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.

Tracklisting:

Half Gringa – Marte
CHUCK – Happy Birthday
Ian Terry – Cut
Bea Troxel – Let Them Know
Dana Gavanski – How Long Has It Been?
Honey Joy – Done
Miseryslims – Onto Elm Street
See You At Home – Summer Is a Long Way Off
Camp Counselor – Limo Speech
Windbury Street – Skinny Jeans and Sweaters
Philippa Zawe – Time
Big Baby – Not That
Illuminati Hotties – (You’re Better) Than Ever
Señor Fín – Joe Charmers
M Grig – Still Life I
Jacob Faurholt – A Lake of Distortion
Lazy Legs – Bed Head
Steakhouse – National
Francis – Swing
all-caps LADD – Computer Kids
Happy Abandon -Severed Seams
pastel – Silhouette
Nice Legs – I Never Knew
Tucker Theodore – Our Lady Hope

If you’ve missed more than a month of VSF, or just want some good music to listen to, check out our other Monthly Roundup mixes.

The post August 2017 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Opener ‘Stoner’ slowly builds into a Dan Deacon-style jam, all blips and whirs and echoing samples. Follow up ‘New Yorker’ on the other hand is much more akin to the songs on My Band is a Computer, a (semi) tongue-in-cheek track that’s about exactly what the title suggests. “When I graduated college,” Gibson begins, “I moved into the East Village, I got a job at a cool office, I got Billy Joel’s greatest hits.” It’s the perfect summation of what it means to eke out a living in the Big Apple, charting the rise from humble graduate to fully-fledged (and slightly obnoxious) New Yorker.

“I’m a New Yorker
get the hell out of my way now
and go die”

There’s a similarly self-deprecating vibe on ‘Cherry Tree’, the opening lines telling you all you need to know. “Waiting for the chance to come,” Gibson sings, “to piss up on a snowman, punch him in the lungs, feelin’ like a big fat no-one.” Like a lot of CHUCK songs, it’s not entirely serious, but somehow has an undercurrent of honesty and vulnerability, that second dimension common throughout his music that conjures a vague but crushing emptiness that’s always just out of view. This sensation is never mentioned outright, but colours every line of CHUCK’s writing, that half-formed conviction that all is not well with the way we live, that beneath the smiling and buying and reading of screens lies something sad and sinister. Or rather, lies nothing at all.

The psych pop instrumental ‘Hudson’ pairs acoustic guitar with some woozy electronics, feeling like a sunny morning stroll to shake off the night before. Beginning in wobbly doubly vision before clearing into a decidedly less cloudy perspective, the track is imbued with a certain mindfulness, one of those days where everything falls into place, feeling warm and bright, and more importantly you feel like you belong within its brilliance. ‘Oceans’ follows with a real Wish You Were Here! vibe, a song about heading to the beach to drink tecate and listen to the stereo, all the while missing a special someone. It’s a track infused with a sense of wistful frustration, a mellowed sunny-day reflection on imperfect circumstances.

“I went to the beach
with Alix and Charlie
we went swimming and talked about the party
you’re in Norway and I’m in my body
I use my phone to tell you I’m sorry”

The narrator on ‘Caroline’, a sort of reworked/updated love song, is obviously infatuated with the titular figure, despite the fact she’s cool and detached, “always saying she don’t care when I know she cares.” It’s a love song CHUCK style, the line between sardonic irony and heart-on-sleeve sincerity blurred beyond recognition.

Frankenstein Songs for the Grocery Store finds CHUCK doing what he does best, making songs that are catchy and funny and unashamedly “pop” and all undoubtedly good fun. But there’s always that something else to his songs too, something that’s harder to put a finger on, a nod to the vacuum at the centre of our 21st century consumerist culture. There’s no better example of this than ‘Happy Birthday’, which seems to sit in a pocket of stillness and apathy, Gibson’s vocals matter-of-fact and strangely sad, even when modulated with chipmunk-style effects. The narrator (be it Gibson or otherwise) sounds simultaneously arrogant and desperate, sad in more ways than one. He’s the person who turns up drunk and uninvited, begging for second chances and making a scene.

“I know I look insane
but I can’t get you outta my brain”

Frankenstein Songs for the Grocery Store is one of my favourite releases of the year so far and you can buy it now via Audio Antihero, including a nice-looking LP version.

The post CHUCK – Frankenstein Songs for the Grocery Store appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The good news is that Gibson is back with a new CHUCK record, Frankenstein Songs for the Grocery Store, which appears to continue this trend. The bad news is that it looks all but certain to be his last. “I’ve been making DIY music since I was in High School,” he says. “If you haven’t done it, I can’t explain how fun it is to build songs by yourself. It’s a magical thing.” However, true to the CHUCK aesthetic, such magic is not enough to fully trump the banalities of making music in the twenty-first century. “I know my path is leading elsewhere, and I’m not made for the music biz. I’m 30. I’m married. I have a full-time job. I just don’t have it in me anymore. So without further adieu, please enjoy the final CHUCK record. It’s got songs about diet, exercise, work, love, T.V. and animals.”

Free singles ‘New Yorker‘ and ‘Cherry Tree‘ suggest that the record promises to offer everything that Gibson does so well, embodying the lovable yet slightly disturbing thing that is living in a big city. So how better to celebrate ‘Life’ getting in the way of an artistic dream than fifteen songs concerning the occupational hamster wheel and surprisingly persistent post-college blues, all drowned out by the veritable cacophony of NYC?We’re delighted to share ‘Hudson’, an instrumental track that comes roughly halfway through the record and offers something of a variation on the style and themes of its neighbouring songs. As Gibson explains: “This song makes me think of the Fourth of July or something. It feels very American. I would like to a shotgun a beer on a deck to this song. I would like to drive by a farm to this song. I would like to dance in a Honky Tonk to this song. Unlike a lot of my other tracks, this is not a city song. It’s a breath of fresh air from somewhere far away where you have a second to enjoy yourself outsides the social pressures of NYC.”

Frankenstein Songs for the Grocery Store is to be released on the 18th August on Audio Antihero and can be pre-ordered from Bandcamp (along with the two free singles and B-sides). And while on a CHUCK kick, why not have a listen to the Mini Mystery Mix that Gibson made for us back in September?

The post Song Premiere: CHUCK – Hudson 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.

If any of the above points make you feel a little down, here’s a playlist of every band we featured during September to cheer you up. As always, click the artist name in the tracklisting to be whisked away to the specific post.

Tracklisting:

1. Hidden Driver – LVL UP
2. Death – CHUCK
3. Seskinore – Hiva Oa
4. Shut Out the Light – Tiny Dinosaurs
5. Foothills – Simon Balto
6. Lie 2 Me – Shana Falana
7. annie – moving in
8. A Lonely Road – Jordan O’Jordan
9. Augustine – The Chairman Dances
10. Golden – Mt. Wolf (feat. St. South)
11. I – Slenko & McKeys
12. zszs – rgz
13. Meditations – Tall Ships
14. Tossing & Turning – Saint Clementine
15. Century Woods – Lisa/Liza
16. Clear Section – Spartan Jet-Plex
17. Trancendless Summer – Peter Silberman
18. Where We Began – Tilman Robinson
19. will you?/you will – Fossil Jane
20. Ya w/Me? – Lomelda (from Swell Tone’s Summer of Sad)
21. Soon Soon – Praything
22. Drive – Mere Women
23. See Through – Suzy Callahan
24. Untitled (Slow) – Jana Irmert
25. Beyond the Stars – The Edge Of The Light
26. Northern Arm – Evening Hymns
27. It’s Not Real – Hazel English

You can check out the previous monthly roundups here, and our various other playlists and mixtapes here.

The post September 2016 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

This week we hand things over to CHUCK, aka Charles Griffin Gibson, who recently put out My Band is My Computer, one of the most interesting and enjoyable albums of the year so far. You can read our review for a more in-depth analysis of the songs, but the concluding paragraph should indicate whether or not you’ll appreciate what CHUCK is all about:

“Playing like a collaboration between Owen Ashworth and Bret Easton Ellis… 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”

I’ll Do It Better Than Anybody Else*

by CHUCK

Song that reminds you of your favourite video game

Ben Kweller ­- Falling

Oh man, this song is a real blast from the past. As you can tell I haven’t played video games in a long time. I used to listen to this record when I would play Tony Hawk back in High School though. Ben Kweller rules. I love the songs and production on this album. I really looked up to him as a teenager. Also, I’m just realizing that he sounds exactly like Rivers Cuomo.

Song from at least ten years ago

Heatmiser ­- Half Right

I heard this song for the first time the other day because someone posted it on Facebook. And I call myself a real Elliott Smith fan! I can’t believe I never heard this! This coulda been one of his hits man. His voice was such an unbelievable treasure. I’ve been trying to record and mix my acoustic guitars like him for years, but I’ll never figure it out. Something about how he combines the high and low end is so emotive to me.

Wildest song you know

Kanye West ­- Freestyle 4

I think Kanye West generally sucks at freestyling. That’s what makes this song so wild. He stumbles. He repeats things. There’s not really a rhyme scheme. It feels like, coupled with the beat, that he’s going insane with a furious desire to fuck, and to do it in public. It says a lot about his celebrity and his ego. But I also relate to it just as a man with a sex drive. Sometimes you get these potent sexual urges at random times. Like a little angry man freestyling in your head. It literally feels like this song. The beat is so Hitchcock too. Man I love this track.

Song that makes you want to change the world

TEEN ­- Better

TEEN is a really hard working band out of BK. This was the first song I heard by them. I think the lyrics obviously fit the prompt, but also something about the instrumentation and repetition of the melody pump me up. One time I was listening to this while biking over the Manhattan bridge and I ended up crashing with this guy who was coming in the opposite direction. It was pretty disorienting and we both sort of biked away mumbling insults at each other. I didn’t have any injuries or anything, but it still shook me up. I don’t think I’ve heard this song since that incident, but it immediately came to mind when I read the prompt. Enjoy!

Song that makes you want to dance around your bedroom

TOPS ­- Way To Be Loved

If you can stay still to this song you are dead. The guitarist in this band is really special. I love his riffs, melodically and rhythmically. The singer is also great. I have actually danced to this song in my bedroom. This should be played at every party.

Song without words

Vincent Gallo ­- Was

I had a dream I met Vincent Gallo the other night. I used to be obsessed with him. I haven’t thought of him in many years though. I was digging around for a song for this, and saw his name, and remembered how much of an impression his music made on me as a teenager. I love its crudeness. It feels amateur, dirty and timeless. I really look up to him, because he’s done so much. Acting, writing, directing, music, modelling, dancing, etc. I’m not much compared to him, but I also feel compelled to wear many different hats. I remember, in the early internet days, he was selling his own semen on his website. I think it was like $100,000 and had a note that said “you can receive the semen however you want.” Man, I wonder what he’s up to now. He was so funny. I gotta watch Buffalo ‘66 again.

Here’s a Playmoss playlist that collects all the tracks, for those of you who prefer to go with the flow:

* Title decided by Jon

My Band is My Computer is out now and available via Audio Antihero/Old Money Records. Grab your copy from the CHUCK Bandcamp page.

Photo by Joseph Talman

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

“I started out in High School making electronic music on a Dell desktop PC in my family’s living room. It wasn’t great. Then my Mom bought me an acoustic guitar when I was 20 and at the time I was obsessed with the music documentary ‘Dig!’ so I started writing my own rip­-off versions of the songs in that movie. Since then I’ve just used whatever I had around to keep writing and producing tracks”.

Not that Gibson ever intended to see his music released worldwide. We have the ever-excellent Audio Antihero to thank for that. “The resulting music has never really left my immediate bubble of friends, coworkers and loved ones” says Gibson, “but thanks to the internet, someone like Jamie at Audio Antihero was able to find my Bandcamp and have enough of a reaction that he wanted to help me reach an audience”.

Oh, and if you’re worried that the release is just a load of demos thrown together without much thought, think again. My Band… is as cohesive as any album you’ll hear this year, and sounds great thanks to mastering by our pal Benjamin Shaw. The record opens with ‘Happy New Years Babe’, a synth heavy track that illustrates CHUCK’s blend of insular bedroom pop and an altogether more hi-fi indie sound. Gibson’s vocals, along with the gauzy synths, convey a background level melancholy, the track sounding upbeat in spite of things, or maybe even out of spite.

“When you said those cruel words
On the steps of the church
You kicked me like the dirt
You stole my Pixies shirt
Well I’m back in town
Yeah I’m back in town”

‘Oceans’ is loose love song, the lines short and simple and jumbled by a detached inability to focus, like the thoughts of a mild Less Than Zero character who’s capable of genuine sorrow in ten second snatches between distraction. ‘Mary Anne’ has the guys from Frog as a backing band, another song about pining for an ex and being stranded on the rocks of casual relationships, while ‘Camel Lights’ is an acoustic track with a soft and almost nostalgic sense of regret (“Wide awake long after saying goodnight / Rememberin”). The presumably ironic ‘Bushwick Girl’ is about going out looking for a “sweetheart” and finding the titular Bushwick girl, who wears a neon orange beanie and pyjama pants, who has her rent paid by her parents and only buys things fair-trade.

“She surfed the internet for hours
Reading articles
Ask her a question she’s got the answer
Tiny particles
She’s afraid of getting cancer
She’s my Bushwick girl”

‘Joan’ is a breezy and wordy indie pop track which references the coming of age (if you can call it that) of the title character, a girl who grows up with the assassination of JFK and the Vietnam war, and finds parties and boys and drugs, while ‘Go Into Town’ details the push and pull of mundane relationships and growing older. ‘Phoebe’s Lips’ again deals in messy big city relationships, this time framed with recollections of the simplicity of small-town teen trysts. But that’s a long way off for our narrator now, like something he saw on TV one time before he grew troubled and narcissistic. “Mikey can’t get hard,” Gibson sings, “Unless he goes too far / And says something really smart / That proves he’s smarter than you are”.

‘The Internet’ is a soft and delicate ode to the vast and bizarre realms of the World Wide Web, playing as a very well-written list of online oddities. Where else could you learn about MC Escher, sell your dad’s wedding ring and chat with girls who claim to be X-Men, all while in your underwear? The result is strange and oddly touching, the human essence captured in a thousand pathetic actions and pastimes, everyone naive and awfully lonely, staring through their screens in the impossible hope someone might be looking back.

‘Pictures’ sees life reduced to a tired loop, the same scenes playing over and over, the days not really going anyway but certainly running out, though following track ‘Death’, for all of its lines about cocaine binges and morbid thoughts, is surprisingly bright. It thuds and rings with a sense of hope and progress, like a mantra that serves as a timely reminder that things can get better.

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

The video adds to the dizzying transcendental feel of the song, a machine-gun rapid photographic collage of the million minute details of the city.

There are definite Frog vibes on penultimate track ‘Wipe Out’, a song about catching up with an old high school friend that’s full of the smart self-deprecation that makes lots of this album so great (“I’m scared about the Antarctic ice caps / but I stopped having panic attacks”), while finale ‘Let’s Make Out’ isn’t a love song as such, despite its dreamy vibes, detailing “relations” rather than relationships.

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.

My Band is a Computer is the first release on Old Money Records, a sub-label/imprint of Audio Antihero which “will be focused on archiving and celebrating lesser heard artists via compilations and reissues”. You can buy it now from the CHUCK / Audio Antihero Bandcamp page, including a rather lovely cassette edition.

The post CHUCK – My Band is a Computer appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“This is a small thing but I thought it’d be nice to get a few unreleased/rare songs together from Audio Antihero and friends to try and raise a little bit of money for Bernie’s presidential campaign. If you’d like to chip in to give Americans some universal healthcare that’d be great. Win or lose, every penny keeps them in the fight and helps hold the DNC accountable to liberal voters.”

Now we’re not American but even we are feeling the Bern. If you prefer your world leaders fair and honest then he seems like a pretty good option. To be honest, I’m not sure how he passed the politics entry exam after ticking the boxes for common sense and empathy. And of course, it’s worth remembering that the alternatives are pretty dire – the majority of Americans deserve a lot better than idiotic bigots, crazy businessmen and power-hungry career politicians. If you need further proof that Bernie seems like a great guy, check out this collage of his speeches from the last 30 years:

Anyway, the music! Bern Yr Idols is packed full of rare/unreleased tracks from the Audio Antihero cohort, including numbers from Frog, Benjamin Shaw and Cloud. Basically it’s great. What better way to get your mitts on some great music than helping Bernie do something great?

You can buy Bern Yr Idols from the Audio Antihero Bandcamp page and help fight the good fight. If, for some strange reason, you would like to donate without getting cool music, you can do so directly right here.

Artwork by Benjamin Shaw

The post Audio Antihero release Bern Yr Idols, a Bernie Sanders benefit comp appeared first on Various Small Flames.