After the band took a hiatus while Mollenkopf finished grad school, this spring sees First Responder return with Courage, their debut full-length album. With new bassist Collin Geddis joining Cameron Carr (guitar) and Zayn Dweik (drums), the record develops what came before to find the perfect balance between intimacy and urgency. Mollenkopf’s soprano vocals are paired with instrumentation both mellow and driving, sometimes shifting from hesitant to jubilant and back again within the same song.

There’s a juxtaposition at the heart of the album’s themes too, Mollenkopf vacillating between uncertainty and empowerment in a quest for a fuller understanding of herself. There’s a backward-looking element to the lyrics but only in service of what is to come, as though by delving into the murky waters of the past one might be able clear the waters of the future to find purpose and meaning.

Today we’re delighted to share the third single, ‘Coney Island’. The song is positioned on the soft end of the First Responder spectrum and has something of a tidal rhythm, ebbing and flowing but always inching forwards. The lyrics are an ode to finding strength within yourself, and true to this idea the track gathers in intensity as it progresses, building step by step into something like conviction. There might not be any clear understanding in how or why we find the bravery to persevere, but there is belief in the fact that we can if only we persist.

Already know where I’m gonna go
When I die

I see it in my head
See it in my head
See it in my head each
night

Don’t know where, know where
This courage came from
Nowhere, Nowhere

Courage is out on the 13th March and you can pre-order it from the First Responder Bandcamp page.

Photos by Julia Jeffers

The post First Responder – Coney Island appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“We’re not the sports in the athletics sense, but in the sense of a person who puts up with the struggles of life. This isn’t cheerleading in the athletics sense, but in the sense of supporting someone through the sad times and the struggles. Hence the artwork. We hope listeners can appreciate our music as not just singing sad songs for the sake of being sad, but singing sad songs so we can feel better.”

The gentle acoustic opening of ‘My Life Is Like a Merchant Ships Song’ segues into urgent indie pop, complete with perky percussion and handclaps. But the lyrics tell another story, one that belies the sunny nature of the music.

“But god damn I’m scared that I will lose my only friend
I know I’m wrong, I know you’re right
‘Just give it time, stay here tonight'”

Follow-up ‘Rebecca’ feels bright and sunny, with strains of Paul Simon’s Graceland, the perfect song for a understatedly happy summer morning. ‘Dreams’ is softer and sadder, an acoustic track made heavy by reverby background guitar and an atmosphere of sorrow, while  ‘Home At Last’ has a see-sawing motion, with bursts of instrumentation interspersed between quieter periods, the floating violin adding a further melancholic edge and inching things closer to the luscious orchestral pop of Fanfarlo’s early efforts. The lyrics, detailing thoughts on loneliness, are delivered with increasing desperation as the percussion gets big and brassy.

Closer ‘Thank You, Mr Yuker’ has a twitchy, mathy element, but overall the song has a wistful air, mainly due to Carr’s vocals and the background violin. The final section builds into a climax, the vocals little more than cries as the music crashes and sears, the second example that The Sports can write a killer build up that culminates in catharsis.

You can get Cheerleading now via The Sports Bandcamp page.

Photo credit Sierra Mollenkopf

The post The Sports – Cheerleading appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Anyway, Saintseneca are back with a new full-length, Such Things, which is very much worth your time. Combining rock, pop, folk and punk with strong writing and clever word play, the band make catchy yet surprisingly deep songs which seem equally suited to live parties and solo headphones sessions. From the up-tempo celebration of ‘River’, which brings to mind Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the Neutral Milk Hotel-inspired title track and the choral, almost acapella singalong of ‘House Divided’, Such Things is a nuanced collection of indie rock songs which will provoke a fair bit of existential thinking. ‘How Many Blankets Are In The World?’ provides a nice summation of the band’s philosophy and message:

“Life is long
long enough to be mean
Life is short
short enough to mean something
To those who long
those who long for longer”

Such Things is an album which confronts the mysteries of life in a celebratory and/or fulfilling way, favouring finding interest and comfort in the unknowable instead of the nihilism many turn to when thinking of, well… such things.

You can buy Such Things now from the Saintseneca Bandcamp page, or on vinyl from ANTI-.

The post Flash Review: Saintseneca – Such Things appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The Offer is Jones’ first album as Yowler, and one which sees things pared back a whole lot from her work with other bands. The album was apparently recorded in living rooms and bedrooms in the winter of 2013/14, and this secluded recording method is clear to hear. All eight tracks are a study in the art of minimalism, of the exchange between poetry and negative space. There is surprising diversity between songs, but the entirety is mired in a feeling, as if the songs were born out of a frame of mind rather than pure musical inspiration. Whatever the case, Jones creates an atmosphere of haunting intimacy (imagine a Sarah Winchester-fronted Old Earth playing a very quiet acoustic set in your attic at 3am), her voice taking centre stage despite oftentimes being barely more than a whisper.

Opener ‘Water’ burns with quiet intensity, its strange lyrics (it opens with the line “Got to disappear in some great void of water”) feeling oddly personal, giving the whole track the intimacy of hearing about someone else’s dreams. This sensation is one which continues throughout, right down to the visuals of the artwork. The guitars sidle and prowl like shadows and the whole thing seems on the verge of something vaguely dangerous. It’s a lot more than just quiet and pretty folk music, in fact the closest comparison my brain could muster was Brian Borcherdt’s Dusted project, more for the atmosphere than anything tangible. Follow-up ‘Bedroom Wall’ builds this thick smoky ambience with guitars that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Grouper record, but the vocals slash through with clarity, sonically if not thematically, opaque poetics delivered with remarkable confidence. ‘Yowler’ is mostly acoustic guitars and some reserved percussion, allowing Jones’ vocals to give the song its impetus. The lyrics are very sad and strange but also weirdly sweet. Make no mistake that this is, at least on some level, a love song:

“There were ghosts in the sidewalk that night
But the fear of them was absent with you by my side”

‘Holidays’ opens with a brief rumble of oppressive noise, little more than a squally suggestion that feels like a portent nonetheless. When the track starts proper the delicate acoustics and gossamer vocals sound crystal clear and desperately sad, an aural trick that matches the mood of the song as Jones relays the deepest fears of her dreams and nightmares, laying everything bare for the listener, as if her skin has gone all glassy so that we can see the workings of her body pulsing and whirring inside. The majority of the lyrics deal with dream images of being born in a river, under sheets of ice, but the final lines seem like a devastating return to reality, painting the portrait of somebody struggling, “And at Holidays I remember they asked me how I was / And at Holidays I will wonder ‘How much longer?’” ‘7 Towers’ feels spacious, lines of electric guitar floating and swaying in the background, while ‘Belle’ is probably the closest thing to an acoustic folk song on the album, albeit one submerged in underwater reverb. It’s ostensibly a love song, as the beautifully crafted chorus attests:

“The sunset in August in the back of your car
The wondrous falling of a star, far
But close in the shadow of the garden at night
I want to come with you, I will try”

Penultimate track ‘In the Bathroom’ is hushed and subdued, perhaps detailing feelings of  desperation and depression, “To be so full and surrounded by breathing bodies / But only holding one’s mind, having one mind / And it’s not offering anything, no help of any kind”. Finally, the title track offers a pretty devastating distillation of everything the album does and stands for. It’s sparse and dreamy, the by now familiar guitar and vocals augmented with piano and cooing group vocals. The song an unadorned murmur, as if Jones has leaned right in to your ear to deliver the final lines:

“So the offer I make
Is a promise to stay here
May they leave me out their wandering
And be still”

Water permeates the record in all of its guises, in rain and in blood and in sinks, in rivers and seas and oceans, in sheet ice and snow melt and the film over an eye. The Offer becomes the great body of water foretold in the opening track, sometimes frozen and sometimes roiling and always deep and lonely and full of strange, unrecognisable creatures which move according to the primitive, instinctive logic which constitutes existence.

Edit July 2017: Double Double Whammy recently re-released the record on a variety of formats, so head over to the shop to grab the one for you. Of course, you can still download it from the Yowler Bandcamp page if you’d prefer.

The post Yowler – The Offer appeared first on Various Small Flames.

In a recent interview, we asked North Carolinan folk musician Sarah Louise to name five acts that ours readers should hear. One of her suggestions was Wes Tirey, a familiar name around here – we have already reviewed his albums, collaborations and indeed even chatted with him too. Wes has since put out the tape Louise mentioned on Columbus label Cabin Floor Esoterica.

‘Old Ohio Blues’ starts the release as it means to go on, a slow, sad folk song surrounded by atmospheric drone which creeps and clings like an oneiric fog. A similar technique is employed across the remaining songs, the combination of traditional folk and electronic effects producing a sound that is disconcerting and alluring, Tirey’s vocals cutting through the mist like an unknown narrator, doomed to repeat his regrets. ‘Ballad of the Black Hills Woman’ plays like the late night echoes of a man who has outlived his company, while ‘The Body’s Better’ tells of someone so indebted to their vices that they have given up pretending otherwise. ‘Akhnilo Blues’ reduces the ambient levels in favour of stark guitar and ‘Mexican Blanket’ offers an evocative instrumental interlude, the ever-present reverb creating a strange sense that the song is a recording of the song, a memory that has not lost its lustre. Closer ‘Buffalo Bones’ is a current favourite, combining macabre dream imagery with a tender beauty, creating a song that’s unsettling and striking and would please any of the past masters.

“And I dream the trees were singing
and I dream the river was on fire
and I dream rattlesnakes were upon me,
and my name was cursed for all time.
And I dream the sky had teeth
and I dream of buffalo bones
and I dream the moon was bleeding
and I dream my body was stone.
And I dream of your lily white hands
and I dream of the flowers on your dress
and I dream wild horses surround you
and I dream your stomach grew.”

The tape is packed with so many vivid images that the bigger picture becomes indistinct, like the recollections of a man so old and tired that the border between reality and fantasy has become porous. Gripped by a fever dream, he is desperate and delirious but determined to say what needs to be said before time runs out on him.

All this is a way of saying that Journeyer/Forward, Melancholy Dream is one of Tirey’s best yet. The release is available as a great little cassette via Cabin Floor Esoterica (see below). While you are there, why not dig into the Cabin Floor back catalogue? But consider yourself warned: it can eat up your day pretty quick.

The post Wes Tirey – Journeyer/Forward, Melancholy Dream appeared first on Various Small Flames.