This balance between intricacy and plain sincerity is a common strand throughout the record, the humble focus of the songs—from cats in alleys to pennies in draws—lifted to greater significance by the bright sound. On A Garden Everywhere You Go, Birdspotter transcend the ordinary and lift the small details of life into high meaning.

This month sees Birdspotter return with Gusty, a brand new full-length record again to be released with Z Tapes. Joined by drummer Braeden Reinoso, the band continue to develop the sound that emerged on A Garden, pushing into a newly realised and varied style to continue their growth. The evolution is clear from opener ‘Peaceful Man’, a song of melancholic yearning that retains the curiosity of the past album but finds darker and more threatening sights in the process. For the personal struggle and changes of direction take place within a confusing and hostile world, a backdrop against which one must try to do right. “And I start thinking to myself,” Gandolfo-Lucia sings, “Is there a point in this suffering? Am I just acting out my conditioning?”

Driving Fargo to Michigan.
Counting streetlights at dawn

When I see two men fighting to death on the shoulder of the interstate.
Goddammit I’m a peaceful man
But goddamn I gotta do what I can

There’s a juxtaposition of wonder and pessimism on ‘Water’ too, the rich and warm sound balanced by a sense of things crumbling. How can the powers that be—America, God—be capable of such good and such bad simultaneously? This mystery hovers over the record, from the sweeping electronics of instrumental ‘You Can Smile Again’ to the sincerely conflicted ‘Return’. “Well anything can happen,” Gandolfo-Lucia sings, and truly means it. From lost loves returning to environmental collapse.

‘Hey at the Party’ returns to the sad romance familiar to the genre, and Birdspotter commit to it earnestly, but it is difficult to shake the uncertainty introduced earlier on the record. There might be comfort in the warmth of others for now, the half-drunk wonder of a shared dawn, but there is no final answer there. The idea that anything can happen used to be a positive idea, the space of dreams coming true, but now even cherished moments are shadowed by the future, for with every dream sits a nightmare in wait.

Gusty is out now via Z Tapes and you can buy it now from the Birdspotter Bandcamp page, including on limited edition cassette.

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Ruth Garbus – Strash
Mauno – Vampire
Outer Spaces – Gazing Globe
Benjamin Shaw – Long Ago and Oh So Far Away
Erin Durant – Islands
Daughter of Swords – Dawnbreaker
Melissa Mary Ahern – Maria, Maria
Oscar Lush – Kind Living
Midwife – Angel
Young Elk – False Paradise
Wilder Maker – Love So Well
Big Joanie – Way Out
Secrecies – Life We Live
Beat Radio – Everyone I Know, Just Holding On
American Poetry Club – pro pic?
So Totally – sike
halfsour – Paper Window
Joyer – Here
Marbling – Wisdom Teeth
High Sunn – Grateful
Slow Pulp – New Media
Molly Drag – Out Like a Light
Van Houten – Moon
Birdspotter – Riverbed
Tender Perennial – Delivered
JR Samuels – In Brend 2
Elly Swope – Habits
Derek Piotr – The Sign
Fighting Kites – Kita Senju
Nathalie Joachim – Papa Loko (Interlude: September 24, 1918)
Kali Malone – Sacrificial Code
Kate Tempest – Holy Elixir
Little Musket – Fever Blister
Gold Baby – 500/1
Tennis Club – Stay
Young Mammals – Lost in Lima
Abe Hollow – Paradise
bdrmm – Question Mark
Briston Maroney – Fool’s Gold

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

The post July 2019 Roundup Mix appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Written over the course of a year which saw the brothers drift away from the musical style that defined their adolescence, the record is built on acoustic guitar and narrative song structures, resulting in a collection of songs that the band say explore the “transcendental strangeness of our relations to the people in our lives.” As they describe:

“As songwriters, we were molting: we had moved away from the twinkly riffs and inconsolable lyrics that constituted our adolescence, but were still trying to find a sound that felt natural to us. We started writing on acoustic guitars, adopted narrative song structures, explored the transcendental strangeness of our relations to the people in our lives. Over the course of a year, this sensibility grew into a catalog of songs, which became A Garden Everywhere You Go.”

The delicate beginning of ‘Oracle’ highlights the new feel, the airy emotion rising into the acoustic bedroom pop of single ‘Daze’. With a gentle opening reminiscent of a Drunk With Love Records release, the track grows in complexity as it advances, conjuring its own atmosphere in a way that will appeal to fans of acts like Bellows. This balance between intricacy and plain sincerity is a common strand throughout the record, the humble focus of the songs—from cats in alleys to pennies in draws—lifted to greater significance by the bright sound. On A Garden Everywhere You Go, Birdspotter transcend the ordinary and lift the small details of life into high meaning.

The modesty of lyrics extend to their substance too, with many of the tracks having no more than a few simple verses, and sometimes a lot less. Take ‘Red Rover’, which takes six lines and weaves an entire lived moment, or the even more succinct ‘Sunbathing in November’, a song that utilises three short lines, wringing every piece of feeling from eight simple words.

one window open
house a mess
nobody home

Which is not to say Birdspotter do not try their hand at painting a complete picture. As its title suggests, ‘Going on a Nice Walk’ is about strolling around a city with a loved one “when spring splits the winter open.” It has a wide-eyed sense of wonder, bright guitar pealing softly behind earnest vocals, the relatively verbose lyricism allowing the curious mood to flourish, which could be said to stand for the spirit of the record as a whole. “I am learning something,” Gandolfo-Lucia sings, “I am learning something good.”

A Garden Everywhere You Go is out now via Z Tales and you can get it from the Birdspotter Bandcamp page.

The post Birdspotter – A Garden Everywhere You Go appeared first on Various Small Flames.