Following on from 2023 full-length Painting of My Time—which used, as we put it, “layers of additional instrumentation to combine cathartic rock ‘n roll directness with post-punk atmosphere and the creative flair of art pop”—Melbourne‘s Floodlights have announced a brand new album, Underneath. The outfit have made a name through a willingness to engage with wide cultural themes, though the new record sees them tending further than ever towards the personal, paring back the layers of its predecessor to allow for a more unguarded, intimate sound. Single ‘The Light Won’t Shine Forever’ shows the sense of forward motion inherent within this unburdened style, pressing forward with an affirming momentum.

Watch the video, with concept, direction and animation by Ava Clifforth, below:

Underneath will be released on the 21st March via [PIAS] Recordings and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Frog – MIXTAPE LINER NOTES
VAR. VII

Not resting on their laurels after the success of 2023 full-length GROG, everyone’s favourite New York duo Frog are returning next month with new album, 1000 Variations on the Same Song. The record, to be released on Audio Antihero and Tapewormies, runs the gamut between indie rock, alt country and smoky lounge cool, and packs the expected density and diversity of references from a Frog release. But beneath the surface, it lives up to its title. “1000 Variations on the Same Song is a theme and variations,” as Daniel Bateman explains. “There are times in your life as a songwriter where you’ll start a bunch of stuff that all sounds alike, which can be a problem, something that you want to excise from yourself. This time I decided to embrace it and take it as far as it could go.” Latest single ‘MIXTAPE LINER NOTES
VAR. VII’ lands on the folky side of the album, though embodies the spirit of the release quite nicely.

Half Gringa – Glacier Walker

Writing of Half Gringa‘s Ancestral Home back in 2023 we described how “it is tempting to view the end of the world as a singular event, a doom unique to the generations living today. But the truth is there is nothing special in our turmoil. People have always confronted loss on an unimaginable scale. With [single] ‘Sevenwater’, [Isabel Olive] affords this truth the reverence and mourning it deserves.” Described as addressing “mythology, mortality, and everything in between,” Half Gringa’s latest full-length Cosmovisión is in many ways a continuation of this project, and, inspired by the glacial melt Olive witnessed during a trip to Iceland, lead single ‘Glacier Walker’ again takes on the climate catastrophe through the prism of anxiety and all of its associated emotions.

Cosmovisión is out on the 28th March via Teleférico Records and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Kristin Daelyn – Patience Comes to the Bones

“I used to hurry everywhere, / and leaped over the running creeks. / There wasn’t / time enough for all the wonderful things / I could think of to do / in a single day. Patience / comes to the bones / before it take root in the heart / as another good idea.” So wrote Mary Oliver in her poem ‘Patience’, the principle inspiration for the lead single of Kristin Daelyn‘s forthcoming record, Beyond the Break. ‘Patience Comes to the Bones’ introduces a collection of songs which looks to carve a space of reflection and peace within the tumultuous present, approaching the dissatisfaction and suffering common to us all from a decidedly compassionate angle. Supported by guest appearances from Dan Knishkowy (Adeline Hotel), Danny Black (Good Old War, Gregory Alan Isakov) and Patrick Riley, Daelyn’s soulful vocals and intricate, intimate guitar welcome the audience into the space so that we too might re-examine our lives from new angles and come to appreciate the fellowship to be found in the universality of longing.

JPW & Dad Weed – It’s Happening

This April sees the release of Amassed Like a Rat King, a collaborative album between JPW (Jason P. Woodbury) and Dad Weed (Zachary Toporek) which sees a long held mutual admiration precipitate into a collection of songs neither artist could have created on their own. “These songs were born out of a lot of tender moments and connection, weekends spent indulging in unguarded joy and musical energy,” Woodbury explains. “There was a special thing that seemed to happen between us, which felt distinct from our individual projects — a shared ‘third mind’ situation.” The resulting album covers a vast stretch of stylistic ground, moving through seventies soul-rock and nineties alt-pop with an exploratory intuition, but latest single ‘It’s Happening’ highlights the psych-inflected cosmic folk which underpins everything.

Magana – Half to Death

Magana‘s new EP Bad News is the closing instalment of a loose triptych based upon the seasons of the year. If Teeth represented spring and Dreams autumn, then Bad News occupies the tail end of winter. That period of stillness where life is building up the conviction to spring forth once again. The resulting sound, as highlighted by opener ‘Half to Death’, is a restrained brand of pop which strips away some of the adornment of previous Magana releases in favour of something more direct. Putting the narrative-based lyrics front and centre and amplifying a mood that proves at once warm and starkly emotive.

quickly, quickly – Enything

The recording project of Portland, Oregon’s Graham Jonson, quickly, quickly might have originated as a vehicle for hip hop beatmaking, but soon evolved far beyond such confines. Debut full-length The Long and Short of It offered an endlessly inventive sound which reached for everything from folk and jazz to psych and electronic influences and never once stayed still. Now preparing to release follow-up I Heard That Noise via Ghostly International, quickly, quickly has released new single ‘Enything’, and the evidence suggests the project is still undergoing its perpetual evolution. Upbeat rhythm is matched with a reflective air, the tone wistful, the groove playful, the delivery perhaps as earnest as anything Jonson has offered to date. “I wrote this song from a fictional place of dumb love,” he explains. “There is a place you can find yourself in where you are so infatuated with a person you would do anything to impress them, even to a fault, drastically changing yourself to match the idea of someone you barely know.”

Watch the video below, directed by Graham Jonson and filmed by Anthony Sims with animations by Benny Bursell:

I Heard That Noise is out on the 4th April via Ghostly International and you can pre-order it now.

Robert Ascroft – Devil Opens The Door (feat. Kid Congo Powers)

In recent months. we’ve covered a series of singles from Robert Ascroft‘s forthcoming album Echo Still Remains, each track seeing the Rochester-based musician, producer, director and artist collaborate with different guests to bring his seductively shadowy style to life. After Ruth Radalet (on ‘Faded Photographs’), Zumi Rosow of The Black Lips (‘Empty Pages‘) and Britta Phillips (‘Where Did You Go?‘), now is the turn of Kid Congo Powers. A member of The Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The Gun Club as well as a solo artist in his own right, Kid Congo Powers is the ideal match for the album’s tone, imbuing new single ‘Devil Opens The Door’ with all the dangerous allure and dread its title suggests. Watch the video directed by Ascroft himself below:

Echo Still Remains is out the 14th February via Hand Drawn Dracula and you can pre-order it now.

(T-T)b – Hey, Creepshow

Boston’s (T-T)b have carved out a niche combining the hectic energy of Anamanaguchi with indie rock and power pop. 2021 EP Suporma typified how the project manages to push chiptune beyond its assumed limitations, and now the trio are back with Beautiful Extension Cord, a brand new full-length album to be released this April with the good folks at Disposable America. Lead single ‘Hey, Creepshow’ gives a taste of what’s to come. A song packed full of intricate details which nevertheless carries its own momentum and weight, retaining the chiptune sounds of the past but as one element among many rather than the central novelty. What results swings between atmospheric lulls and fond singalong choruses, and comes to form its own cathartic release.

Wryn – Snake

This spring, Californian songwriter Wryn is releasing their new full-length Shapes on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. It’s an album born of a personal process of change and self-actualisation which reckons with gender and past experiences in order to mould life into a more truthful, fulfilling shape. Latest single ‘Snake’ gives a glimpse into the release, namely folk-inflected indie rock which uses fury as a kind of fuel to drive a newfound sense of agency. “A call to something older and deeper, it taps into my own personal experiences of not just systemic violence but the intimate and interpersonal kind,” as Wryn explains. “Having experienced assault in my past, this song was a way to transform my own pain into a call to action. ‘I can’t wait for an answer before I get free.’”

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Second single ‘Sevenwater‘ highlights how the past sits implicit in every version of the future. “Concerning the ongoing collapse of our world’s climate and other systems,” we wrote in an earlier preview, “the track is decidedly bleak, though communicates this not with apocalyptic bombast but the weary quiet of drawn out panic.” But moreover it positions the unfolding calamity within a long lineage of such large-scale loss and violence. “It is tempting to view the end of the world as a singular event, a doom unique to the generations living today,” as we concluded:

But the truth is there is nothing special in our turmoil. People have always confronted loss on an unimaginable scale. Lost what is most dear to them, or had it forcibly removed. With ‘Sevenwater’, Half Gringa affords this truth the reverence and mourning it deserves.

Half Gringa has now unveiled final single ‘No Kind of Fire’ before the EP comes out later in the month. Closing out the release, the track again delves deep into the concept of family to explore themes of trauma and reconciliation, tracing threads of pain through history to better appreciate why the present manifests as it does. “This song is about how memory contributes to our perception of ourselves and our families,” Olive explains. “It’s a song I started writing almost a decade ago as a reflection of how blood ties can affect how we love, and how we love can affect what we pass onto progeny through our memories. Understanding how trauma affects our present selves in addition to what of our ancestors it awakens is crucial to forgiveness, acceptance, and the promise of change within us.”

If I shot an arrow into a heap
of bleached bones, would you feel better?
Is all this carnage necessary?
Would a symbol make you feel better?

Ancestral Home comes out at the end of the month and you can pre-order a copy now from the Half Gringa Bandcamp page.

The post Half Gringa – No Kind of Fire appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Following on from the magnificent Tender on Whited Sepulchre Records, Denver‘s Allison Lorenzen has returned with brand new single, ‘The Fourth Cycle’. The song probes into the multitude of emotions which accompany significant change, from bereavement to impetus and everything in between, without too much by way of intent or judgement. Rather its slow sound sits within this conflicted headspace, examining the situation’s each and every nuance, if only to ground itself as things around it shift and alter.

Annie Sumi x Brava Kilo – Chattels

A vehicle for artists Annie Sumi and Brava Kilo to work through their histories, Kintsugi is described as an “anti-racist, interactive, multi-disciplinary art installation” which explores ideas of heritage and historical trauma in the context of the Japanese Canadian internment. The installation opens this week at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto, and the duo are also releasing an EP of the same name. Kintsugi, the Japanese practise of mending what was broken. First single ‘Chattels’ draws upon archival documentation which listed the belongings stolen from their ancestors during this period, both acknowledging the injury sustained through such losses and applying the imagery to the wider experience of alienation and stigma.

You can find out more about the project on the Kintsugi Installation webpage.

Gillian Stone – Raven’s Song

Writing of single ‘Amends‘ back in July, we described how Toronto/Tkaronto-based artist Gillian Stone combines post-rock and folk to explore themes of addiction and mental health struggles, with that track focusing on the anger stage of grief. Latest single ‘Raven’s Song’ continues the development, moving onto the bargaining period and complicated by what Stone calls a “state of limerence.” It’s a song which captures a mind seized by obsession through natural imagery. Stone carrying a torch through a nocturnal forest, a place of dark rivers and eyes in the night, hoping to go down to the water and snuff out the fierce burn in her hands. The song’s video was co-directed by Emma Buchanan and Amir Heidarian along with Stone herself. Watch below:

‘Raven’s Song’ is available now from the Gillian Stone Bandcamp page.

H.C. McEntire – Soft Crook

Following her 2020 sophomore solo album Eno Axis, H.C. McEntire has returned with a brand new single. Titled ‘Soft Crook’, the song is what McEntire describes as “an exercise in vulnerability and trust,” a slice of stark country rock that explores her experiences with depression. A refusal to shrink away from the experience in all of its struggle and pain, looking the beast right in the eyes and finding power somewhere deep within. Albeit not the power of bold action, but instead the quiet, lasting courage that comes with treating yourself with kindness and understanding. “The chorus became an anthem, of sorts,” McEntire describes, “a mantra for letting go of guilt in needing these things—whether medication or TV shows or other vices—to offer myself some grace.”

Do whatever dose you need to
to make it through the night

Half Gringa – Miranda

With new EP Ancestral Home coming early in 2023, Chicago‘s Half Gringa has shared the first single ‘Miranda’ as an introduction. A song which builds upon the themes seen on 2020’s Force to Reckon and last year’s single ‘Sevenwater’, it nevertheless takes a more introspective tone. The change mirrors the recording process, which saw Isabel Olive move away from the fast-paced collaboration of recent albums and back to the intimacy of her earlier solo work. “I love collaborating, but at heart, I’m very introverted,” Olive explains. “Having a rich inner life is essential to me, which I think can overlap with both collaboration and solitude. I sense that each project I work on demands something different of me, and I’ve been trying to listen to my own instincts for that more and more.” Check out the video directed by Olive along with Robert Salazar below:

‘Miranda’ is out now and available from the Half Gringa Bandcamp page. Ancestral Home will be released on the 27th January.

June McDoom – Stone After Stone

Raised in South Florida and now based in New York, June McDoom is readying the release of her self-titled debut EP on Brooklyn label Temporary Residence Ltd. Her music is influenced by a love for 60s and 70s folk, intricate jazz and early soul discovered while studying a degree in Jazz Performance, and the reggae of her childhood home. McDoom takes all the ingredients of typical folk music and updates it for new audiences and a new era, exploring themes of self-discovery and self-acceptance along the way. Lead single ‘Stone After Stone’ is a good example, the timeless vocals swirling amidst instrumentation that is rich and multi-layered, despite its hushed nature.

Kathryn Mohr – Holly

With new release Holly coming soon on The Flenser, California-based multi-instrumentalist Kathryn Mohr has shared the title track as the latest single. Building upon the spacious lo-fi soundscapes of 2020 album As If, the song sees Mohr embrace a stormier ambience, something drawn perhaps from the surroundings of rural New Mexico where she recorded the album with Madeline Johnston (Midwife). What results is no less introspective than the previous record but somehow larger, as though Kathryn Mohr has excavated a larger space within herself, complete with its own climates and depths.

wanted / need her / tell her father
hero holly / feeling sorry
heat up heaven to unsettle
feel it / hold it / take it slowly
out of reach of my hands

Holly is out via The Flenser on the 21st October and you can pre-order it now

Weeper – Petal

Based in Buenos Aires, Weeper is the project of Mary Craig, José Sanchez and Agustina Perrotta. Their latest release, an EP called Morale out now on Ghost Mountain Records, arose from a break the band took from working on a full-length album, a collection of six songs they describe as “self-soothing” which aim to comfort and console amidst life’s worries. Lead single ‘Petal’ illustrates this nicely, combining melancholy and solace with its fingerpicked twelve-string guitar and gentle melody. “Hanging on like a petal,” Craig sings, “aching through season,” on a track Weeper describe as “an ode to accompanying oneself through life.”

Ziyad Al-Samman – Hard To Say

After spending time in various bands around London, half-Syrian, London-based songwriter Ziyad Al-Samman decided to go it alone, developing a distinctive brand of psych pop which employs equal parts fun and feeling. Out via Handsome Dad Records, new single ‘Hard To Say’ is the ideal introduction for the uninitiated, a dreamy track which overlays retro nostalgia to the pressing present moment, serving as both a tribute to and subversion of classic pop. “I always wanted a charming and pompous ‘lala’ sing along on a track, much used by my favourites Pulp and Blur in their early writing, and this just fit the song perfectly,” Al-Samman says. “I like the innocence and playfulness it brings to the climax of the song. Did you know ‘la’ actually means ‘no’ in Arabic?” Watch the video directed by Andrea Mae Perez below:

‘Hard to Say’ is out now and available from all the usual places.

The post Weekly Listening: October 2022 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Last year’s superb Force to Reckon felt like a further development of these ideas. An exploration of identity, uncertainty and grief. A meditation on loss that extended beyond the classic aftermath. The result offered what we called “a kind of joined up hurt where the past will always govern the present, and the future will never be free of either.”

This process of inquiry and self-examination is present once again on ‘Sevenwater’, a brand new Half Gringa single in support of an upcoming east coast tour (find the dates below). Concerning the ongoing collapse of our world’s climate and other systems, the track is decidedly bleak, though communicates this not with apocalyptic bombast but the weary quiet of drawn out panic. A room with no view. “I have been experiencing a very intense fear of the end of the world,” Olive explains. “I think what it really means is I am having trouble visualizing the future.”

Seeking comfort amid this anxiety, Olive turned to fantasy novels such as Juliet Marillier’s Sevenwaters series, and soon found herself imagining the plight of her ancestors as they were confronted with a rapidly changing world. “Did they dream of escaping somewhere despite not knowing what the outcome might be?” Olive wonders. “Or was it the hardest thing in the world to leave everything they knew, would they have preferred to stay where they were and watch everything around them change beyond recognition?”

It is tempting to view the end of the world as a singular event, a doom unique to the generations living today, but the truth is there is nothing special in our turmoil. People have always confronted loss on an unimaginable scale. Lost what is most dear to them, or had it forcibly removed. With ‘Sevenwater’, Half Gringa affords this truth the reverence and mourning it deserves. “I sense that this fear in me is very old and predates my existence,” Olive concludes. “This song helped me explore it and think about my personal addition to its legacy.”

Trapped in amber
My beloved, dancing
On a slender edge
Hold tight and tender
Half-revealed I sense the dullest deep surrender

SEP 24 – Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club (with Lady Cannon)
SEP 25 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
SEP 27 – Cleveland, OH @ Mahall’s (with Fig)
SEP 28 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s (with Laura Lizcano)
SEP 29 – Boston, MA @ Cafe 939
SEP 30 – New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge (with Renata Zeiguer, Office Culture)
OCT 3 – Toronto, ON @ The Drake Hotel

The post Half Gringa – Sevenwater appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Gruñona is a journey without a clear destination, a question without an answer. An attempt to map identity not to achieve some clear-cut conclusion but rather in the hope of better understanding how history and culture and personal beliefs shape the people we are and were, the people we will be.

This August sees Half Gringa return with a brand new album, Force to Reckon, and though the focus of the songs might be different, the same powers are at work. Blending pop, indie rock and folk, with harmonies and piano from fellow Chicagoan Gia Margaret, the record is one of reflection, written following a personal loss and amid all the strangeness that follows. “None of the songs on this record resolve, really,” Olive explains. “Many end in the middle of a thought, because this record is about how much I’m still in the middle of my grieving process.”

For mourning is not finite, not some penance to served and finished. Rather it is open-ended and strangely familiar, as though it has always been present at some level, waiting for death to reveal how deep it goes back. “Lines like ‘Time will tell if nothing else’ and ‘I will mourn you in advance, but I never really get the chance’ sound like hindsight, but they were more like predictions when I wrote them,” Olive continues. “I spend a lot of time looking away from things I don’t want to deal with, but I know they’re still there. And my eyes are getting tired, I guess.”

With this in mind, lead single ‘1990’ might prove surprisingly upbeat and playful. But within its wry humour and uplifting motion lies a keen sense of pain. A kind of joined up hurt where the past will always govern the present, and the future will never be free of either.

Force to Reckon is out on the 28th August and you can pre-order it now from the Half Gringa Bandcamp page.

Photo by Rachel Winslow

The post Half Gringa – 1990 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Big Thief – Capacity

Saddle Creek

“[Lenker’s vocals] unfurl like a magician’s silk scarves, a perpetual unravelling shaped by a poetic, negentropic logic. [It] is as though the meaning is summoned from the words themselves, something in the syllabic arrangement dragging stories and emotions into our world from somewhere else entirely. Lenker’s gift is her ability to recognise the strange, innate forces within language, surrender to them, and present them back to us with a crystal-clear clarity.”

REVIEW / BUY

Wild Pink – S/T

Tiny Engines

“Ross feels like a narrator dropped into an ongoing narrative, not fully aware of the beginning or end, or even any coherent context, yet haunted by profound sensations of sadness, fear and guilt—an unshakeable, existential dread that suggests we’re going to pay for how this story is panning out. Wild Pink haven’t come to us amidst this chaos with magic cures or quick-fix solutions, but they’ve come to us nonetheless. Right now, that’s probably the most valuable and noble thing any of us can do.”

REVIEW / BUY

The Wooden Sky – Swimming in Strange Waters

Chelsea Records / Nevado Music

“The Wooden Sky are making music with emotion, intelligence and integrity, songs in which you can both lose and find yourself, and perhaps even connect with the plight of others. We’re all trying to survive strange waters to some degree, and the record’s intent on illuminating this fact—both appreciating your constant kicking beneath the surface, and imploring you to help those that may be tiring, or entering even rougher seas.”

REVIEW / BUY

Vagabon – Infinite Worlds

Father/Daughter Records

“This is the sort of music that makes you feel part of a something, it does reflect a big sad and confused gang spread out all over the world, and we should be connected by shared experience and a sneaky feeling that life is worth living. However, to mark Infinite Worlds as simply sad or lonely falls into to the very trap of binarism that the album spends so much time fighting. Yes, it’s mournful but joyous too. It’s bedroom pop and indie rock and experimental ambient. It’s immensely personal and broadly relatable. It’s Vagabon, though only as it sounds right now.”

REVIEW / BUY

Protomartyr – Relatives of Descent

Domino

“Casey returns to his own struggles with the irony of being an artist in such a world, where to not speak against the absurdity of the system is to become complicit, yet knowing those very absurdities render his words meaningless. Rather than give up, or persevere nobly, Casey twists his art into the shape of this double-bind, using self-deprecation to cover any hint of naivety. “I have a backlog of so-called prophets,” a character tells a Messiah-like oracle near the beginning of the [final song]. “You are of a multitude.” The preacher insists he witnesses truth, to which the first character reacts with genuine confusion and interest. “The truth?” he asks. “What is it?””

REVIEW / BUY

Julia Lucille – Chthonic

Keeled Scales

“Part folk, part dream pop, part something else entirely, her music combines equal parts delicacy and foreboding with an impressive patience and emotional intensity […] concerned with the underworld, more specifically descending into as a mode of growth and rebirth (a la Persephone), and [showing] off the interplay between shadow and light that constitutes the record’s aesthetic.”

REVIEW / BUY

Friendship – Shock Out Of Season

Orindal Records

“In many ways, Friendship are in a Bardo of their own, caught between how life has been and could be, unsure how and when, if ever, they might pass into the next part. Shock Out of Season is concerned with finding this exit, figuring out some act or combination of words that allow passage into the next life. Or maybe it’s about making peace with the current space, acknowledging that perhaps true communication is impossible, and that trying to live with this understanding might be the most sympathetic and empathetic path available to us.”

REVIEW / BUY

Real Life Buildings – Significant Weather

Lauren Records

“Real Life Buildings capture both the quiet minutiae of day to day living—the soft feeling you get in an empty room with just a ticking clock and raindrops on the window pane for company—and the exhilarating rush of joy that is still sometimes possible. It’s music that, despite its anxiety and concern, still sees that silvery sheen of magic in the mundane, a fun indie rock record and a lesson in paying attention to what’s going on both inside and outside your head.”

REVIEW / BUY

Distant Reader – Home Power

Lily Tapes & Discs

“Distant Reader weav[es] a dense web of not just personal reflections, but reflections on the lives of those he cares about. Home Power is a deep record, one that withstands, even requires, a lot of thought and rumination, but after repeated listens the key points of empathy and kindness begin to resonate deeply. It’s a reminder that we’re all able to help ourselves and each other, and that we will be better people for both.”

REVIEW / BUY

Alex Napping – Mise En Place

Father/Daughter Records / Sports Day Records

“Less like a chronicle of a disintegrating relationship than the beginning of a process of self-examination, of moving forward, of weighing things up day-by-day and acting accordingly […] On Mise En Place, Alex Napping somehow manage to marry the immediacy of good pop songs with a slow-burning complexity, proving that meaningful songs can still be fun, and that great pop songs need not be a simple shallow sugar rush.”

REVIEW / BUY

Craig Finn – We All Want The Same Things

Partisan Records

“There’s a danger that pushing everything through the Trumpian prism collapses some of the intricacies and nuances of art. After all, The Donald is a product of the disaffection Finn is exploring here, not the cause. The problem is deeper and more complex than any government-related trouble, and Finn is too wise to offer much in the way of an answer. Instead, he suggests we shift the focus of our questions. Because We All Want the Same Things is an album about relationships, but not in the usual sense. Not the transcendental, star-aligned love of Billboard hits and Hollywood flicks but coupling based on common needs. Not life-changing answers but life-preserving strategies. Luckily, in the hands of Craig Finn, this version of ‘romance’ feels somehow more fulfilling, the opposite of cynical, for better or for worse, genuinely human. Perhaps the revolution in the conclusion isn’t some violent revolt or epiphanic break, rather a gradual yet constant commitment to challenging our own expectations. To stop wanting too much for ourselves and to start being sympathetic to others. A comeback story, of sorts.”

REVIEW / BUY

The Courtneys – II

Flying Nun Records

“There’s something joyfully nostalgic [about II]…the aural equivalent of the era it borrows from musically. It’s wrapped up in the warm fuzzy tape hiss of the late 80s / early 90s, that period of endless possibility, where everything was colourful and exciting and came with a free toy.”

REVIEW / BUY

Pleasure Systems – Antumbra Pull

Antiquated Future Records

“Essentially a collection of love songs. Each track is pure and sincere and deceptively rich, each created within its own little world, or perhaps conjuring a snapshot of a particular time/place in our own. The positive outlook never seems like some near-forgotten memory. It’s as if Sondermann is using Pleasure Systems to focus all of the hope and love into a beam which is aimed at the shadow, a beam which might not make the problem go away, but can at least be used as a formidable weapon in the forthcoming struggle.”

REVIEW / BUY

Midwife – Like Author, Like Daughter

Whited Sepulchre

“On Like Author, Like Daughter, Midwife have made an album of dualities…both powerfully elemental and somehow intangible, the unrestrained power of nature versus the invisible waves that surround us, emotionally pure messages coded in digital distortion. This duality goes for the atmosphere too. It’s impossible to pack the album away into an explicit genre or emotion, somehow conveying the whole spectrum, swelling triumph and crushing defeat, bright white hope and oil-black despair. But, ultimately, almost unbelievably, the message is positive. Even during the moments where the music sounds like the apocalypse, a tangible, sonic manifestation of loneliness and despair, Johnston provides a thread to hold on to, a reminder that the human spirit is the one thing that can, and will, endure.”

REVIEW / BUY

Black Belt Eagle Scout – Mother Of My Children

Self-released

“For all the difficulty and heartache that clearly went into it’s creation, Mother of My Children ultimately feels like Black Belt Eagle Scout making a clarion call, a proud statement that is intended to encourage other queer people of colour to use art as a source of strength, self-knowledge and empowerment. But it’s more than just an artistic statement. The album has both focus and depth, exploring themes directly with its lyrics and more indirectly with the atmosphere it conjures.”

REVIEW / BUY

CHUCK – Franenstein Songs For the Grocery Store

Audio Antihero

“Frankenstein Songs for the Grocery Store finds CHUCK doing what he does best, making songs that are catchy and funny and unashamedly “pop” and all undoubtedly good fun. But there’s always that something else to his songs too, something that’s harder to put a finger on, a nod to the vacuum at the centre of our 21st century consumerist culture.”

REVIEW / BUY

Half Gringa – Gruñona

Self-released

“Unpick[ing] the knots and tangles that have developed through[out] life, both retracing steps and forging ahead to discover something closer to [an] authentic self […] Gruñona is a journey without a clear destination, a question without an answer. An attempt to map identity not to achieve some clear-cut conclusion but rather in the hope of better understanding how history and culture and personal beliefs shape the people we are and were, the people we will be.”

REVIEW / BUY

Meursault – I Will Kill Again

Song, By Toad Records

“This is an album full of ghosts, both literal and metaphoric, from the disembodied voices that sometimes interrupt the broadcast, to Pennycook’s characters themselves, all coalescing to create a grand sense of melancholy […] but [the final song] see a sense of advancement, a suggestion that the ghosts might finally be confined to the past, where they belong.”

REVIEW / BUY

Adult Mom – Soft Spots

Tiny Engines

“Soft Spots finds Adult Mom with a new sense of self-assurance. These songs contain genuine hurt but also genuine hope, the narrator finally in possession of the bravery necessary to open up to people. It’s hard to think of a more fitting illustration of the album than the pickled pink peaches on the cover art. Yes, the fruits may get bruised if the jar is opened, but how else would anyone know how soft and sweet they are?”

REVIEW / BUY

Bea Troxel – The Way That It Feels

Self-released

“The album is an introspective one, based around big questions of where the narrator wants to be and what kind of life they want to live. In that way, it feels like a re-evaluation, the bright and hopeful result of much thought and worry […] The Way That It Feels hits a nice balance between the weighty and the not. It’s an album as poetic and pretty as it is serious and sincere, and marks Bea Troxel as a name to watch among contemporary folk musicians.”

REVIEW / BUY

The post Favourite Albums of 2017 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

Half Gringa – Marte
CHUCK – Happy Birthday
Ian Terry – Cut
Bea Troxel – Let Them Know
Dana Gavanski – How Long Has It Been?
Honey Joy – Done
Miseryslims – Onto Elm Street
See You At Home – Summer Is a Long Way Off
Camp Counselor – Limo Speech
Windbury Street – Skinny Jeans and Sweaters
Philippa Zawe – Time
Big Baby – Not That
Illuminati Hotties – (You’re Better) Than Ever
Señor Fín – Joe Charmers
M Grig – Still Life I
Jacob Faurholt – A Lake of Distortion
Lazy Legs – Bed Head
Steakhouse – National
Francis – Swing
all-caps LADD – Computer Kids
Happy Abandon -Severed Seams
pastel – Silhouette
Nice Legs – I Never Knew
Tucker Theodore – Our Lady Hope

If you’ve missed more than a month of VSF, or just want some good music to listen to, check out our other Monthly Roundup mixes.

The post August 2017 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

With her debut full length Gruñona, Olive unpicks the knots and tangles that have developed through her life, both retracing steps and forging ahead to discover something closer to her authentic self. With Andres Fonseca, Ivan Pyzow, Sam Cantor and Sean Saville joining to form a full band, the record calls into question reductive racial/cultural stereotypes, and thereby challenges what Chimamanda Adichie calls the “danger of the single story.”

Fittingly, such a task requires a multitude of moods and attitudes. ‘The Architect’ is self-critical to the point of anger, a scathing attack not so much on herself but rather the flat narratives she allowed herself subscription, thus doubling up as a plea for freedom. “My fear hooked my arm,” Olive sings, “stole me from where I come / left me for dead, oh, please / I just get up and leave.” However, with such reflection comes the space for healing, the closing refrain of “I mistook my loneliness for bravery” sounding like an admission with cathartic power, and other tracks follow this more generous attitude.

This is best highlighted on opener ‘Marte’, a brooding track that hides a deep seam of forgiveness. “You suffer like it’s nothing,” sings Olive, “And I suffer like it’s nothing / And I take it on the chin / I take it on the chin / every time.” This is not some triumphant epiphany where a hard, true sense of identity is formed, but to concede that one’s self requires generosity as well as criticism feels like a healthy realisation, and one more robust and long-lasting than any bright white revelation. We, as people, cannot be reduced to single features or ideas, and self-interrogation allows not only an appreciation of one’s own nuance, but also a greater empathy and understanding when considering that of others.

Gruñona is a journey without a clear destination, a question without an answer. An attempt to map identity not to achieve some clear-cut conclusion but rather in the hope of better understanding how history and culture and personal beliefs shape the people we are and were, the people we will be.

We’re delighted to share the record in it’s entirety ahead of its release on the 18th August, so click below and dive in.

Album artwork by Izzy Olive, photograph on player by Maren Celest

The post Album Premiere: Half Gringa – Gruñona appeared first on Various Small Flames.