Ruth Garbus – Strash
Mauno – Vampire
Outer Spaces – Gazing Globe
Benjamin Shaw – Long Ago and Oh So Far Away
Erin Durant – Islands
Daughter of Swords – Dawnbreaker
Melissa Mary Ahern – Maria, Maria
Oscar Lush – Kind Living
Midwife – Angel
Young Elk – False Paradise
Wilder Maker – Love So Well
Big Joanie – Way Out
Secrecies – Life We Live
Beat Radio – Everyone I Know, Just Holding On
American Poetry Club – pro pic?
So Totally – sike
halfsour – Paper Window
Joyer – Here
Marbling – Wisdom Teeth
High Sunn – Grateful
Slow Pulp – New Media
Molly Drag – Out Like a Light
Van Houten – Moon
Birdspotter – Riverbed
Tender Perennial – Delivered
JR Samuels – In Brend 2
Elly Swope – Habits
Derek Piotr – The Sign
Fighting Kites – Kita Senju
Nathalie Joachim – Papa Loko (Interlude: September 24, 1918)
Kali Malone – Sacrificial Code
Kate Tempest – Holy Elixir
Little Musket – Fever Blister
Gold Baby – 500/1
Tennis Club – Stay
Young Mammals – Lost in Lima
Abe Hollow – Paradise
bdrmm – Question Mark
Briston Maroney – Fool’s Gold

Check out our previous Monthly Roundup playlists, and be sure to read or Reviews and Previews throughout the month.

The post July 2019 Roundup Mix appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The fierce and often frantic energy flows with a real sense of purpose, as though they would be running through the head of Elly Swope whether or not they were committed to tape […] Like much of the release, [opener ‘Arrow’] blends small observations on the mundane intricacies of life with far deeper considerations, exploring how the inherently personal is formed by the global or universal.

This summer sees Elly Swope return with a brand new single, ‘Habits’. Again released with Rue Defense, the track has a wily edge, the mellow guitar sliced by Ayal Alves’s serated synth line and driven forward by a confident rumble of drums. Swope’s distinctively crooked delivery only amplifies this effect, the sardonic tone feeling like a mere surface, like a layer of oil containing a depth beneath.

You go back to your father’s house
Where all your favourite ghosts hang around
and when you see ’em what do you talk about?
Because you know I wonder what you say about me.

Photo by Jeremiah Larsen

The post Elly Swope – Habits appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

Frog – American
The Phone Booth – Ballad of Indifference
Spielbergs – 4AM
Neurotic Fiction – Collateral
Neighborhood of Make Believe – Track Names
Pizzagirl – body part
Orchid Mantis – porch song
Gorgeous Bully – patience
Reighnbeau – Trading Heat
Troy Everett – Absent
Amparo – Hounds
REW<< – Victoire Impossible
Okay Embrace – Moving
Young Jesus – For Nana
Vender & The Cobras – Everything is Beautiful
The Lostines – Faith in Love
Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover – Little Wind
Rivulets – Everything Goes
Balto – Bullshit Dream
Meat Wave – That’s Alright
Docks – Kiosk
Satanic Ritual Abuse – Hurting (Adjective/Verb)
SATU – Growing Up
Anna Tivel – Fenceline
Madison Turner – Richmond, Virgina
Elly Swope – 6.8
Nathan Ball – All or Nothing
Monarch Mtn – canyon blues
Stripmall Ballads – You Were Good (I Was Good For a While)
Katie Mullins – Crocuses
Lisa/Liza – Tea Kettle
free cake for every creature – shake it out
Katy Kirby – Tap Twice
Lung Cycles – hottest day of the year so far (4pm version)

You can find all of our Monthly Roundup playlists here, and peruse a wider range of mixtapes that we’ve put together over the years.

The post November 2018 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Out now on Rue Defense, It Feels the Same Everytime was first conceived in 2016, though it wasn’t until 2018 that she felt the time was right to return to the project and realise its true form. First laying down two tracks with Victor Nash at Destination: Universe, Swope doubled down a few months later to record the rest of the EP, and the runaway energy of the release directly keyed into the sense of inspiration and direction garnered from such a process.

Which is to say, this does not feel like an EP of songs recorded for the sake of recording. Rather, the fierce and often frantic energy flows with a real sense of purpose, as though they would be running through the head of Elly Swope whether or not they were committed to tape. Opener ‘Arrow’ is the perfect example, simmering into life with shuffling drums and growing into a wonky and bombastic indie rock anthem. Like much of the release, the track blends small observations on the mundane intricacies of life with far deeper considerations, exploring how the inherently personal is formed by the global or universal. As the bio explains:

The EP centers around the personal, the universal, and how they commingle. Stemming from a break up with a long-time partner, Swope questions her identity, her relationship, and her very place in the world, all while creating interlocking hooks and textures that draw the listener to the very heart of the album.

This is made clear on ‘Patterns, another rampant journey through various rock spheres, Swope’s lyrics pitched somewhere between realist and provocative, and though ‘6.8’ slows the tempo, the mood prevails. The lonely, spacey synths create a sense of ambivalence, some fault or crack in the once-solid structure of identity, though the song soon gathers itself into a whirlwind finale that could be Elly Swope lashing out against uncertainty, or else leaning back into it, accepting ambiguity.

“If the answer is to be the worst part of me,” Swope sings on the angular ‘Concrete’, “give it all to the beast.” Such a reckless attitude marks the track, the ominous sense of fury lurking within its depths building with volcanic threat. Whether the eruption comes or not depends on your expectations, with the instrumentation squalling but Swope’s vocals never quite reaching a promised climax, though you could say closer ‘Idea’ represents the blast. The track is the most rapid and insistent on the record, with the only breakdowns in tempo serving to ratchet up the pressure for the next burst.

It Feels the Same Everytime is out via Rue Defense and you can get it from the Elly Swope Bandcamp page.

The post Elly Swope – It Feels the Same Everytime appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

Restorations – Nonbeliever
Goshen Electric Co. – The Grey Tower
Horse Culture – Follow
Yowler – Where Is My Light?
Desert Liminal – Gauze Cave
Anamon – In 3
Adeline Hotel – Lightning
Lea Thomas – Upstream
Scott Orr – No Phone
Advance Base – Christmas in Nightmare City
Blue Wilson – Golden Eyes
The Sofas – Nothing Major
Lazy Legs – Nosebleed
All Boy/All Girl – Bomb
Strange Ranger – New Hair
Elly Swope – Idea
Dweller – Running
Will Henriksen – Halo
Knuckle Pups – Bottom Baby
Ian Wayne – Guessing
Massage – Crying Out Loud
Recluse Raccoon – Mother America
Interbellum – Ink
Marc Ferrino – Like a Spark
Katie Kuffel – As the Crow Flies
Emily Brown – Sometimes
KASHKA – Holding Steady
Philippe Bronchtein – Me and the Moon
Spencer Segelov – Sacred Songs
Annie Dressner – Fades Away
Belaver – Grave Robber
Of The Valley – Ride Alone
Hour – Give thanks in a special way

The post October 2018 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Goshen Electric Co. – The Gray Tower

We’re huge fans of Jason Molina here at VSF, so imagine our excitement when it was announced Strand of Oaks‘ Timothy Showalter was standing in for him for a special tour, as Magnolia Electric Co. (Mike Benner, Jason Evans Groth, Mikey Kapinus, Mark Rice, Peter Schreiner) welcome Showalter into their ranks to form Goshen Electric Co. In addition to a tour, the new outfit are releasing a single, and the first track is available to hear now, complete with a video from Colin Kerrigan and Rocco Avallone.

‘The Gray Tower’, which was first released as a single in 2002, is a perfect fit for Showalter’s delivery, capturing the atmosphere of the original where the foreboding and dread is matched only by the naked humanity beneath. “Jason’s lyrics were darkly heroic,” Showalter says. “Trying to fight against it. Just the word ‘try’—whenever he says ‘try,’ it’s just magic to me.”

The Gray Tower B/W Ring the Bell is to be released by Secretly Canadian on the 2nd November and you can pre-order it now.

Lea Thomas – Upstream

Lea Thomas is a songwriter, textile artist and “lifelong student of ecology” from Maui, Hawaii, and her music draws upon these features in its distinctive style. The opening song of new EP Part of This Place, single ‘Upstream’ is the perfect example—a track through which nature is interwoven, the patient and delicate sensibility hiding a sense of permanence and grace, the parts coalescing into a organic whole. Indeed, much of the album came to life during a stay in the Vermont wilderness, with Thomas embracing any imperfections within the recording as part of the naturalistic aesthetic the music exhibits.

“When I feel the soil breaking free
Sliding down the banks between the colors of spring
I feel the warmth of a woman pouring out of me”

Part Of This Place is out now via Spirit House Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Elly Swope – Idea

Having become a well-known face in the Portland music scene, playing with the likes of Kelli Schaefer, Roseblood, Genders, Sunbathe and Deathlist, this autumn sees Elly Swope’s first proper solo release. Despite playing much of the parts herself, Swope’s sound subverts all conceptions of what solo music can entail, possessing a rich texture and runaway energy that any full band would envy.

Lead single ‘Idea’ is a case in point, sparking into life with a momentum that lets up only to climb toward a bigger release, Swope’s self-assured vocals more than a match for the angular guitars and furious drums. Thematically, the track charts the deconstruction and subsequent reconstruction of identity that follows the end of a relationship. “This song is about the ways in which we dissociate after a breakup,” Swope explains, life separated into what is personal and what was shared, and what must now be let go.

It Feels the Same Everytime is out via Rue Defense on the 9th November. Per-order it now via Bandcamp.

Massage – Crying Out Loud

Massage is a new project from Alex Naidus, who you might know as a founding member of Pains of Being Pure At Heart. Taken from their debut album, Oh Boy, single ‘Crying Out Loud’ is a bittersweet song which delves into “the frustration of deeply caring about someone but not being able to spend time with them without something going wrong.” The sentiment is set against an upbeat tempo to produce a sunny kind of sadness, a wistful sense of loss that’s almost as affirming as it is painful.

The track comes complete with a video from director Thaddeus Ruzicka, and the film textures of the footage capturing the Massage aesthetic perfectly.

Oh Boy is out now via Tear Jerk Records and you can buy it from Bandcamp.

Belaver – Grave Robber

With new single ‘Grave Robber’, New York’s Belaver aims to give the listener a guided tour of “a world of exhumination,” a place of dark unease “where the past is a crypt of memories to rob and a skeleton yet to be discovered.” After time fronting doom-folk band listenlisten, such a style is fitting for B.E. Godfrey, his music exploring the dark and dingy corners of the human experience. Indeed, this latest single follows the killer-themed EP, Wild Desperation, which he put out in 2015.

Utilising a mix of acoustic guitar and synths to support Godfrey’s distinctive vocals, ‘Grave Robber’ feels like a cross between Mt. Eerie and Monarch Mtn—twilit and noir-ish, traipsing through ancient catacombs and holding a torch to whatever dusty relics are found.

You can find Belaver on Spotify and Soundcloud.

Spencer Segelov – Sacred Songs

Spencer Segelov is a musician and songwriter from Caerphilly in South Wales. Previously working under the moniker Spencer McGarry Season, Segelov has explored a diverse range of styles in his time, from rock and jazz to a whole range of pops—indie pop, synth pop, baroque pop—and his new record Loser Leaves Town continues the multifaceted approach. In contrast to the barroom jazz of the title track, ‘Sacred Songs’ is a piano ballad that blurs the line between earnest and playful, though the chorus settles firmly within the sincere end of the equation.

Loser Leaves Town is out now via Country Mile and all the major download services.

Lazy Legs – Nosebleed

We’ve featured Portland grungers Lazy Legs a few times here at VSF, writing about their self-titled EP back in 2016 and describing how previous single ‘Gloss’ “pull[ed] off the quiet/loud dynamic effortlessly […] managing to be both woozily captivating and cathartically empowering.”

The duo are back with a new single, ‘Nosebleed’, the first taste of a forthcoming record, Moth Mother. ‘Nosebleed’ delves into a raw and spiky dreamscape, dropping the psychedelic flourishes of the previous release in favour of a crunchy, heavier sound. The result is still very much of the Lazy Legs aesthetic, though suggests the new album will see the band orbiting closer to their grunge and slowcore influences.

Grab ‘Nosebleed’ now on a pay-what-you-can basis from Bandcamp.

Annie Dressner – Fades Away

We last featured Annie Dressner back in 2013, and now the UK-based American is back with a brand new album, Broken Into Pieces. For those unfamiliar with Dressner’s sound, opener ‘Fades Away’ provides a good example, blending a delicate guitar line with a conversational tone to create an intimate sound. The track is fleshed out with various other instrumental flourishes too, becoming a vivid, warm song of surprising weight, the simplicity of Dressner’s writing only adding to the poetic nature.

Broken Into Pieces is out now and you can get it now from the Annie Dressner Bandcamp page.

Marc Ferrino – Like a Spark

Working in bands such as Black Before Red and Low Line Caller, Marc Ferrino forged a reputation as one of Austin’s best vocalists, and 2019 will see the release of his debut solo EP on Wren & Shark. So far we only have one song to go on, though ‘Like a Spark’ is more than satisfactory in terms of building anticipation for the record. Pitched between indie rock cool and a celebratory style of pop, the track serves as one final hurrah for the summer—a grand, sweeping ode to ephemeral warmth.

Like a Spark is set for release in 2019 via Wren & Shark. Keep an eye on their website for pre-order info.

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