Advent Archives - Various Small Flames

Advent Calendar [20th]: Wake Owl – Candy

Jon Doyle — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 14:34:00 +0000

When we first covered Wake Owl back in early 2012, they were a folk outfit which we likened to a hybrid of Dan Mangan and The Head And The Heart.

Well now that has all changed. The band have created their debut album, The Private World of Paradise, which will be unleashed on the world in March. The album was produced by Richard Swift, who most notably produced the last two Damien Jurado albums. The sonic expansion in Jurado’s output as a result of this collaboration is also evident here with Wake Owl. It sounds like the band are experimenting and growing as musicians and that can only be a good thing.

The first single, ‘Candy’, was premiered over at The Music Ninja earlier this month and can be streamed in the player below:

The Private World of Paradise is out on the 4th of March via Vagrant. More details (presumably including pre-order options) will be announced soon.

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Advent Calendar [17th]: The Pollyanna Band – Silent Night

Jon Doyle — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 15:09:16 +0000

Songwriters Annie Dressner and Polly Paulusma have teamed up to take on the monstrosity of commercial Christmas, forming The Pollyanna Band. We have featured Annie a few times here at WTD (e.g. here and here) and are delighted to have her fronting a campaign for all that is good and proper (i.e. not controlled by Simon Cowell).

The Pollyanna Band have released lovely renditions of ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Christmas All the Time’, which you can get here.

The Telegraph has them at 250/1 for the Christmas number one spot. Why not help them out?

(P.S. I made myself sit through some of the alternatives… I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through that.)

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Advent Calendar [13th]: Princess Reason – We Are Splitting

Jon Doyle — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 15:06:00 +0000

Jack Stansbury, the 22 year-old behind Princess Reason, has a knack for 90s-tinged lo-fi bedroom pop. He released an EP, Always Pretty, back in March on Tricot Records, and followed it up with a self-titled album this summer. If you are a fan of bands like Guided By Voices or acts like Coma Cinema, Princess Reason might just be your new favourite.

The album is available on a pay-what-you-want basis over at the Princess Reason Bandcamp. Also be sure to check out the Always Pretty EP.

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Advent Calendar [12th]: Fyfe – We Three Kings

Jon Doyle — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 13:17:54 +0000

An advent calendar wouldn’t be much without a Christmas cover! Doing the honours this year is Fyfe. Equal parts haunting, striking and gorgeous, Fyfe’s acapella cover of Ella Fitzgerald’s We Three Kings does the equally brilliant (if somewhat jazzier) original justice.

It’s available for free download on Fyfe’s soundcloud, so grab it, light some candles and get snuggled under a blanket to really get into the Christmas spirit.

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Advent Calendar [4th]: Jess Williamson – Blood Song

Jon Doyle — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Jess Williamson’s ‘Blood Song’ opens with sparse guitar notes that conjure a desolate image of a nameless American desert, and you get the impression the track might well be instrumental. Her vocals kicking in around the 30 second mark are a welcome surprise, and lift the song from an atmospheric backdrop to an intimate telling. The misleadingly gentle delivery hides a mixture of emotions, giving the song a believable voice as she demands and hesitates and pleads across five lovely minutes. Imagine Angel Olsen singing to Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas soundtrack.

The album, Native State, is due out on the 28th January on Brutal Honest. Pre-order it here.

See the rest of the calendar here.

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Wake The Deaf’s Advent Calendar 2013

Jon Doyle — Sat, 30 Nov 2013 19:04:00 +0000

What better way to count down to Christmas than with good music? With no festive theme in particular, we’ll be sharing a song a day in the lead up to the 25th. We hope to feature a variety of genres so there is something for everyone.

Check back each day in December to find a song we think you will enjoy.

1st – Ages and Ages
2nd – Ricky Eat Acid
3rd – Nate Connelly
4th – Jess Williamson
5th – River Tiber
6th – Damien Jurado
7th – Palehound
8th – Whirr
9th – Glass Vaults
10th – House By The Lake
11th – Lyndsie Alguire
12th – Fyfe
13th – Princess Reason
14th – Water Liars
15th – Frog Eyes
16th – Sirs
17th – The Pollyanna Band
18th – Kalle Mattson
19th – Netherfriends
20th – Wake Owl
21st – Beat Radio
22nd – Emily Reo
23rd – Donovan Woods
Christmas Eve – Polyvinyl Compilation

Merry Christmas!

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WTD’s Advent Calendar – 15 – Loraine

Jon Doyle — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 16:23:00 +0000

Loraine are a new instrumental post-rock band out of Atlanta. Their EP, An Autumn Evening, was self-recorded and produced in several bedrooms but you would never guess it from the full encapsulating sound. I’m not an expert of the intricacies of post rock but this sounds very nice to me; gradual build ups, soaring guitars, crashing cresendos, all of which manage to invoke whatever it is in the human brain that reacts to this sort of music with goosebumps and that familiar soaring feeling. What more could you want? Listen below to see what I mean.

After Everything, More Than Anything by Loraine

The EP is available on a pay-what-you-can basis over at Bandcamp. The lovely artwork is by Leonid Afremov.

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WTD’s Advent Calendar – 10 – Angel Olsen

Jon Doyle — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 11:17:36 +0000

Angel Olsen’s Half Way Home is one of my favourite releases of 2012. I should have written about it sooner, and it really deserves more than this measly little post, but for all sorts of reasons the blog has been quieter than we would have liked and we are now faced with the task trying to catch up with writing about all the music we’ve been listening to before the new year and the obligatory year-end lists. The arrangements are kept simple and take a back seat to Olsen’s pretty unbelievable voice, which wobbles and trembles with both fragility and a strange power. The lyrics are a mix of dark storytelling (the best example of which is Miranda) and a tumble of personal thoughts; hopes and confessions and worries. Olsen herself sums up the overarching theme of the album very nicely:

“I think no matter how stable I am I will always be searching, I guess that’s what this album is about. The endless searching, the fruitless waiting, the idea of a home that is inside yourself”.

She contemplates love and life and death and does so in a way that feels both fundamental in some timeless sense, and also novel and fresh and raw. It is an album with melancholy that cuts straight to the bone but it also feels oddly comforting. I found myself becoming increasingly attached to the album with repeated listens. It wasn’t so much a “grower” as a “grabber”, it reels you in and won’t let go, and if you’re anything like me then you won’t want to be let go.

You can get the album from Bathetic Records, although the initial pressing of the record has sold out. A second pressing is well underway and the label says all orders with be fulfilled as soon as possible. You can also get the album as a digital download from most of the big music sites, and can also listen to it in full via Spotify.

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WTD’s Advent Calendar – 8 – Sam Moss

Liam Doyle — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 17:00:07 +0000

Today’s feature is on an album which was released over a year ago but which escaped my attention until now. It is also the first (and quite possibly the last) Christmas music to feature in our Advent Calendar. The record, entitled ‘Tree and Star: A Christmas Album For Solo Electrified Guitar’, is courtesy of Vermont’s Sam Moss (who I previously wrote about here). The title serves as a pretty accurate description of the album, it’s just Moss on his guitar playing sparse instrumental interpretations of everyone’s favourite Christmas songs. I’m not sure it’s going to kickstart a Christmas party but it’s simple and reserved and very good. If you hurry (as there’s only 3 remaining as I’m writing this) you can get a CD of the album for $10 (£6.25) or download it for just $4 (£2.50) over at Moss’ Bandcamp page.

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WTD’s Advent Calendar – 7 – Reuben Hollebon

Jon Doyle — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 09:58:00 +0000

Reuben Hollebon, from Norfolk, UK, is a folk songwriter with a diverse sound. His new EP, Clutch, is a blend of fingerpicked guitar and other jangly instruments that pick up the pace and turn regular songwriter material into a much fuller sound. He is equally adept at hushed and haunting melancholic outpourings (‘Seven’), and more upbeat tracks that skip along with foot-tapping energy (‘Home’). A lazy comparison would be Keaton Henson’s ’Dear…’ meeting a folk rock band like Peter Wolf Crier. Listen to the first track on the release below.

Clutch is available to stream on Bandcamp and is due out on 10th December on Akira Records.

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