“maintains the band’s tight, twitchy, economical sound. Ought pursues an artistically apposite austerity in committing these new songs to tape, referencing the arid and unvarnished production of no-wave and early indie rock “

If you’re still undecided, why not check out the first single, ‘Beautiful Blue Sky’, in the player below?

You can pre-order the album now via Constellation Records.

Header image by Brett Davis

The post Ought announce new album appeared first on Various Small Flames.

However, in the year following the release of their last album, Huebert began to suffer from a severe inner ear condition, a problem which evaded conventional diagnosis. Anyone who has suffered from ear problems will know that they can be far more crippling than you would imagine. You can’t hear other people and can’t tell if they can hear you, leading to a profound sense of isolation and often panic. Indeed, Huebert suffered from anxiety and depression, a problem accentuated by the fact that the one sense he relied on to make sense of his emotions was taken away from him.

In lieu of a clinical solution, Huebert turned to meditation and prolonged silence and eventually began to piece together a new album, rehearsing with his band at very low volumes to ease the pain. The resulting songs ultimately became Nervous, an album that charts the period and explores the interplay between physical and psychological suffering, utilizing a beguiling brand of gothic art rock and the dream-logic of a labyrinthine haunted house, or perhaps of Huebert’s mind during the troubling period.     

The record opens with discordant instrumentation and unsettling children’s choir vocals that swirl menacingly like the theme of an evil cartoon. Huebert’s familiar vocals kick in after a minute or so, whispered through the reappearing choir and Colin Stetson’s sax with an earnest desperation, imploring you to listen. “Sometimes you get caught,” he sings, “sometimes you get away. It goes without saying.” The track sets a precedent of unorthodox song structure, with tracks on the album often morphing into distant relations of their former selves, swerving off in directions unseen.

The second track, ‘Bank Accounts and Dollar Bills’, is the pure embodiment of the aforementioned shapeshifting. It begins with a laidback tropical vibe with breezy vocal melodies, before entering a big, punchy (almost Arcade Fire-esque) chamber pop phase. Around two-thirds through it then mutates again, this time to feature sci-fi synths, before finally reverting to the easygoing slide guitar and thus completing the song’s varied cycle.

‘Violent Motion Pictures’ feels like a dream, with its opaque imagery (“Do you really want to see statues turn all the way around to say hello?”) and abnormal, fluctuating narrative. Stetson’s sax makes another appearance, snaking around like the tendrils of a nightmare and making the childlike falsetto “la la la” chorus sound more than a little ominous. The song switches at the halfway point, escaping its cramped and claustrophobic corridors, a creaky old door opening onto a wide and open plain. Huebert’s whispered vocals ride the swirling air currents, “The devil on your shoulder, it’ll get the best of you”.

‘Oval Window’ is perhaps the most similar to previous Siskiyou releases, a surprisingly upbeat song about the psychological problems linked to Huebert’s ear condition. “Maybe I’m just dreaming,” he sings, “sometimes it’s hard to tell”. The song manages to take a difficult subject and make it somehow triumphant, culminating in the refrain “the roof is spinning around me and I can feel the world below my feet”. The title track begins hushed and restrained (“does it hurt all the time? Yeah, I can empathize”) before turning psychedelic, while ‘Imbecile Thoughts’ is a folk-rock song, like a woodsy version of Wolf Parade, picking up the pace as the lyrics tell the tale of an introvert girl, “you gotta get out of the door girl and go look at the sky and wonder why the sun don’t shine like it should and why you are always so misunderstood”. The song builds and builds as Huebert breathlessly delivers the vocals and drums clatter and guitar feedback wails over everything.

Nervous is an album of dizzying scope and ambition, quite literally the tumult of sound and emotion inside one man’s head. It is by turns dark and creepy, shimmering and vibrant. Siskiyou have never sounded so eerie, so threatening, or so expansive. And I have to admit, I don’t think they have ever sounded so good.

Nervous is out now on Constellation Records.

The post Siskiyou – Nervous appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Opening song ‘Pill’ is by far the most restrained track on the EP, so much so that it could almost be described as a slowcore song, weaving an abstract tale of drugs that meanders in a tranquillised haze. The lyrics are formed of half-remembered details, a hypnagogic mix of highly specific images and sweeping phrases:

“That day in May
I stole your father’s car
and took it to the beach,
buried that fucker deep.
Hey, where did it go?
Where did you go? 

‘New Calm Pt.2’ plays out like the ramblings of an extremely energetic man shouted over the noise, which is just as good as it sounds. Weird, seemingly unlinked phrases come tumbling forth (“Who invited Paul Simon?” “To the left. To the left!” “Da da dada da!” etc.) and you can just imagine Beeler strutting around the room in a world of his own, caught up in a dream-like and extremely personal logic. He whips the band up into a frenzy as if his energy is contagious and by the end the listeners heart is beating a little quicker with an urge to join in too.

‘Pt.3’ sees the tables turned, with Beeler adopting a deadpan delivery that is all but drowned out by menacingly discordant instrumentation. Again the lyrics seem to adhere to some arcane logic that only Beeler is privy to and the long stretches of plucked strings and feedback loops add to the unsettling sense that Ought are operating on a different plane to the rest of us. Some semblance of normality returns with the final song ‘Waiting,’ a far more traditional rock song, raucous drums and guitar supporting Beller’s wail to produce a sound akin to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!

Grab the EP now on Constellation Records.

The post Ought – Once More With Feeling.. appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Nathan Reich – Motion Sadness

One of the joys of Bandcamp is finding artists and albums that would have otherwise passed you by via the music feed page. Nathan Reich, a songwriter and guitarist from Nashville, is one such find. Motion Sadness was recorded in one take and is, in Reich’s words, “filled with imperfections” as a result. This gives the release an organic feel, a real sense of the human behind the tales told, bringing to mind folks like Hip Hatchet and Psalmships.

You can buy the album on Reich’s Bandcamp page.

Brian Laidlaw and the Family Trade – Jeremiad b/w Glad For Every Burden

A couple of weeks back we featured a lovely record by Ben Weaver which was released by a new label run by the folks at Hymie’s Records in Minneapolis. Those good folks have also put out this 7″ by Brian Laidlaw and the Family Trade. A-side ‘Jeremiad’ is a pretty, reflective folk song with some nice strings and a rousing, romantic chorus. The record’s B-side, ‘Glad For Every Burden’ is a lot more countrified, with lyrics that hark back to a classic era of country and folk music. He sings in the chorus: “Oh honey I’m glad I’m glad for every sorrow that I’ve had, I’m glad for every burden / Without this old heart to weight me down, I’d fly away for certain.” You can get the single now via Hymie’s Records and if you haven’t got the Ben Weaver one yet then why not grab that too?

P.S. You can hear some of Laidlaw’s previous releases over at his Soundcloud page. I’d highly recommend it.

Sally Fowler – These Lines Laid Down

These Lines Laid Down is the fourth release from Virginia’s Sally Fowler. She has a fairly traditional sound, employing acoustic instruments and lyrics about sorrows and devils and crossroads, and her voice is strong and mournful and really rather great. If you like First Aid Kit or Laura Marling then it will be right up your street.

Sally started off covering songs via Youtube before progressing into her own material. You can find them on her Youtube channel.

You can buy the album on a pay-what-you-can basis via Bandcamp.

Siskiyou – ‘Deserter’

‘Deserter’ is the first single from Nervous, a brand new album from Canadian folk (?) band Siskiyou. The new album promises to be an advancement of the sparse and ghostly atmosphere of the band’s previous work, a foray into chamber pop territories recently inhabited by artists such as PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and Tindersticks. The mood and texture of the album is a product of health problems faced by lead singer Colin Huebert, who battled an inner ear condition which left him hyper-sensitive to certain volumes and frequencies. Also look out for the impressive roster of guest musicians, including Colin Stetson and Owen Pallett.

Nervous is being released on Constellation Records on the 20th of January. Pre-order it now to get a 12″ x 12″ art print of the beautiful Indian ink artwork by Michael Drebert.

Sarah Louise – Field Guide

Sarah Louise is the recording project of Sarah Henson, a young lady from North Carolina who makes music that feels as old as the Black Mountains which inspire her. “More than anything, these songs are a reflection of my home in the Black Mountains of North Carolina,” she says, “smooth-stone creek bottoms, delicate lunar-born mushrooms beneath rhododendron boughs, extreme changes in elevation.” Her new album Field Guide is coming out in the New Year on Scissor Tail Editions and it feels like a lost disc from Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Some of the tracks are inspired by old Appalachian hymns, while others have an almost far-Eastern meditative feel. It’s really, really good.

You can get Field Guide right now on a pay-what-you-want basis over at the Sarah Louise Bandcamp page.

The post Feet on the Ground: Vol 14 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

If latest album More Than Any Other Day is anything to go by, Montréal’s Ought do not follow these rules. The band, shaped by the Printemps d’Erable Quebec student general strike (and following months of protest against neo-liberal austerity measures), are definitely not ignorant. However, their music possesses an exuberant earnesty which is maybe at odds with their roots.

And it is this that makes Ought stand out as a band – it would be all too easy for a group interested in/affected by political issues to become an angry protest outfit, but instead they channel things into a much more positve energy. ‘Today, More Than Any Other Day’ opens slowly but builds up into a jubilant celebration of life. I’ll quote at length so you get the idea:

‘Well today, more than any other day, I am excited for the milk of human kindness.
And today, more than any other day, I am excited to go grocery shoppping.
And today, more than any other day I am prepared to make a decision between 2% and whole milk.
And today, more than any other day, I look into the eyes of the old man across from me on the train and say “Hey! Everything is going to be okay!”’

‘The Weather Song’ (listen below) is similarly buoyant: a messy slice of rock ‘n roll with a chorus that would make it a summer radio-hit in any just society. Other songs are more experimental in sound and across the album the band explore different styles, never dwelling on any one too long. Attempts to nail down clear comparisons are difficult. Sure, you could cite Pavement, Sonic Youth, Cap’n Jazz, Gang of Four, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, etc. etc., but as soon as you pin down an influence for one part of the album, it moves in a different direction, leaving you chasing after it, breathless and delighted.

More Than Any Other Day is to be released by Constellation Records on 29th April, and you can pre-order it here.

The post Ought – More Than Any Other Day appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The debut album, I Thought It Was Us But It Was All Of Us, is a melting pot of genres, with elements of chamber music, shoegaze, ambient and drone all mixed together with dreamy vocals to form something difficult to categorize but mightily effective.  The result is an album of experimental songs that explores aspects of different types of music without ever feeling inaccessable or difficult to listen to.

The record is one of many layers and the context in which you listen to it produces very different experiences. As background music to an evening it is a pleasing listen that is easy on the ear, never getting too harsh and jarring you out of whatever else you may be doing. As the soundtrack to a train journey it brings to mind the slow machinations of the city or countryside, with tracks slowly unfolding with a natural ease. Best of all, and where I Thought It Was Us But It Was All Of Us comes into its own, is a fully involved listen, maybe lying in bed, surrounded by darkness. The layers becomes more pronounced, each strand separates and becomes an important piece of a complex arrangement. It’s the perfect night time headphone adventure in which to lose yourself.

The album is out now on Constellation Records.

The post Saltland – I Thought It Was Us But It Was All Of Us appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Siskiyou have another album, Keep Away The Dead, due out in the very near future (October 4th on Constellation Records). If you are impatient (like myself) or need more convincing then you can stream the album now on the Exclaim! website. I’ve only heard the album fully once (although I’ve heard ‘Twigs & Stones’ quite a bit) but I can confidently say it’s a strong follow up.

If you are lucky enough to live in/near Vancouver then get yourself to the Waldorf Hotel on October 13th for the release party of Keep Away The Dead.

The post Siskiyou appeared first on Various Small Flames.