Golden Suits Archives - Various Small Flames

October 2016 Roundup

Jon Doyle — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 20:01:59 +0000

Here’s a mixtape of songs by all the acts we featured during October 2016. As usual, click on the artist name to be whizzed off to read more about the artist in question. And click on the Playmoss button at the bottom to hear the thing front to back.

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.

Best of the Rest – Things We Have Missed #3

Jon Doyle — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 18:04:10 +0000

One of the best/worst things about the whole blogging game is the abundance of great music. Unfortunately there are (still!) only twenty-four hours in a day, most of which are consumed with non-WTD things, so even if we get sent ten great albums then chances are we will only be able to cover three or four. While trying to avoid falling into the listicle trap, we thought the best way to remedy this problem would be a semi-regular round-up, ‘Best of the Rest’, where we include all the songs we think you should hear but don’t quite have the time to tell you why. Inclusion here is no comment on quality – this isn’t a runner-up prize!

Reuben Hollebon – On & On

We first wrote about the music of Reuben Hollebon back in 2012, though his latest single is a departure from the folk tunes he was releasing back then. Complete with a strange, evocative video, ‘On & On’ is an experimental sounds that’s at once tender and ominous, channelling the likes of Siskiyou to push into emotional areas with understated intensity.

Jenny O. – Cheer Up, Free Your Mind

Taken from her latest EP, Work, ‘Cheer Up, Free Your Mind’ is the perfect introduction for those unfamiliar with the Californian songwriter. Blending folk and jangle pop, Jenny O. creates rich songs which belong to a sepia tone world of summer evenings and wide open spaces. Released earlier this month, you can grab the EP now via Bandcamp.

Holiday Oscar – Nicholas

Holiday Oscar couples a warm folk sound with smart lyrics, kind of like You Won’t crossed with The Head and The Heart. Take ‘Nicholas’ as an example, the song’s basic premise (learning to play guitar!) used to conjure a funny, interesting and almost poignant story about wanting to be an artist. If you’re a fan, his latest EP, Spilt Milk and Teething Powder, is available now.

True Strength – Lyse Striber

True Strength is the collaboration between Copenhagen’s Ida Duelund-Hansen and Melbourne’s Alexander Garsden. The duo’s debut self-titled album is out in December on Eastmint, and to whet your appetite we have the beautiful ‘Lyse Striber’. The track is darkly elegant and somehow timeless, Duelund-Hansen’s vocals soaring over gentle instrumentation like a heartbroken crooner from a byegone age.

The song comes complete with a video by award-winning filmmaker Hanna Chetwin, which you can check out below.

Golden Suits – Don’t Let Love Go By

Back in 2013, as “autumn suddenly descended [with] summer finally on its knees” we turned to the self-titled album by Daniel Rossen’s Golden Suits. Well, fast forward a few years and we’re back in the same position, wondering whether we need the heating on with new music from Golden Suits in our ears. The third single from his latest album, Kubla Khan, ‘Don’t Let Love Go By’ hits the sweet spot between reflective and raging, like some of The Walkmen’s more rattled moments. Grab the album now via Hit City U.S.A.

Drowning by Numbers – The Ground Before Him

Featuring on the Netflix sports documentary Last Chance U, ‘The Ground Before Him’ by Adelaide’s Drowning By Numbers is a down-tempo ambient track shrouded in melancholy and loneliness, sounding like the world as half-heard from within the head of someone occupied by their own business.

Many Voices Speak – Blue Moon

Many Voices Speak is Matilda Mård from Stockholm. An outtake from the recording sessions for her new EP, this cover of ‘Blue Moon’ is the perfect way into her music, classic US folk with a Twin Peaks-y plink. The EP, Away for All Time is out on the 28th October via Hit City U.S.A. and Strangers Candy and you can pre-order it here.

Silver Liz – Float

Silver Liz is the new bedroom pop project of Carrie Wagner and Matt Wagner from Chicago. Combining harsh, 90s-esque noise with velvety vocals, their new track ‘Float’ packs a double punch of goodness, shaking things up like Sonic Youth fronted by Bethany Cosentino. Grab the two-song EP from their Bandcamp page.

Ego Death – The Total End

Canada’s Ego Death began as the solo project of Noah York but has since evolved into a duo with Maya Gulin. Their latest release, The Total End, is made up of four soundscapes which pull together neoclassical, ambient and guitar-based experimental to form something vaguely geological, bursts of noise emerging from the constant swirl of primordial drone. The EP is out now via Deep Sea Mining Syndicate and you can snag a cassette from Bandcamp.

Akira Kosemura – Luna

One Day is a new album of improvisational piano pieces by Japanese artist Akira Kosemura. The entire thing is breathtakingly pretty, though single ‘Luna’, complete with a beautiful video directed by Kimihiko Nitta, is a great place to start. Once convinced, you can grab the record from Schole Inc.

Wild Leaves – Fallen Robin

‘Fallen Robbin’ is a single taken from the new full-length by Brooklyn-based folk-rock outfit, Wild Leaves. With its smooth vocals and easy, near-hypnotic flow, the track exudes a gentle autumnal peace, a serenity disrupted only by a distant nostalgia. Despite the creeping sense of loss, the whole thing is wrapped in a certain kindness, as though the narrator and you both are in this thing together.

The post Best of the Rest – Things We Have Missed #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Golden Suits – Golden Suits

Liam Doyle — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 14:53:04 +0000

Over the past few days, autumn has suddenly descended upon where I live. It has been rainy and (relatively) cold and I think summer is finally on its knees. However there has been a ray on sunshine in my house, albeit in musical form: the self-titled debut album by Golden Suits. Golden Suits is the solo project of Fred Nicolaus, who is better known as one of Department of Eagles (along with Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen). He calls upon the services of a wide range of talented friends including Rossen himself and members of Ava Luna and Mason Jar Music.

The album is a sunny collection of folk-pop songs, more polished and accessible than In Ear Park, although not without emotional weight. The phrase ‘Golden Suits’ is taken from a short story by John Cheever (aka “the Chekov of the Suburbs”) in which a man’s life begins to unravel, which provides and intentional parallel with a period in Nicolaus’s own life, in which he lost an apartment to a rat infestation, went through a difficult breakup and traveled to Germany to learn about his grandfather’s death in the Second World War. Indeed it was a personal obsession with the work of Cheever that inspired many of the songs on the album.

But as I have already mentioned, the album mainly deals in charming pop songs, perhaps along the lines of a slightly left-field take on classics such as Paul Simon or the solo work of McCartney and Lennon. Listen to the lead single Swimming in ’99 below and try to resist tapping your feet.

You can buy the album now from Yep Roc Records or from all good record stores.

The post Golden Suits – Golden Suits appeared first on Various Small Flames.