Until then, here’s our June Roundup, a playlist of songs rounding up everything we covered during June. Clever, huh? Click on the artist name in the tracklisting to be whisked away to the specific post.

Tracklisting:

1. Trisha Please Come Home – Advance Base
2. Slower Now – Star Horse
3. I Make Boys Cry – Adult Mom
4. Cordella – On The Water
5. Destroy – Henoheno
6. A Long Time Ago – Kalle Mattson
7. Only One Who Feels a Little Bit Bad – Fazed on a Pony
8. Ohio Snow Falls – Unraveler
9. Pylon Pile On – Benjamin Shaw
10. For Luck – Cyberbully Mom Club
11. The Offer – Yowler
12. When I Met Death – Right Away, Great Captain!
13. Patriarchaeth – Gwenno
14. Future Bones – Bells Atlas
15. Beautiful Brian – Harley Alexander and The Universal Lovers
16. Whip-Poor-Will – Morning River Band
17. I Admit I’m Scared – Eskimeaux
18. Ideal World – Girlpool
19. Observation Satellites – GRNDMS
20. Podesta – Peptalk
21. Cwm Llwm – Yucatan
22. Clouds – Estan
23. Lullaby – Long Neck
24. KiwiKisses – Trenton Point
25. My Only One – PONY
26. Return to View – The Wandering Lake
27. Clicking Clanking – Ylayali
28. Pull Me Apart – Lung Cycles
29. Red Coat – Adeline Hotel
30. Johnny Go Riding – Damien Jurado
31. When the Day is Fresh, and the Light is New – The Wooden Sky
32. The Crow – Sean Henry
33. Yolanda – O-FACE

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

Yowler

“Water permeates the record in all of its guises, in rain and in blood and in sinks, in rivers and seas and oceans, in sheet ice and snow melt and the film over an eye” – The Offer by Yowler gives Maryn Jones a chance to create something intensely personal.

Samantha Crain

“Music has the power to change minds and to nudge humanity down a different path but for the most part I feel like most music just wants to follow the mass around asking what they like and what they want from them. There are bigger things going on, music and art needs to direct attention towards those injustices.” – We chatted to Samantha Crain her forthcoming album Under Branch & Thorn & Tree.

Late Night Music in the Museum

“The evenings showed that museums can be innovative, adaptable and welcoming to all, centres of the community rather than simple tourist novelties…What better way to ensure the survival of an institute than to make it central to the lives and well-being of the people it serves?” – We were left feeling inspired by recent events at the National Museum in Cardiff.

Fevered Press, Fevered Certainty

Cool people cover cool songs by cool bands for a cool zine. What’s not to like? The Epoch Fanzine from Fevered Press, Fevered Certainty.

Right Away, Great Captain

“The journey is an epic one, written in novelistic detail that surpasses the overwhelming majority of albums – tracing the sailor’s time at sea…and his return to land” – Andy Hull’s Right Away, Great Captain release entire catalogue in one anthology.

Harley Alexander

“Just the right blend of luminous and languorous to occupy your headphones during the summer (or dreams thereof)” – Glorious summer vibes from Harley Alexander on Gold Shirt.

Fazed On a Pony

Fox Food Records continue their hot streak with this slice of “raucously rad” indie rock from Fazed On a Pony.

Star Horse

“Keepin’ it dreamy with yearning vocals and a resounding crystalline shimmer” – A few words about ‘Slower Now’ by Star Horse, which premièred on No Fear of Pop earlier this week.

May Roundup mixtape

If you missed the chance to read everything we posted during May, do yourself a favour and catch up with all the cool bands via this handy mixtape.

Introverted Stars

“When I hear Alessia [Cara] valorize her love of staying at home, it feels like an affirmation that my preternatural quietness is a bearable tic rather than a curse. She wants to be alone in her room, and she has the courage to tell it to the whole world” – Molly Long wrote a fantastic piece for The Fader about being introverted and shy… while also being a pop star.

Mark Kozelek Being Offensive Pt. XXVI

“He can use sexually violent language to reduce female critics to the status of groupies, knowing that while male musicians’ misogynist acts are examined for nuance and defended as traits of “difficult” artists, women and those who call them out are treated as hysterics who don’t understand art” – Laura Snapes wrote about her recent run-in with Mark Kozelek for The Guardian…

“Maybe a feminist reimagining of popular music doesn’t just involve putting more women onstage. Maybe it includes creating spaces without stages: where power is fluid, where no one can play god, where art can be shared without elevating artists three feet above their audiences” – …and Sasha Geffen wrote a great piece for Consequence of Sound about Kozelek’s recent behaviour and how he is far from the only example.

Sufjan or ETs?

If you’re like me then you quite like Sufjan Stevens, and you ABSOLUTELY LOVE UFOs and all that weird stuff. Test your knowledge (of either category) with this fun list from Mandala Laura over at McSweeney’s.

Jenny Hval

You can stream the new Jenny Hval album over at the New York Times:

Titus Andronicus

And Titus Andronicus unveiled another track from their forthcoming album ‘The Most Lamentable Tragedy‘:

And Finally… the 8tracks Playlist of the Week

This week’s winner is this gem from Badical Turbo Radness.

The post Week in Review: #4 (1st-5th June) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Fragile? hosted ‘Music is Fragile?’, a concert by Cardiff University’s School of Music written in response to the ceramics exhibition. Lisa Nelsen (flute) and Gwenllian Llŷr (harp) played a number of pieces which utilised technology alongside classical music to produce imaginative, evocative sounds, with composers Richard McReynolds, Julia E. Howell, Blair Boyd, Daniel James Ross, Jordan Hirst, Martin Humphries and John Cooney managing to create seven very different pieces. The audience, which ranged from ages seven to seventy, sat (and then stood) entranced – the connoisseurs appreciating the technique and composition, while the lay folk learned just what is possible with a harp, a flute and a gathering of experimental minds.

A quick dash across the hall led to the Chalkie Davies exhibition, the location of the music event presented by Spillers Records. Mike Dennis, wearing a rather apt Dennis The Menace shirt, kicked off proceedings with his rather unique brand of spoken word. As alluded to in the preview post, Dennis is a classically-trained violinist, so the early minutes of his set acted as a pleasant soundtrack for an audience still milling around Chalkie Davies’s photos. But this was not another traditional concert. Dennis was soon utilising loops and effects pedals to build a dense tangle of sound, and as he began to recite his verses a crowd gathered, drawn by lyrics covering everything from bad bosses to the insanity of firearms. Both violin and verses became impressively frantic and by the end of his set the the novelty of a gig in a museum gallery began to hit home.

If Dennis was the early stages of transition between exhibition and venue, then Junior Bill & the Scallies completed the switch. Peddling their brand of punky, samba-infused ska, the band had the audience packed around them, the photography forgotten, a gang of nodding heads and tapping feet punctuated with sporadic pockets of dancing from the diehards at the front.

The final act, Gwenno, changed the room again, swapping sweaty energy for something far more detached and ominous. With the aid of electronics that fell somewhere between robotic and celestial, not to mention her Welsh and Cornish lyrics, Gwenno created vivid soundscapes that were somehow desolate, clinical, post-human worlds in which love and pain are nothing but nagging, vestigial impulses buried beneath a cascade of ones and zeroes. Accompanied by Adam Curtis-style visuals projected onto the wall, the set captured the audience in a totally different way to the previous acts. Strangely, things had come full circle, the gallery-cum-club morphing into a conceptual art gallery. (FYI this is neither the time or place but I could write quite a bit more about Gwenno’s music and the ideas behind it. The album is out this July on Heavenly Recordings, so expect one of my long-winded, not-practical-for-the-internet-consumer specials in the near future).

The diverse, shape-shifting nature of the evening highlighted something very important with regards to museums in general. Without getting too much into politics and the mind-melting confusion of the economy, British museums, along with a whole host of other public services, are under threat from the current climate of austerity. This is something that causes some people to bump their gums angrily (*raises hand*), and others to shrug their shoulders in apathy at the maiming (and eventual loss) of what they see as redundant collections of old stuff. But the truth is that museums can and should be so much more than dusty halls manned by dusty men and women. The Late Night Music evenings showed that museums can be innovative, adaptable and welcoming to all, centres of the community rather than simple tourist novelties. All it takes are some determined people with imagination. Not only does it serve to interest the disinterested (the people who feel museums aren’t for them or else visit once in a blue moon and skip to the dinosaurs) it also gives a productive, progressive outlet for the energy that would otherwise be wasted gum-bumping and foot-stamping by those who already appreciate the value a museum can hold. What better way to ensure the survival of an institute than to make it central to the lives and well-being of the people it serves?

Keep up to date with future events at the National Museum Cardiff on their Website or Twitter page. Let’s hope they continue to do things like this.

P.S. The lovely musical photos are by Andrew Mackie. The amateurish Fragile? one is from us.

The post Late Night Music in the Museum (or, a Case for Creative Museums) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. A Lingering – German Error Message
2. All You’ve Gotta be When You’re 23 – Free Cake For Every Creature
3. Can You Feel It, Too? – Fun Home
4. Garden Tomb – Pasture Dog
5. How Marvelous – Lewtrakimou
6. Out Names – Shunkan
7. Floral Mattress – Naps
8. Rapture in Heat – Liam Betson
9. Astoria – Gwenno
10. Electric Duck – Henry Demos
11. Angharad – Yucatan
12. Orchids (Instrumental) – Celebrity Crush
13. Tulsa – John Statz
14. Snow – Alanna McArdle
15. Yours Till the Ocean – Danielle Fricke
16. The Lights in the Sands of Katumpkale – REW<<

April 2015 Roundup from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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

May 21

AAH – the solo project of Tenby’s Adam Taylor (formerly of Victorian Gentleman’s Club). Very little information is available online but the one gig review I did manage to find described his sound as “60s – 80s goth-pop, delivered by a left-field ensemble of violas, keyboards, omnichords and footswitch drum machines,” which sounds just the sort of music you’d expect to find in a museum.

Ratatosk – the moniker of experimental musician Rhodri Viney, Ratatosk puts out experimental music which he describes as a ‘sad quasi-historical faux-dystopian musical thing’.  Fans of downbeat ambient/slowcore should find something to love over at Viney’s Bandcamp page.

Threatmantics – one Cardiff’s most beloved live acts, Threatmantics create a brand of music that defies any one genre. Maybe we should make up a new one: theatrical folk-punk art-rock indie pop ‘n roll. Or something. Listen to their album Kid McCoy on Bandcamp and come up with a better suggestion. They also have a song called ‘Archaeopteryx’, so why not pop to see the fossil before their set?

May 28

Mike Dennis – A rapper, producer, sound engineer and classically-trained violinist, Bristol’s Mike Dennis makes what can only be described as string-heavy hip-hop/spoken word. Coupled with his frenetic rhymes about British life, Dennis’s tunes should please fans of The Streets, Run DMC and The Beastie Boys. You can grab his music now on Bandcamp.

Junior Bill & The Scallies – A ska band which draw upon elements of rap, hip-hop, reggae and samba, Junior Bill & The Scallies are a very British in the best sense – diverse and inclusive and cross-pollinated, the meeting point of a variety of styles and cultures. You can get their latest album from Bandcamp.

Gwenno – Fresh from releasing her debut album on Peski last year, Cardiff singer/producer/DJ/radio presenter/ex-Pippette Gwenno Saunders will be playing her very own brand of avant-electro-pop. Part inspired by Welsh sci-fi novel Y Dydd Olaf (The Last Day) in which machines are taking over the world (and the main character keeps a diary in Welsh so the robots can’t understand it), Gwenno’s album is very much one of politics and protest, with songs titles such as ‘Chwyldro’ (‘Revolution’) and ‘Patriarchaeth’ (‘Patriarchy’) hinting at the themes of technological propaganda and manipulation.

You can grab your tickets online now for a very reasonable £5 or chance it on the door for £7.

The post Spillers Records presents… Late Night Music in the Museum appeared first on Various Small Flames.