The first chapter of a forthcoming EP Work in Progress, latest single ‘Glory Glory’ further hones this style, challenging the line between song and short film with its evocative and abstract style. Again directed by Kempe-Bergman, the video opens with near-silence for the first minutes, its eerie, surreal imagery populated by staccato bursts of panicked voices, confusion caused by the appearance of some strange entity, although the picture only shows a figure edging around a cat on the road. The effect is somewhere between Lars von Trier and David Lynch, where stillness belies some darkness below the surface which threatens to spill out. The foundation upon which the rest of the EP will build.

The song itself consists of an almost acapella version of the classic hymn, the sounds of the video bleeding into the track as its characters continue their journey along the road (to Hollywood, in true Lynchian style). “Often when I make Cult of Y music I’m looking for contrasts but in this case there wasn’t any need to do so because of the story in the video,” explains August Vinberg. “Knowing where the girls are heading and what’s to come there’s already a dissonance between the beauty in the music and the horrors to come in the story.”

‘Glory Glory’ is out now and available from all the usual places.

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Bowl of Plums, his latest album set for release this Friday (24th June), was written and recorded across the breadth of America, from an Alaskan island and Californian condo to a greeting card factory in Queens and a pharmaceutical factory in Brooklyn. The geographic variation translates into the music, the songs feeling like a collection of singles rather than a cohesive album, a kind of greatest hits compilation which draws from every sound, sight and second from Seretan’s recent life. As he explains in the press release: “Each track seems to me to hint at a nonexistent record that might have been made in the last two years. These are the best of them, the shiniest plums. The greatest moments.”

We’re delighted to share the title track ahead of Friday’s release, a song Seretan describes as the “guiding light for the whole album”.  And it’s not difficult to understand why. The song is constructed from a multitude of small details, dreams and snapshots and sensations, which knit together into a kind of abstract storyboard for good times. Or a vivid representation of life’s sunny side. A shiny plum indeed.

“My friends call me when they’re feeling low
We talk quietly for hours and walk the room
Flowers growing in a coffee can
Our lives are wonderful and sad sometimes

I’m so happy I could cry
A bowl of plums on the table”

The post Song Premiere: Ben Seretan – Bowl of Plums appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Old Earth

“Has this trance-like quality that is almost impossible to describe…It’s music that isn’t satisfied with making pretty sounds in the background, that gets right to the root of things” – New EP …until they’re called sees Old Earth in typically scintillating form.

The Washboard Abs

“Sad but in a cosy, reassuring way…like being alone in an empty room on a rainy afternoon, when the not-quite-twilight has that blue-grey quality and the only sounds are raindrops on the glass and the shooooshing of passing cars” – WHATEVERLAND by The Washboard Abs is the second great Z Tapes release in a week.

The Tarantula Waltz

“Reminds us that no matter how hard, life holds pockets of goodness and wonder, providing moments of fierce, bright joy which light up the dark” – Lynx EP by Swedish folkster The Tarantula Waltz

Molly Drag

“Sad and remorseful in a child-like sort of way, the existential anxiety of adults not yet formed so that his grief can occupy a pure, selfless sort of level” – ‘Open Casket Hidden Meaning’, the brand new track by Molly Drag.

Furnsss

“A return of the gloriously sloppy rock that Furnsss purvey” – Burlington lo-fi rock act announce new EP via our good pals at 80N7.

Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats

“Continues with the jaunty, boisterous vibes that set apart Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats from his solo work, sounding like mid-barroom, drunk-but-honest proclamations” – Nathaniel Rateliff gathers his band in anticipation of their debut EP.

Aidan Knight

“Starts off as a smooth and kinda groovy soft rock track which threatens several crescendos before the horned-filled celebratory climax around the halfway mark” – Aidan Knight has put out a new song in preparation for his third album, coming this autumn on Outside Music.

Small Houses

“So here’s the deal. You pledge on small amount of money in return for a digital download pre-order, and Quentin gets to make a new record and eat something other than craisens” – Small Houses needs your help on GoFundMe to make his new album.

Eskimeaux

“It’s about finally feeling okay with not feeling okay” – Impose has a substantial piece on Eskimeaux’s new album, O.K.

The Epoch

“A sweet, introspective sort of songwriting is the tendency, though hardly the rule. As an inspiring support system and model for artistic collaboration, their cult following is quickly growing” – The Epoch Collective find themselves in good company in Brooklyn Magazine’s round-up of the twenty people defining Brooklyn music in 2015.

Matheny / Molina

“Molina always seemed to know exactly which cards not to show, and with his deep body of work created music that is somehow both haunting and comforting in equal measure” – William Matheny of Southeast Engine shares his memories of Jason Molina and serves up a great cover of ‘Just Be Simple’, all over at Common Folk Music.

Best of 2015

A week late on this but the ever-reliable Gimme Tinnitus has put together a list of the best music of 2015 thus far. Well worth digging through to uncover a few unheard gems.

Nick Cave / DrFasutusAU

A few weeks late on this but it’s worth sharing: Artist DrFaustusAU has drawn a Dr Seuss-style cartoon version of Nick Cave’s ‘Red Right Hand’. You can read more about it on Faster Louder or click the image below to see the whole storybook.

Protest Music

“A reminder that soulful dissent can be both entertaining and politically efficacious. Soulful protest is the work of skillful musicians using their gifts and raising their voices to recreate the world so that everyone has an opportunity to fully participate and no one else’s voice ever again has to remain suppressed or unheard” – Jason King over on at NPR Music has put together 100 hours of protest music, using R&B and the genres which came before that helped form the genre.

Frog

“An attempt to engage modern musical ideas from a 1950s style of arrangement… [it] was a complete failure in that respect but a success in most others” – The Line of Best Fit are streaming Kind Of Blah, the new album from Frog that could well be the soundtrack of your summer.

Summer Camp

“Inspired by 90s Point Horror and Fear Street books and teen horror films, and the idea that a bad relationship can be just as terrifying as a serial killer” – Noisey are streaming Summer Camp’s Bad Love before it’s release next week on Moshi Moshi.

Shamir

And finally, Shamir walked around Brooklyn and played some songs for La Blogotheque:

The post Week in Review: #2 (18th-22nd May) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Human Behavior are an experimental, genre-bending band from Tucson, Arizona, led by chief songwriter Andres Parada. Following 2013′s Golgotha, Bethphage is the second album in a trilogy which combines classical folk music with drone and spoken word and Bibilical imagery to explore dark themes like death and unhappiness. In an interview with Valley Hype Parada was asked how Bethphage differs from his previous work:

Long answer: This album was written in sequence, a technique we’ve never done. It is two long tracks, split up by chapters. We tried to make this album a cinematic experience. It is also our first studio album, which allowed us to experiment in ways we haven’t before.

Short answer: It’s weirder.

Weird is a good word to describe Bethphage, with each of the various ‘Chapters’ flitting between styles and genres at will. For example ‘Chapter 2′ begins as a traditional folk song before morphing into a spoken word poem that itself gradual changes into a hymn. ‘Chapter 3′ is a western soundtrack akin to Ry Cooder which is peppered with abstract samples, from a man yelling “hey!” to a strange droney conversation between an adult and an upset child. The use of white noise over a classic folk sound is unsettling, a weird modern confusion against the comfortable nostalgia that folk music offers, changing a romantic lonliness to a sharp a threat of isolation, a seething radio silence. ‘Chapter 5′ is minimal yet expansive, bringing to mind vast empty spaces with nothing but dust, and ‘Chapter 6′ grows out of this, beginning with gentle vocals before becoming a ramshackled punk-folk song with the repeated refrain: “The end is nigh.”

Bethphage does not sit comfortably but its purpose is not to comfort, at least not explicitly. That said, the use of folk music as a medium to explore things such as depression and suicide and Catholic guilt suggests that Human Behavior are not nihilists. If they wanted to convince us all that everything is worthless and stupid and fucked then there are plently of other more suitable genres. Instead they attempt something more constructive, something that pulls no punches while criticising traditions while also acknowledging that they can form part of the solution. Bethphage is too honest to take a distinct and definite view of anything.

You can buy Bethphage from the Human Behavior Bandcamp page, grab a CD through Diet Pop Records, or a vinyl from Folktale Records.

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As a result, listening to the album is a personal experience, something to treasure for yourself, a one-to-one link between songwriter and listener. The message transmitted across this link reminds me very much of a quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake:

“Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.”

You can grab the album via Bandcamp for as little as $6, and we’ve heard that Father/Daughter Records is releasing it on tape in the near future. Keep an eye out!

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I listen to (and write about) quite a lot of what I would describe as folk music and I got to thinking that maybe I could put together a second volume of ‘Lost And Found’ which covered artists that could fit into the category of folk and roots music. Here’s where I enter a disclaimer: I am not an expert in this area, more an interested amateur. This collection of songs does not reflect a definitive collection of any one genre or historical period of music. Instead I have chosen a collection of old songs that I feel have huge influences on the folk music that followed, from Dylan and Cohen to the host of new artists we have covered here at Wake The Deaf.

It features country and bluegrass, gospel and Appalachian mountain music. There’s something here for everyone, from Roscoe Holcomb’s easygoing rambling song ‘Roll On Buddy’ to ‘Down In The Willow Garden’, a murder ballad by Texas Hadden and her brother Hobart Smith. ‘Shine On Me’ is an impassioned and foot-stomping chorus by Ernest Phipps and His Holiness Singers, while ‘I Wish My Baby Was Born’ by Dillard Chandler is as sorrowful an a cappella recording as you’re ever likely to hear. ‘I Am A Poor Pilgrim Of Sorrow’ by The Old Regular Baptists is perhaps my favourite track of all. It’s an incredibly intense congregational hymnody from deep within Appalachian coal mining country. The song has an insistent, almost ominous, drive and continues to build in burning fervour. Mumford and Sons this ain’t.

I urge you to give this mix a listen. I’ve really enjoyed putting it together and constantly found myself amazed at the quality of the songs, some of which were written well over a hundred years ago (although some were recorded much later). If you’re a fan of modern folk music, of the legends of the sixties revival, of the Coen’s “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, or even works of Southern Gothic literature by authors such as Faulkner and O’Connor, I’m willing to bet you’ll like this mixtape.

TRACKLIST:

1. Roll On Buddy – Roscoe Holcomb
2. Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting – Rev. J.M. Gates
3. I’ll Be Washed – The Carolina Tar Heels
4. East Virgina – Buell Kazee
5. I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground – Bascom Lamar Lunsford
6. Big Rock Candy Mountain – Harry McClintock
7.  In The Shadow Of Clinch Mountain – The Carter Family
8. Big Eyed Rabbit – Matokie Slaughter
9. Drunkard’s Special – Coley Jones
10. Shine On Me – Ernest Phipps & His Holiness Singers
11. Down In The Willow Garden – Texas Gladden & Hobart Smith
12. I Wish My Baby Was Born – Dillard Chandler
13. Jonah In The Wilderness – Henry Thomas
14. Amazing Grace – Horton Barker
15. I Am A Poor Pilgrim Of Sorrow – Old Regular Baptists

The links embedded in the artist names do not link to webpages or Facebook accounts like in our regular mixes, instead I have linked to a picture of the artist in question, just to give you a better idea of who you are listening to as you play the mix.

If this collection of songs piques your interest, then Smithsonian Folkways is a great resource, a nonprofit record label that strives to ensure the conservation of musical history and cultural diversity. Several of the songs featured above can be found on compilations put out by the label, so I would encourage you to purchase if you like what you hear.

The post Lost and Found: Volume Two appeared first on Various Small Flames.