Tracklisting:

1. prairie creek redwoods state park, ca – bedbug
2. See the World – Kidsmoke
3. Motion | Sickness – Good Good Blood
4. Downtown – Gabriella Cohen
5. Automatic – Kyle Morton
6. Throwing Roses – Eva Foote
7. vildt+sødt – Eugenia
8. Dicktations Forever – Dicktations
9. Fallen Robin – Wild Leaves
10. Palms – Native Other
11. Not Your Prey – Squirrel Flower
12. Luna – Akira Kosemura
13. Made of Gold – Albert af Ekenstam
14. She Floats – Van-Anh Nguyen
15. Dead Radiance – Ego Death
16. Sponge State – Sløtface
17. Black Mass – Wooden Maria
18. Float – Silver Liz
19. glass machines discovering water – Corvus B.
20. Longshot – The Furious Season
21. The Same Chords – Tiger in My Tank
22. Let’s Go to the Beach – Sophie Longshaw
23. Blue Moon – Many Voices Speak
24. One Footed – MAH KEE OH
25. Country Room – Static Animal
26. The Ground Before Him – Drowning By Numbers
27. Refugee – Cameron James Henderson
28. down (kenny) – ever
29. Strange Tones – Youceff Kabal
30. Don’t Let Love Go By – Golden Suits
31. Sit and Stare – Tiny Dinosaurs
32. Settle Down – Dark Mean
33. telegraph ave. – Betty Becky
34. WEN – glider
35. Nicholas – Holiday Oscar
36. Lyse Striber – True Strength
37. Careless – Stationary Suns
38. Vulnerable – Mark Timmins
39. On & On – Reuben Hollebon
40. Recoiled – William Ryan Fritch
41. Lonely Girl – Praything
42. Drinking the Same Water – Katie Spencer
43. Get It Right – Magana
44. Cheer Up Free Your Mind – Jenny O.

That was October 2016, and if you like what you see/hear, why not check out the other months too?

The post October 2016 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The Montreal-based (Foote is a student at National Theatre School), Edmonton-native is back with a brand new album of tunes written during a sometimes-lonely first year of college. The album follows a similar pattern to her debut, folk- and country-influenced songs that were created in response to being a long way from home. As she explained to the Edmonton Journal, “If I’m sad in Edmonton there’s at least an emotional confine imposed on it, because it’s familiar. In Montreal there’s nothing familiar, nothing to ground me or remind me of who I am. It was disorienting being sad far away rather than feeling sad in Edmonton”.

This feeling is immediately apparent on opening track ‘Funeral Walking’, a slice of country-tinged folk infused with something slightly wistful, as Foote’s vocals tell of mistakes in love. The music on second track ‘Top Floor’ is deceptively perky, the lyrics painting an altogether more reflective picture. “You believe in magic, you believe in ghosts”, Foote sings, “do you believe that you’re still living if no-one knows?” There’s a sassy country lilt on ‘Throwing Roses’, a track that’s reminiscent of the more upbeat Samantha Crain songs. Foote takes the opportunity to let loose on her vocals, singing of somone left behind in he told hometown.

“We’re strangers now
walking down different streets in different towns
and the distance between
love and loss seem so similar
to that between you and me”

‘Harder to Feel You’ is slightly darker than previous tracks, spacious percussion and wisps of guitar giving the track a twilit feel, while there’s a Hip Hatchet vibe on ‘Sorry/Thank You’, with its warm country-flecked instrumentation. The lyrics deal in confusion and self-doubt, and in the healing power of having someone close by to offer support. Finally we have ‘Trying To’, a song about trying to get over that special someone, like a distillation of decades of heartbroken but defiant country songs.

“Lover
I wrote this to tell you
I haven’t given up on you
but I’m trying to”

Funeral Walking is out now and you can grab it from the Eva Foote Bandcamp page.

The post Eva Foote – Funeral Walking appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The post Wake The Deaf’s Favourite Songs of 2015 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. Red Coat – Adeline Hotel (Interview)
   2. S.O.B. – Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
   3. Daughter of the Sea – House of Wolves (Interview)
   4. Monarchy – Table People
   5. Ruin – Doomking
   6. Lonely Boy – Titus Andronicus
   7. New York Hardcore – talons’
   8. Roar of Nothingness – Sun Organ
   9. Slow Dark Water – Furnsss
   10. You Are Arrived (But You’ve Been Cheated) – The Spirit of the Beehive
   11. It Was Gone – Orchid Mantis
   12. Big Sis – SALES
   13. No Comprende – Low
   14. The Washing Machine – SPORTS
   15. Shark? – Shark? (Everything Is Teeth by Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner)
   16. Christmas in Milwaukee – Advance Base
   17. Only Friend – Valley Maker
   18. My Track ’92 – Pet Cemetery
   19. Dusk; Falling Asleep, Know That You Are Loved – Sabbatical Wilderness
   20. Theremin Demonstration – Leon Theremin (Us Conductors by Sean Michaels)
   21. The Lemon’s Cousin – Boy Scouts
   22. Audrey Horne – Teen Love
   23. Mia – Spencer Radcliffe
   24. Return To The Moon – EL VY
   25. Bug – Alex G
   26. Wild Hearts – Kodiak Deathbeds
   27. Waves – Abby Gundersen
   28. UR = UO – No Touching
   29. Sparrow & Stone – Eva Foote
   30. What Can Be Taken – ÒOR

The post August Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The release opens with the title track, a gentle, atmospheric song with that falls somewhere between Joni Mitchell, Fleet Foxes and Horse Feathers, Foote’s lyrics steeped in the natural world and magnified by the backing harmonies:

“Morning song calls me so sweetly
begs me listen, begs you meet me again
Oh meet me again

Come with sorrow, bring me old news,
wicked weather, broken and blue
I just want you

I’ll find my stride on this path alone,
with songs of a sparrow and heart of a stone”

‘Strong Hands’ feels more direct, the writing moving away from metaphor in favour of candid communication. Variation is seen in Foote’s vocals too, the lush harmonies of the first track stripped back leaving something more conversational, her voice straining in places, pulled taut by emotion. ‘Maria’ sees this stretched further, a moody, bluesy song that teeters on the edge of something, while ‘Two of a Kind’ is soft and slow and finger-picked, Sydney Leard’s harmonies supporting the sense of simultaneous love and loss stitched through the lyrics:

“We’re still in a grey zone, a war-zone,
through telephones, the back of the bar.
Your eyes have been blood shot for weeks my dear
but still full of stars”

‘Passing Through’ is strong and certain, as if written from the other side of some nameless trouble, a place where new found perspective allows a sense of conviction in healing. Closer ‘Something I Know’ cements this idea, imagining future fear and grief gilded with a belief she will get through. What makes the song, and the release in general, so special is that Foote does not resort to grand, highfalutin ideals in order to get this idea across. Instead she favours a quiet yet firm faith in goodness, as if life, for all of its highs and lows, tends towards an equilibrium of peace.

“Things will get harder,
That’s something I know.
[…]
I know I’ll get better
That’s something I know”

This is one of those releases that breaks over you slowly. The harmonies make for an agreeable first listen but the songs grow in depth with each spin as you realise the prettiness is not in place of sorrow but in spite of it. Sparrow & Stone owes more to nature than even the title suggests, detailing an existence tough and sad yet infused with an insistent beauty, a sense of wonder and joy that sits high in your chest.

Sparrow & Stone will be released on the 13th August and you can buy it now from Eva Foote’s Bandcamp page. For those of you in/near Edmonton, Foote will play a release show that evening at the Yellowhead Brewey with Braden Gates. You can get tickets here.

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