Remember, while it’s always tempting to put a big fat zero for ‘name your price’ releases, you can give a little something. Bands need to eat too, and would doubtless appreciate even the smallest donation for their efforts. You’ll want them to appear in your Bandcamp collection anyway, so you’ll have to give something.

Alanna McArdle – Reticular (REVIEW) / Bedroom/Balloons (REVIEW)
(RIYL: folk, bedroom pop, sad, Sarah Winchester)

Ama Moii – Flown (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom, ambient, lo-fi, soft music)

Andrew Weathers – I Am Happy When I Am Moving
(RIYL: experimental, cosmic Appalachian mountain tunes)

Animal Camera – Aniimal Crackers
(RIYL: noise pop, psychedelic ARMS)

Beverly Tender – Lord Mayor Makes 1000 Speeches
(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, Baby Mollusk, Whatever Dad)

The Bombshells – Bake Sale Hotties
(RIYL: riot grrl, The Runaways, Le Tigre)

Big Eater – In Between
(RIYL: laidback indie pop, Yo La Tengo, Mac DeMarco)

Blue Smiley – OK
(RIYL: lo-fi, fuzz rock, Alex G)

Bobby’s Oar – The Weeds in Your Garden
(RIYL: folk-punk, Among Giants, The Front Bottoms)

Boosegumps – / B-Sides (REVIEW 1 | REVIEW 2 | INTERVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, acoustic, Free Cake For Every Creature)

Brightside – The World Reversed
(RIYL: indie pop, pop-punk, The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die)

Brittle Brian – Verisune
(RIYL: bedroom pop, Frankie Cosmos, Bellows)

Broken Beak – Curse Burner
(RIYL: bedroom pop, Modern Baseball)

Bryant Eugene Vazquez – Blue Hours
(RIYL: folk, lo-fi, Wes Tirey, M. Ward)

Captain Samurai – Hey Thanks Goodbye
(RIYL: indie rock, soft punk, LVL UP)

CATAPHANT – Half Dead EP
(RIYL: hip hop, experimental, pop)

Cat Be Damned – Six Songs
(RIYL: ambient, Ricky Eat Acid, the sounds of space)

Catholic Easter Colours – Not the Silence That Was There Before
(RIYL: indie pop, cinematic rock, ambient)

Cemeteries – Barrow
(RIYL: ambient, experimental, dream pop)

Clams – PDA Queen
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, bedroom pop)

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Coffee Pot – &
(RIYL: fuzz rock, psych, lo-fi)

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Colour Me Brittle – The First Bad Man
(RIYL: lo-fi, jangle pop, twee indie)

Coping Skills – Everything is stupid + I Hate it
(RIYL: riot grrrls, bummer pop, Cyberbully Mom Club)

Cuddle Formation – ⊙﹏⊙ ♫･​*​:​.​｡. .｡​.​:​*​･ (demos)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, guitar loops, devotional)

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: A – C appeared first on Various Small Flames.

It’s up for debate whether Alexandra Kleeman’s début novel You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine is dystopian. I mean, it’s too familiar and life-like to be truly dystopian, although that’s exactly what makes it so terrifying. The world seems to be functioning pretty much as normal, as people go about their days with the aimless sense of duty we are all accustomed to, a far cry from the visions of Orwell or Burgess or Dick. But the definition of dystopia is “a community or society that is undesirable or frightening”, so who’s to say “normal” can’t also be dystopic?

Kleeman’s narrator ‘A’ is blank, mostly faceless with few discernible personality traits. Her job feels temporary and is barely mentioned. Many of her scenes involve her doing very little inside her apartment. Instead she is fleshed out through her exposure to-/interaction with her room-mate (‘B’), boyfriend (‘C’) and the vivid stream of entertainment and advertising (or entertaining advertisement) which seems part of the world’s very fabric. Obvious comparisons are Pynchon and Foster Wallace, plus George Saunders in his being-clever mode (as opposed to his sentimental one), although the focus is very much away from the large-scale political/societal systems in favour of personal, A-centric explorations. All background occurrences (the mystery of disappearing dads, an anti-veal activist who ends up marketing it, even B and C) are filtered through A’s experience.

As the story is told in first person this might seem obvious, but (to me at least) it goes much deeper than that. In most postmodern books the main character is subject to/lost amongst a world of disinformation, whereas in You Too… it’s A herself who feels like the disinformation. The question here isn’t “is the world as the media says it is?” but rather “am I who the media says I am? Who I think I am?” Whether this is an emerging trend in post-postmodern millennial literature, a natural reaction to a world in which identity is unsettled and fluctuating, or just a new, gender-based perspective on things traditionally written about by men is unclear. One thing is for certain, Kleeman is a name to watch among the new generation of writers building upon the work of the aforementioned greats.Here’s a collection of songs that I think are relevant or related to the novel. If you like a particular band, just click the artist name in the tracklisting to be whisked away for more information. Enjoy:

Tracklisting:

1. Too Dark – Frankie Cosmos
2. Sucks Hanging Out With You (It Sucks Even More When You Leave) – Free Cake For Every Creature
3. Slumber Party – Mommy Long Legs
4. What’s Another Lipstick Mark – Adult Mom
5. Unholy Faces – Florist
6. Bedroom – Alanna McArdle
7. TV – Oh, Rose & Sawtooth
8. Death Cult Paradise – Trace Mountains
9. I Saw My Twin – Hop Along
10. Nashville Parthenon – Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
11. Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts – Wolf Parade
12. Oranges – Young Jesus
13. 1994 – PWR BTTM
14. Washing Machine – SPORTS
15. Lookalike / I Lost My Mind – Titus Andronicus

You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine is out now on HarperCollins. Quiet, Constant Friends is still available as a download or on cassette via the Wake The Deaf Bandcamp page. You can read the other Lit Links posts here. If you have a book in mind and fancy a go yourself, just get in touch!

The post Alexandra Kleeman – You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. By My Side – Valley Maker
   2. Shadow Play – Tierpark
   3. West Texas – PWR BTTM
   4. Console – Joplin Rice
   5. Lightning Dream Shuffle – Will Stratton (for Genius Loci)
   6. Dazed By You – PINS
   7. Y U – Fanpage
   8. The Rest – Alex Bleeker and the Freaks
   9. I’m Not – Hoshifo
   10. Nothing, Just Looking at the Moment – Lejsovka & Freund
   11. Stole Ur Bike – Boosegumps
   12. Our Headache Years – Nudes
   13. Worry, Glory – The Silence Set
   14. Sand – Frankie Cosmos
   15. xplodineyez – Field Medic
   16. Walking The Line – Sam Moss
   17. Bedroom – Alanna McArdle
   18. Tired – Captain Samurai
   19. Birds – M Caridi & The Glow
   20. Gardensong – Funeral Advantage
   21. Snow Bird – Ama Moii
   22. So Long, Suzie (The Damage is Done) – Morning River Band
   23. Cracks in the Sidewalk – Naomi Pop
   24. Burn This – Mauno
   25. What Coast – Grubs
   26. Pulled Over – Generifus
   27. EZ River – Wilder Maker

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

“a great example of what has come to be known as “bedroom pop”, the antithesis of the over-produced, smart-ass music that has become so prevalent, even in the so-called indie scene”

Last week McArdle released two more “old” songs, which follow a similar template to those on Reticular. Both tracks combine minimal guitar with quietly emotional vocals, reminiscent of things like Yowler’s The Offer. The lyrics are dark and vague, detailing emotional and mental struggles, for example on ‘Balloons’:

“I asked you if you think god exists
and did he have a heart
and if he put me in the state I was in
and would it always be this hard
or does it get much worse than this
I still don’t sleep, I still can’t quit”

You can get both tracks on a pay-what-you-want basis over at the Alanna McArdle bandcamp page.

Also – if you like these then be sure to check out the Soundcloud page for McArdle’s recording project Ides.

The post Alanna McArdle – Bedroom/Balloons appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Won is certainly not afraid to share her feelings with the listener, and I get the sense that that’s kind of the point, that writing songs about the things that get you down can sometimes pick you back up again, or at least give you a sense of perspective and shows how things are not as bad as they seem. The good news is that this effect works two ways, and what acts as therapy for Won as a writer/musician has the same effect on us as the listener. It’s one of my favourite things about this kind of music, the way that an entirely personal and cathartic process is released into the big wide world to help others too.  Some sad music can be dispiriting, sucking the hope from your brain via the auditory canal, but stuff like this has the opposite effect, neatly sidestepping melodrama in favour of unflinching sincerity.

The sound of the album is in that bedroom pop vein (e.g. Kissing Fractures, Alanna McArdle, Free Cake For Every Creature et al.).  ‘Best Friends’ uses a drum machine and twinkling guitar to support Won’s questions of, “Where did all your best friends go?”, while ‘Fade Away’ sounds like jangle pop slowed to half pace. ‘Awake’ is largely instrumental with a slow build and some breathy background aahs and ‘March Sadness’ is all echoey lo-fi with added xylophone.

The songs also contain some really nice writing, such as on the anxiety-ridden, ‘I Feel So Small’, in which Won sings, “Hid in the floorboards til you came home, I feel so small without you” (which brought to mind this image). But it’s a line on the deceptively hopeful-sounding ‘Forever’ which steals the show, and sums up the entire album rather neatly:

“I don’t feel too alive today
this strange feeling won’t go away
I think it is here to stay
forever”

You can download on a name-your-price basis at the Boosegumps Bandcamp page. I’d recommend you get right to it.

P.S. Did you see Boosegumps on our Favourite Free Music of 2014 List?

The post Boosegumps – :) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. A Lingering – German Error Message
2. All You’ve Gotta be When You’re 23 – Free Cake For Every Creature
3. Can You Feel It, Too? – Fun Home
4. Garden Tomb – Pasture Dog
5. How Marvelous – Lewtrakimou
6. Out Names – Shunkan
7. Floral Mattress – Naps
8. Rapture in Heat – Liam Betson
9. Astoria – Gwenno
10. Electric Duck – Henry Demos
11. Angharad – Yucatan
12. Orchids (Instrumental) – Celebrity Crush
13. Tulsa – John Statz
14. Snow – Alanna McArdle
15. Yours Till the Ocean – Danielle Fricke
16. The Lights in the Sands of Katumpkale – REW<<

April 2015 Roundup from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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

On Reticular McArdle’s vocals are noticeably more delicate and fragile than we’re used to. Well, except for when they’re not. Sometimes they’re barely more than a whisper and others they’re delivered with considerable force. It isn’t as raucous as her usual work, but it’s suffused with a different sort of energy, hushed and restrained but also an exercise in fierce personal expression. This is a great example of what has come to be known as “bedroom pop”, the antithesis of the over-produced, smart-ass music that has become so prevalent, even in the so-called indie scene.

The EP opens with ‘You’re a Disease’, a lonely-sounding acoustic track that seems to explore the end of something. The chorus of “It’s in your blood, so it’s okay if you hate it, but passing it on isn’t my fault, so don’t hate me” ends with a sucker punch of a final line, “Are you scared? Don’t be”. Somehow those five words capture a sense of forgiveness and kindness that elevates the song far beyond the usual break-up fare.

What follows is four more tracks in this vein, including a great cover of Perfume Genius’s ‘Take Me Home’, a track which suits McArdle’s style perfectly. But my current favourite is the final track, ‘Snow’, which for all the melancholy is actually a beam-of-light love song. McArdle sings:

“I’m moving soon and things will get better
while you’re clearing out your room, lamenting the weather.
And it’s been seven years, when you thought you lost me
I’ll stay right here, whatever it costs me
My love for you is endless, make sure to remind me
how I can get through the night”

What I’m getting it is that this is the sound of somebody who’s trying. There is a very real danger when people full of feelings pick up guitars in quiet bedrooms that they make something cynical and (quietly) destructive. But this isn’t like that. If you’ve read Wake the Deaf at all in the past you’ll have probably figured out that most of our favourite music can be applied like a salve. We like sad songs for not completely sad people, songs shot through with hope, something for every single one of us to hold on to. And that’s why I like this little EP so much. How could you not love a record that ends with the words “It’s alright?”

You can get Reticular on a pay-what-you-want basis over at the Alana McArdle Bandcamp page.

The post Alanna McArdle – Reticular appeared first on Various Small Flames.