And, of course, being comprehensive is impossible these days, so let us know if we missed your favourite and maybe we’ll add it to the collection.

Emily Yacina – Nice Try
(RIYL: bedroom pop)

Evening River Band – EP5
(RIYL: country, folk, psych rock)

Ever – But I Am
(RIYL: bedroom pop, dark rooms)

Exam Season – Mostly Homely
(RIYL: indie rock, emo, Trust Fund)

Family Video – Places To Sleep
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi, longing)

Field Medic – that beer called becks reminds me of a haiku i wrote
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, modern folk)

Fish Food – For Shadow Hurts
(RIYL: indie pop, lo-fi, weird lyrics)

Folktale Records – Folktale Sampler (COMPILATION)
(RIYL: experimental, folk, indie pop)

Fossil Jane – will you?/you will.
(RIYL: bedroom pop, singer songwriter, )

Free Space – Ahead of Myself
(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, Trace Mountains)

Generifus – Peace Sign Rising
(RIYL: indie pop, indie rock)

Georgia Maq – Brain Studio Session
(RIYL: acoustic, bedroom pop, Camp Cope)

Ghost Camp – Great Lakes
(RIYL: indie rock, psych pop)

Glider – Demos
(RIYL: lo-fi, psych pop)

GoldFlakePaint – Too Far From Town To Learn
(RIYL: indie pop, lo-fi, Gold Flake Paint)

Good Good Blood – O Belong / Motion Sickness
(RIYL: ambient, dream pop, folk)

Gorgeous Bully – Better Demons
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie rock, fuzz)

Govier – Predator
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi, “alien folk”)

High Sunn – i will never learn
(RIYL: chillwave, lo-fi, dream pop)

The post Favourite Free Music of 2016: E – H appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1) Evening Loving – Jenny Gillespie
2) Luxury – Patio
3) Low – Yours Are The Only Ears
4) Either Way – Sorority Noise
5) Home at Last – The Sports
6) Braver – Sally Fowler
7) Chow Chow – FAYE
8) Meant – Spartan Jet-Plex
9) Stained Glass Eye – The Dead Tongues
10) October – These Bashful Claws
11) Bad Vibrations – Naps
12) Baked Goods – Young Jesus
13) Heroine – BB Cream
14) Winona Death Ryder – Boy Problems (No Dice Tapes comp)
15) The Only Other Girl From Back Home – Advance Base
16) When it Feels – Soft Spell (STAY RAD SAV comp)
17) The Unnatural – Claire Cronin
18) Same Old Ocean – Crabapple
19) Diet Coke – Lake Michigan
20) Ferris Beuller – Flatsound
21) See Good – Jobless
22) Anything but Yourself – Tom Greenwood
23) Under the Mountain II – Mermaidens
24) Liars – Gregory Alan Isakov
25) Warning Sign – Mikko Joensuu
26) Candy – Fish Food
27) White Gold – Good Good Blood
28) We Bury Our Dead Alive – Coping Skills
29) Joke/Rope – Haybaby
30) Slacker – Will B & the Teen Creeps
31) Double Bacon Cheeseburger – Yikes
32) All I Have – Derek Ted
33) Try Hard – Hovvdy
34) Dark & Gloomy – Horse Teeth
35) Migratory Birds – Western Skies Motel
36) Endless Wave – Hanging Valleys

The post May 2016 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“A collection of weird lo-fi bedroom pop, equal parts sweet, smooth, spiky and strange, as distinct as the great cover artwork”

We’re delighted then, to share with you a video for the lead track, ‘Candy’. Directed by Joseph’s brother Max F. Sims, the film elevates the song from what we originally described as “lazy shambling and sweet” into something far more mysterious, extending the sugary imagery into all sorts of new metaphorical directions. Sims takes us on a tour of town, from carefree sprints through green fields to late-night loitering amongst vehicles at a parking lot, all the while wrapped in a silky pink sheet like some curious bubblegum ghost. The effect is one of ambiguity, the salmon shawl holding some meaning outside of our grasp, a significance which begins to worm its way into the equally strange lyrics:

“And you don’t want to play games no more
got lots of people to blame, ya lifes a chore
and you look like the kind of person who spits
but I bet if you cleaned up your act a little bit
you could keep your wheels just long enough
to watch them spin right off and admit that its rough.

But there is candy waiting underneath your shoe
and if you wait long enough it’ll stick like super glue”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF7GRIh7pmU

For Shadow Hurts is available now from the Fish Food Bandcamp page.

The post Video Premiere: Fish Food – ‘Candy’ appeared first on Various Small Flames.

With an array of styles and influences across the twenty-three songs, there truly is something for everyone. Try Isabel Rex‘s oddly melancholic ode to amusing genetic copies of famous people, MagicPerm’s blissed-out memorial of a forgotten Toon Disney gem and WTD favs Nice Legs‘ surf rock anthem for everybody’s favourite infant puppets. Or maybe you’d prefer Queer Jane’s take on those meddling kids, Lake Michigan‘s bummed-out nod to a semi-fictional Will Smith or Ainsworth’s tribute to Mister Rodgers (and his inspirational acceptance speech)?

Elsewhere, Casper Heyzeus attack their pizza-loving effort with the hyperactive energy of child actors in action figure TV commercials, IZE offer something strange and sultry enough to make Lynch himself proud and Pet Cemetery takes the theme of your teenage angst and makes it seem insular and strange, a song for one of Orange County’s outsiders who never appeared on screen because they were always locked in their gloomy bedroom playing records.

In other words, this is a near-enough perfect compilation for those of us who grew up under the ever-present bombardment of photon-based entertainment. Listen to the whole thing below and let nostalgia burn through the white noise of your image narcosis:

Artwork by Mimi Jaffe

The post Album Première: Z Tapes & Cereal + Sounds – FRY YR BRN appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. Fire – Mal Devisa
2. wild fire/flowers – Trust Fall
3. Home Alone – Max Gardener
4. Your Love – Jeremy Squires
5. Veins – Camp Howard
6. How To Dance – Mount Moriah
7. Good Evening – Adeem the Artist
8. Shallow – Candy
9. Francie Cool – Francie Cool
10. Bad Vibes – Zebrafi
11. Piece of Ivy – Jake Bellissimo
12. Snow Day – Julia Brown
13. Alive – Dear Tracks
14. Ted the Radical Westy – Ravetank
15. ft1 – naps
16. We Have The Perimeter Surrounded – Hallelujah the Hills
17. Bullet in a Broken Gun – Oscar Lush
18. Color Peels – The Wandering Lake
19. Nowhere Nothing – Oceanator
20. Suagr Skull – The Washboard Abs
21. Of Wandering – Littler
22. bicycle – Twelve Gardens
23. Ya Ya Ya – You Won’t
24. Find You – Family Video
25. Jack Campbell (Quick Jammer) – Dingus.
26. Candy – Fish Food
27. It May Very Well Do – 100 Watt Horse
28. Life – Whim
29. Meg – Hovvdy
30. Piano Player – The Hotelier
31. Calvary – Chris Bathgate
32. Postman – Sam Moss

The post March 2016 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.