Nearly three years after Home (a stint in which some of the band played as Bummer), Young Jesus announced a new album and unveiled a brand new single, ‘G’, a song which prompted us to say:

“I don’t want to write too much based on one single, but this seems to be going a step further than your standard indie-rock fare”

As hinted above, we were predisposed to hold this opinion. Home left us with some pretty high expectations for the band, in particular their writing and lead John Rossiter’s delivery. ‘G’ and the album trailer (see below) merely confirmed our suspicions. After spending some time with the full-length, it’s safe to safe that these feelings were justified.

Just as with Home, Grow / Decompose is not a traditional eleven-songs-with-three-singles record, but neither is it a full concept album. It’s something between the two, pinned together by a set of central themes and characters whilst escaping the pitfalls and constraints of a “concept album”. For this reason the album is reminiscent of Craig Finn’s writing, which to me is high praise indeed. The word ‘novelistic’ would come close if only Grow / Decompose didn’t bring to mind the very novels which play with the conventions of the form. Our preview mentioned David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest as a comparison and this seems to reach far further than the shared transvestic tendencies (of G / D’s Neil and IJ’s Tony Krause) cited as reasoning. Not only does the album have the same broad, scattered and vaguely cyclical structure as the novel, but Young Jesus’ music also shares Wallace’s metamodern style – a postmodern web of motifs and strange humour countered with a modernist sincerity and genuine sense of hope.

It’s not only in structure that Grow / Decompose brings to mind Infinite Jest. Their juxtaposition of bleak mental turmoil with buoyant (or at least fervent) emotion and hope is integral to the Young Jesus aesthetic. Again a parallel to The Hold Steady’s style, this combination provides a sense of depth that would be absent from something aligned purely to misery or joy. This makes the album, at least to my ears, very much a product of the twenty-first century. We aren’t always sad, or always happy, or always good or evil or apathetic or nihilistic or idealistic to the point of stupidity. We are all of these things and none of them and it can be hard work trying to fathom how to retain a sense of self while being in such a state of confusion. What I’m getting at is, like Infinite Jest, Grow / Decompose resists the temptation of satire and cynicism to paint real people stuck in this madness.

As the title describes so neatly, Grow / Decompose speaks of the familiar paths that human lives follow. Despite all the strangeness, the characters here are going through the age-old problems – depression, anxiety, identity crises, existential terror – the problems of being You and You alone, Molina’s “curse of a human’s life”. For all of the complexity of our existence, we are still locked in the atavistic pattern of life and death, everyone more or less condemned to the same mistakes and fears and joys that we as human beings have been experiencing for generations (“You don’t start clean,” tells the refrain of ‘Brothers’, “spines are twisting in the rings. This old tree, been around before you were born”). In this way the album is both pessimistic and hopeful, a statement that we seem unable to change for the better and a reminder that we are united by this monumental whammy. As Rossiter sings on ‘Oranges’: “She’s a believer in the relief / that we’re all receivers of suffering”.

Degeneration is a major theme and the whole record is imbued with an odd pleasure/pain relationship, accentuated with grotesque imagery. Take for example opener ‘EMP’: “So go ahead and search your chest, the slugs and inchworms know it best.” This brought to mind the book Threats by Amelia Gray, in which a man named David descends the spirals of grief after losing his wife. With death and decay quite literally pervading his house and life, David finds himself both terrified by his situation yet drawn towards some obscure peace with it, as if giving in to a dark and fungal siren. The characters on Grow / Decompose are similarly troubled and lonely, be they confused and unhappy with their identity (‘G’), saddled with unwanted children and gripped by overwhelming numbness (‘Oranges’) or using drugs and forming half-imagined relationships with television presenters (‘Slug’ and ‘Brothers’). Dissociated from others, they achieve the sort of heightened peculiarity of southern gothic hermits, existing within the confines of their own logic and physics, a world where the hope or possibility of connection or meaning flutters along rarely, staccato and unannounced.

The result is a manic-depressive relationship with their irregularity. On ‘Blood and Guts’ the character holds his weirdness aloft like a banner intended to confirm himself or terrify others, marching towards epiphany or entropy like Gray’s David. The title character in ‘Milo’, who sits somewhere near McCarthy’s Lester Ballard on the scale of Southern Gothic hermits, continues the perverse pleasure with the clear-eyed conviction of a serial killer, delighted by the gory truths of life and death. Milo is the depraved character, one who seems to have pushed past anxiety and apathy to realise his potential as a monster (“He paints his face and feels a brightness / glowing brighter inside / the cave he built out of the thorax / of the organist’s hide”). With his humanity stripped away he becomes a prophet who “sings the world as it’s shown”, the cyclical, elemental theme returning with its closing chant:

“All the birds singing
all the plants growing
all the wind blowing
all the bugs crawling
all the birds breaking
all the plants dying
all the wind crawling
and the blood flowing
and the waves breaking
with the birds singing
and the plants speaking
to the wind dying”

It seems important that the end of the final track ‘Dirt’ shares the same chords and drone as the opener, so that the end loops back to the beginning (another similarity to Infinite Jest). If played on repeat Grow / Decompose never ends, a musical ouroboros of well-worn paths that are both doomed and blessed and quite possibly all we have.

Grow / Decompose is out on the 13^th May via Hellhole Supermarket and you can pre-order buy it now on CD and cassette, or on vinyl via Gigantic Noise.

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Radcliffe gets the A-side of the album, opening with the rather ominous line of, “Oh my God I’ve really done it this time” which rather nicely sets the tone (read: young, confused and lonely). It both sounds and feels like the outpouring of someone who has locked themselves in their room (and that isn’t a criticism). It’s raw and pure and honest, full of sincere yearning and wry self-deprecation.

But this isn’t simply the sound of some young guy moping over his acoustic guitar. Radcliffe’s music is nothing if not unpredictable, jam-packed with idiosyncratic elements; xylophone and flute recorder and periods of near-silence, schoolyard chant backing vocals, intimate wordless murmurs and weird unintelligble vocal recordings like answerphone confessions from another dimension. All this is wrapped up in a warm and cozy fuzz, giving the sense that not only are you sitting in Radcliffe’s bedroom with him, but you are sat on his bed wrapped up in a duvet.

The third track, ‘My Song’, is a little different, with an almost hip-hop spoken word delivery which brings to mind Why?. It also possesses Yoni Wolf’s millennial deadpan irony with lines like, “On the phone asking room service where the party’s at.”

‘Brown Horse’, the final of Radcliffe’s tracks, is probably the most upbeat. The lyrics are like a postmodern poetic summary of Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses:

“I wanna ride a brown horse somewhere where a horse hasn’t ridden it’s course before
Other horses running around taking in the air feeling hooves on the wet ground
Waiting for the sun to go down
All the horses run towards the big field in the sky”

R.L. Kelly’s side is perhaps more accessible, refreshingly simple after Radcliffe’s experimentation. The highlight is Rachel Levy’s characteristic sweet and bright vocal work. It’s intimate and introspective but not overly morose. In fact there are some pretty positive messages peppered throughout, not least on ‘Wake Up’, which is the sonic equivalent of spelling out ‘KEEP GOING’ in multi-coloured magnetic alphabet letters on the door of your fridge:

“They want to hurt you because they’re hurting too
Don’t let them inside your head they’ll take control”

The final track offers another comforting philosophy, a little pick-me-up for your soul, a reminder that your really little and insignificant and this is far from being a bad thing because it means that all your worries and fears are even smaller and things will carry on as normal and you can too. Or, as Levy puts it in a repeated pseudo-chorus:

“And the great big great big world keeps spinning”

So if you like your music DIY and lo-fi and you find comfort in solidarity with people you’ll never meet, Brown Horse is the album for you.

The cassette release has sold out, but you can still download the album on a name-your-price basis via the Orchid Tapes Bandcamp page.

The post Spencer Radcliffe & R.L. Kelly – Brown Horse appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Hi Wes, I hope all is well with you? How is life in North Carolina this time of year?

Hey Jon! Thank you for inviting me for a Q&A. All is pretty well here in North Carolina. Summer’s coming to a close, and I’m getting ready for my final semester. I’m going camping with my best friend next weekend for a booze filled last hurrah –– then I’ll have my nose stuck in a book for 4 months.

You self-released your new EP, I Stood Among Trees, last February. How exactly did it come about?

Before going into the studio to record I Stood Among Trees I had a couple of years where I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my music. I wasn’t playing out much, and I was struggling with writing lyrics (though I was writing a lot of instrumental pieces, most of which will be on an upcoming release with Orange Milk Records). Finally I realized that it was taking a huge toll on me and forced myself to get one new song I was satisfied with –– so I wrote “The Time Leaves So Soon” over a couple of days. Not too long after that I wrote “Wild Beasts.” I talked to a buddy of mine who worked at Echo Mountain Recording in Asheville about getting in for a couple of sessions and he hooked me up with a deal. We busted out the EP in two marathon sessions. (In fact, I went in to record two EP’s, but ended up scrapping everything but “When Your Eyes See The Valley,” which eventually ended up on I Stood Among Trees.) Being in the studio is always stressful, mostly because of money, but Echo Mountain is an incredible studio, so it was definitely worth it. I was also writing my thesis at the time. (I should mention that the EP will be re-released in the near future on the German label Dying for Bad Music. It’ll contain some bonus home demo tracks, as well.)

In my review of the EP I mentioned a fantastic piece on Hearth Music, where you write about a few of the songs (and answered a lot of the questions I would have otherwise asked). For ‘Final Resting Place’ you explained that you half-wrote a song while driving home and that news of the market crashing upon your return caused you to sit down and finish it off with this new event in mind. This may be an internal, unexplainable feeling, but how do you decide to change a song rather than write a new one? Can a song that was drastically altered due to some mood or occurrence ever revert to its original form when you play live?

Well, until a song is actually finished it’s always a work in progress. I had the apocalyptic motif in mind as I was writing “Final Resting Place” in my head, and the market crash of 08 was just a continuation of that. For me, songs either come really fast –– done in 20, 30 minutes –– or over the course of a couple days, sometimes a week or two if I’m really patient with it.

The song will be done in that the lyrics and the chords are complete, but a song always changes a bit every time you play it. I’ve never tried revising a song before. I’ve thought about trying it, though, just to see what would happen.

But when a song comes, I always recognize where it’s coming from. Sometimes a new song will pop up in the midst of writing one song, but I never think about mixing them –– even if they’re from a similar place, they’re still not from the exact same place.

You also mentioned in that Hearth Music piece that the track ‘Wild Beasts’ was inspired partly by Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. I hadn’t really heard the song in that way, but now going back and listening with a context (if that makes sense), the imagery seems obvious. Does literature have a great influence on your writing in general, or just on certain songs?

and…

What else influences your music? I guess other songwriters play a big part? Is there anything else you would cite as a big part of your sound?

Literature’s certainly a big influence. Sometime’s a particular text informs part of a song, sometimes all of it. Sometimes I seek out a text just because I think it’ll inspire a song. I’ll be releasing a new EP soon titled “False Idols” that has a couple songs that I wrote after reading biblical texts: The Book of Ezekiel and The Gospel of Judas. I just thought I’d like to write about them –– so I read them for the sole purpose of writing about them. But almost every text I read I try to keep in mind how I can appropriate something for a song.

The songs I’m writing currently for a future full-length are literary in that they have a bit of a consistent fictional narrative, though it’s all completely real and factual.

The philosophy influence comes out a little differently. I tend to have an environmental bent to my lyrics, and that comes from really thinking about radical perception and awareness. Even the most minute perception can spark a song. I try to develop every song in it’s only locale or geography, it’s own place, so that I can step into it. I know some songwriters like to keep themselves outside of their own songs; I can’t do that. I have to be in it entirely, otherwise I don’t see the point.

Certain painters or paintings aren’t a huge influence, but they’re influential, as well. I love Jackson Pollock and Andrew Wyeth. Most people would deem them radically different painters, but I think they wade in the same waters. Sometimes I think “how do I write a song like ‘Christina’s World?’” and try to figure it out.

One line of the Hearth Music piece which really stood out was that ‘Finally Resting Place’ (which is probably my favourite, for what it’s worth) nearly missed the cut for the EP as you weren’t convinced with your vocal performance. Is the vocal side of things the part you find most difficult? You study philosophy, read fiction, work at a writing centre on campus and the instrumental pieces show that you can obviously play. Is your voice where you suffer a lack of confidence? Does singing come naturally to you? Or is it a forced, necessary evil to bind together your music and your writing? And I don’t mean this in terms of vocal talent (I don’t think there are people who can or cannot sing), but rather do you feel a compulsion to sing in the way you do to play and write?

I first started out as a guitar player, and then when I started writing songs, singing just became part of the job. I had never really sang before, but I had the words, so I had to sing them. (Listening to some of those old songs is torture, though.) I don’t think it’s a matter of confidence for me (though I by no means have much of a range) –– whenever I perform live I settle into everything pretty comfortably. Plus I like to sing.

In the tradition I come out of, though, none of the greats are much of a singer anyways –– it’s more of an emotive quality, which is what I’m after, anyways. I heard an interview with Leonard Cohen where he said that he told his manager before going on stage for his first show that he had no clue what he was doing. His manager told him that they were all terrible singers. That made me happy to hear that.

The vocal performance is always in service of the lyrics. The lyrics are the most important part of the song, so I just want the vocals to fit with them. But I’m not really bothered at all that my songs aren’t that melodious. I write songs not melodies.

You put up the lyrics for the EP on your Bandcamp page. This is something that I like as I feel it lets me look closer at a song and find deeper meanings (be they intentional on your part or not). However I recently saw another musician (I can’t find the quote now) say that he didn’t really like sharing the lyrics as he felt they prevented the listener from developing their own ideas about the song, which is pretty much the flipside of my opinion to reach the same end. Do you make a considered decision to let us listeners read your words as well as hear them? Do you want the songs to be writing too? Or is it more a case of the option is there so you copy them in without much deliberation?

I don’t understand why a songwriter wouldn’t want to share their lyrics. That’s odd –– but to each their own. The lyrics are so essential to the song, and there is indeed a definite meaning or story behind each song, otherwise I wouldn’t write them (even if the listener walks away with a different meaning), so I feel like I have to present the lyrics. Again, that’s where the most thought goes into the songwriting process. Of course I think about the guitar and vocals, but it’s all in service of the lyrics. In the end, the complete song is a mixture of all these different things that form a whole, but it’s all born out of a line or two of lyrics.

With the help of your fans (via an Indiegogo campaign), you hope to tour Italy next winter. Can you elaborate on your plans? What do you plan to do there? Why exactly Italy?

April Wolfe of Common Folk Music does my PR, and she got the EP a review on the blog The Mad Mackerel soon after it was released. Giuseppe Marmina, who does a hundred different things in the music scene in Italy read the review, bought the EP, and offered to do some PR help in Italy. Next thing I know, I’m getting radio play and the EP’s getting reviewed on some popular blogs and webzines. The response was so well that I thought it’d be smart to go over and play some shows. I got in touch with some folks and eventually Alessio Pomponi of Unplugged in Monti put together a weeklong tour for January 2014. Alessio and the venues have been so incredibly kind with helping put the tour together –– it’s really something else.

Philosophy student/writing center tutor/songwriter doesn’t exactly equal financial stability, so I’m seeking some help for the airfare. People can check out the campaign to see what perks they get for contributing. I’m beyond grateful and thankful for any and all contributions.

Finally, could you name 4-5 artists that you are enjoying at the moment?

I’ve been listening to Michael Hurley, Bill Callahan, and Mickey Newbury religiously the last few weeks. Mickey Newbury is especially blowing my mind –- his songs are so heartbreaking. Other than that, I’ve been listening to a lot of Roscoe Holcomb and Elizabeth Cotten; some sacred harp here and there, plus an Orange Milk Records release called “Engines of Joy” by Maharadja Sweets –– good lord will that blow your mind. There’s also a song on a Dust-to-Digital collection I listen to over and over called “I’m Dying, Mother” than just kills me every time I listen to it. It damn near brings me to tears.

Jon: Make sure you check out the EP and keep an eye out on Dying For Bad Music for the re-release. If you have a bit of spare change then why not help Wes go to Italy in exchange for nice gifts? Also, you may be interested in this DIYtrotter session from HI54LOFI.

The post Interview: Wes Tirey appeared first on Various Small Flames.

As the concept suggests, the album is highly cinematic and is doused in melancholy, while neatly side-stepping the epic bombast that would have been easy to create handling such an emotive theme.The album also avoids going too far in the opposite direction. Far from a series of unlistenable dirges, it has a soothing ambience, with much of the violence that is usually associated with such post-apocalyptic scenarios left to the imagination. Think McCarthy’s The Road minus the explicit brutality, all doomed love and snatches of painful sentiments. This is all captured much better than I am able in the beautiful trailer below:

The resulting sound lands somewhere between the emotionally charged aesthetics of bedroom pop artists such as Arrange and the male-female vocals of Stars or A Weather. I have seen some criticism in reviews regarding the album’s length (around 55 minutes), but I think this is unfair. It is very hard to find an album that so successfully engages the listener in its concept and I found myself lost in this crumbling world for what was almost an entire hour. Listen to my current favourite track, the post-rock influenced ‘Beginnings’, below:

A Quiet Darkness is out now on Downtown Records and you can buy it now from most good retailers, or, if you live in North America, get a copy directly from the band during their upcoming tour. Check the dates here.

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