According to their bio, JR Green use “accordion-riffed nostalgia and teenage angst acoustic guitar” to make songs which fall somewhere between traditional folk, early 00s indie and the raft of quality Scottish songwriters from the last decade or so. For example opener ‘Nigerian Princess’ channels the likes of Withered Hand and Second Hand Marching Band to produce a song at once knowing and naive, sentimental and self-aware, that millennial blend of knowing both too much and too little at the same time.

“She makes me walk across the Congo where F.G.M and hungers all the rage.
And all these nihilist with firearms trying to slay the Milky Way.

And why can’t you see there’s real need in me?

I’m sorry for my output I’m surrounded by wankers, I’m only seventeen
And I don’t have all the answers yet”

‘Do the Katie-Step’ is almost like a stripped-back song from The Libertines song is they were devoid of smarmy swagger, a tale of a romantic British youth from a wannabe likely lad (“I wanna go where the young men fight, I wanna be the type of guy the thin girls like”). ‘The Gentleman’s Apocalypse’ is a different sort of track entirely, sounding like Organ Fight-era Frightened Rabbit. This is a song about love with a physical weight, a feeling not limited to the head and the heart but to the more functional organs too – the viscera, the skin, the liver, lungs and bones. The track is desperate, hot and young, a matter of life and death too large to contain within words and chords but what else is there to do?

“This is your love song, I hope it will suffice”

‘They All Know Something’ feels more triumphant, with bright strummed acoustic guitar and harmonious vocals on the chorus of “All my problems, all my feelings / They all know something that we don’t” highlighting a sunnier side to an already diverse EP. The variation on Bring The Witch Doctor suggests the band could take numerous directions in future release, and it’ll be exciting to see where they choose to go.

‘The Gentleman’s Apocalypse’ single is out on Valentine’s Day, and you can buy Bring the Witch Doctor from Hits the Fan Records on CD, cassette or digital download.

The post JR Green – Bring The Witch Doctor appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Hip Hatchet

“Speak[s] of that vulnerable core at the heart of every man, and the desperate, ridiculous attempts to suffocate it with cigarette smoke or drown it in whiskey or cover it over with scars”- Philippe Bronchtein weaves timeless folk tales about the vanity and pride of tough guys who have been on the road too long.

Frog

“The U S of A in eleven songs – quirky, joyous, breathless, exhausting, addictive, heartbreaking and downright weird, accelerating towards a distant horizon while keeping its eyes firmly on a halcyon past that sure seems like it should have been more fun.” – some words about Kind of Blah, the excellent, endlessly quotable album from Frog out now on Audio Antihero.

The Modern Folk

“Folk songs don’t require banjos and fiddles, it’s something a little deeper than that” – some bona fide folk music from The Modern Folk.

Kathryn Joseph

“A simple album about things so complicated that it’s almost impossible to put them into words” – we used Marilynne Robinson to describe what makes Kathryn Joseph’s Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled so special.

Island Eyes

“Confronts the uncertainty of every life, admitting his fear about pretty much every possible scenario while finding solace in the fact that this uncertainty binds us all” – The self-titled album from Derek Janzen’s Island Eyes is an epic metaphor for your everyday quests.

Adam Stafford

“Could quite easily make solid, radio-friendly, painted-by-numbers pop music that would be lapped up by the undiscerning masses, but instead endeavours to make innovative, progressive music” – Adam Stafford’s new single ‘Atheist Money’ bodes well for his forthcoming album on Song, By Toad.

Bobby’s Oar

“If you placed Nana Grizol, The Front Bottoms and The Hotelier in a blender and seasoned them with acoustic guitars, throaty emo vocals and the odd mathy flourish…” – The Weeds in Your Garden by Bobby’s Oar is a passionate, defiant slice of pop-punk-folk.

Debris Slide

“Lo-fi rock music that sits at a crossroads between shimmery shoegaze, oddball experimentalism and early nineties noise pop” – some noisy, deranged pop songs from Nottingham’s Debris Slide.

Women in Music Journalism

‘“What’s the big deal? You’re a groupie.” She replied, “I’m a woman who writes about rock and roll.” His answer: “Same difference.” Groupies have proved an enduring stereotype of women’s participation in rock: worshipful, gorgeous, and despised.‘ – Anwen Crawford explains why the world needs female rock critics in The New Yorker.

Spotify: a Good Thing?

“As both an independent musician and a music fan, I’m here to give you a new headline: I believe Spotify is saving the industry” – David McMillin of Fort Francis writes for PopMatters on how Spotify might not be as bad as some would have you believe. We don’t know what to think anymore…

The State of the Music Industry (or, Goodbye Thrash Hits)

“It still pains us to see other, larger organisations dumping content online with little thought to the medium they’re working in or the audience they’re speaking to” – Thrash Hits went on an indefinite hiatus with this closing piece on the state of music industry and journalism in 2015.

Henry Demos / Lewtrakimou / Nice Legs

“I could be wrong here but I have a theory that people want to make loud music everywhere in the world” – START-TRACK spoke to Henry Demos & Lewtrakimou about Nice Legs, solo work and the South Korean music scene.

Fields / Molina

Another week, another great Jason Molina tribute article over at Common Folk Music, this time courtesy of Jeffrey Fields of The Morning River Band. Be sure not to miss the cover of ‘Whip-Poor-Will’ while you’re there.

Casiotone For The Painfully Alone

“I was pretty much always nervous in those days. The memories of my awkward, fidgety & depressed early 20’s have come rushing back to me, leaving me feeling awkward, fidgety & depressed all over again” – Owen Ashworth, now of Advance Base, came across an old CD of a radio session he did as Casiotone For the Painfully Alone back in 2001. Check it out on Bandcamp.

HI54LOFI’s Mix Tape Radio

Jeremy over at HI54LOFI posted episode 55 of his Mix Tape Radio series and it’s brilliant as usual.

Swell Tone’s MEGA SUMMER BABES

The cool people over at Swell Tone have put together a great summer playlist which should see you set for the coming months.

And Finally… the 8tracks Playlist of the Week

It’s this one by Annievain. I stumbled across it and it’s really dreamy and cool.

we’re changing from annievain on 8tracks Radio.

The post Week in Review: #3 (25-29th May) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The record opens with ‘the bird’, a song that utilises animal analogies to describe the strange intimate-yet-remote relationship we share with loved ones. “You bring me dead birds and then you go” sings Joseph, “and it sounds like all our lives and it sounds like you do not know me and never will.” The track is both unsettling and comforting in its honesty, facing up to the awful truth that we will always be separate and distinct, even from those we love the most. While this is something that is usually ignored (for the sake of our sanity) or magnified into melodrama (quite probably also for the sake of our sanity), Joseph (paradoxically, I know) lets the listener into her innermost thoughts in a way normally only possible in the strongest, most unflinching of novels.

In this way Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled brings to mind Marilynne Robinson‘s Housekeeping. At various points during the novel the narrator Ruthie finds herself alienated from-/abandoned by her mother and sister and aunt, leaving her alone in the world. Rather than write this as the the usual hard-luck-with-happy-ending Hollywood story, Robinson’s character confronts and travels through confusion and grief and studies them from the other side, coming to appreciate the fragility of human relationships and realise that our desire to maintain them is what makes life so beautiful:

“They walk ahead of us, and walk too fast, and forget us, they are so lost in thoughts of their own, and sooner or late they disappear. The only mystery is that we expect it to be otherwise.”  

But before the clarity, Ruthie sees and does a lot of strange things, actions which barely make sense to her or those involved, let alone others around them. You get the impression that the characters are subject to forces larger than themselves, things they are not equipped to understand. With this album, Joseph paints a similar picture by presenting her feelings straight, appreciating their importance without being able to grasp their context, an autobiography that goes beyond superficial times and places. Poetic and strange but never contrived, she appears to be trying to convey something that sits just outside of her view, or else is so large that it is only possible to see a small speck at any given time. What’s more, she seems to realise that what feels vital to her is foreign to others, but, without any other option, strives on regardless, surrendering to a diligent ignorance, a promise to try and to love in a world too detailed and complex to understand.

To write about something so deep requires a skilful balance between the explicit and implicit, lyrical and beautiful yet clear and true. Thankfully, like Marilynne Robinson, Joseph proves more than capable. By knitting together abstract imagery and phrases, she crafts something larger than the sum of its parts, forgoing clear song structure and even good grammar in a way which accentuates the deeply personal feel. “I hear your babys here your babys here your babys hear your babies,” she sings on ‘the blood’, “and the wind will blow and the seed be sown and the made of blood is the only loved.” Every song contains similarly striking language, and Joseph’s voice and melancholy piano make the whole thing creepy in the way that we all secretly think we’re creepy . Take ‘the bone’ for example:

“Under the bird of the prey and black hole made of what will not grow back still and the born of the loved and lost heart hard of stone and mouth of dust you are the bone sticking in my throat”

This is a simple album about things so complicated that it’s almost impossible to put them into words. It’s about those thoughts and feelings that we all experience but never admit, the things that we, be it through etiquette and embarrassment and fear, dare not confess to others or even ourselves. Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled is an album about people: lonely and loved, corporeal and divine, mortal and terrified yet enduring with a resilient hope that never quite goes out.

You can buy Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled now via Bandcamp (and via Hits the Fan Records).

P.S. Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled is up for the Scottish Album of the Year award. Joseph has some stiff competition (we really like The Twilight Sad) but gets the nod from us. You can vote too, so head on over to the website before the polls close at midnight tonight to make sure your favourite (*whispers* Kathryn!) lifts the cup.

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