Now, aside from certain misgivings pertaining to the diversity and focus of such events, there’s also a long and likely important discussion as to what degree protest alone can change (see Micah White’s case in The Guardian, citing the relative failure of Occupy). However, there is little doubt that activism is as or more important than it’s been for years. The tricky part will be maintaining this level of enthusiasm and commitment to equality beyond single marches or petitions. As White writes at the end of his piece: “The Women’s March on Washington has a role to play in this unfolding drama, but only if we cultivate a few moments of detachment from the thoughtless excitement to truly take time to consider this question: what happens on the day after the women march?”

The answer, I think, should be a doubling down on listening to women, non-binary folks and people of colour. Like, truly listening. Allowing them not only a voice but also the respect/power/position that will enable such a voice to enact social and political change. This can and should start at the smallest levels, equating to nothing more than a commitment to seeking out non-male/white opinions and voices and considering them with equal weight. Look for female journalists and authors and thinkers, PoC musicians and artists and film-makers. Heck, even just read The Le Sigh and Swell Tone and The Grey Estates, anything to shift your perspective away from the dominant voices. Do this until your bookshelf and record collection and Twitter feed look a little different, and the worldview that’s being beamed to you will look a little different too.

We’re under no illusion that our blog posts and mixtapes will solve anything, or that we’re preaching to the converted in this cool little echo chamber. So consider this as us shutting up for a few minutes, both to give space to voices that need it and a reminder that we’re standing by, on your side. You’ve lit the match, it’s time the void went flash. Never think that what you are doing is too small, and never assume that you are doing enough.

Tracklisting:

1. Jenny Hval – Untamed Region
2. Oh Rose – Running
3. Camp Cope – Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams
4. The Breeders – Hag
5. Screaming Females – Mothership
6. BB Cream – Heroine
7. Shannen Moser – A Funeral, A Friend, My Sanity
8. Tanukichan – Enough
9. Noname – Reality Check
10. Patti Smith – Kimberly
11. Sammus – Perfect, Dark
12. Vagabon – Fear & Force
13. Diet Cig – Tummy Ache
14. Jay Som – The Bus Song
15. Haybaby – Her
16. Betty Becky – Telegraph Ave
17. Suburban Lawns – Janitor
18. Heavens to Betsy – Nothing Can Stop Me
19. Tacocat – Dana Katherine Scully
20. Colour Me Wednesday – Two Fifty For You Girls
21. Allison Crutchfield – Dean’s Song
22. Cherry Glazerr – Nuclear Bomb
23. Mal Devisa – Dominatrix
24. Nicole Dollanganger – American Tradition
25. Angel Olsen – Sister

P.S. This seems a good time to remind you that Nancy Kells of Spartan Jet-Plex recently put out Friends For Equality, a compilation in support of the Southern Poverty Law Center, ACLU and Planned Parenthood. In addition, she has arranged a benefit show in Richmond, VA in support of Forward Together and Sister Song (full details here).

There have also been similarly great releases like Wren & Shark and Friends, Don’t Stop Now (featuring covers by the likes of Lisa Prank and Augusta Koch of Cayetana) and Our First 100 Days. Oh, and some specially written songs by Hip Hatchet and Adeem the Artist.

Photo by Benjamin Lovell

The post Lit a Match, the Void Went Flash: A Playlist for Moving Forward appeared first on Various Small Flames.

And the usual disclaimer applies, there were too many great tunes to include them all, so treat this more as a selection rather than a comprehensive round-up of the year. Enjoy.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson – Constellation

“You’re used to quiet words
and so am I
so I’ll just whisper“

Tiny Ruins – Dream Wave

“always a dream wave drawing you off track
dream wave, a coast calls you back“

Magana – Get it Right

“You were red but my gold turned you green
So you stood there lying through your teeth“

deer scout – holy ghost

“I could find a new kind of devotion
I could know you by another name“

Hovvdy – Meg

“Speak because i know you feel a certain way
but ill pass it along anyway“

Bedbug – Leaving Town, Moving to a National Park <3

“I’m too young for that anyways
everyone’s just tryna skip town these days“

Soccer Mommy – Skinned Knees

“i left
burning streets in tennessee
for a north east feel“

Mitski – Your Best American Girl

“Your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me
But I do, I finally do“

LVL UP – Hidden Driver

“God is peeking
softly speaking
fucking everything
until I slowly do see“

Lisa Prank – Starting Again

“You say you’re not still drinking
you just started again
I swear I don’t still miss you
I just started again“

Dicktations – Dicktations Forever

“It’s hard to say when I first figured out something was wrong“

Joyride! – Running on Empty

“Young and running on empty
you said that you thought I looked pretty with my makeup on
so I went home and I took it off“

Sioux Falls (now Stranger Ranger) – Dom

“Spending too much time on the internet
are you ok? you don’t seem very into it“

Camp Cope – Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams

“It’s the trophy wives raising trophy wives raising children on TV
Scared of people like you and me
Just don’t ask questions you’ll sleep peacefully
We will not go out in silence and we will not go quietly“

Fake Boyfriend – BUMTOWN

“Why do I cling to the threads that mean the least?“

Outer Spaces – I Saw You

“I saw you, a shedding snake“

American Enthusiasm – Holy Wow

“Make a note of all the words I cough out on my death bed“

The Hotelier – Soft Animal

“Fawn, doe, light snow
Spots on brown of white 
make me believe that there’s a God sometimes“

Beach Slang – Future Mixtape for the Art Kids

“We’re not lost, we are dying in style
We’re not fucked, we are fucking alive“

CHUCK – Death

“You hold on to whatever kin
that keeps on breathin’ in
that keeps you from driftin’
like paper in the wind“

You Won’t – Ya Ya Ya

“So your daddy was a poltergeist
sent your little sister screaming down the hallway
well I don’t know about the afterlife,
but I can help you to forget about the old days“

Mountain Almanac – Kids Playing Outside

“Saturday morning, cartoon time, let’s go“

Basement Revolver – Johnny

“Please just stay away from Johnny
cos I love him understand“

Boy Scouts – Did You See My Cry

“walking walmart shopping center
i’d never been better
on my own two feet
i guess“

Free Cake For Every Creature – First Summer in a City

“i’ll be singing when i’m 90
climb a tree to see
what tastes to smokey sweet
first summer in a city“

Haley Heynderickx – First I’m Sorry

“Mother knows I drown in my lies
Father knows I learned my lesson the second time.
Ask me where I’ll go I’ll say do not know
No, I do not know“

ARMS – Missing

“I don’t want to force your hand
but wishes disguised as plans will never do
Like the king of deathbed regrets
and the queen of last requests could ever choose“

Naps – Bad Vibrations

“Can’t stand up to the world’s expectations
I’m living on a bad bad vibration“

The Washboard Abs – Day Draws Nearer

“Your backyard
you talked to God
about the heartbreak you forgot“

Trace Mountains – Forgiveness

“old dirt you thrown underneath the stair
is right there
right where you said i’d tremble and stare
at the vast unforgiving spirit lurking there
but it takes time, to realise forgiveness“

Nassau – Desert Blues

“I took a marker and wrote your number on the bathroom stall
That’s just my way of reaching out cos I’m too proud to call“

Adeline Hotel – Near You

“Sleep better tonight
In the heat of red moon light
Whatever we are, whatever we’ll be
I used to live near you, you used to love near me“

Simon Balto – Foothills

“I’ve never been a faithful man
I’ve always been too proud to pray
But won’t you come out to the foothills
And hold me together for one more day“

Cloud Cult – No Hell

“There’s no use in running unless you run like heck
The best things we’ve learned we learned from the wreck
Jesus coming back as a woman this time
Handing out hugs in the clinic line
Someone tell the devil we don’t need no hell
We’re all pretty good at beating up ourselves“

Slingshot Dakota – Break

“And in the end there’s two of us
it was always two of us“

Good Good Blood – No Sadness/Furrowed Brow

“We’ll have no sadness/furrowed brow
There is no shame in dying now
I said from my death bed“

Ben Seretan – Bowl of Plums

“My friends call me when they’re feeling low
We talk quietly for hours and walk the room
Flowers growing in a coffee can
Our lives are wonderful and sad sometimes“

Chris Bathgate – Big Ghost

“I got a Big Ghost
of static in my throat
from coming up too short“

Wintersleep – Metropolis

“The man that you are, the man you were, the man you left
Turn into stars, flowing in through the wilderness“

Mothers – Lockjaw

“I don’t want your kind words
I want your ghost inside a thimble“

Car Seat Headrest – Drunk Driver / Killer Whales

“You build yourself up against others’ feelings
And it left you feeling empty as a car coasting downhill
I have become such a negative person
It was all just an act
It was all so easily stripped away“

Space Mountain – Never Lonely

“Met a friend today
And im feeling okay
She’s in my head
I’m never lonely“

Hallelujah the Hills – What Do the People Want?

“What do the people want?
The people don’t know what they want“

Mount Moriah – Calvander

“Carry on and on and on on
With your cosmic reach
Newport river whispered fate
Spells cast with every crashing wave
Neon lines and a new name“

Frederick Squire – Bike Thief

“The lights are on
And we are sinking way down in our chairs
We don’t say much of anything
Even though there’s still a lot to say“

Kevin Morby – We’ve Been Here Before

“Running my mouth off at the storm
Yelling, “man, what the hell did you do that for?“

Sam Moss – Vertebrae

“Did you watch my vertebrae
Slendering out
Or did you watch your own?
Stretching skin over the bone
I’ve grown
Learning to be proud“

Arlo Aldo – House & Home

“O’er the mountains out past the trees
where the grasslands, meet the sky
you’ll find me singin’ my songs
with my lover in my mind“

Will Johnson – Nervousness Fangs

“Jesus what a mess
what they’re all selling
and what’s being sold“

Jeremy Squires – After All

“There’s an old painting of Jesus on a wall
and a tapestry that hangs by a cross
that weighs heavy on my shoulders now and then
I get caught up with why the things we love ain’t never last“

The Dead Tongues – Stained Glass Eyes

“Fifth wind brought a howl got me in a storm
I saw a lighthouse spinning at the edge of the world
like looking through a window to the day
I was born“

Kyle Morton – Automatic

“It’s my head, it’s my head
breaking itself to make a thought but instead
Just some pornographic images to stave off my death
It’s all automatic“

Keaton Henson – Alright

“Obviously
My wounds are open to see
But don’t take them seriously
I’ll be fine“

Talons’ – Work Stories

“Is this what the end of the world looks like?
Or is this just life?“

Jordan O’Jordan – A Lonely Road

“There are truths we may or may never know friend
and that is the point“

Mal Devisa – Sea of Limbs

“Honey-lover
keeper of the bees
Soft-spoken
seldom-seen“

Young Jesus – Hinges

“I’m pretty sure I’m a kind of collection of things
scattered throughout the backyard
under the moon
pulling weirdo slow dance moves
maybe always losing it a little
i am ashamed to believe in myself!“

Lung Cycles – For a While

“I feel like sharing
so I’ll press record
and I’ll tell you that I had a vision“

Sister Grotto – UNCANNY

“When we go, we go alone“

John K. Samson – Virtute At Rest

“You should know I am with you, know I forgive you
Know I am proud of the steps that you’ve made
Know it will never be easy or simple
Know I will dig in my claws when you stray“

If you missed it, you can see the list of our favourite albums of 2016 here, and stay tuned for our collection of the best name-your-price releases on Bandcamp next week.

The post Wake the Deaf’s Favourite Songs of 2016 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Hallelujah The Hills – A Band is Something to Figure Out
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“This is an album built from symbolism (one of the tags on Bandcamp is ‘hieroglyphics’, to give you an idea) but, like all the best mysteries, a sense of significance floats to the top, independent of any hidden code. Hallelujah the Hills reconstruct the human experience through sheer enthusiasm, using their joyous hooks and choruses as earnest expressions of emotion rather than ironic juxtapositions.  Walsh and Co. aren’t sitting us down to share a smirk and a wink, or to reel off some abstract philosophical theories, but rather taking us by the hand and running through their strange world, leaving it up to us to catch something meaningful in the breathless blur. And what a world this is, one which has been evolving since their first album, an ecosystem based on a strange molecule – twin strands of confusion and intuition tightly bound and swirled into a double helix – the DNA of Hallelujah the Hills.”

Camp Cope – S/T
(REVIEW)

“For those of us that want to hope that maybe everything doesn’t have to be shit forever, there’s an atmosphere of dissent that seeps into every line. Not in that horrible on-the-nose Billy Bragg/Frank Turner way, but more subtle, funny and heartbreaking, with throwaway lines that leave you a bit off-balanced. I think that’s what I like most about Camp Cope – the constant switch between personal and protest, heartache and anger, and all the while feeling completely and utterly helpless.”

Beat Radio – Take It Forever
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“Beat Radio’s fifth album Take It Forever feels like a culmination of ideas, the product of some long, hard thinking… With a large dose of hope and a pervading sense of goodwill, Take It Forever plays like the manifesto of someone who doesn’t know all the answers but finds meaning in asking the questions, the words not of a revolutionary or prophet but an ordinary man striving to make life extraordinary, just as it should be.”

Talons’ – Work Stories
(REVIEW)

“Explores the pervasive disillusionment in a society that hasn’t yet lived up to what it promised, a society run for interests other than those of the people who make up its majority. A society that offers hopes and dreams of resplendent lives in exchange for your hard earned $$$s, education courses that leave people stranded with more knowledge but no money, opportunities or sympathy. These are songs for people who wonder ‘when did it become not okay to do what I want with my life?’ Work Stories is a reminder that it’s okay to occasionally feel afraid or sad, that the things which trouble you are probably not as much your fault as you think, and most of all that, despite how it might sometimes feel you are never, ever, alone.”

Mount Moriah – How To Dance
(REVIEW)

“Mount Moriah push past their troubles into something positive and mysterious, a conglomeration of symbolism, mysticism, universality and other cosmic forces which pretty much equates to Southern Gothic 2.0. How to Dance is crafted from spirit and faith, carved out of a high, wide hope capable of healing any wounds, giving us the courage not just to survive, but to live.”

The Chairman Dances – Time Without Measure
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“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. Likewise, we’d do well to remember that villains and bigots are human too, flames that, however fierce and bright, will be snuffed out without the oxygen that is our backing. This album is a reminder that belief and faith can save us. It’s just a matter of choosing the right thing in which to invest our energies.”

Karima Walker – Hands in Our Names
(REVIEW)

“Hands in Our Names sees Karima Walker reconstruct an array of varied elements into something larger and more meaningful than they could ever be alone. Field recordings from her present and found recordings from someone else’s past swirl above and beneath her own words and guitar notes, drones of every pitch filling the background and stretching the songs into worlds of their own. When atomised into separate parts, the album is impressionistic, blurry and strange and difficult to describe, though when listened to as a whole, a blanket of stitches, it becomes something vivid and intuitive. As such, Hands in Our Names is able to convey things normal songs cannot, a freedom not just born of trope-avoiding experimentalism but somehow inherent in the very combinations of sounds, as though arranged into secret patterns or codes, magic spells that trump postmodern convictions. Rather than dying in open air upon leaving her mouth, Karima Walker’s communications bubble from within, stirring that dormant empathy that lies somewhere near the centre of us all.”

Sioux Falls (now Stranger Ranger) – Rot Forever
(REVIEW)

“Sioux Falls’ sound reads like a melting pot of the last twenty years of rock music. Taking the indie rock of the likes of Built to Spill et al., the band add thoughtful emo (like The Hotelier) and smart pop punk vibes (think LVL UP etc.) to create something wonderfully varied and entertaining, cycling through these genres not just between songs but within them. The narrator is centred within the stories of which they sing, sounding like another confused player in violent, unfair game operating to rules outside of anyone’s understanding. In the face of bewilderment they turn to anger and sorrow and joy, feelings easy to recognise, easy to submit to, decidedly non-ambivalent chemical reactions which remind them that they’re still alive.”

John K Samson – Winter Wheat
(REVIEW)

“The Weakerthans frontman’s first release since 2012 is everything we’ve come to expect, exploring his favourite themes of contemporary loneliness and isolation in his uniquely warm manner, his characters not ready to give up hope that connection (that is, real human connection) is still possible in our digital world.”

Nap Eyes – Thought Rock Fish Scale

“Nova Scotia’s Nap Eyes return with a sophomore album of rhythmic, ear-worming slacker folk rock songs, recorded completely live with no overdubs in just four days. Nigel Chapman’s lethargic monotone vocals give the whole thing the feel of a daydream, like the wandering high-brow thoughts of a sleepy philosophy/psychology major.”

Jeremy Squires – Shadows
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“Does what the very best folk music can do, an outpouring from one human being to a multitude of others. It’s a record borne out of legitimate heartbreak, the end of a marriage and the death of a loved one, a brave and honest attempt to deal with big life-changing events. Deft songwriting allows Squires to expand these specific, individual scenes into large, engaging metaphors, in which we can find shards of our own experiences. The beauty of it is that the finished work is not just healing and revelatory for the artist. It can help us too.”

Loone & Paper Bee – Now I Know You and See How Wide You Are to the World
(REVIEW)

“Now I Know You and See How Wide You Are to the World is a terrific album. It’s as rich and as complex as life itself, steeped in passion and poetry, whirring like the universe and everything in it. There’s a line at the end of ‘Ugly, I’m Sorry’ that sums up the whole release rather nicely, capturing its in a handful of words far better than I am able to in this review: ‘And I wanna hold your hand / and go explore the pulsing humming darkness’.”

Spartan Jet-Plex – Get Some
(REVIEW)

“Taken at face value, Get Some is an indistinct album, the themes and meanings wrapped in layers of abstract lyrics and varied instrumentation. However, this vagueness itself curls and contorts and creeps into your head, eluding inclinations to describe and detail and thus bypassing the whole processing machinery most music must enter. As such, Kells’s thoughts and feelings arrive whole, unaltered, meaning that you feel what’s being said, even if it’s impossible to put into words.”

Kyle Morton – What Will Destroy You
(REVIEW)

“While Typhoon’s fourth record is still in the works, Morton last month released a surprise solo album, What Will Destroy You. Again the twin themes of tragedy and pleasure are central, as is the idea of catharsis and release. However, while mortality is an intrinsic element, the album does not tread the exact same ground as previous Typhoon releases. What Will Destroy You shifts the focus onto love, more specifically what Morton describes as “the ambivalence of erotic love,” leading to an intimate, surprisingly honest album which delves into things both more wonderful and mundane than your average love songs.”

CHUCK – My Band is a Computer
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“Playing like a collaboration between Owen Ashworth and Bret Easton Ellis, the CHUCK brand of observant and at times cringe-inducingly honest indie pop will no doubt prove divisive. But there’s far more to My Band is a Computer than drugs and self-pity and empty sex. Like the Frog release that Audio Antihero brought us last year, it crams an awful lot into its run-time, covering everything that’s terrible and everything that’s not about being a young adult in the twenty-first century, somehow managing to tap into the human kernel at the centre of our zombified lurch of nostalgia and regret.”

Monarch Mtn – Everyone is Here
(REVIEW)

“It would be wrong to consider the music of Monarch Mtn as simply a two dimensional mope-fest, with Farmer’s poetic lyrics and warm delivery hint at something beyond the misery. The palette is undoubtedly gloomy, blacks and greys and deep blues, but Farmer’s warm vocals and poetic turns of phrase flicker across this twilight like threads of gold.”

Claire Cronin – Came Down a Storm
(REVIEW)

“The real success of Down Came a Storm is how Claire Cronin and John Dieterich combine to spin stories and landscapes from their combined talents, every element given equal standing to conjure not only folk tales but the worlds in which they exist. Here you can feel the wind on your skin, hear it move in the trees, smell its scent of salt and earth and ozone. You can feel it move the characters too, propelling them into dark, poetic places where nature rules and comfort can be found in the starkest of elements.”

Adeem the Artist – Kyle Adem is Dead
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“The word ‘sincere’ is often taken as synonymous for affectionate or sentimental. With Kyle Adem is Dead, Adeem the Artist strives to be sincere in every sense, finding the bravery not just to declare his love for his wife but to voice his fears, his weaknesses, his exasperation with life as we live it. With everything on the table, no lingering mysteries or secrets withheld, there is nothing left to corrupt the good things. Because, after all, Kyle Adem is dead.”

Mal Devisa – Kiid
(REVIEW)

“Kiid is a personal record and plays like condensed version of life, reaching high and falling low, crackling and bursting and simmering under the surface, at times exploding in urgent streams of consciousness as if the words and thoughts can no longer be held in. This is an album that refuses to be reduced to something easily describable, persevering in it’s complexity against the binarizing forces of anxiety or genre or gender or race. Kiid isn’t a self-doubt record or political record, nor a sad record or a happy record. It’s not jazz or gospel or indie rock. Kiid is everything. Kiid is whatever it wants to be.”

Lisa/Liza – Deserts of Youth
(REVIEW)

“Wonderfully minimal and psych-tinged songs that will doubtless appeal to fans of  soft and sad outsider folk artists such as Sarah Winchester. At times it’s gossamer thin, with Victoria’s vocals little more than hushed murmurs, though even in these quiet moments her words hold a kind of understated magnetism, a power which draws in the instrumentation and in turn becomes augmented by it. Deserts of Youth shows you don’t necessarily need to raise your voice to make a statement, that even quiet songs can be imbued with a blazing energy.”

Old Earth – Lay For June
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“Trying to put Old Earth’s music into words seems futile and kind of besides the point. There’s never going to be a satisfactory way to describe art so fluid and weird and instinctive, so all we can tell you is what it sounds like to us. It’s operating on a deeper level, one not easily outlined, playing on some atavistic region of the subconscious that reacts to fear and beauty, that treats intense wonder and dread as the same emotion. It’s the same area of the brain that tells us to light candles and throw coins down wells no matter how secular our society becomes.”

What were your favourite albums of 2016? Let us know through one of the usual channels – we’re on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram.

The post Wake the Deaf’s Favourite Albums of 2016 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson – f(l)ight

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is an artist, poet, writer and musician from Canada who this September released her new album, f(l)ight. Produced by Jonas Bonnetta of Evening Hymns, the album combines lush instrumentation with Simpson’s mutlilayered poetry, sounding at once intensely physical and spiritual, charting not only personal experience but also that of her ancestry and the land on which they live. As such, style and perspective is fluid, every word and note and small space of silence part of some larger whole, where past violence, future hope and enduring spirit coalesce as one. You can get the album from RPM Records.

Will Johnson – Nervousness Fangs

Centro-matic frontman (plus Molina collaborator and Monster of Folk alumni) Will Johnson recently released a new solo single, ‘Nervousness Fangs’. The track is a beautifully sad lo-fi folk song, recorded (as Johnson tells American Songwriter) at home on a Tascam 424. The lyrics read like summer evening back-porch wisdom, as Johnson sings “Jesus what a mess / what they’re all selling / and what’s being sold”. Check it out on Soundcloud below:

In other news, Johnson has been nominated for a Grammy (!) for his Record Store Day split single with Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster of Water Liars. You can still get the 7″ via Misra Records.

Givan Lötz – MAW

Described as a “an aural savant whose sound projects operate exterior to expectations”, Johannesburg’s Givan Lötz recently released a new album, MAW. The record, which intends to “shed waning light onto and into this post-scientific realm where meaning is unhinged”, consists of ten dense, dark songs which shift and shimmer with unsettling unfamiliarity, all floated on a sea of melancholy. However, as ‘Speak’ highlights, a sense of positivity seeps through the cracks, though it’s impossible to tell whether this is true hope or just a peculiar euphoria gained from submitting to confusion. MAW is available now from Other Electricities.

Dama Scout – All In Too

Blending dream pop and kraut-rock sensibilities with added noise pop bounce, Dama Scout’s second single ‘All In Too’ feels like a stylistic mutant in the most complimentary sense. Calm and quiet one minute and seized by mayhem the next, the track feels like a surreal ride through a many-eyed storm, excitement and fear and abrupt tranquility passing without rhyme or reason. In other words, you should grab it right now from Bandcamp.

Vagabon – Fear & Force

We loved Vagabon’s last EP, Persian Gardens, so it’s great to hear that Laetitia Tamko is putting out a full-length album next February. The first single, ‘Fear & Force’, is a re-imagining of ‘Vermont II’ from the aforementioned EP, and gives a great insight into the development and evolution of Vagabon’s sound. Here Tamko reveals her multi-instrumentalist skills to flesh out the track and create a deep lush sound without losing any of the organic intimacy which made the original so great. Infinite Worlds is set for release next year on Father/Daughter Records and you can pre-order it now.

Her Harbour – Hewing Crowns

‘Hewing Crowns’ is the first single from Gabrielle Giguere’s Her Harbour’s sophomore full-length Go Gently Into the Night, out on E-Tron Records this coming February. The record was written at a time when “death felt omnipresent,” and the single is intended to serve as a “preface to the demons [Giguere] attempted to quell in making the album,” and is therefore ripe with haunting sounds and symbolical imagery. The video for the track, edited by Mike Dubue, consists of found footage from Conrad Aiken’s 1966 short film “Silent Snow, Secret Snow,” forming a collection of oblique frames which match the ghostly ambience of the song. You can grab ‘Hewing Crowns’ from the Her Harbour Bandcamp page.

Pip Hall – Devil You Don’t

Pip Hall must be in the running for the youngest artist we’ve ever featured here at WTD. At just 16, the Preston-based songwriter is making music beyond her years. Her new single, ‘Devil You Don’t ‘ opens with some Stranger Things-style synths before blossoming into a rich pop song that teams Hall’s smooth vocals with the steady pulse of synths and some guitar for added crunch. If you like what you hear, keep an eye out for Hall’s sophomore EP, James, out next March on My Little Empire. You can pre-order via Bandcamp.

Courtney Marie Andrews – Put The Fire Out

Continuing with precocious youngsters, Courtney Marie Andrews apparently left home at 16, travelling the US as a musician before getting a gig as Damien Jurado‘s lead guitarist. She’s done a lot of touring with various acts since then, and earlier this year released an album of her own, Honest Life. The good news for us in the UK is that Loose Records are releasing the album here in January (pre-order now). To whet your appetite, here’s a single, ‘Put the Fire Out’, a warm and reflective country track that is a must for fans of bands like Mount Moriah.

Camp Cope – Keep Growing

Following their excellent self-titled debut album, Melbourne’s Camp Cope recently put up a new single which appears to be from an as-yet unannounced release. ‘Keep Growing’ sticks to the successful formula of the previous album, playing like an internal monologue that flicks through sadness and confusion and doubt but keeps cycling back to a joyous resolve, the recognisable pilot light of Camp Cope’s music. As Georgia Maq explained on Facebook, the song is about “new beginnings, it’s about rejecting what society tells you is beautiful,” ending the post with the simple but perfect advice. “Do you.” Grab the track now via Bandcamp and keep your eyes peeled for news of a physical release.

Field Medic

We’ve covered San Francisco’s Field Medic several times at WTD, so its cool to learn he’s got a new song. ‘uuu’ is essentially a classic folk song, gentle instrumentation and yearning vocals directed to a love (the titular you you you). The lyrics are as heart-on-sleeve as we’ve come to expect from Field Medic, with lines such as “all i ever needed was your matchstick mama / to take my wrongs & make them right / to take my darkness & make it bright “. Get the song now on a name-your-price basis via the Field Medic Bandcamp page.

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Tracklisting:

1) Lost (Season One) – Camp Cope
2) Johnny – Basement Revolver
3) Can U Hear Me Now? – Porridge Radio
4) All 4s – ARMS
5) If You’re on the Water – The Saxophones
6) In Ribbons – Psychic Shakes
7) a good pet – Real Swell
8) Breadcrumbs – The Perennials
9) Father is a Craftsman – Modern Studies
10) Aligning With the Sun – Dear Tracks
11) Cake Bath – Cloud Cover
12) Postdoc Blues – John K. Samson
13) Room For Love – Wooden Dinosaur
14) Crab Line – Trust Fund
15) 1 – Young Jesus
16) Life’s Rough – Serial Chiller
17) Never Lonely – Space Mountain
18) I Wish I Was Plural – Free Space
19) More Than Science – Sunshine Faces
20) Maya – Competition
21) Fireball – Albosel
22) It Hurts- A Day Without Love
23) That Went Well- Guppy
24) Kids Playing Outside – Almanac Mountain
25) Patience To Undo the Patience – Psalmships

You can check out the previous monthly roundups here, and our various other playlists and mixtapes here. Be sure to pop back throughout September and beyond to see what autumn brings!

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Which brings me to Camp Cope.

So enjoyable and cathartic is this record, that I can’t seem to concentrate on anything else. I’m having to listen to something else right now just to write about it, otherwise I get locked in and start staring into the middle distance, stuck deep in my own failed dreams.

Run, dreams, run!

I stumbled across this album just by scrolling through Bandcamp albums tagged with my new hometown, Melbourne. Mainly known for its vegan pies, rain and funny football men in short shorts, Melbourne also has a knack for pumping out the best guitar-pop you’ve never heard. I stopped dead on this Camp Cope record thinking I’d found a hidden gem, and for a few minutes I had it all to myself. A quick google later, and I found out how wrong I was. Everyone fucking loves them, don’t they. A national tour, a Rolling Stone Australia session. And just like that, my indie-points disappeared. But it was too late, I’d been hit hard.

“There was a man in the park and he was lying down, and he could’ve been dead but just like everybody, I kept on walking”

It’s easy to do sad though, any idiot can write a sad song – ask Adele – the hard part is giving you hope that the song won’t stay sad. Singer, main songwriter and REGISTERED FUCKING NURSE, Georgia Maq nails it on every occasion, sometimes even just through sheer force. If the fuzzy drums and shit-tonne of fuck-yeah basslines don’t pull you in, the passion of delivery will.

Even on the slow songs like West Side Story, about living, working and being heartbroken in the notoriously grim western Melbourne suburb of Footscray (I went there recently, it was no Blackpool, but point taken), the switch from nostalgia to urgency is kinda breathtaking, and you get it. I do, anyway (and FYI – dropping a Why? reference is always going to win me over).

And for those of us that want to hope that maybe everything doesn’t have to be shit forever, there’s an atmosphere of dissent that seeps into every line. Not in that horrible on-the-nose Billy Bragg/Frank Turner way, but more subtle, funny and heartbreaking, with throwaway lines that leave you a bit off-balanced.

“They say take it as a compliment, they’re only being nice,
And you carry keys between your knuckles as you walk alone at night”

I think that’s what I like most about Camp Cope (y’know, apart from the kinship of one broken healthcare worker to another) – the constant switch between personal and protest, heartache and anger, and all the while feeling completely and utterly helpless. I want to wallow in this shit, it all feels so good.

“I hope you know where you are, I hope you feel like you’ve gotten far,
and maybe you were told you were special one too many times and now you’re lost”

Remember when you were young and had dreams of future achievements? No, well, neither do Camp Cope.

Remember when that dipshit at work said that she brought it on herself by what she was wearing and you wanted to smash his head in? Yeah, so do Camp Cope.

Remember when for a few moments in a sea of shit, you were able to grab hold of hope and feel like everything might be ok? Yeah, I think that might be Camp Cope.

Camp Cope is out now on Bandcamp and LPs are available through Poison City Records.

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