“Sharp mind, eternal youth
I’ll be the first to never die
Nice thought, and I’m never gonna lose it”

If that all sounds dark then that’s because it is, but there is something both fascinating and thrilling in songs so direct and confrontational. Protomartyr’s music is imbued with a certain sense of exciting terror, a DeLillian dread that we know we should escape yet can’t help but stand beneath in open-mouthed awe. At least now you know you are not standing alone.

RIYL: Post-punk, Ought, ruminations on death

Favourite songs:

You can buy The Agent Intellect now from Hardly Art or the Protomartyr Bandcamp page.

The post Flash Review: Protomartyr – The Agent Intellect appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘Lucky Cat’ reserved acoustics and hushed, almost whispered vocals, while ‘The Loud Word’ is a similarly acoustic track but with added electronics, little beeps and hums and shimmers, kind of like those which adorn the Lejsovka & Freund album we wrote about recently. ‘Small Wind Power’ is basically an acoustic folk song, and a pretty one at that, the morose vocals seemingly directed to Christie’s feet rather than the audience.

‘Inside Out’ has a laid-back woozy feel, all backed up with the by-now familiar gentle acoustics. ‘Puddle Rock’ is a light and floaty instrumental guitar track, before the EP finishes with a cover of ‘Metamorphic Moon’ by fellow New Paltz band Wet Petals, a track which tentatively feels its way into life before the advent of sadly serene vocals:

“i reach out to touch the moon
and now there is nothing
but the moon;
no hands to touch,
no eyes to devour,
only a tarnished flower
torn from a dream”

Small Wind Power is a lovely collection of songs which conjure a really nice feeling. They are enclosed and intimate, like sharing a heart-to-heart inside a tent at the height of summer, the tape hiss becoming the stridulations of insects, the trickle of the creek.

You can get Small Wind Power on cassette via Apollonian Sound, or as a name-your-price download via the Fraternal Twin Bandcamp page. The release supports the NJ Clean Water Fund, a really cool project that campaigns for some great health and environmental issues.

The post Fraternal Twin – Small Wind Power appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. Townie – Mitski
2. Prosthetic Love – Typhoon
3. Seven – Oh, Rose
4. Pylon Pile-On – Benjamin Shaw
5. Lost in Time – Jom Comyn
6. Sweet Surrender (Sarah McLaughlin Cover) – Evening Hymns
7. In Evil Hour – Battle Ave.
8. N.M.S.S. – Elvis Depressedly
9. Welcome To Heaven – Gay Angel
10. Background Painters – Daytime TV
11. Ocean Song – The Wailin’ Smithers
12. Art School Wannabee – Sorority Noise
13. Good Morning, August – K. Adem
14. Alone At The Party – Eskimeaux
15. Someone Else – Acid Ghost
16. Go – Eerie Glue
17. The Lights In The Sands of Katumpkale – REW<<
18. Sandspurs – Naps
19. Winning Streak – Glen Hansard
20. Beautiful Blue Sky – Ought
21. The Race – Oh Pep!
22. Midnight Cross – Fog Lake
23. Sweet Gin – Leisure Suite
24. Motorcycle – Helen
25. Sleep Talk – Diet Cig
26. The Knower – Youth Lagoon
27. The Closing Door – LVL UP
28. That Kind of Girl – All Dogs
29. Hesitate – Dude York
30. Elk City – Samantha Crain
31. The Grass Is Always Greener – Say Hi
32. James Orin Incandenza – Mrs. Hopewell
33.Choking on Flowers – Fox Academy

The post July Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Musically, the album falls somewhere between the bummed-out melancholy of Alex G/Elvis Depressedly and the angsty emo of acts like Molly Drag.  The record seems to grow in energy and desperation as it progresses, as if veering toward some climax. Opener ‘It Was You, Charlie’ is mostly acoustic, but develops in the second half into something more rocky. From here, elements of emo and punk are introduced, from the sunny-sounding ‘Holly and I are Soup Snakes’, to the indie rock of ‘Sugar Sugar’ and fuzzy noise of ‘What Went Wrong?’, before the 90s pop of ‘Korine’ leads into the slow-building closer, ‘On The Day You Knocked Out Jeffries’, a track which spirals into a triumphant post-rock conclusion.

All of the tracks are relatively short and snappy, allowing Nicastro to explore his ideas without the ever slipping into self-indulgence and losing the listener to boredom. This is no mean feat when taking on the kinds of ideas on display here. Nicastro himself is a boxer, and the pugilistic theme which runs through the record proves to be far more than an amusing novelty. One reading is made clear with a quote from Joyce Carol Oates on the Mrs. Hopewell Bandcamp blurb:

“I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing—for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches…and your opponent so evenly matched it’s impossible to see your opponent is you”

However, while this life-as-an-endless-fight-vs-yourself idea rings true, there is another, more prominent dimension which pertains to the ‘facing the void’ part of Nicastro’s description. Boxing is a brutal, dangerous sport (up to 20% of participants will suffer from the titular neurodegenerative disease), in which every Mayweather is balanced by thousands of names we’ll never know. It’s essentially a lottery where buying a ticket involves getting smacked repeatedly around the head and neck and body, and if you are lucky enough to win you get promoted to a bigger draw where larger, more powerful men do the same.

But, importantly, the intensive training, violence-related adrenaline and short-lived glory of victory provide a sense of purpose, which is pretty much our only response so far to the dreaded Existential Fear that keeps us up at night. That is, we’re aware that we are small, insignificant and certain to die, and thus adopt Void-Filling Strategies which may not be good for our physical and emotional wellbeing yet help us forget for a while. So really, when Nicastro sings about boxing, he could easily be singing about writing novels, or having sex with beautiful people, or a long-term heroin habit. This idea is set out in the opening track, where the narrator is feeling something deeper and far more painful than punches:    

“They say ‘jake you got an iron chin’
but fuck won’t you please tell me when
this sickness boiling up in me
will let go and finally set me free?”

The kicker with the best Void-Filling Strategies is sudden cessation makes things ten times worse, presumably why so many sports stars end up in such a bad way after retirement. ‘Sugar Sugar’ gets at this idea (“so i’ll hang em up and put em down and move it away/hit the bottle weave and waddle and black out on the way”) and ‘What Went Wrong?’ serves as the post-meltdown confusion, with voices emanating from the off-kilter instrumentation like ghosts of a halcyon past before the final refrain, “I don’t know where I went wrong, I don’t know what went wrong.” These two tracks work well in tandem, capturing the absurd change of focus required from athletes after calling it a day (ie. going from spending every minute optimising your running/kicking/punching and feeling existentially justified, to having nothing to do except feel worthless and existentially exposed).

The Infinite Jest-referencing ‘James Orin Incandenza’ is the song which ties all of these ideas together, and tells the eagle-eyed listener that an album about boxing is in fact so much more. Aside from David Foster Wallace confronting all of the above issues better than anyone, Incandenza is applicable and interesting for a number of reasons. For one, the heavy-drinking obsessive film-maker/wraith has both his sons enrolled in serious-level sport, and indeed his eldest crashes into compulsive womanising and depression after an injury ends his football career. What’s more, Incandenza’s father was a failed actor, an “anti-Brando”, which sits nicely with the heavy On The Waterfront references across the record. It’s the sort of inclusion which transforms an entertaining album into something more meaningful, allowing nerds to think too much and write excessively-long, rambling pieces about existential voids.

You can buy Dementia Pugilistica now via the Mrs. Hopewell Bandcamp page.

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The band have even given some pretty mystical (and lengthy!) instructions on how best to listen to the new songs:

“Lo! Lifting fog reveals a cloaked figure in crooked moonlight and it is shown — The Closing Door — the Blur of spirit passing through — Proven Water Rites burning effigies of past selves — demonstrations from beyond a lifting veil. First, the listener dims the lights, burning all candles found within the dwelling. With eyes open toward the ceiling, the listener feels dull heat from the candles in front of them. Eyes closed now, the listener begins to regulate their breathing and in time presses play on their device. Eyes open again, the listener reaches their hands to hover above the nearest flame for the duration of the first passage. The listener stares directly into candle’s flame, regulating their breathing. At the dawning of the second tune, the listener lowers their hands to hold and protect the candle in front of them. A new kind of light is shown now, and the listener’s thoughts may begin to wander & blur, but they continue to stare. At the end of the second passage, the listener blows out all of the candles without hesitation. In near darkness now, the listener is left to sit, breathing the remnants of fire and thoughts that drift about the room. This is the final song.”

We would try to give a few thoughts on the songs but how on earth are you supposed to follow that? Instead, we suggest you pre-order the EP right now via Double Double Whammy and Run For Cover Records.

The post LVL UP – Three Songs appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“maintains the band’s tight, twitchy, economical sound. Ought pursues an artistically apposite austerity in committing these new songs to tape, referencing the arid and unvarnished production of no-wave and early indie rock “

If you’re still undecided, why not check out the first single, ‘Beautiful Blue Sky’, in the player below?

You can pre-order the album now via Constellation Records.

Header image by Brett Davis

The post Ought announce new album appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Oh, Rose

“The vocals have the quality of an exorcism, like the unnatural utterings of a twelve year old as some jaded man of faith flicks holy water at her forehead” – “we reviewed SEVEN, the excellent and vaguely supernatural new album by Oh, Rose”

Amelia Gray

“Reading these stories is like watching a fungus bloom across a wall, like watching a slow-motion video of yourself going up in flames” – we started up a new ‘Books’ section with a review of Amelia Gray’s short story collection, Gutshot.

The Wooden Sky

“[The] distinctive vocals… [are] not pristine or manufactured but rather a product of a feeling, making the protagonists alive and nuanced enough for us to care” – we bumped our review of The Wooden Sky’s Lets Be Ready as it was released worldwide on Nevado Records.

Sean Henry

“When confronting big, complicated things like love, imperfection and death in art, surely the most fruitful method is not to sugar-coat the message in high production values and carefully constructed narratives but instead try to replicate the messy, fractured nature of our lives and consciousness?” – we got deep when previewing Sean Henry’s new album with his first single, ‘The Crow’

O-FACE

“Whirring like a well-oiled machine of cogs and gears which achieves so much more than its composite parts suggest” – a belated review of O-FACE’s EP Mint, out on Father/Daughter and Miscreant Records.

Glen Hansard

“A perfect example of a folk song made pop, a smooth and sentimental tale of goodhearted promises that are impossible to keep” – Our thoughts on ‘Winning Streak’, the first single from Glen Hansard’s new album

June Roundup

Miss anything in June? We have you covered with a playlist featuring every artist we covered during the month.

The Wailin’ Smithers

“The album is packed with smash hits from an alternate dimension, an easygoing universe in which everybody gets along just fine” – The self-titled album from Bloomington rockers The Wailin’ Smithers.

Quick Before It Melts

The music blog celebrated Canada Day by releasing a compilation of Canadian Bands covering Canadian songs.

Alanna McArdle

“Why do women have to work so much harder: why does it always feel like I’m trying to pass a test to prove that I deserve to call myself a musician?” – Alanna McArdle’s essay for The Talkhouse on the perceived role of the frontwoman and why she hates being referred to as just “the singer”.

Ezra Furman

“I’ve embraced the liminal zone that so many of my heroes occupy. I’ve declared independence from categories that don’t work for me…We exist in a multivalent world filled with ambiguities, and I aim to move through it like Lou Reed: independent, continually transforming, free.” – Ezra Furman writes for The Guardian on how he found freedom by embracing ambiguity in both his music and persona.

Noisey / Owen Pallet & Warren Hildebrand

“I found out about the Les Mouches album some time in 2006 and got it from a private torrent site or something similar. It really blew me away when I heard it…It means a lot, being able to help put together a new release for an album that’s been so important to me for so long is so crazy and cool to me.” – Noisey spoke to Owen Pallet and Orchid Tapes’ Warren Hildebrand about the latter’s label reissuing an album from the former’s project Les Mouches.

Fog Lake / START-TRACK

“I would say to keep it as true-to-heart as possible. Stop thinking about what other’s want to hear and start thinking about what you wanna hear. Don’t worry about being technical. Don’t worry what your parents think. Give it your best shot.” – Aaron Powell, aka Fog Lake, has some good advice for creative types in this interview with the cool dudes over at START-TRACK.

Advance Base / Ben Weaver

Daytrotter, the undisputed kings of the live session, served up two gems this week with sets from Advance Base (who has an album on the way dontcha know?) and Ben Weaver (whose album we liked a lot).

Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus released a music video / short film which features not one but six songs from their forthcoming album, The Most Lamentable Tragedy, which we will not stop plugging.

Gurr

The Le Sigh premièred a video from Berlin-based “sassy brat punk” band Gurr, featuring live recordings and vintage found footage.

And finally… the 8tracks playlist of the week:

This week’s playlist, from Music Means Family, is collection of songs from artists playing Eaux Claires music festival in Wisconsin. Features some of our favourites like Aero Flynn, S. Carey and Field Report.

The post Week in Review #8 (29th June – 3rd July) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“What happens when you ask a group of contemporary artists from the Dominion of Canada to voice their opinion on their favourite Canadian artists and songs of the 80s and 90s? You get DOMINIONATED, a cover song compilation with a uniquely Canadian perspective”

The featuring favourites such as Eammon McGrath and The Provincial Archive, the first edition must have proved pretty popular, as this Canada Day saw the release of the second. The rules were the same as before, each artist (who had to be Canadian) would pick a Canadian song recorded before 2006, the year QBIM was launched. The result, unsurprisingly, is something inherently Canadian, managing capture a country proud of its traditions yet unafraid to be forward-thinking. As QBIM’s Jim Di Gioia puts it, this playlist exhibits:

“[A] spirit of play and exploration, along with deep respect and celebration of Canadian music culture and heritage”

If you enjoyed the first edition then you will be pleased to find a few familiar faces, and these have been joned by some excellent additions such as The Holy Gasp, covering Donald Himes, and Nick Faye & The Deputies, covering ‘Left & Leaving’ by The Weakerthans. My current favourite is a Sarah McLaughlin cover by Evening Hymns (who we love) and Jon Hynes (who we wrote about here). Check out the full tracklisting below:

The Holy Gasp – “Theme Song from Mr. Dressup” (Donald Himes)
VIRE – “Swing Shift” (Nash The Slash)
Evening Hymns (& Jon Hynes) – “Sweet Surrender” (Sarah McLachlan)
Nick Faye & The Deputies – “Left and Leaving” (The Weakerthans)
blackpaw society –  “Girl With a Problem” (Northern Pikes)
CHAMPION LOVER –  “Not Happy” (Jale)
WHOOP-Szo –  “The Animals” (Elevator)
Jonathan Pearce (of Winchester Warm) – “Need” (Eric’s Trip)
Stonetrotter – “Constant Craving” (k.d. lang)
TV SETS – “I Just Wanna Stop” (Gino Vanelli)
Valery Gore – “Deed I Do” (Elyse Weinberg)
Camp David – “Nova Heart” (Spoons)
Venus Sans Fur – “I Think Of Her” (Forgotten Rebels)
Whale Eye – “I Hear You Calling” (Gob)
Alex Bent + the Emptiness – “Heaven In Your Eyes” (Loverboy)
Las Venus Skyway – “Have Not Been The Same” (Slow)
No Museums – “Any Sense of Time” (The Inbreds)
Crossley Hunter – “Tripoli” (Matthew Good Band)
Hollowphonic – “Broken Man” (Sianspheric)
Matt LeGroulx – “Rising of the Sun” (The Rabble)
KASHKA – “You Wouldn’t Like Me” (Tegan and Sara)

You can download DOMINIONATED (deux) right now (up until the 24th November), and be sure to go back and listen to the first edition on Soundcloud.

The post Quick Before It Melts – DOMINIONATED (deux) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

After a quick count-in ‘Lottery’ dives headlong into things, Rose detailing her plans for winning a lot of money, backed with just frantic enough instrumentation. The track sets out the vibe on the album, an indie rock energy laced with something sinister, as if something dark is using Rose’s lyrics to communicate its message. “If I won the lottery…” she sings, following it up with a variety of strange scenarios: “I’d buy you a house with no doors and no windows”, ” I’d buy you a sports car with no brakes”, and, perhaps tellingly, “I’d buy back the things that I sold to the devil”. This last statement forms a desperate refrain which sets up the noisy finale, where the guitars pick up and percussion gathers intensity and several voices shout at once “Cause I’m a poor poor sport, playin’ games with love”.

‘Run’ is slow and sultry, showing off Rose’s trademark warbled vocals, sometimes deceptively slow and dreamy (with added oooohs) and sometimes energetic and spiky, like a combination of Angel Olsen, Mitski and Lemolo. The halfway mark sees the track burst into life, with the instrumentation clattering into some kind of tempo as Rose’s vocals become manic and unpredictable. And if ‘Run’ was a command then ‘Running’ is the action, lean and wiry guitars lead proceedings while a lo-fi buzz envelopes everything, Rose’s words cutting through like shards of glass. The vocals have the quality of an exorcism, like the unnatural utterings of a twelve year old as some jaded man of faith flicks holy water at her forehead. Here Rose sounds quite literally possessed, as if channelling something old and malevolent and playful in a mean, spiteful way. “Put your faith in your eyes,” it urges. “Keep running” it demands.

The title track has a slower build which acts as the quiet before the storm, the hush that descends over a room after something traumatic has occurred, the lull when those present are waiting to see if it will return. And return it does, the track lurching into a rhythmic frenzy, culminating in a demonic wail at the halfway mark, a moment unexpected in its ferocity even after previous songs. It’s as if the entity is no longer speaking via her mouth but climbing right through it. “My need to please”, it howls, “my need”, and you can just imagine the audience scattering as something hideous emerges on the stage. The track finishes with the heavy rumble of reverb like the electric vibration of recent violence in the air, slowly dissipating into the restrained ‘Only’, which opens with a quiet synth line that sounds like disembodied breath across the top of glass bottles. The shuffling drums and forlorn lyrics have a lonely feel, as if originating from the bottom of the ocean, Rose’s words slinking and sliding like pale invertebrates against the cetacean squeaks of the background vocals. ‘Winter’ continues the introspective quiet, the underwater scene growing darker until nothing can be seen, as if all energy was consumed and the entity burnt out during the earlier disturbance. It is only around the four minute mark where a crescendo is reached again, life flooding back into the depleted channels, and ‘Flu’ ends with the intensity gathering once more, itself building up to a climax of repeated bird-like shrieks, as if the thing is rising from its hibernation or emerging from its cocoon, freshly metamorphosed with a pair of dazzling wings.

Rose’s vocals alternate between dreamy oohs and idiosyncratic warbles, guttural growls and unnatural wails. Yelps and yells and cries and squeals… I’m not sure I can think of another singer who has such a diversity of delivery styles. Its quite incredible to hear and I can only imagine how her vocal chords must feel after a show. Probably barely any better than if some ghostly creature did clamber out of her throat.

You can buy Seven now via the Oh, Rose Bandcamp page.

The post Oh, Rose – SEVEN appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Until then, here’s our June Roundup, a playlist of songs rounding up everything we covered during June. Clever, huh? Click on the artist name in the tracklisting to be whisked away to the specific post.

Tracklisting:

1. Trisha Please Come Home – Advance Base
2. Slower Now – Star Horse
3. I Make Boys Cry – Adult Mom
4. Cordella – On The Water
5. Destroy – Henoheno
6. A Long Time Ago – Kalle Mattson
7. Only One Who Feels a Little Bit Bad – Fazed on a Pony
8. Ohio Snow Falls – Unraveler
9. Pylon Pile On – Benjamin Shaw
10. For Luck – Cyberbully Mom Club
11. The Offer – Yowler
12. When I Met Death – Right Away, Great Captain!
13. Patriarchaeth – Gwenno
14. Future Bones – Bells Atlas
15. Beautiful Brian – Harley Alexander and The Universal Lovers
16. Whip-Poor-Will – Morning River Band
17. I Admit I’m Scared – Eskimeaux
18. Ideal World – Girlpool
19. Observation Satellites – GRNDMS
20. Podesta – Peptalk
21. Cwm Llwm – Yucatan
22. Clouds – Estan
23. Lullaby – Long Neck
24. KiwiKisses – Trenton Point
25. My Only One – PONY
26. Return to View – The Wandering Lake
27. Clicking Clanking – Ylayali
28. Pull Me Apart – Lung Cycles
29. Red Coat – Adeline Hotel
30. Johnny Go Riding – Damien Jurado
31. When the Day is Fresh, and the Light is New – The Wooden Sky
32. The Crow – Sean Henry
33. Yolanda – O-FACE

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