As is evident on the subtly upbeat ‘Beneath the Pines’ or the bittersweet sway of ‘Face in the Stars’, Lucky Pennies is a collection of songs that use a classic folk blueprint to build something personal and singular. The title track is a standout, which like all good folk songs is equal parts sunshine and rainclouds, folding hope and sadness into three and a half minutes of bright acoustic guitar and soft vocals.

That said, Levi Douthit is not your average folk musician. He also plays with Richmond synth punks Teenage Cenobite and has recorded music for post punk band Black Buttons, and this behind the scenes experience of the local DIY scene is a big influence too. With the help of Tanner White, Will Fennessey and Kevin McCormick, Douthit turns what could be simple guitar and vocals songs into something heavier and more complex. Songs like ‘Losing Time’ lean towards shadowy indie rock and even the sweet strum of ‘Dog Song’ has peaks of wailing atmospherics.

But it’s lead single ‘Water the Plants’ that’s the perfect illustration, a gently turbulent lo-fi folk rock song which uses the metaphor of caring for a houseplant to explore intimate themes of recovery and self-care. “At the time, I was having some past traumas blow up in my face,” Douthit explains, “I thought I had finished dealing with them but I was reminded that you don’t ever finish dealing with them, you manage and tend to them, just like watering a plant.”

This theme of dealing with past trauma is a recurring one on Lucky Pennies and adds another dimension of depth and darkness. “There’s death all around me and more to come” Douthit sings in a moment of vulnerability on ‘Move On,’ a track that combines reflective folky moments of acoustic guitar and fragile vocals with moments of noisy and stormy anxiety. But, as on much of the album, the enduring emotion is one of strength and resilience, as captured in the final lines.

so keep on moving on
just keep on moving on

Lucky Pennies is out now and you can get it from the Levi Douthit Bandcamp page, or on cassette via Citrus City Records. Proceeds will be donated to Richmond Mutual Aid.

Photo and album art by Kevin McCormick

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Here is a list of songs from 2020 that we liked but didn’t get around to writing about.

If you find something you like, follow the link in the embed to support the artists and labels on Bandcamp. And of course, there is a whole year’s worth of pieces on releases we did manage to write about, so have an explore through our reviews, previews and interviews from 2020.

The post Music We Missed in 2020 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Its surface is all sophistication and light – red lipstick, brushed steel, and lace, but an eerie sadness hangs over the whole affair. Though bits of new wave synth and disco percussion shimmer and glow with warmth, the gloom never quite lifts.

In preparation for the album’s release, True Blossom have unveiled the first single, ‘Serious Boys,’ which perfectly captures what to expect. Irresistible disco percussion sashays in with swaggering bass before dreamy guitar and fun stabs of synth enter the fray. But it’s the vocals that bring a sober note, ensuring that is still room for misty eyes amidst the boogie.

In Bliss will be released on 23rd October on Citrus City Records. You can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Album art by Elizabeth Kelley, cover photo by Meghan Dowlen

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The four-piece, aka Roya Weidman (guitar / vocals), Matt Arbiz (guitar / vocals), Joe McLaughlin (drums) and Ryan Wildsmith (bass), make indiosyncratic indie rock songs that refuse to be put into neatly labeled boxes. There are hints of spacious shoegaze and fuzzy indie pop and something darker and heavier at the heart of each song, blissful, reverb-soaked melodies jackknifing into walls of pure noise.

“love and pain are friends forever,” begins opening track ‘Sike’, which throws us straight into the unpredictable and slightly surreal world So Totally create on in the shape of…. There are knotty tangles of guitar and heart-quickening ’90s throwback sections and wide-open lulls that gather at the edges and go barreling into another assault of guitar and percussion.

‘Attention’ has a weird woozy vibe, Weidman’s vocals stretched and distorted as she mumbles about fire and love and slow creeping feelings, opaque words that seem to conjure something tangible when searing guitar sets the whole thing alight in the final minute.

An indie pop song about astrological forces, ‘Pluto’ sees the band strip back some of the fuzz and reverb, at least initially, while ‘Mama’ tethers floaty vocals to shoegaze guitars and the romantic but doomed sensation of getting lost in the corridors of your mind. “Don’t talk me out of it,” Weidman sings near the end, “living in a world I’m dreaming,” in a line that illustrates perfectly the strange and beguiling world So Totally conjure.

in the shape of… is out now and you can get it from the So Totally Bandcamp page and on cassette from Citrus City Records.

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Outer Spaces – Gazing Globe

Working under the moniker Outer Spaces, Baltimore-based Cara Beth Satalino creates off-kilter pop songs that shift and shimmer, like arcane messages from some place out of sync with our own—a distinct dimension, an outer space. Released last month on Western Vinyl, new album Gazing Globe suggests that such a place might not be a deviation from reality but a more distilled form, somewhere free of projections and expectations that can shape us beyond our control.

The record is a product of great upheaval, Satalino turning to meditation in the aftermath of a relationship. “I think I was trying to get back to myself and my identity,” she explains, “separate from my relationship.” Perhaps the Outer Space does not concern some external world but something far closer, an interior nonetheless separate from the quote-unquote ‘real’ world, a space where we can find ourselves.

Kali Malone – The Sacrificial Code

Stockholm’s Kali Malone makes expansive, organ-based ambient music that pleasures in patience and precision. Released by iDEAL Recordings, The Sacrificial Code is a double album where no minute is wasted, working within a self-imposed austerity to achieve a near-hypnotic focus. “By voluntarily giving up the freedom to do whatever momentarily comes to mind,” Steve Reich once said, “we are, as a result, free of all that momentarily comes to mind.” Malone operates according to this ideal, stripping back any sense of surroundings, organ music suspended in blank space. The result is a meditative, ascetic lesson in transcendence, where open-ended does not mean nebulous.

Big Joanie – Sistahs

Consisting of Stephanie Phillips (vocals/guitar), Estella Adeyeri (bass) and Chardine Taylor-Stone (drums), London punk trio Big Joanie draw on influences from across the spectrum to form their distinctive style. Owing as much to The Ronettes as to the Riot Grrrls, and borrowing some of the weight of the post-punk movement, the band refuse to settle in any one box. “[We wanted to be] completely ourselves as black women,” they describe, “and discover what was possible to realise in those spaces.” The result is Sistahs, a full-length album released late last year via the The Daydream Library Series of records and tapes, the independent house label of Thurston Moore and Eva Prinz’s publishing imprint Ecstatic Peace Library.

Abe Hollow – Paradise

Abe Hollow is the the recording project of Oakland-based composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Adam Hirsch, and its songs display the full range of his talents. Born of an obsessive interest in family history and his Jewish heritage, debut album A Palace in Time is a collaborative, improvised journey through the many layers of Hirsch’s psyche—“a Yiddish gothic trip” according to one friend.

Single ‘Paradise’ gives some clue as to what such a thing might sound like, a single full of radiant shimmers and ethereal vocals where nothing is quite as it seems. With help from Ryan McGill (aka Ryan Von Gonten on guitar), Andrew Maguire (drums) Doug Stuart (bass) and June Hong (piano), Hirsch weaves a pleasantly surreal soundscape that’s at once forward-facing and reflective, proving that digging into one’s history can lead to discoveries as meaningful and rewarding as any other.

Slow Pulp – Big Day

Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Slow Pulp bring to life dreamy soundscapes with a minimalist touch, angular riffs punctuating the gauzy space. Released with our friends at Citrus City Records, Big Day goes a long way in perfecting the style, borrowing from shoegaze and post-punk but maintaining its own unique spirit. Which is fitting, seeing as the EP is concerned with ideas of development and learning, focused on the formative years where everything is strange and new and nothing is set in stone. Slow Pulp take this idea into their music, moving forward without hesitation or preconception, letting the experience speak for itself in the present moment.

Nathalie Joachim – Papa Loko (Interlude: September 24, 1918)

Nathalie Joachim is a Haitian-American composer, flutist and vocalist who draws upon hip hop, indie rock, electronic and classical music to form a sound capable of forging new directions while maintaining an awareness and respect of cultural traditions. Joachim is set to release her debut solo record later this summer via New Amsterdam Records, an album which sees her joined by the Grammy-nominated string ensemble Spektral Quartet.

Fanm d’Ayiti, or “Women of Haiti”, is something of a celebration of Haiti’s female performers and storytellers, featuring recorded interviews with these artists, including Joachim’s grandmother and the the girls choir of her family’s home farming village of Dantan. Opening track gives a view ‘Papa Loko (Interlude: September 24, 1918)’ gives a glimpse into this vivid blend of music and oral history, and hints at what promises to be a special release.

Joyer – Here

Drawing inspiration from slowcore, 90s-era slacker rock and the contemporary bedroom pop movement, New Jersey’s Joyer make richly textured songs that often barely break a murmur. The songs exist in a crepuscular lethargy, favouring a kind of slow dawning rather than any immediacy or confrontation.

The duo are interested in movies and new album Peeled is no different, with Counterzine going into the influences of Harmony Korine and Andrei Tarkovsky on the lyrics. But there is a filmic quality to the sound itself too, with single ‘Here’ showing off the image-based, atmospheric style.

Mauno – Vampire

Montreal experimental pop duo Mauno have a new record on the way. Out later this summer, Really Well sees the band delve into high weirdness in order to explore the absurdity of life under late capitalism, where everything from art, love and even the self are assaulted by the drive for productivity and growth. With its playful tone and metaphorically ripe title, single ‘Vampire’ is the perfect example of Mauno’s style, fiercely critical yet grounded in humour, as though in wit lies a truly subversive power.

The song comes complete with a video directed by Max Taeuschel which further layers the critique, Mauno made to exercise non-stop for an hour during recording as a comment on the reality of creating and promoting music today. The duo can barely sing at times, exhausted and visibly sweating upon bikes stripped of their purpose, going nowhere.

Really Well is out on the 2nd August and you can pre-order it from the Mauno Bandcamp page.

Kate Tempest – Holy Elixir

If performance poetry and spoken word artists are experiencing something of a boom, then Kate Tempest can stake some claim for instigating a new urgency in the movement. While the form gets co-opted from all angles, popping up on every other advert as banks try to mimic a human face, Tempest stands resolute as an example of the true power of words. Recorded with Rick Rubin, her latest album The Book of Traps and Lessons builds on what has come before, its tracks alive with some electrical frisson, something related to both love and dread.

Lead single ‘Holy Elixir’ serves as a fine example, its force conjured from the unfurling sentences, as though within the correct sequence of syllables an energy can form. This energy lies at the heart of all things, both good and bad, though Tempest seeks to harness it, channel it in the right direction. “I hope that people feel connected,” Tempest explains. “I hope they connect with the work, and that this connection enables them to connect with themselves, and that this connection encourages a deeper connection to others. It might sound like high hopes. At this stage in the game, you have to know your motives. Otherwise, why even try?”

The Book of Traps and Lessons is out now via Fiction and you can get it from the usual places.

Daughter of Swords – Dawnbreaker

Daughter of Swords is the moniker of Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, who you might know as part of folk trio Mountain Man. Setting out solo, Sauser-Monnig uses Daughter of Swords to explore a break-up before it even happened, both pre-empting the sadness to come and dreaming of the things that couldn’t happen on her current course. As the title track highlights, the result is something elegiac and warmly hopeful, as though only through some great, earth-shaking catastrophe can the new shoots of life break through the topsoil.

Dawnbreaker is out now via Bella Union and Nonesuch, and you can get it from the Daughter of Swords website.

High Sunn – Our Perception

High Sunn is the recording project of San Francisco’s Justin Cheromiah, who makes an upbeat and glimmering brand of bedroom pop. New record Our Perception was released earlier this year, with Tristin Souvannarath joining to lend drums, as well as mixing and mastering duties, leading to the most vivid and immersive High Sunn tracks to date.

Indeed, the process of creating the record was the most involved too. “Never have I ever spent months on a release,” Cheromiah explains. “I’ve ached, cried, stressed, and felt joy writing these songs of love, real life experiences, struggles, and pure gratitude.” Lead single ‘Grateful’ shows off the care and attention that constitutes the release, a jangle pop so lush you can fall back into it and not hit the ground.

Our Perception is out now via Spirit Goth Records and you can buy it now.

Briston Maroney – Fool’s Gold

After a nomadic childhood strung between Florida and Tennessee, Briston Maroney eventually settled back in Nashville, laying down roots and cutting his teeth in the DIY music scene. Winning fans one living room at a time, Maroney built up a reputation and has now released an EP, Indiana, with Parlophone Records. Despite the big label, single ‘Fool’s Gold’ shows off Maroney’s grounded and intimate style. There’s a tenderness to the sound, a gilded nostalgia that drives a hope for the future, kicks of reverb hinting at the dissatisfaction with the present.  Check out the video directed by Joey Brodnax below:

Indiana is out now on Parlophone Records and available from all the usual places.

That’s all folks. Check the tag for previous editions of Bright Sparks.

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AllegrA say that one of the goals of their music is to “bring you with them into their bedroom studio while they sit and write in the quiet of their mind alone,” a fact that’s clear in the opening of first track ‘Spoon or Fork’. It’s a wonderful introduction to the dynamic nature of the EP, stepping from stripped back guitar & vocals bedroom pop to full blown indie rock with consummate ease. The song sees the narrator visiting the new house of a loved one, packed full of seemingly simple observational lyrics that get at feelings impossible to talk about directly.

Give me a tour of your new house
lead up up and down the stairs
which bedroom belongs to you
can i sit in your favourite chair?
we can order Chinese food and sit on the floor
do you have a spoon or fork?

‘Comfortable Being Strangers’ introduces itself with rolling cymbals and a glowing thread of guitar, a dreamy pop song that sees Eidinger’s vocals skate away from the steady clip of percussion, while ‘Subtle Ignition’ brings to mind Real Life Buidings in its noisy peaks and hushed troughs and plainly delivered vocals. An indie pop song about giving purpose to small and seemingly useless craft materials, ‘Polyester’ moves from fun energetic verses to almost mathy instrumental sections. “These objects are small, and have no purpose,” Eidinger sings in the final lines, “but I can give them meaning, like I do for myself.”

Closer ‘Twisting Of’ begins patient and considered, before propelling itself forwards, a seemingly effortless coast that allows Eidinger to search themselves and their surroundings to explore the confusing and uncertain times we inhabit.

Your co-workers ask you how you’re doing
bury your hands in your pockets, full of quarters
you aren’t quite sure but you’ll shrug
and you’ll pretend to know

You can get yet, not enough now from Citrus City Records and the AllegrA Bandcamp page.

Artwork by Agatha Monasterios-Ramirez

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As with previous releases, the record offers a beguilingly casual brand of slacker bedroom pop, the languid tones so laid back they are near horizontal. The relaxed vibe extends far beyond the music itself, with elements of life and its background noise leaking into the songs, making them feel like authentic snapshots of specific moments in time.

And an interesting time at that. As opener ‘Cool Yeti Air’ hints, Dye Xanh came into being as Haya travelled Nepal, and his surroundings ooze through the tracks so that we are travelling with him. Be it the aeroplane intercom announcement upon landing in Kathmandu of the opening track, or the ambient birdsong that underpins the lush lo-fi shuffle of ‘Casio Thorn’, Sky Mata is a project rooted in the experiences that inform it.

The template is not only immersive but constantly surprising. Take ‘Temple Sky Salt’, a playful, understated pop song where Haya croon in wistful tones, though one which lurches into a higher gear toward a frenetic conclusion. ‘Way Home Bktpr’ finds inspiration in the bedroom pop stalwarts, offering a quivering vulnerability, though soon morphs into psychedelic textures, while the pure tones of ‘Lark Song’ have a devotional aesthetic, as crisp and crystalline as Himalayan air.

Dye Xanh is out now via Citrus City Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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September 2015 saw the debut Recluse Raccoon release, Horse EP, five songs of shuffling laid back pop, and soon after Peele and Tekamp recruited bassist Andrew Murray to further flesh out what they had come to think of as “psychedelic jazz pop.” And fleshed out their sound certainly has, with their self-titled debut full-length, out today on Citrus City Records, maintaining the pace and attitude of the previous release, though representing a far richer and luscious experience.

This is apparent from the opening track, ‘Put In The Time’, a loose and breezy song underpinned by a finger-clicking rhythm and vocal harmonies lended by Peele’s sister Bethany. The track rises into something of a crescendo, showing off the talents of the guest musicians enrolled into the Recluse Raccoon cohort for the record, including the trumpet and flugelhorn of Stephen Moser. ‘Mother America’ follows a similar pattern, the hazy swirl clearing into a bright horn-led climax, while ‘On A Wire’ takes on something of a slacker vibe, the shambling drums and prickling bass tending toward a darker tone and the eventual close having an altogether more subversive feel.

Fans of Chad VanGaalen will find lots to like on Recluse Raccoon, as highlighted by tracks like ‘Dark Void’ and ‘What You Are’, something within the vocal style and layered sound granting an ethereal edge, a world not unlike our own but shot through with gossamer threads of bright white light. Which is not to suggest everything is heavenly, with ‘New Acid’ taking the dreamy style into a weirder, more traditional psych direction, and ‘Black and White’ pushing further, its creeping style possessing a Lynchian strangeness. ‘Classical Tim’ is cut from the same cloth, jazz for a haunted lounge where the house band play on forever, though follow-up ‘See You As You’ drags us through this twilight back toward the light, the celebratory horns returning once more.

Such a merry dance is indicative of the playful, experimental nature of the Recluse Raccoon sound, the band unafraid to chase various directions and tones with a near improvisational nonchalance. The album is something of a journey, a rollercoaster ride where nothing is certain. Something will happen, but who can tell what?

It’s our pleasure to host a full stream of the album, and we can’t think of a better way to spend your Friday than being led through the brilliant world of Recluse Raccoon.

Cover artwork by Timmy Peele

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‘Dust’ is the tape’s first single, and what we want to share with you today. After a sparkling opening, the track begins like a slow bedroom pop song, Balesi’s mumbled vocals drifting around sparse guitar and gently shuffling drums. In keeping with this style, the mood is downbeat and reserved, as though in the slow hours of torpor after some loss or heartbreak.

However, it doesn’t take long for things to lurch off in a different direction, sounding skittish as the drums kick into a nervous trot and guitar rushes along in an antsy rhythm. This erratic behaviour continues until the whole thing comes shuddering to a halt at the end, an illustration of how Ing like to keep things unpredictable, and giving new pertinence to the staccato scribbles of the album’s artwork.

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As such, it’s difficult to tell whether the shuffling sound is shaking itself sober or spiralling inward toward complete inertia. After the brief prologue of ‘Mosquitoes’, which feels like laying at the bottom of a pool and looking up, ‘Got My Penz’ announces itself with spiky guitars and a paranoid, hyperactive twitchiness, though this slows into a dreamy lethargy by the close. ‘Baklava’ is altogether more slick, taking R&B vibes to creating a floaty sensation, a night where the mixture is good and your feet seem to glide across the ground.

In another stylistic pivot which proves Ruth Good have more than one string to their bow, ‘Shooting Range’ is something of a folk song, complete with earthy twang and lyrics. Again, there’s something slightly detached about the sound, the edges softened and blurred as if viewed through glass, the singer’s voice scratchy as if lost in the real drama, some time in the distant past. ‘Ice Water’ follows a similar thread but is more developed, a country rock song etched with garage flourishes, ending up somewhere between a classic driving song and 90s emo hit.

‘YLIE’ employs poppy vibes to spread its message, the refrain probably the most direct of the record. It’s fitting, then, that the sound is the most vivid too, the colours flowing back as if in response to the love in question. This is followed by ‘Milkshake Boyz’, which retains the same sense of emotion but changes style to a Minus-The Bear-style sound. The song makes for a fitting close, descending from the coherent beginning to mathy breakdowns and barely-audible lyrics, as though the previous paranoia is back and sitting still becomes difficult once more, the fading out at the end suggests the cycle keeps on spinning.

Spliff EP is out now via Citrus City Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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