Today is the turn of Jamie Halliday, the man behind Audio Antihero and thus one of the main reasons we’ve been graced with great music from Frog, Benjamin Shaw and, most recently, CHUCK.

Welcome to Danger Town, Population: You

by Jamie Halliday

Song with a name in the title

Bruce Springsteen – Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

This is THE song with a name in the title. Bruce Springsteen is always good, great, whatever but I like him most from ‘73-’78. These were the years of hope, doubt and desperation and in my mind that’s what music was made for. I love how he took what should probably have been 3-minutes of goofy fun and turned into a seven-minute party. Throw this baby on and within a few moments the whole world is in love with Rosie. Except me, I’m happily fucking married.

Song that reminds you of being somewhere awful

The Blue Nile – Tinseltown in the Rain

I hated my job. I hated it so much that I still kinda keep tabs on the people I worked with, so that I can hate them from afar. Hate is destructive and terrible, hate is the last thing 2016 needs more of. But I have some hate.

The Blue Nile’s A Walk Across the Rooftops was a record that got played a lot in that office. By a guy I hated. I remember saying it sounded like Talking Heads without any melody or ideas. Not sure why. But it was a big time grower and I used it to faux-connect with my Scottish roots by dueting this bad boy with the other (and far more legit) Scot in the office. This song reminds me of trying to make the most of being in a bad place, which might be what the band intended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTMyr9x6ZPU

Song for the sunniest day of the year

Afghan Whigs – John the Baptist

I used to be a goth, I don’t enjoy the sun. But when I was a wee bit better looking, I used to hit the streets (I.E walk to a train station, maybe go somewhere nice for lunch and a read) to the bright sounds of 1965 by The Afghan Whigs. So, I think this is a pretty good call. “John the Baptist” is comically sexy.

Song from at least ten years ago

Fear of Pop – In Love

This is my favourite song of all time. I try and sneak it into every playlist in the world. Listen to it once, listen to it one thousand times, you’ll keep finding new things to think about. On “In Love”, William Shatner represents every shitbag you’ve ever been and every shitbag you may still become. It’s a joke and it’s a warning. I’ve liked, loved and disliked Ben Folds but this is always my favourite thing. I don’t think many people like the records I release, but it’d be an okay consolation prize if I could get a few people to accidentally hear this song.

“So now you have me completely figured out. You feel sorry for me, I can’t express my feelings, I can’t tell the truth, We are all alike. At puberty I was sworn to secrecy by the international brotherhood of lying fickle males. I can’t tell you anything, and I can’t commit! You’re right, I can’t commit… to you! I will always treasure our time together. I don’t feel enough of anything to harbor the kind of disdain that you’ll maintain. You painted me into what you wanted to see and that’s fine…But you will never know me.”

Song that sounds like the bottom of the ocean

Bjork – Play Dead

I wanted to make a joke about how there’s some musicians I’d wanna put in the ocean but I’m trying to be less horrible about music I don’t like because who cares.

“Play Dead” is so good, powerful and wild that you could probably say that it sounds like anything. End of the world, glacier calving, moonlanding, Eleanor Roosevelt’s professional wrestling debut, whatever. Anything interesting or special, “Play Dead” could represent. I always felt like Bjork was inhumanly talented, like RJ MacReady may have something to say about it. If you didn’t know about The Sugarcubes, it probably wouldn’t be the most shocking thing if Bjork turned out to come from the greatest depths of the Ocean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHiHZ35TPfM

Song without words

Benjamin Shaw – Johnny Come Home

Nobody is ever gonna tell that you that Benjamin Shaw isn’t a pain in the arse. He’s also my hero and the absolute best. This is from a largely instrumental record that he self-released back in 2010 that I can’t take any credit for but still kind of tried to. Oh, we were younger then. He gargles and it sounds nice.

Song in a different language to your native tongue

Mellow Man Ace – Mas Pingon

So, I married into a Cuban American family last year and have found that I have very different Cuban idols than my wife. She has Ricky Ricardo, I have Rocky Romero. She has Celia Cruz, I have Cypress Hill. Did you know Cypress Hill had a former member? Did you know Sen Dog had a brother? Both are true and the answer to both follow up questions is Mellow Man Ace. “Mas Pingon” is from his album ‘Escape from Havana’ and I guess it’s about his big dick but that doesn’t seem so bad when you can’t speak Spanish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF9KmHRCa94

Audio Antihero has a very neat Bandcamp page, so click on over and dip a toe into their discography. While we’re often beating the Frog/Shaw drum, rest assured that acts like Nosferatu D2 and Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love are equally unusual and incomparable and generally well worth your time.

Oh and check back next week for the next Mystery Mini Mix!

The post Mystery Mini Mix: Audio Antihero appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“prismatic music which draws upon a diverse range of styles and artists, blending the visceral emotions of R&B and soul with an off-the-wall, avant-garde vibe akin to Dirty Projectors and tUnE-yArDs”

The band have now released their Hyperlust EP, and it’s safe to say that the above description holds fast. The most impressive achievement is how the band manage to weave the different elements into something so natural, the guitars, bells, chimes, drums and vocals knitting together like the sonic equivalent of a patchwork quilt.

The atmosphere on the release is decidedly sunny, the vibe generally laid-back and soulful and the cacophony of instrumentation vibrant and bright. However, behind the summery veneer lies a collection of esoteric lyrics which hold an abstract mysticism, frontwoman Sandra Lawson-Ndu posing vague, existential questions as if channelling some higher power or divine force. “If future takes me to find our bones,” she sings on opener ‘Future Bones’, “I’ll mold them together / and desert this form / Break (break) original rules that would guide the way we’d move until we required cover and strange spirits remained.” The song continues in this manner, using precise imagery to trace imprecise, unknowable things, the words coalescing with the music to create something unclear but imbued with meaning, as if reaching somewhere deeper within your brain or soul than you can consciously go. As Lawson-Ndu sings on ‘Sugar Queen’:

“Intertwined by things we’ll never see, never feel, never know, never we try”

[…]

“Lost in these thoughts that you’ll never know, never hear, never ask, never you’ll care.”

This idea of the lyrics and music entwining to work together is an important part of the Bells Atlas sound. Of course, the majority of songs are based on this marriage but there usually seems a certain degree of disconnect, the words an afterthought to the riffs, the instrumentation an accompaniment to the poetry. Here, both are treated with equal importance, so much so that it becomes difficult to determine which came first. It’s hard to imagine such an experimental sound being created before the profoundly obscure lyrics, yet it’s almost as if Lawson-Ndu is writing about the music itself, as if the lyrics already existed in the kaleidoscopic cocktail and she merely had to delve in and present them for our ears.

You can buy Hyperlust now from Bandcamp, as well as their previous releases and some pretty cool t-shirts.

The post Bells Atlas – Hyperlust EP appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘Bling’ is the latest single from Hyperlust, a jagged pop hit which manages to not only bathe the listener in a glowing summer chill but also challenge the concept of capital-T Truth in reality and the mind, answering its own mystical questions with the only fair motto of our times. I don’t know.

“What do you mean?

I don’t know

Just a sign of science

Just a sign of science

What did you see?

Eyes to the floor

And if I do not understand it, was it real?

What do you mean?

I don’t know”

Hyperlust will be released on the 31st May and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp. If, like me, you are new to the band, be sure to go back and explore their previous releases.

The post Bells Atlas – Bling appeared first on Various Small Flames.