged. “I was writing and recording incessantly about this one thing, and ended up with something really focused and hopeful.”

Which isn’t to say the original intentions were shelved entirely. “There’s a lot of acoustic guitar,” he continues, “a choice that carried over from my original ideas for the project. I really wanted to make something more organic.” This desire extends further on several tracks, the live instrumentation extending to pianos, clarinets and sampled saxophone, though it is telling that Howard says these are the older songs on the record, as though the release serves as a kind of map for his progress from one frame of mind to another.

Lead single ‘Never Knows Best’ invites us inside this newfound optimism. With its combination of the organic and electronic, whatever nostalgia present in the soundscape is shaken up by the pressing drum line. The track as a whole feels like an attempt to push beyond the past, keeping a clear-eyed focus on the present and what comes next. So while the imagery is often strange and haunting, with references to angels and ghosts and beams of light, Howard refuses to take his eye from what is before him, and emerges with a steadfast will to progress.

and never knows best
whatever comes next
i’ve made up my mind
i’ll see things through
to the end of the line

Visitations is out on the 1st October via Z Tapes and you can pre-order it now from the Orchid Mantis Bandcamp page.

The post Orchid Mantis – Never Knows Best appeared first on Various Small Flames.

But regardless of form, Sondermann’s music always constitutes a document of a life, one that has known its fair share of hardship. Prior to the release of 2017’s Antnumbra Pull, his partner Ed was diagnosed with cancer, a life-changing development which understandably became the focus of much of the songs. The result served as a “reminder that everything we have in this life deserves our utmost love and attention,” we wrote at the time, “and that we’d do well not to take it for granted for a single second.”

After Ed’s death in June 2019, Sondermann began writing songs in isolation, creating a mass of demos that would become the new Pleasure Systems album, Visiting the Well which releases on Orchid Tapes later this week. If previous records were about suffering and worry, this is an album about grief. An album where pain, confusion and love are woven into twelve songs as unflinchingly direct as diary entries, presenting loss as it is processed in real time. The lyrical immediacy is countered by an often dreamy and drifting sound, a duality that conjures the weightless aftermath of loss where time is both too quick and too slow. A shapeless pocket within which there is little to do but collect signs of what has been and what remains, a deep hollow in normal time that feels like it might just go on for ever. “This summer stretches to an empty swollen blur,” goes a particularly emblematic line on opening track ‘Blur,’ “I spend the days making mosaics out of hurt.”

Visiting the Well exists within and around this cavity, Sondermann never far from its mysterious depths. Emotions range from quiet despair (e.g. on ’10:13) and yearning (as on ‘Blur’ or ‘Through Your Eyes’), to a sense of pure disbelief. “Mom is it real?” asks ‘Life Sized,’ “oh I swore he would heal, I could feel it.” But even amongst the album’s bluntest moments, Sondermann retains an ability to find beauty in the most unlikely places. Like on ‘When Your Beard Fell Out’, which likens the moment his partner’s hair turned white overnight to the turn and fall of leaves in autumn. “There is beauty,” Sondermann sings, “in the colour palette of demise.”

It’s in this way that, almost inadvertently, Visiting the Well becomes as much a celebration of love as a document of loss. Immediate thoughts coalesce with memories, anguish swirls with past joys and the current stark absence muddles with a previous, very real, presence. As with all loss, there is no simple lesson learned, no lasting consolation. There is only what was and what still can be, all there below the surface. Love, like grief, is a depth that will always be present. You can visit it at any time.

Clarke was kind enough to answer some questions about the record, so read on for more in-depth discussion on style, working with Orchid Tapes, and grief in twenty-first century America.

You describe Visiting the Well as “pretty raw, even embarrassingly earnest.” Even for someone who’s used to writing and sharing music about personal subject matter, this one must be scary to release into the world?

It’s very intimidating for me to release, and I’ve gone through a lot of cycles of wanting to scrap it or even move on from making music altogether. Ultimately, my personal hope in releasing these songs is to achieve a sense of catharsis; holding onto these songs over the last year has felt like a heavy secret and I’m ready to get it off my chest.

The album is being released on Orchid Tapes, which is very cool. How did that come about?

I’ve been a long time admirer of Orchid Tapes, and connected with Warren Hildebrand (who runs the label) online last year. We started talking after he responded to a video I posted of me taking my PrEP dose while drinking a grapefruit Moscow mule, which is absurd in retrospect, but we became good friends shortly after. At some point I sent him the album and he said that it “destroyed” and “devastated” him, which I took as a good sign.

I had already been talking to a couple other labels, but decided I wanted to work with Orchid Tapes because of Warren’s careful respect for the project and willingness to let me maintain control over the direction of the release. He approaches releases from the perspective of collaborating to make something beautiful, rather than maximizing market appeal. As it turns out, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the album without his guidance, encouragement, mixing help and excellent mastering.

Since finishing this album, we’ve also been working on a slate of new songs collaboratively, where we send each other barebones song ideas and help each other flesh them out, which I’m really excited about. Warren’s a brilliant musician and engineer, and working together continues to be one of the best collaborative relationships I’ve found.

Musically speaking, the new album is a pretty big departure from your last release, Terraform. What were you aiming for style-wise when writing it, and where do you see it fitting in your body of work as both Pleasure Systems and The Washboard Abs?

I had actually set an intention for myself to not consider any kind of “listener” or share any of my work with friends for the first six months of writing after my partner’s death, so I wasn’t making conscious decisions when it came to style or sound. Removing the consideration of how it would be received was very generative for me – this album is a trimmed collection of 35 songs that I wrote one after another in a pretty fluid way during that time.

The most obvious departure from my typical process was that I got very interested in playing guitar again after having steered towards electronic music. At that time I was living with my close friend Kasra (of the band Palm) and he let me borrow his nylon string guitar for months on end, which helped everything click and pour out of me. I was still finding great comfort in listening to a lot of minimal synth music – I was particularly obsessed with Colleen’s album A Flame My Love, A Frequency, Steve Hauschildt’s album Strands, and Meitei’s album Komachi. I think that deeply listening to such beautiful and environmental yet sparse electronic albums informed the arrangements and meshed well with the confessional, guitar-oriented writing I was doing.

I’m curious about the title – What does Visiting the Well refer to and why did you choose that phrase to name the album?

It was actually directly inspired by a tweet I was really impacted by, which feels funny to say. One of my favorite accounts, @chunkbardey tweeted “my experience of grief has been that the deep well of sadness has never gone away I just visit it less.” I loved this visual, but I wanted the title to be a bit of a double entendre as well. In the year and a half leading up to my partner’s death, my life was completely enmeshed in a world of sickness, spending endless days and nights in hospitals. Emerging from that world felt like I was merely visiting the “well,” as opposed to the “sick.” A huge part of me felt like it was still stuck in the hospitals. Funny enough, one of my close friends, who records under the name Body Meat, came to a similar place independently of me with his single ‘The Well’ from last fall. I think it’s a really versatile visual.

We last did an interview like this for Antumbra Pull in late 2017. One of your quotes stood out. “I’m sitting with a lot of fear and it shows up in the songs more than I want it to,” you said, “so I’m consciously trying to shift into writing from a more hopeful perspective.” Do you hear courage and hope in these new songs?

Not really, to be honest. I think it’s a fairly direct style of songwriting, like an observation log of whatever I was reflecting on that day. The album isn’t entirely sequential in terms of the order the songs were written in, but the final two songs, ‘When I Picture You Now’ and ‘The Maze’ I wrote several months later than the rest. My grief had transformed and settled a bit by then, and I think there’s an audibly different perspective in those two – a little more acceptance maybe, but not quite hope. It was a devastating loss and I’m still processing it in many ways. I think that trying to twist it into a hopeful narrative would have been dishonest to both myself and the listener.

Was making the album a purely personal way for you to move through your feelings? Or do you think about the effects it will have on that nameless, faceless “listener” too?

It was purely personal – like I said before, I forced myself to go at least six months without even showing friends what I was working on. Once I had the songs selected for the album, it took me over a year to finish editing and refining them, but the motivation was much more to make something that felt true to my experience as opposed to just making songs that would be well received.

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This is a difficult time for lots of people, and many are going through similar experiences of grief. If there is someone reading this who is going through what you have/are, would you like to say anything to them?

Part of my anxiety around releasing this album is that, as you said, this is an incredibly difficult time for so many people, and there is so much grief surrounding all of us right now; the immediate grief of those lost to Covid, but also grieving the loss of our “normal” lives for a year now, grieving the more existential idea of lost futures, the disappearance of more hopeful political futures, etc.

Our society in America champions individualism above all else, and I do in some ways feel conflicted about promoting such an individual and isolated account of loss when we are all embedded in such a profound communal grief. I wish I was better equipped to tackle these things through a strictly collectivist lens. But, in the depths of my own grief, I benefited a lot from hearing my experience reflected back to me in music that centered something comparable to what I was going through. If my work can have a similar impact on someone else in the throes of grief, then it’s all worth it. There is a beautiful kind of solidarity in the connection that the listener can have with intimate, emotionally-driven music.

Visiting the Well will be released on 26th March. Pre-order it now on LP or cassette from the Orchid Tapes webstore, or digitally via their Bandcamp or the Pleasure Systems Bandcamp.

Photos by Emily Burtner, cover painting by Tina Scarpello

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Tracklisting:

Frog – American
The Phone Booth – Ballad of Indifference
Spielbergs – 4AM
Neurotic Fiction – Collateral
Neighborhood of Make Believe – Track Names
Pizzagirl – body part
Orchid Mantis – porch song
Gorgeous Bully – patience
Reighnbeau – Trading Heat
Troy Everett – Absent
Amparo – Hounds
REW<< – Victoire Impossible
Okay Embrace – Moving
Young Jesus – For Nana
Vender & The Cobras – Everything is Beautiful
The Lostines – Faith in Love
Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover – Little Wind
Rivulets – Everything Goes
Balto – Bullshit Dream
Meat Wave – That’s Alright
Docks – Kiosk
Satanic Ritual Abuse – Hurting (Adjective/Verb)
SATU – Growing Up
Anna Tivel – Fenceline
Madison Turner – Richmond, Virgina
Elly Swope – 6.8
Nathan Ball – All or Nothing
Monarch Mtn – canyon blues
Stripmall Ballads – You Were Good (I Was Good For a While)
Katie Mullins – Crocuses
Lisa/Liza – Tea Kettle
free cake for every creature – shake it out
Katy Kirby – Tap Twice
Lung Cycles – hottest day of the year so far (4pm version)

You can find all of our Monthly Roundup playlists here, and peruse a wider range of mixtapes that we’ve put together over the years.

The post November 2018 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Howard is back with a brand new record, Yellow House, out now on Z Tapes. The album feels like a logical progression from his past releases, developing and expanding his aesthetic into its brightest, most compelling form. “I conceived Yellow House as a response to (and continuation of) my previous work,” Howard confirms, “driven by an unshakable feeling that I was in the position to do everything that album did better and more cohesively, and that the loose narrative thread connecting these last few albums (Flashbulb Memory onward) continued to extend directly into the new songs I was writing.”

Indeed, Howard sees Yellow House as something of a companion piece to his most recent album, Kulla Sunset, which came out last march. The records are sisters in that respect, born of the same creative influences and circumstances, and the shared DNA is apparent from the very first song. Like the tracks on Kulla Sunset, ‘lanterns’ feels indebted to the past, a representation of or longing for times and places now sealed in memories, inaccessible save for the need to remember.

when you work this out
i’ll help you burn it down
inside an empty house
i know only embers now

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Where Yellow House departs from, or at least pushes beyond Kulla Sunset is in its thematic focus. Where the previous record focused on the influences particular memories have on not just the time in question but our entire view of the world, Yellow House delves further into the esoteric folds of the brain. Both the samples and lyrical imagery are suggestive of a supernatural or metaphysical position, where time is not some ever lengthening chain of events but something far more plastic and strange. Tracks such as ‘rift’ and ‘phantom limb’ call into question the authority of the tangible world, probing into the grey areas beyond where all is not as it seems.

As such, the oneiric consistency of these tracks is not some adolescent lesson in performative weirdness, but rather an attempt to engage with reality beyond its strict physics. If the lo-fi guitar and tape hiss backing of ‘porch song’ lends a surreal edge, then it is only a surreality born of Howard’s own experiences, where coincidence and happenstance prove a little too convenient, and strange connections form between moments in his life. “Last year, an emblem of my childhood, my grandparent’s yellow house in Sweden, was sold and repainted, forever altered,” he explains, though, far from being relegated to the deep recesses of his brain, the memory found a way to haunt the present and leave a sense of connect and logic to seemingly random events:

As if predestined, that same year my friends and significant other rented out a new yellow house – in physical terms, this is where I spent the last year writing and recording this album (and parts of the last), but in a larger sense, the yellow house represents the synchronous, cyclical patterns the trajectories of our lives seem to adhere to: nothing is ever truly here, and nothing is ever truly gone – leaving and returning, reoccurring.

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Yellow House is out now via Z Tapes and you can get it from the Orchid Mantis Bandcamp page.

The post Orchid Mantis – Yellow House appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Viewfinder is the recording project of Joel Burton, the latest addition to the Memorials of Distinction roster. Burton makes music that straddles many genres, but is probably destined to rest finally in the bedroom pop bracket. According to the label’s bio, his latest album was made during a period of personal upheaval. “After disbanding his Edinburgh based noise-rock band and dropping out of university”, it reads, “Joel Burton returned home to London disillusioned. Using cheap synths, an FX unit, and some multi-track cassettes as his compass, he set about re-discovering how to write songs with subtlety and meaning.”

The result is Born Ticking, an album that may not be instantly recognisable as “bedroom pop”, in the original Orchid Tapes-led definition, but ticks all the boxes in terms of pure self expression. It’s part slacker rock, part lo-fi pop, part post-post-punk with some rickety, almost country-style nostalgia thrown in. Add to this lyrics that read like the paranoid poetry of a listless wanderer and your getting close to the Viewfinder style. A straightforward mope record this is not.

The title track, one of the album’s strongest, makes this clear from the off. A beautifully meandering song with echoes of Mazzy Star and the languid folk rock of Nap Eyes, this is an opener loaded with vague but significant turns of phrase and a sense of cynical fatalism.

“some nasty spirit mixer
drunk in the church
so far has it come
so deep has it sunk
and buried beneath
all the crap and the junk
that funnelled itself
from the sky since the start
into the mouth of the babe freshly bawling
born ticking”

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In comparison, follow-up ‘Money’ is from a different universe, a bold and brash descent into some weird, wobbly weekend, where wide boys stumble upon a briefcase stuffed with fifties and trip out in a mixture of fearless delight and creeping paranoia. The track is the first sign that Viewfinder doesn’t intend on playing by the rules, at least not those set by anyone other than himself. Much of the album feels personal in this way, painted in broad and instinctive brush strokes, with an almost free associative approach to themes and imagery. ‘Vibrations’ is like a twisted ‘Parklife’ for the Twenty-First Century, the spoken-word vocals full of Millennial angst and crippling self-awareness, the narrator becoming increasingly panicked and clammy before descending into blazing insect-induced madness.

There are also two instrumental tracks on the the record, which, instead of offering brief respite, feel as urgent and necessary as any of the other tracks. ‘Instrumental 1’ is all elegant piano and shuffling drums and croaky horns, all the while maintaining some intangible sense of unease. The second wheezes slowly into life, eventually opening with sparse piano and the unfurling clatter of drums.

‘Instant Moonlight’ is another standout, a down-tempo lo-fi indie pop song that despite its sprawled and exhausted misanthropy (“you didn’t ask to be born” goes the opening line), somehow sparkles with some kind of positivity. The effect is like seeing a divine image in the burn mark your cigarettes have left on a battered sofa, or some symbolic order to the constellations of bargain beer cans that litter the carpet. Closing track ‘Nightime Rider’ is sparse and clear, Burton’s vocals ringing with newfound clarity over muffled drums and subtle electronics, building throughout into an almost devotional bright-white glow.

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With Born Ticking, Viewfinder has not only shown why bedroom pop is such an important genre, he’s also challenged just what the tag entails and in the process epitomised why we champion DIY artists. The album takes a melting pot of influences and creates something entirely new, something that’s difficult to put into words. Yes, it’s a record borne out of feelings of confusion and imperfection, but it somehow works through these struggles simply by presenting them in a raw and unique way. As MoD put it, “There is melancholy, sadness, and a rumbling undercurrent of anger—yet creeping out of Born Ticking’s meditative tape-hiss is a profound sense of hope.”

Born Ticking is out now and you can get it on cassette or name your price download from the Memorials of Distinction Bandcamp page.

The post Viewfinder – Born Ticking appeared first on Various Small Flames.

When we heard that Super Fan 99 was releasing Talking Quietly of Anything With You and “Pretty Good” on one cassette for European audiences, we thought it would be a good time to have a chat with Bennett to explore her songwriting and the reasoning behind her transatlantic venture.

Hi Katie, thanks for speaking with us! You have just re-released two of your albums, “Pretty Good” & Talking Quietly of Anything With You in the UK and Europe on Super Fan 99. How did that opportunity come about? And are you excited to share your music with a whole new audience?

Hey, thank you! Luke Barham, owner of Super Fan 99, messaged me on Facebook about six months ago asking if I’d want to put out a cassette with them. I was excited by the idea of having tapes available in the UK because we’d ultimately like to go and play over there. I checked out the Super Fan website, loved the sounds and look of their label, and trusted Luke to make our release special.

There are also plans to cross the Atlantic for your first UK tour. That must be really exciting. Have you visited the UK before? Is there anywhere you’re particularly excited to visit/play in?

I may have been a little premature in revealing our plans to tour the UK, because as of right now we don’t have the funds to, but it’s definitely in our long-term plan. We’ve never played outside of the US & Canada, and I’ve never been to Europe save for a trip to London with my family when I was eleven. But we’ll get there!

The cassette also comes with a mini zine that you have made. What can people expect from that?

The zine contains a series of diary entries I wrote over the course of our progression as a band. It gives a little insight into how starting a band and getting over insecurities can be extremely difficult, but is ultimately extremely rewarding.

Your songs always sound very personal. Are they based on your own experiences? Do you keep a diary or something that forms the basis of your songs?

My songs are always based on my own experiences, and often the seeds of them come from things I’ve discovered through writing a journal entry. Initially, when I didn’t think people would ever hear my songs, I would write and record them in the midst of a strong feeling as a way to document that feeling and my personal history in general.

I love to listen to these kinds of audible journal entries/ “demo” songs from other artists, and I continue to make them myself (while also often focusing on crafting songs). Now that I’m aware there’s a small audience for my music, I’ve been holding onto these sorts of songs and thinking about how/ if I want to put them out. I’ve been curating more, thinking about my intentions, and asking myself, “What do I want to say/ show by sharing this?” because I know people will be asking that of the songs and I want to have an answer.

At least to me, Talking Quietly of Anything With You, is about getting older in your own way, about leaving behind teenage years but not completely all the feelings that go along with them. Would you say this a fair assessment? Is the album about a specific period in your life, and if so, what inspired it?

The album is for/ about anyone who is in a period of transition, is unsure of their life-plan, or just likes pop music and enjoys a little humor/ absurdity.

That being said, I wrote the album in my early 20s, and I think you’re right in saying that that specific time period is heavily reflected in the lyrical content of the album. It was a difficult time for me, between moving somewhere new, trying to find a job, trying to make new friends, etc. In many ways, even though it’s been a few years since I wrote those songs, I still feel and relate to that struggle. Now I’m just used to the feeling of being unsettled, it isn’t oppressive.

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Is there anything else that you consider a major inspiration? Perhaps books, films, other people’s music?

Yes to all! I spend a lot of time reading, and often I’ll come across a word or phrase that jolts me and I’ll have to stop and write a poem or song or journal entry. I recently re-read two books that I’ve loved for years and that inspire me a ton: Diane di Prima’s “Recollections of My Life as a Woman” and Kate Zambreno’s “Green Girl.”

The final track On “Pretty Good” is a cover of REM’s ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’, a song which seems pretty relevant in light of recent events. Without asking you to provide a hot take on US/global politics, what’s your take on all this? And how can we all do a little to fight bigotry and hate?

Keep doing the work you love and believe in. Keep going, be bold, don’t be afraid.

Last month, thirty six beautiful artists and musicians, some of whom I’d met and many of whom were friends of friends, lost their lives in the Ghost Ships fire in Oakland. Since then, conservative groups (fueled & encouraged by Trump’s win) have been using that horrific event as an excuse to try and shut down artist’s spaces by harrassing them online and telling fire departments the spaces are “unsafe.” A few places we were supposed to play on this tour got moved because they’d been threatened. Someone even brought a gun into one of the spaces the previous month and shot the ceiling. The threat is real and ridiculous, and while safety is our priority, we can’t just stop playing shows and making music because we are afraid. Making music and playing shows and connecting to that community is a life-line for me and for so many people.

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Finally, could you name 4/5 bands or artists that you’re into at the moment. They can be brand new or golden oldies, whatever you’ve been listening to.

I’m so lucky and grateful that people from my favorite music projects are touring with me as the free cake band. Drummer Francis Lyons plays/ records as ylayali, lead guitar Evan Marré is Russel the Leaf and bassist Heeyoon Won is Boosegumps.

You can get “Pretty Good” & Talking Quietly of Anything With You as a double tape and zine package from Super Fan 99 Records, and be sure to check out the Free Cake For Every Creature Bandcamp page for previous releases.

The post Interview: Free Cake For Every Creature appeared first on Various Small Flames.

sunburn is a five song EP that’s slow and languid and sad, charting that intersect between love and loss that’s often a feature of bedroom pop. Take for instance the weary vocals on opener ‘strawberry’, or the sorrowful vocals on bummed-out break-up mumbler ‘annie’, both of which sees moving in dealing in either devotion or heartbreak (and sometimes both).

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Acoustic guitar doesn’t do much to lift the heavy mood on ‘water garden’, and the guitar on ‘raspberry’ rings like a bell, reflective and gentle as the early morning sunlight.

“daylight again
its pouring in
painting our skin
through the window”

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Finale ‘sorry lucy’ is an instrumental outro, a song which, despite its lack of words somehow captures the feel of the EP as a whole. You can order sunburn on cassette from the Z Tapes Bandcamp page or online store, or on a name-your-price download from the moving in Bandcamp page.

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Opener ‘Inside Out’ has a light skating synth line and elastic guitars and Allison’s warmly bored-sounding vocals delivering lyrics that are at once pained and nostalgic (“there’s a sort of feeling that you make me have / snow cones and your dad’s baseball cap”). Another stand-out is ‘Skinned Knees’, a grey and gusty bedroom pop song with strummed guitar and a gentle whistle. Allison’s vocals tell tales of the tumult of youth, of the titular skinned knees and faking stomach aches to get out of school and skinny dipping in the neighbours’ pool. It also hints at her relocation to New York:

“I left
burning streets in Tennessee
for a north east feel
but summer
always hurts think of you first
and your skin peel”

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‘Bloody Honey’ has an almost bluesy rollick, while ‘Grown’ is murky and subdued, a song that takes on times a’changing and the existential worries of getting older. “It feels crazy that we’re getting so old”, Allison sings, “it feels crazy that we’re all so”. Closer ‘Switzerland’ is as straight-up a love song as you’ll find on the album. It sounds sweetly sad, just the stark twinkle of guitar and Allison’s vocals and an almost tangible negative space, as if recorded in a dark and empty room. Eventually a kick drum thuds and synths stir, threatening a cathartic crescendo that never quite arrives.

“we could go some place alone
don’t you see
we could go somewhere it snows
just you and me
we could go to Switzerland
never come back home again”

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Soccer Mommy’s third release is undoubtedly centered on the pains of youth, but frames these struggles from a distance, both temporally and spatially. That’s not to say that this distance lessens the impact of the songs, but instead fogs them in a nostalgia that is both unpleasant and all-consuming. If this collection of songs is anything to go by, Allison has moved away but not quite moved on.

You can get For Young Hearts on sparkly gold cassette, or name-your-price download via Orchid Tapes or the Soccer Mommy Bandcamp page.

The post Soccer Mommy – For Young Hearts appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Henoheno – I Made These Songs Before I Moved (REVIEW)
(RIYL: Bedroom pop, Elvis Depressedly, Alex G)

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Henry Demos & Lewtrakimou – I Was trying to Get There But it Was Hard to See From the Balloon (REVIEW)
(RIYL: experimental, psychedelic, lo-fi, incredibly cool/nice people <3)

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Hermann Doose – Hawaii Was Beautiful
(RIYL: pop, surf rock, ARMS)

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High Bloom – Haloed
(RIYL: ambient, electronic pop, Orchid Tapes)

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Honeyuck – very tiny songs (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, twee folk, Frankie Cosmos)

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Isabel Rex – American Colloquialisms/Two Hexes (REVIEW)
(RIYL: lo-fi, garage rock, Olive Drab)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=406733925 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3775948611]

The Island of Misfit Toys – I Made You Something
(RIYL: emo, indie folk, hardcore)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2603730095 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=4266037981]

Jake Rollins – Spend a Few, Make a Few (REVIEW)
(RIYL: lo-fi, summer pop, slacker rock)

JANK – Awkward Pop Songs
(RIYL: power pop, emo, Algernon Cadwallader)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2119592842 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3026574015]

Jay Som – Untitled
(RIYL: dream pop, woozy rock, dreaming of summer)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4129302441 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1419028488]

Joplin Rice – Low Hum (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=1104700393 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1539314642]

Katie Dey – asdfasdf
(RIYL: bedroom pop, experimental, lo-fi)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4041133559 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3973355794]

The Kickstand Band – In the Sun
(RIYL: indie pop, surf rock, )

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2589488470 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3398208875]

Kip McGrath – S/T EP
(RIYL: lo-fi, bubblegum pop, twee)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2347745008 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2392610473]

Kitten Crisis – Have a good summer
(RIYL: pop punk, summer days, Radiator Hospital)

Lady Paw – Long Shadow

(RIYL: dream pop, experimental, Twin Sister)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4266239799 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=4215642916]

Laurence – Happy Town
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=726278953 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2493961804]

The Le Sigh – Vol. II (close enough to 2015!)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, compilations packed with goodness, female-identified/non-binary artists)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=779331524 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2705534016]

Letters From Bummer Camp – Vol. 1
(RIYL: punk, Boosegumps/Long Neck/other NJ-indie artists, helping good causes)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=581561591 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3689620621]

Long Neck – Heights (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, Two White Cranes, Cyberbully Mom Club)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2942656008 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=378057892]

Kizzy Hall – one last shame spiral
(RIYL: scrappy rock, basement pop, Coma Cinema)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=1020765855 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small]

Mike Pace and the Child Actors – The Flood
(RIYL: box-office music from the 80s/90s, Oxford Collapse)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=1066432373 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1315051960]

Miniature Philosopher – Leaving ‘Bula
(RIYL: Paul Baribeau, Nana Grizol, Talons’)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=3877962840 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1213767107]

Mini Dresses – FOUR
(RIYL: dream pop, laidback vibes)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=3442729371 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1866728973]

The Modern Folk – Surround Me / Leather Jacket (REVIEW)
(RIYL: lo-fi, DIY, shambling rock n’ roll)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=1517512278 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1815150545]

Morning River Band – Abyssal Channeling (REVIEW)
(RIYL: folk, country, bar-room rock)

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2682538198 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=617363151]

We’ll be sharing a new section of the list every day this week, so be sure to check back for the complete collection. If you find something you like, or think we missed something life-changing, then why not let us know on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr or good old email.

The post Favourite Free Music of 2015: H-M appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘Swirly Bird’ kicks things off with some rattling, rumbling lo-fi indie rock, beginning watery and distorted and then bursting into full volume, as if a loose connection works itself into place around ten seconds in. ‘Quit It’ is a change of tone, with delicate piano and acoustic guitar, but as the track proceeds the percussion grows in influence, at times becoming the lead instrument and building to a stormy reverberation. ‘Arm of Wood’ returns to the garage rock of the opener, while the acoustic guitars on ‘My Hex’ make it the sunniest and breeziest track on the EP, even if this isn’t true of the lyrics.

“Mom I’m sorry
Dad I’m changing
little brother I don’t want you to hate me”

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=406733925 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3490579587]

‘Bites of Our Lives’ closes proceedings with some lo-fi jangle pop, a cool ending to a cool EP. If you’re a fan of previous Z Tapes releases then I highly suggest you check out Isabel Rex. You can get American Colloquialisms / Two Hexes on cassette or digital download via the Z Tapes bandcamp page or the Isabel Rex Bandcamp page.

The post Isabel Rex – American Colloquialisms / Two Hexes appeared first on Various Small Flames.