We’ve long followed the work of Hamilton’s Basement Revolver, most recently in 2022 with the full-length Embody, which used the band’s signature weight and compassion “to confront the intricacies of modern life with a newfound steel and depth.” This usually involves complicated themes of identity and faith, though latest single ‘Red Light’ offers a picture of a far more specific problem of modern living—the infuriating experience of getting a red light ticket that costs far more than a pay check. But through a blend of pummelling energy, dreamy textures and Chrisy Hurn’s earnest vocals, the song becomes a wider meditation on the inevitable costs of pursuing one’s dreams, and how society can appear to be constructed in opposition to anyone looking to pursue creative ideals.

‘Red Light’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Casual Technicians – Homecoming

Following last year’s Four Corners EP, Portland-centred but now geographically separated indie rock band Casual Technicians have announced their debut full-length record. Self-titled and comprising of 19 tracks, it promises to be a comprehensive introduction to the band’s style, what we described previously as “[a] playful sound that’s not only willing to experiment between genres but to meld them together seamlessly.” Following the oddball lo-fi pop of lead single ‘Lucy in the Dark’, Casual Technicians have now released a second song from the record, ‘Homecoming’. It’s just as strange, but in a different way, possessing a homebrew folk style that centres around the signature deadpan delivery.

clay pigeon – Dark Blue

The new recording project of Canadian songwriter James Clayton, clay pigeon makes songs that combine a laidback, listenable quality with impressive emotional depth. In July, he will release The Aching Taste of Blue, his debut full-length recorded at Hotel2Tango in Montreal with acclaimed engineer Howard Bilerman. In anticipation, he has released lead single ‘Dark Blue’, a song that acts as the perfect calling card for what clay pigeon is all about. “’Dark Blue’ was one of the first songs I wrote for the project and in hindsight, it set the canvas for the rest of the record,” Clayton describes. “The fingerpicking pattern melted the beginning and end of the phrase together and everything became very meditative, yet unresolved, as if to ask a question. Is everything okay?”

Daniel Brouns – Lizard Killer

Described as a concept album about first experiences, Stock Music For The Cosmos sees songwriter Daniel Brouns condense his life into nine seminal moments—including brushes with love, death, pornography. With the album coming this May on Anxiety Blanket Records, Brouns has unveiled single ‘Lizard Killer’. As the title suggests, the song presents an encounter with loss in the form of a class pet, Brouns describing the experience of finding the lizard dead in its cage with the flat, near-spoken despondency of David Bazan. Indeed, the latest Pedro The Lion albums are a good touchstone for the Daniel Brouns sound, where the past is presented as a kind of duality between fond nostalgia and bitter regret. Watch the video by Dalton Pate below:

Stock Music For The Cosmos is out on the 17th May 17th via Anxiety Blanket Records.

DD Island – Runnin’

Originating as a solo project in Nashville, DD Island moved to New York in 2021, where lead Brandon Rhodes recruited an assortment of friends and accomplices to build a fresh line-up capable of bringing a new era of the project to life. Rhodes used live shows as the nursery for this version of the band, so its fitting that the new DD Island EP Runnin’ was recorded live to embrace this spirit. But as the lead single and title track confirms, this immediacy does not preclude a sense of intention, the band tapping into an easy-going rhythm to support the wistful lyrics and warm sound to create something as heartfelt as it is fun.

Runnin’ is out now and available from the usual places.

MVSO – Heaven

An exploration of the “universal themes of life, death and the passing of time through a decidedly personal lens.” That’s how we’ve previously described the work of MVSO (AKA duo Mat Vairo and Saumon Oboudiyat), singing the praises of both ‘Hold Clear’ and ‘Passing Through‘. With the release of EP Proprioception fast approaching, new single ‘Heaven’ follows suit with another sparsely evocative sound, marbling intimate tenderness and haunting space to form something airy yet loaded with unseen weight. The song was inspired by the 2019 film The Specials (originally Hors normes) directed by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, which tells the true story of two men who train underprivileged youth to care for young people with autism. It serves as a testament to the compassionate potential of people in a world which can seem determined to prove the opposite.

Oscilla – Tongue-Tied

Back in December, we featured Oscilla, the project of San Francisco‘s Frances England, describing how the quiet sincerity of single ‘Tornado’ “functions something like a plea in the face of elemental danger. An attempt to will oneself onto surer ground.” The song was the first from a forthcoming EP called Drink Up the Sun, which is due for release later in the Spring. Now Oscilla have unveiled the record’s second single, ‘Tongue-Tied’, a nostalgic indie pop song with the warm and oversaturated tones of a photograph from an old summer vacation. England creates this sound with the help of producer Omar Akrouche (who also plays in LA art pop band Worthitpurchase), elevating what would be a pretty and melodic song into something thick with the sweet and hazy poignance of long summertime days.

July, cherry juice stains on your chin and fingers
Sweet grass almost knee high
Rolling down the windows past the field and pine trees
Power lines flash by

Razor Braids – It Goes Quiet

Back in November we introduced Brooklyn-based outfit Razor Braids with single ‘She’. A song which typified both the band’s nineties rock aesthetic and the spirit at the heart of their work, “willingly shaking itself from past desires in order to find new hope and joy in desires as of yet unrealised.” The track was taken from upcoming full-length Big Wave, and new single ‘It Goes Quiet’ offers another glimpse at the album’s bittersweet mood. Hesitant uncertainty and cathartic motion collide on the same song, encapsulating an album that promises to explore not only love but the constant process of growth and change which accompanies it.

 Roselove – Marionette

‘Marionette’ is the latest single from Roselove, a musician, photographer, visual artist and writer based between New York and Philadelphia. Taking equal parts London indie sleaze pop and Philly shoegaze, the song draws on personal experience of the difficulty living and working as transgender woman in creative industries to explore loneliness more generally. But while the track comes with an understandable degree of frustration and longing, it is far more than such emotions. Rather, it offers a voice of empathy and solidarity to every person suffering within this contemporary epidemic, as well as a steely intensity to face down those who reinforce the conditions which allow it to fester.

The post Weekly Listening: March 2024 #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

To celebrate the arrival of their brand new record, Embody, Hamilton’s Basement Revolver have unveiled the final single, ‘Dissolve’. We previously described how the album displays a “willingness to confront the intricacies of modern life with a newfound steel and depth,” and the new single is full of the compassion and solidarity which makes this possible. An ode to figuring things out together.

Carli & The Dark – Voicemail

Carli & The Dark is the folk rock project of Phoenix-born, Brooklyn-based songwriter Carli Naff. Latest single ‘Voicemail’ concerns losing a parent, specifically that strange half second when the urge to contact them arises out of well-worn habit, a wish to share a simple moment of a day. The song emerges from this brief period where they are still alive, still waiting, and follows it through the renewed sense of loss before culminating in a compassionate group refrain which features Naff’s mother and siblings among other loved ones. “All my peeps who grieved together,” as she puts it. “It’s a little detail that really brings me a sense of safety at the end, of being held.”

Saying my nickname in a voicemail from your car
You were there, there you are
And though you are not around,
You would love this song I found

Cinder Well x Jim Ghedi – I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Ramble

Cinder Well and Jim Ghedi have teamed up for a new two-song single, reinterpreting traditional folk ballads. ‘I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Rambled’ highlights how the pair accentuate the stark loneliness of the material with sparse arrangements haunted by foreboding drone. A song of vast distances and separation, sung into a soundscape as empty and inscrutable as the ocean itself.

I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Ramble is out now via Free Dirt Records and is available from the Cinder Well Bandcamp page.

hemlock – to carry (feat. Laith)

Described as an “interstate phone-fi bedroom folk saga of sorts,” talk soon is the full-band Chicago-based project hemlock. Latest single invites long-time friend and collaborator Laith Scherer and explores the nuances of a relationship as it changes over time and distance. A song of hushed yet heartfelt vignettes which rises toward an impassioned finale, providing snapshots of love in its various guises.

it’s okay
we carry our pain
in separate ways
on different days
but I’ll be there for you

Jeremy Squires – Drift

We’ve written about North Carolina native Jeremy Squires numerous times, an artist working in the American songwriting tradition of sharing heart and soul with generous helpings of grit and honesty. Ahead of a new album, slated for release later this year on Blackbird Record Label, Squires has unveiled a new single, ‘Drift’. It’s a song that finds him at his devastating best, built on just acoustic guitar, harmonica and vocals that quaver with both exhausted despondency and a steely inner strength. “I was sad,” he sings, “Now I’m lost / I forgot where I belong.”

Knuckle Pups – Soft Attraction

Ahead of their upcoming album, TV Ready, Denver “soda punk” outfit Knuckle Pups have unveiled single ‘Soft Attraction’. The track is an encapsulation of what such a genre entails, taking the fizzy energy of indie and adding an anarchic punk edge, though the songs are far from one-dimensional sugar rushes. Principle songwriter Oliver Holloway writes songs spread across the gamut of moods and tones, making room for earnest emotion and ironic playfulness within the same track, and as the new single shows, this often builds into triumphantly cathartic crescendos.

TV Ready is set for release sometime later this year.

Mouse – Pinned To An Avalanche

Based between Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, Mouse formed over a mutual appreciation of noisy DIY music, and thus set about making it themselves. The first single from forthcoming debut Here Was Then on Kitty Records, ‘Pinned to an Avalanche’ is all about escaping worry and doubt through some larger, consuming present, and Mouse oblige by recreating the descending wall of snow with their dense and hefty sound. Check out the video directed by the band and shot by Harley Jones:

Here Was Then will be released by Kitty Records later this year.

nudista – inasmuch

Next month sees the release of nudista’s Halfway Here EP on Sad Club Records, but in the meantime they have unveiled a new standalone single, ‘inasmuch’. The song is a great introduction to Pilar Matji Cabello and Robbie Carman’s work, a clarified dream pop which seeks to communicate directly and honestly. “It is a message to say that we are capable of evolving and moving forward even when it is scary,” as Cabello puts it, the gentle rhythmic pull drawing the listener close and compelling them onward.

Oceanator – Bad Brain Daze

April sees the return of Oceanator with Nothing’s Ever Fine, a brand new album on Polyvinyl Records and Big Scary Monsters which looks to build upon the apocalyptic themes of 2020’s Things I Never Said. Lead single ‘Bad Brain Daze’ typifies the duality of tenuous optimism and crushing pessimism which marks the record. The sound of existing within an unfolding disaster where the conclusion is still unclear, and nevertheless delivered with Elise Okusami’s characteristically triumphant energy. Check out the video directed by Chris Farren below:

Nothing’s Ever Fine is out on the 8th April via Polyvinyl Records and Big Scary Monsters and you can pre-order it now from the Oceanator Bandcamp page.

Sonic Løland – Up to You

Norwegian musician Anders Løland spent much of 2020 experimenting with styles and sounds, building up a library of ideas and demos which would form the basis of And Then The Sun Came Up, the debut album of his Sonic Løland project. Due for release this autumn via Koke Plate, the album shows off the full spectrum of Løland’s inspiration, creating a new brand of indie folk with ambient styles, electronic drums and rich 60s sensibilities, as shown by lead single, ‘Up to You’.

And Then The Sun Came Up will be released by Koke Plate this coming autumn.

Stephen Durkan – Prayer

Combining spoken word with electronic and ambient styles, Glasgow’s Stephen Durkan seems the latest in a long line of cynical Scottish preachers, bitter and sardonic yet bursting with a verbal energy. Written in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist/producer Niko O’Brien and released via Upcycled Sounds Records, his debut EP The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Ourselves both confirms and subverts this label. The anger and frustration are palpable, but beneath this lies something else. A flimsy belief in the continued value of critiquing the society in which we find ourselves, in imagining something new. Check out the first single ‘Prayer’ below:

Teen Idle – Burning

The music of Teen Idle might be an almost entirely solo endeavour recorded in a New Jersey basement, but you’d never guess it from the sound. For Sara Abdelbarry rejects the lo-fi aesthetics of many garage and bedroom acts for something more full-bodied. Take latest single, ‘Burning’, its rich sound featuring electric guitar, bass guitar, keys, synth, shaker, maracas, claps, lighter and sound effects all played by Abdelbarry, with only the drums delegated to Danny Murray. What emerges is an examination of unrequited love in all of its vivid detail, hope, bitterness and unabashed emotion rising into a huge climax.

I climbed up to the top alone
And watch the city burn below
If you won’t help me put her to rest
I’ll dig the hole by myself

The post Weekly Listening: Feb 2022 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

With Jonathan Malström returning on guitar and Levi Kertesz joining on drums, Basement Revolver used the past year to work on a brand new record, Embody. Continuing the exploration of themes such as faith, identity and mental illness seen on Wax and Digital, the album finds the band more forthright than ever. As though previous releases have laid the foundations for a newfound confidence. A willingness to confront the intricacies of modern life with a newfound steel and depth.

Lead single ‘Skin’ is an indication of what this sounds like. Revolving around anxieties related to body image, the track opens with needling drone before settling into its smouldering rhythm, and it is this passage from persistent dread to widescreen spaciousness which marks the spirit of the song. The confessional uncertainty of previous Basement Revolver tracks is still evident, but there is a sense of taking a step further. Vulnerability not only voiced but interrogated. Held up to a light and then shed with an almost ritualistic practice, as captured in the video by Steph Montani.

I want to feel at home
In my skin, in my skin.

‘Skin’ is out now and available from the Basement Revolver Bandcamp page. Stay tuned for more information on Embody.

Photo by Stephanie Montani

The post Basement Revolver – Skin appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Black Sea Dahu – Thaw
Will Henriksen – Nothing Left Behind
Dehd – Letter
Hovvdy – Ruin (my ride)
Maya Lucia – preteen
They Are Gutting A Body of Water – french
Jason Calhoun – moving
Dilary Huff – Overused Sayings
Two Meters – The Nightmare
Dead Painters – Marigold
The Deer – Confetti To The Hurricane
Pastel – Moon Landing
Hit Like A Girl – No More Dysphoria
Basement Revolver – Master’s Degree
Bodies on the Beach – Ghost
Highnoon – Lens
Distant Reader – Marie
Drakes Island – 4 Days
Wet Dream – Worried
Best Mann – Must Be Wrong
The Funs – Trains Across The Sea
Ganser – Buio
Nothings – Favorite Shirt
Corinne Sharlet – Hail Mary
ahem – Halloween
Max and the Martians – Please Hold On
A.S. Wilson – Taken Apart
Béret – Book of Hera
Joel Jerome – There’s Nothing Here To Bother You Anymore
Carpet City – Little Longer
Hannah Cranton – Kite
Zachary Lucky – Didn’t Know That You’d Come Along
Wintersleep – Fading Out
Coral – find me wrong
Boo Baby – “Jazz?”
Margaux – Palm

Check out our previous Monthly Roundup playlists, and be sure to read our Reviews and Previews throughout the month.

The post October 2019 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Since the release of that album, the band have welcomed another member into the fold, with Chrisy Hurn (guitar, vocals), Nimal Agalawatte (bass) and Brandon Munro (drums) joined by second guitarist Jonathan Malström, and have set to work recording a brand new EP. Recorded with Ian Gomes (Greys, Frigs, Odonis Odonis) and again released with Sonic Unyon Records, Wax and Digital sees Basement Revolver utilise their added firepower while sacrificing none of their intimate spirit.

The development of style is clear from the opening title track, a rich and romantic song that benefits from the newfound depth of sound. The references here are niche, nods to the likes of Mount Eerie, Valley Maker, Andy Shauf and MewithoutYou acting like personal secrets, code words to represent the singular shape of a specific relationship, the threads of that form the tapestry of a shared experience.

The wistful ‘Master’s Degree’ lets go of long-held ideals, challenging the perception that one must prove their intelligence in order to be respected or valued, while the frantic shoegaze of ‘Concussion Pt. 2’ traps the listener in a whirlpool to recreate the panic and powerlessness of ill health. ‘Have I Been Deceived’ is altogether slower, building with warm courage to face questions of faith.

“I think about ‘Have I Been Deceived’ as an open letter to God,” Hurn describes. “This past year, I have been feeling like I was brainwashed.” The sensation, familiar to many who were brought up under a strict religious regime, can be as painful and disorientating as the dogma itself. Hurn describes how her whole view of the world, from love and sex to something as small as musical taste was dictated by her upbringing, and dents in this logic can cause the whole thing to unravel. “That was my entire identity,” Hurn explains. “Throughout my twenties, this identity fell apart.”

Now overt Christian culture makes her feel nauseated, a pain doubled by the nagging knowledge that something as important as spirituality might be forever tarnished by a toxic experience. This anger and confusion is explored in the song as well as a video directed and edited by Andy Friesen, with stop motion animation by See You On The Moon.

However, as the closing tracks highlight, Wax and Digital is a record about moving beyond the past to a more welcoming present. “It’s hard to write a song,” Hurn sings on ‘Romantic at Heart’, “when things are going good in this life,” capturing the self-confidence that shines through every track. When love is found it tends to overpower everything else, and for those on the outside of this glow it can be easy to be skeptical about art that declares life good. However, far from basking in the comfort, Basement Revolver instead use it as a space to examine what has been, as though only in putting distance between ourselves and past suffering can we come to understand who we are.

Wax and Digital is out now via Sonic Unyon Records and you can get it from the Basement Revolver Bandcamp page.

The post Basement Revolver – Wax and Digital appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Seen as a spiritual successor to Swell Tone’s Summer of Sad comp on Z Tapes, the release features takes on tracks by everyone from Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young to Björk, Mazzy Star and even Mr Rogers. Better yet, all proceeds are going to Homeward Bound Animal Rescue, which gives dogs a second chance at life. So when not support the release and relax in the knowledge that you are helping a good cause too?

The release is ostensibly one of love songs, but such a description belies the depth and ambiguity of emotions on offer. Opening the album, Basement Revolver gloss a layer of melancholy sweetness over Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’, subtle percussion and winding guitar allowing Chrisy Hurn’s vocals to come to the fore. Changing tack completely, Anna McClellan takes on ‘Dear Someone’ by Gillian Welch, transforming the original into a romantic piano song that sounds haunted by a sense of long-lost nostalgia, as if it’s floating across a quiet room from a war-time gramophone.

This diversity continues across the rest of the compilation. Yes these are all love songs, but stylistically no two sound quite alike. From Lucy Stone’s heartfelt guitar ballad (a contemporary update of Bonnie Raitt’s ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’) to the gentle droning pulse and ghostly vocals of Ora Cogan’s Björk cover, the album twists and turns through styles and emotions, from naked declarations to heart-broken longing to that lingering wistful feeling that’s woven into the fabric of things. There’s no sugary Hollywood sentiment here, rather love in its true, maddening form, so closely related to pain and sadness as to make the distinction obsolete.

The mood is perhaps best captured in Rosie Tucker‘s singular take on Connie Converse’s ‘How Sad, How Lovely’, a track which manages to hold tender beauty and creeping loss in the same hand. “How sad, how lovely,” go Converse’s lyrics. “How short, how sweet / to see the sunset / at the end of a street.” To take notice of the small wonders of the world is to notice their slow dissolution, but to take no notice at all is to already have died.

Sixteen Jackies lift the mood with a bouncy rendition of Pete Townsend’s ‘Let My Love Open The Door’, before Honey Moon arrived with their sultry take on ‘Lovefool’ by The Cardigans. Both tracks come with a technicolour finish, their sounds so lush and textured that you can wrap yourself within them, which juxtaposes well with Porridge Radio‘s stripped back version of Neil Young’s ‘Only Love Can Take Your Heart’. However, despite the track’s stark simplicity, the earnest tone and authentic delivery forms an enveloping texture of its own, radiating warmth and a kind of nostalgic grace.

The collection ends with a a hushed and intimate cover of Mr Rogers song ‘It’s You I Like’ by Ings, Inge Chiles delivering Rogers’s trademark earnestness and sentimentality in a near-whisper. The gently plucked guitar keeps its voice down too, leading to a finale as quiet and peaceful as it is suffused with feeling.

Summer of Love is out now digitally and on cassette, and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The post Summer of Love: A Compilation appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Thanks for being with us.

Advance Base – Animal Companionship

Run For Cover Records

““The songs are intended to be a comfort for folks going through their own tough times,” Ashworth explained in an essay for Talkhouse. “Commiseration has always been a guiding principle of my songwriting.” Love need not be hugs and hearts and kisses, and loyalty does not necessarily mean hanging in a relationship beyond all reason. But love is loyalty, and Owen Ashworth has been, and seemingly always will be, loyal to those who need it most.”

REVIEW / BUY

Basement Revolver – Heavy Eyes

Sonic Unyon / Fear of Missing Out Records

“An expansive and spacious sound that’s lit up with a slow-burning emotional resonance, centring around Hurn’s impassioned vocal delivery. Their music combines the magnitude and granular glitter of shoegaze, the personal songwriting of bedroom pop and the cathartic noise of 90s indie rock. [Basement Revolver] play a double game of big and small, switching from quiet personal sentiment to big bombastic broadcast, often within the same song.”

REVIEW / BUY

Benjamin Shaw – Megadead

Audio Antihero

“For all the frustration and (self-)loathing in show, there’s also something else. Perhaps the defining characteristics of Shaw’s music is its ability to transcend its own themes. He may be singing about hating his job, about going nowhere fast, but in doing so colours these things with meaning. To create art is to communicate, and as such the songs represent the antithesis to their own concerns, the simulated happiness and artificial connection punctured through their ironic presence.”

REVIEW / BUY

Campdogzz – In Rounds

15 Passenger

“[Closer ‘Sorceress’] at first might seem a slightly strange segue for a final track soon straightens out into an intuitive sense of logic and belonging, as though the album-long teeter on the edge of some epiphanic transformation has finally fallen headlong at the last moment.”

REVIEW / BUY

Damien Jurado – The Horizon Just Laughed

Secretly Canadian

“While it might be tempting to view [Jurado’s] songwriting career as a fruitless quest for his true identity, perhaps the complete opposite is true. His career is his identity, splinters of truth arriving through dreams or divined from another realm entirely, fractals that can be arranged into a whole that far surpasses the meaning of any one component. A manifesto of sorts, one full of prophecy and history, though rather than country-western stars of [Joseph Billie] Gwin’s vision, the Ten Prophets of Damien Jurado are merely alternate versions of himself—past, present, future, dream—each record its own style or consciousness, born of him, yes, but equal to him too.”

REVIEW / BUY

Dear Nora – Skulls Example

Orindal Records

“You can be anyone, we are told, do anything, though only superficially, a multitude of simulations all working toward to same goal, the means to the end of shifting units and making money. Dear Nora’s music attempts to undermine this by playing the same game, crafting an unreal reality of their own to overlay the other. And, by neutering the money-making end, they in effect invert capitalism’s technique, reestablishing the means (ie. living) as the purpose. Yes, Skulls Example might be a simulation, but it is one of the most meaningful and rewarding you could hope to find.”

REVIEW / BUY

Field Report – Summertime Songs

Verve Forecast

“The summertime theme might conjure ideas of cloudless, uptempo good times, but to limit Field Report’s use of the season to a more poppy sound is to miss the deeper point […] We cannot rely on grand promises or paradigm shifts. Rather, we must commit to the slow, considered process of letting go and working through, of deciding who we were and who we want to be. In these times, we’d be foolish to trust that will be enough, but belief in small moments of agency and human connection is more productive than misplaced prayers for epiphany.”

REVIEW / BUY

Free Cake For Every Creature – The Bluest Star

Double Double Whammy

“free cake for every creature don’t make sad songs exactly, usually tending toward a kind and hopeful feel. Yet there is something intangible about them, a strange sensation that weaves its way into quiet moments, like a kind of everyday poetry or nostalgia that we all recognise but don’t have a name for. The case in point is the penultimate song, ‘be home soon’, which somehow portrays a subway ride home as something beautiful and magical.”

REVIEW / BUY

Frog – Whatever We Probably Already Had It

Audio Antihero

“Contains lines of total sincerity that feel disarming in the face of what has come before, as though the truth of things slips out in quiet whispers to oneself, the party over and room emptied out. The truth being the soul-shearing reality of the American Dream, the tragicomedy of understanding your dreams and desires to be complete fictions while leaning on them with all of your weight.”

REVIEW / BUY

Gia Margaret – There’s Always Glimmer

Orindal Records

“The palette of Gia Margaret is built from shades of sadness—loss, regret, wistful longing, the arresting trap of nostalgia and plain old hurt—though again and again Margaret provides a counter-shade, as though the darkness’ true purpose is merely to highlight the warm, weak glow within. Because, while people up and leave, and time is certainly no kinder, Gia Margaret is here to prove that value is inherent in life itself, meaning and fulfilment not in spite of troubles, but within them. No matter how dark, there is always glimmer.”

REVIEW / BUY

Haley Heynderickx – I Need to Start a Garden

Mama Bird Recording Co.

“I Need To Start a Garden is the perfect album for the onset of spring. It’s all about growth and the hope of new beginnings, but also doesn’t shy away from the necessary hard work that makes such growth possible. It’s a reminder that plants are not the only things that need to be tended and cared for, but also that they’re not the only things that can flourish and bloom either.”

REVIEW / BUY

Lisa/Liza – Momentary Glance

Orindal Records

“The context [of bereavement] is important not because we wish to suggest some ‘romantic’ mythology behind the record (indeed, the songs were written before the tragedy occurred), or that there is magical healing power in the making/consumption of art. Rather, Momentary Glance is a symbol of the power of community, generosity in the face of grief, and the album’s use of placidity over bombastic melodrama is indicative of such an authentic spirit.”

REVIEW / BUY

Long Neck – Will This Do?

Tiny Engines

“Despite the difficult circumstances, there is also a sense that things will be okay, that our narrator has gained the sense of strength and self-reliance necessary to move on. Or rather, is working toward being strong enough and self-reliant enough, with this album being the furthest possible reach forward toward that place. Of course, it’s likely full strength and self-reliance will never be achieved, but it’s the strive toward those ideas that is the most important. Of course this will do.”

REVIEW / BUY

Lung Cycles – S/T

Lily Tapes & Discs

“The placid natural flow continues whether we voice our concerns or not, and nothing in this external sphere is working to exacerbate our feelings. In this way, Lung Cycles reveals anxiety and melancholy to be no more than parasites of the human psyche, forces all too willing to consume us should we centre our existence within our own heads, but soon found dead in the vacuum of natural quiet.”

REVIEW / BUY

Monarch Mtn – days of sleepwater

Self-released

“Darkness breeds darkness, and allowed to fester can become a self-perpetuating thing that metastazises unto ubiquity. Here, Monarch Mtn do not pretend that suffering is abating, or can be dispelled by a mere shift in perspective, but rather choose to fight the phenomenon. days of sleepwater exists to fight the creeping dark, and not embrace it.”

REVIEW / BUY

Naps Eyes – I’m Bad Now

Paradise of Bachelors

“Behind the heavy-lidded blasé exterior lies a rich and tangled inner life, an invitation to fall into the folds of Chapman’s brain and watch his thoughts pass by […] Those with enough curiosity or desire can try to arrange the Nap Eyes lines into a magical formation, wrestling with the existential questions in the hope that they will be the first to figure it all out. The rest can take a back seat and let the Big Stuff drift around them, finding comfort in the fact that there are things bigger than us, and beauty in the understanding that they are beyond our grasp.”

REVIEW / BUY

Remember Sports – Slow Buzz

Father/Daughter Records

“Sincerity could be said to represent Slow Buzz as a whole, though sincerity not as some sentimental force rather a commitment to what feels true, no matter how messy and conflicting. There’s something in the Remember Sports story at the heart of this earnestness, the possibility of progressing without sacrificing an entire ideal, of reincarnation where one returns not as some different creature entirely, but a new version of oneself. A truer version, at least for now.”

REVIEW / BUY

Sun June – Years

Keeled Scales

“Years is a record shaped and propelled by the gentle forces of the world, currents in the substrates of the earth and life itself, invisible yet profound, capable of changes both minor and major […] a number of the tracks returning to a repeated phrase, cyclical patterns that rise in intensity like incantations, or else echo out into the fabric of the sound.”

REVIEW / BUY

Swearin’ – Fall Into the Sun

Merge Records

“We live in a time obsessed with the past. Our dreams now look backwards instead of forward, our deepest wish not for some utopian future but rather a return to an unreal past, one sanded of all trials and troubles by nostalgia and the constant passing of time. With Fall Into the Sun, Swearin’ rebel against such a mindset, redirecting our hopes toward the future once more, and compelling us to pay attention to the present while we still can.”

BUY

Talons’ – After Talons

Self-released

“Talons’ capture the futility and hopelessness of a content life in a creaking hyper-capitalist society, an existence often devoid of meaning and full of shame at the hypocrisy in caring about the world but doing little to change it. But it’s also kind-hearted too, its glowing core of humanity somehow comforting despite the heavy subject matter. In other words, there’s no optimism here, but there is hope.”

REVIEW / BUY

Valley Maker – Rhododendron

Frenchkiss Records

“Built upon a thematic bedrock of faith and religion, but anyone who baulks at the R-word need not worry, [Valley Maker] is uninterested in creeds and doctrine, instead exploring metaphysical mysteries that we can all wonder about […] Crane is not foolish enough to offer answers, though his words and voice work as a reassuring balm, even while acknowledging the ambiguity and turmoil that surely awaits. ”

REVIEW / BUY

The Washboard Abs – Lowlight Visions

Antiquated Future

“Clarke Sondermann’s music has always been intimate, but this album treads deeper into this ideal than any of his previous work. In the circumstances, it would be relatively easy to make an album of sad songs, but it’s a brave artist who takes the very personal worry and suffering and uses it to build something that’s this complex and multifaceted, vulnerable but not hopeless, forgoing nihilistic dejection in favour of a strange kind of love, an appreciation of what stands to be lost.”

REVIEW / BUY

The World Without Parking Lots – Seventh Song Counts the Engines

Self-released

“Seemingly simple but rendered dense and cryptic with the addition of Parcell’s poetry […] Seventh Song Counts the Engines is a beautiful collection of songs, one which somehow makes a bold statement in a circuitous whisper, deceptively complex instrumentation and ambiguous lyrics capturing decidedly unambiguous emotion.”

REVIEW / BUY

Young Jesus – The Whole Thing is Just There

Saddle Creek

“How do you adopt a more sincere, hopeful position without becoming a flat Sincere, Hopeful Person, and everything that image entails? Young Jesus have put their hope in a spontaneous, endlessly recursive form of questioning, where every hard fought answer only exists to be questioned further. The endeavour might well take a life time, but the prospect of circling closer to the truth is something of a solution in its own right. So, while it’s tempting to think that the true message or meaning of the songs on The Whole Thing Is Just There is always just out of frame, the reality is in fact the other way around. The message of the songs is that meaning is always just out of frame, and that there is no more valuable an enterprise than the constant search outside and beyond.”

REVIEW / BUY

Yowler – Black Dog in My Path

Double Double Whammy

“The writing is vague and affecting, words imbued with an esoteric power that fuses intimate internal thoughts from the corporeal world with something altogether more supernatural. “I bear the mark, I am sigil,” Jones sings, “to the spirits and the sprites, but I promised not to listen and stay in my life.” The natural and supernatural converge on Black Dog In My Path, and Jones has re-purposed Yowler as the conduit between these two dimensions.”

REVIEW / BUY

We’re be sharing our favourite songs, books and Bandcamp name-your-price releases in good time, so keep an eye on the ‘Lists‘ category for those.

The post Favourite Albums of 2018 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Song list:

Options – Waiting
2nd Grade – Favorite Song
Alexander – Going to Sleep
Ryan Van Gonten – Fabrique
Haunted Continents – What Were You Born For?
Weakened Friends – Blue Again
Shybaby – Lazy Hazy
Frankie Valet – April
Primo! – You’ve Got a Million
Hypoluxo – Kentucky Smooth
Basement Revolver – Knocking
Dead Painters – Output
HALEY – Infinite Pleasure Part 2
Doe – Heated
Ing – Dust
Benjamin Shaw – Terrible Feelings!
internet boy crush – ghost friend
lowly loverboi – Dumb Phone
Dead Tooth – Liars
Kin Hana – You
Bodega – The Truth is Not Punishment
The Cordial Sins – Not Enough
Indoor Cats – Fun 2
Upstairs – Trust the Process
Sabriel’s Orb – Holding
John Atkinson – Bakwaves // Rye
Fanclub – Leaves
The Chairman Dances – Acme Parking Garage
Con Davison – Talk
Ivy Dye – Diminish
Elizabeth Owens – I Long
The Last Bison – Don’t Look Away
Our Fastest Typist – It’s Nice Outside, but My Head is Killing Me

You can find all of our monthly round-up posts here, and our complete array of mixtapes here.

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

This summer the band released their debut full-length album, Heavy Eyes, which brings together some of the material from their previous shorter releases and adds some great new songs too. Opener ‘Baby’ is one of these new ones, an expansive and emotive indie rocker, all echoing vocals and clattering drums. Hurn also gets to let her vocals soar, as the track descends (or maybe that should be ascends?) into pure purging sound. Not that the song’s themes are necessarily as grandiose as that sounds. “Baby is about feeling sad and down even though you are generally happy about everything and everyone in your life,” Hurn explains. “It is about crying a lot and my tendency to retreat when things get too overwhelming, to spend all day and night in bed and watching Netflix and eating Doritos.”

And this gets to the heart of something wonderful about Basement Revolver. They play a double game of big and small, switching from quiet personal sentiment to big bombastic broadcast, often within the same song.

One of our favourites from the last few years, follow-up ‘Johnny’ was the track that proved the breakout hit for Basement Revolver. We described the track previously as “a rather desperate plea for another to stay away from the titular character, a person who seems to have broken the heart of our narrator.” Again it displays all of Basement Revolver’s qualities, and comes complete with a catchy chorus too. ‘Dancing’ on the other hand feels direct and driven, a song about overcoming 21st century malaise by doing something fun or adventurous. “Break out of your shell,” Hurn urges, “and dance, or get some fresh air,” as drums slap and guitars gallop.

‘Knocking’ is perhaps the most poignant track on Heavy Eyes, one which sees Hurn ball up all of her hurts and worries and set them alight with a beam of bright white openness. Inspired by a letter she wrote to her family, the song confronts past mistakes with a sense of both vulnerability and determination, and becomes something restorative in the process. “I basically kept telling myself that I was garbage, broken, unlovable,” Hurn explains. “I think that ‘Knocking’ was my way out of that dark place.”

‘Johnny Pt. 2’ is the sequel to the earlier song, the drums this time a little more insistent, the choruses wider and brighter. The narrative switches from the previous desperation to a melancholic acceptance, a display of love despite everything, and the offer of a second chance should the possibility ever emerge. Next up, ‘Words’ opens with melodramatic guitar and cymbal crashes, Hurn’s vocals levitating above like oil on water. The song faces the existential dilemma of communication, how “words are just words are words are words,” lacking any tangible meaning unless backed up with something more real.

“Really starting to feel like I need someone to talk to,” Hurn sings at the start of ‘Tree Trunks’, a song that is rich with a sense of weariness and yearning. Deep percussion rolls around as blasts of guitar ring out like thunder on distant hills, the atmosphere accentuating Hurn’s message rather than smothering it. This transitions into the more upbeat ‘You’re Okay’ (“I have friends who say they love me, Hurn sings, “remind me daily they’re thinking of me”), and the relentlessly heavy title track, which sounds like a long-lost 90s underground hit.

The album closes with ‘Diamonds’, perhaps its slowest and most reflective moment. The song unfurls from a stripped back ballad, sinuous atmospherics shifting behind Hurn’s vocals, to a final wall of sound crescendo, the perfect final reminder that Basement Revolver can do both the micro and the macro at once.

Heavy Eyes is out now on Sonic Unyon and Fear of Missing Out Records.

The post Basement Revolver – Heavy Eyes appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Various Small Flames’

Songs of 2017

Anamon – Kneel Old
Android Automatic – Dark Roads*
Angie McMahon – Slow Mover
Basement Revolver – Johnny Pt. 2
Baxter Roy Long – Paribanou
Bea Troxel – Let Them Know
Big Thief – Mary
Black Belt Eagle Scout – Soft Stud
Bully – Running
Cayetana – Mesa
Charly Bliss – Percolator
Chastity Belt – Different Now
CHUCK – Happy Birthday
The County Liners – Maria
The Courtneys – Tour
Craig Finn – God in Chicago
Crumb – Locket
Crushing – Emery Board
Cut Worms – Like Going Down Sideways
David Bazan – Care
Distant Reader – First Try
Emperor X – God Save Coastal Dorset
Fits – Ice Cream on a Nice Day
German Error Message – 2017*
Gleemer – Soothe Me
Great Grandpa – Favorite Show
Haley Heynderickx – Oom Sha Lala
Hiccup – Teasin’
Horse Culture – Texaco
Illuminati Hotties – ‘(You’re Better) Than Ever’
Japandroids – No Known Drink or Drug
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – If We Were Vampires
Jay Som – The Bus Song
Jeremy Squires – Night Cars
Katie Ellen – Drawing Room
Lizzie No – Monuments
Lomelda – Bam Sha Klam
Mike Pace and the Child Actors – Audits & Surveys
Meursault – The Mill
Mount Eerie – Crow
Nice Legs – Mighty Three
Oceanator – Nowhere Nothing
Ohyeahsumi – Daisy
Old Earth – Pit Dynamics
PASTEL – Stammer
Peter Silberman – New York
Phoebe Bridgers – Motion Sickness
Pope – Talk Me Out of It
Protomartyr – Windsor Hum
Rainwater – Place
Ratboys – Elvis is in the Freezer
Rick Rude – Bald & Fat in Houston, TX
Roadkill Ghost Choir – Classics (Die Young)
Rose Dorn – Dirt
See Through Dresses – Lucy’s Arm
Shannen Moser – A Funeral, A Friend, My Sanity
Sinai Vessel – Died On My Birthday
Slaughter Beach, Dog – Phoenix
SOAR – Fort Funston
Soft Fangs – Jordan // Jackson Elementary
Spartan Jet-Plex – We Believe
Strange Ranger – House Show
Strawberry Runners – Garden Hose
Timid, The Brave – Alice
Us and Only Us – Bored of Black
Vagabon – Cold Apartment
Viewfinder – Instant Moonlight
The Washboard Abs – Veil
Waxahatchee – Never Been Wrong
Wild Pink – Albert Ross
William Ryan Fritch – In Our Blood
The Wooden Sky – Swimming in Strange Waters
Ylayali – Cherry Tomatoes

*Strictly released in 2016, but barely, and we covered it in Jan. 2017.

If you missed it, you can see our Favourite Albums of 2017 list here. Also, the curious can find such lists from previous years here.

The post Favourite Songs of 2017 appeared first on Various Small Flames.