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.

The Chairman Dances succeed in bringing characters to life in three dimensions, though on Time Without Measure the feat is even more impressive as the roster of figures are not only numerous but also known to history in decidedly superhuman terms. Now more than ever we should remember that activists and political heroes, for all of their spirit and unimaginable resolve, are as prone to doubt and death as anyone, and not half as powerful without our support and belief.

We were lucky enough to get the opportunity to put a few questions to lead Eric Krewson to see just how such an album comes into being.

Hi Eric, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. How’s life been since the release of Time Without Measure?

Hello, Jon. My pleasure. Much of the past month has been taken up with performances and preparation for those performances. This past Friday, for instance, we gave a talk and played at Dorothy Day’s Maryhouse in NYC, which was a real thrill for me. Dorothy writes about life in that community in The Long Loneliness. We stayed overnight at Maryhouse and, walking down the stairs to breakfast the next morning, I felt as though I had walked into her text: the radio flooded the room with WNYC’s classical music programming, there was plenty of food and many demands on my attention—to do this please, move that please—all of which precluded the reading I had hoped to do, just as these exact things (Rossini on WNYC, etc.) interrupted Dorothy’s reading over half a century earlier. It was a surreal experience.

Each track on the album is about a different person (or several people) from history. Were they figures you were familiar with before sitting down to write the record? How did you go about selecting/researching them?

I was familiar with Dorothy Day and Augustine only. I thought the record—once I knew what it was—would be a good opportunity for me to explore my religious tradition. The research I did turned out to be a great history lesson as well. I was surprised and heartened to read about the many peaceful religious protests in the 1960s and 70s. I read with awe about the Baltimore 4, the Catonville 9, the Camden 28. I’m progressive and live across the river from Camden, NJ, and yet I had never heard of the Camden 28. Progressive religious history has no share in our collective memory.

I picked the record’s protagonists somewhat arbitrarily. One person often led to another. At all points, I tried to be aware of the emerging narrative, the effect that a person included or excluded would have. Representation was an important concern.

While the album is entirely historical in its focus, I was struck by just how relevant it felt to our times. Did you pursue the themes of activism in response to any particular modern movement or event? Is protest in the air in contemporary America?

In some ways, the United States was at a different place when I started writing the album. News outlets were not sharing footage of men being murdered in the streets as often as they are now, and I am glad they’re reporting this news, even as they need to spotlight the causes, not just the effects. Subaltern groups—black men, especially, but also Native Americans, those with disabilities—have always been killed by the state, both physically and spiritually (byway of incarceration). Now we are seeing the desolation with our own eyes and being made aware of these issues by protests. The state has responded to the collective outcry with more violence toward these marginalized groups.

I could go on at length, but suffice it to say this is an evil time in America. It is heartbreaking.

I’ve used this quote before but it’s something I think about a lot. David Foster Wallace once said “there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” For me, Time Without Measure is almost an attempt to give us something meaningful to worship, an alternative to cheering a racist politician or lining up all night for the latest smartphone. Does this align with your motives at all?

Those are wise words. Nietzsche says something similar in his On the Genealogy of Morality. (While, as a twenty-year-old, I was enamored with that text, as a thirty-year-old, I don’t recommend it.) Lots of other non-religious thinkers have come to that conclusion and in fact the New Testament bears witness to it when it denounces greed as idolatrous. I recently read a helpful gloss on the Epistle to the Colossians by Brian J. Walsh. Walsh calls the letter “seditious” in that it “demythologiz[es]… the empire” by asking its readers to cease its worship of the state, of the principalities, of Cesar. Psalm 146 warns “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help.”

Yes, one of my aims was to provide an alternative narrative. As I mentioned, progressive religious history has been forgotten (including, sadly, religion’s role in the abolition of U.S. slavery). As a result, even the most well meaning journalists, artists, etc., fail to adequately represent religion. Every time NPR or the New York Times mentions faith, I cringe.

The record deals with special people in a particularly real way, so they aren’t quite mere mortals but not saints or angels either, sort of meeting us halfway in a place we can reach (or aspire to). You did a great job humanizing these figures, but I was wondering if there were any individuals you wanted to include but couldn’t? Was there a person impossible to reanimate convincingly?

I’ve very glad you feel that way. For most of the people included, it took roughly two tries to get a text I felt I could work with. Yes, there were some I felt I couldn’t represent adequately. Takashi Nagai, who miraculously survived the United State’s atomic bombing of Nagasaki, wrote a memoir, The Bells of Nagasaki, which should be required reading for all. I would have liked to throw some light on his story but ultimately I couldn’t. All of that death—it doesn’t lend itself to anything but grief. There is a work by Hildegard of Bingen wherein all of the characters sing except for the devil—he speaks. It is hard to sing evil.

I would have also liked to include a song for Marilynne Robinson, but I know her work too well. It’s difficult to frame my admiration and gratitude for her thought.

What do you consider your biggest influences as a songwriter? Are there any musicians/authors/artists who really stand out? Do you draw upon the other members of The Chairman Dances?

I’ve come to embrace the very full life I lead, my more-or-less two full-time jobs and home life, thus I try to learn what I can from whatever I come across. If I hear spirituals or Messiaen, and I listen to both gladly, then I try to glean something from that experience. In terms of intentional listening, I remember hearing the Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs and Springsteen’s Born to Run prior to recording the album. Both were influential.

The band arranges the songs together, as a group. Absolutely, each individual’s playing informs everyone else’s, including mine. Additionally, a few Chairman Dancers are involved in other projects. (Kevin plays in a band called Man Illuminated. Luke and Ashley perform as September. Ben Rosen plays bass in Bird Watcher; he’s also a great composer.) All of what we do, both in other groups and in our own study, affects the music we make together in some way.

Of course, the writing of and about those included in the album (Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, Daniel Berrigan’s play The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, etc.) were all influential.

Finally, could you name 4-5 acts you think we should be listening to, be they old, new, popular or obscure?

I feel obliged to mention artists unknown in our sphere, thus I recommend Even Oxen; the young and gifted producer Corey Smith West; Anonymous 4 (stars in the classical music world); and the author William Stringfellow.

Time Without Measure is out now via Black Rd. Records and you can buy it from the Chairman Dances Bandcamp page. Also, why not check out a feature Krewson wrote for us earlier in the year, detailing the genius of Marilynne Robinson?

Photo by Jonathan Brown

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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.

The album opens with ‘I Know You’re Gonna Leave Me’, which starts as what appears to be a peppy little folk/country song. But some sudden electric guitars kick things up a notch and by the end the thing is a fully-fledged rock song, with crashing drums and Porter’s repeated cry of “I know you’re gonna leave me all alone!”

Next up is a country-folk ode to Chris Bell of Big Star, whose death in 1978 led him to become another member of the so-called “27 Club”, a group of famous musicians (including Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix) who have died at the tender age of twenty seven. Porter himself has now reached that fabled age, and so decided to base his album on this troubling idea, using it as a springboard to explore topics such as mortality, legacy and coming-of-age in the modern world.

Another stand-out is ‘Mountains’ which stands tall and indomitable at the album’s centre, opening with a repetitive percussive thump and sober pianos and some gentle acoustic guitar. This is a proper folk-rock ballad, epic in scope and romantically reflective in outlook. The song addresses religion and faith and what happens when you get to a point where neither offers much solace. “When I was young my father said that faith could move a mountain / Now there’s mountains as far as I can see,” he sings at the start, before defiantly insisting at the close, “And as I stare across the vast expanse I can hear my father shouting / The mountains are all that I can see.”

The real triumph of the album is the way in which Porter inhabits a range of genres and seems entirely comfortable in each. He has shown himself adept at playing the rock & roll star, country singer and folk troubadour, all in the space of a single album. Best of all, it works. Not a single track feels out of place or shoehorned in for effect. Fans of Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter, Wilco and even Springsteen will doubtless also be fans of this.

You can get 27 right now via Black Mesa Records, or as a digital download via the M. Lockwood Porter Bandcamp page.

The post M. Lockwood Porter – 27 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The two Jurado covers are from Slowcoustic’s fantastic Covers Project, the Rufus Wainwright one is from Pickwick’s Fuel/Friends Chapel Session and the Dire Straits cover was included after reading an article on the late Matt Ryd on Cover Lay Down. I have no idea what is going on in the Mac DeMarco track.

Tracklisting:

1. Falling (Twin Peaks Theme) – Field Mouse
2. You Took Your Time (Mount Kimbie Cover) – Julia Losfelt
3. Talamak (Toro y Moi Cover) – Houses
4. Thinking About You (Frank Ocean Cover) – Typhoon
5. Heysátan (Sigur Rós Cover) – Leif Vollebekk
6. No Other Love (Jo Stafford Cover) – Night Beds
7. Foolish Love (Rufus Wainwright Cover) – Pickwick
8. Beacon Hill (Damien Jurado Cover) – Small Houses (w/ Kevin Killen)
9. We All Make The Flowers Grow (Lee Hazelwood Cover) – Siskiyou
10. Father and Son (Cat Stevens Cover) – Johnny Cash & Fiona Apple
11. Indie Queens Are Waiting (Dan Mangan Cover) – Will Driving West
12. Fade Into You (Mazzy Star Cover) – J Mascis
13. Fit (Windmill Cover) – Snob Dylan
14. Don’t Let Them See You Cry (Manchester Orchestra Cover) – Ted Monday
15. Isolation (Joy Division Cover) – If Thousands
16. Medication (Damien Jurado Cover) – Wes Tirey
17. Drive All Night (Bruce Springsteen Cover) – The Swell Season
18. Romeo & Juliet (Dire Straits Cover) – Matt Ryd
19. Gypsy He-Witch (Jason Molina Cover) – Will Oldham
20. Medley (Various Covers) – Mac DeMarco

As always, the mix is intended as an introduction to these artists. I have put links in the tracklisting so you can explore a bit further. Enjoy!

The Covers Mix: Volume #9 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post The Covers Mix: Volume #9 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. I’m Going Down (Bruce Springsteen Cover) – Vampire Weekend
2. Weird Sisters (Sparklehorse Cover) – LØZNINGER
3. Chiamami Adesso (Paolo Conte Cover) – Julia Holter
4. When Rosa Speaks (Pickwick Cover) – Kevin Long
5. Woody (Hayden Cover) – Winter Makes Sailors
6. Cheers (Blake Mills Cover) – Floating Action
7. The Park (Feist Cover) – Anna Scouten
8. Momma You’ve Been On My Mind (Bob Dylan) – Matthew Ryan
9. Reason To Believe (Tim Hardin Cover) – Horse Feathers
10. You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon Cover) – Colossal Gospel
11. Kiss Me (Sixpence None The Richer Cover) – Mikal Cronin
12. Holocene (Bon Iver) – Rounak Maiti
13. One Day At a Time (Willie Nelson Cover) – Pure X
14. Back Home Again (John Denver Cover) – Low
15. Ultraviolence (New Order Cover) – Seekae
16. The Eagle And The Hawk (John Denver Cover) – Bonnie “Prince” Billy
17. Asa (Bry Webb Cover) – Denison Witmer
18. Rust or Gold (Jill Andrews Cover) – Jeremy Squires
19. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel Cover) – Clem Snide
20. Thinking About You (Radiohead Cover) – Hezekiah Jones
21. Surrender (Cheap Trick Cover) – Frightened Rabbit
22. The River (Bruce Springsteen Cover) – Josh Ritter

You know the drill, please support these artists. Go and buy some records, see a show, get a t-shirt, anything to enable them to keep making music.

Previous covers mixes: Volume I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII

The Covers Mix: Volume #8 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post The Covers Mix: Volume #8 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. From Stardust To Sentience (High Places cover) – Banjo or Freakout
2. So Prone (SLUTEVER cover) – Ghost/Light
3. I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton cover) – Howth
4. Salvador Sanchez (Sun Kil Moon cover) – Little Silver
5. Brother (Annuals cover) – Manchester Orchestra
6. Darling (Magic Man cover) – And the Giraffe
7. When You Were Mine (Prince cover) – John Heart Jackie
8. I Wanna Be Adored (Stone Roses cover) – Coma Cinema
9. Crying (Roy Orbison cover) – Austra
10. Streets of Philadelphia (Bruce Springsteen cover) Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
11. Iron Man (Black Sabbath cover) – Four Tet
12. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight (R.E.M. cover) – Oxford Collapse
13. My Proud Mountains (Townes van Zandt cover) – J. Tillman
14. Chelsea Hotel #2 (Leonard Cohen cover) – Sarah Jaffe
15. If I Handle You With Care (Trembling Blue Stars cover) – Evening Hymns
16. Left & Leaving (The Weakerthans cover) – Beat Radio
17. I Know What I Know (Paul Simon cover) – Graham Wright
18. Some Things Last A Long Time (Daniel Johnston cover) – The Twilight Sad
19. Unicorn (Gay Against You cover) – Dananananaykroyd
20. See U Again (Miley Cyrus cover) – The Mae Shi

Click on the band name in the tracklisting to be whizzed off to a specific page for each artist. Buy some music if you like what you hear. I didn’t bother with Dolly Parton, Springsteen etc. but if you need some pointers on where to find out more about them give us a shout.

Enjoy.

The Covers Mix: Volume #2 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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